Interpreting 709 vs 601 Color Bar Test Patterns

You need a blue filter that goes with the disk or a blue only mode within the TV. There are blue and white bars and blue and magenta I think.. the AVS disk has them labeled with the words Color and Tint.
When the pattern is up and flashing (avs flashes to make it easier to see) and you look at it through the proper color blue filter, the ides is that the white and blue will be the same color. What you are trying to do is match the luminance of blue with that of white by moving the color control.
Then look at the tint bars and use the tint control to make them the same.

If the set has a blue only mode, or blue filter mode in the menu, or it is a crt and you can turn off the red and green guns, you do not need the plastic filters. You put up the pattern, turn on the internal blue only and look at the pattern with out the aid of a hand held filter. Make you adjustments and you are done.

The thing about this in the digital world using HDMI, those controls should not even be there! They are there to keep joe consumer happy. A programmer had to wire the code to alter the values. I have a DLP projector from 2005, no color or tint for HDMI, those were analog controls. You would be better off just leaving them at the factory default assuming there is a centered default.
Don't get to hung up on color and tint, brightness, contrast, backlight, aspect ration (pixel mapping 1:1) and shaprness are more important to worry about.

I say this because like you, I had the same question not that long ago and have been asking these very same questions of every expert I have encountered..

Hum.. after rereading your post I think you may be asking about picking color space not setting color?
If you are talking about 4:4:2, 4:4:4: RGB etc.. I am at a loss as well at this time.. I ordered the SM bench mark disk and here is a web page that talks about the patterns.
http://www.spearsandmunsil.com/artic...olorspace.html

I believe that you turn saturation to 0 and the 3 bars with the relevant standard should all be the same brightness.

For DVD it should go from YCrCb on disk to RGB with 601 and then back to 709 if you scale and then use a YCrCb wire format. If this is done correctly with the dvd version the 601 pattern will be equal brightness. On the HD one the 709 should be equal brightness.

John

Sorry, should have realized when I saw the pattern name it was something far more advance..

What goes down the cable between the dvd player and the tv. This will be either RGB or YCrCb at a given resolution.


In both cases the correct decoding will be that the 601 should be the same brighness, what should happen in the second case if you're sending upscaled images from the player at hi-res is that the image gets decoded at 601, scaled, encoded back before sending to the tv at 709 and then decoded at the tv in 709. The 2 stages at 709 should cancel each other out leaving you with a correctly decoded 601 pattern.

This does not work on my TV.

An incorrect decode mainly looks like a change in brightness of the colors. Page 55 from http://www.videoessentials.com/dvehd...gram_final.pdf is the Digital Video Essentials description. I agree with "When one or the other color bar set is being properly decoded the largest difference between the two will be seen in the green channel, followed by red and finally the blue." Personally I just use measurements, and I find actually trying to describe which is correct without a reference as being a bit difficult.

Yep, I think my memory was off, I just tried out the patterns and for me the squinting trick works for comparing brightness.

Just played around a bit oin MPC-HC with the GetGray NTSC disc and if you go from right to wrong decoder matrix the green basically drops out from the 601 pattern only the 709 one doesn't really change that much.

John