Best calibration DVD? - Page 2

Well, it's supposed to at least

GetGray

I just ordered the Avia and then i discover your product. In reviewing your web-site it says NOT for LCD products. Am I safe to believe that it will not work on my Sanyo Z5 projector? It is an LCD projector.

Gotta read slower . The first sentence on the website says:

It is specifically for LCD's etc. Not CRT's., big difference. If you really saw a place on the website that says not for LCD's, point it out I'll fix it and give you one.

It says in the manual not use this disc unless you know what you are doing to avoid damaging the display... is that more of a disclaimer? Assuming I don't do anything stupid- enter service menu, not follow DVD directions- is there any risk that someone like me will damage my display (will be DLP front projector, so no burn in).

Anything to watch out for?

DLP has no burn-in you're fine. Presumably scott just doesn't want to get into any trouble by someone leaving it up on their CRT or plasma or doing something else stupid, or messing around in their service menu and then attempting to blame him. It's not going to make your TV shoot fireballs...

What Chris said. Really the only thing I can think of that one could do to hurt a display with *any* canlibration DVD is leave a pattern up on a burn-in sensitive display for too long thus burning it. If a calibration DVD has a pattern that does not time out (this includes some of my patterns), and someone put it up on the screen and went shopping all day, it could presumably cause the problem. Otherwise the images on the DVD are no different than images from any other source; they just don't move/change. I suppose if someone had a CRT with a marginal power supply, putting up a 100% full screen white could tax it more than any normal pattern. But again, that wouldn't be an issue unless someone left it there.

There may be other ways to hose a display with any calibration DVD, I don't know of one though. But what's the old saying, make it foolproof and a smarter fool will come along , something like that. So my disclaimer is my "official" statement

I sit corrected. It was 3:00 in the morning and I was at work. My eyes must have been seeing things. Thanks for the tip, I'll try to slow down. LOL Anyway I'll be ordering soon, probably at 3:00 am.

My apologies
LMcCullugh

Does this calibration DVD walk a newbie through the process or is it more for people that have prior expertise in calibration? I recenlty got my first HD TV - a Samsung HL-S6187W and would like to attempt to improve the picture and hopefully learn a little in the process.

There's the manual, and while it's a straightforward disc, it doesn't have the narrations and such that some of the other discs have. But I wouldn't say that it's just for people with prior experience either. It can definitely help the beginner, but a beginner might also want to have another disc to start with and use this one as a supplement, especially since the other discs have (DVE/Avia) audio test tones which are also quite useful for that side of things.

how does it differ vs. DVE, which i just purchased? as a "normal" user, all i can calibrate is the basic 5, so would it even be worth it? might be a moot point anyways since my laptop doesn't have a DVD burner.

Thanks for the info. I decided to start out with DVE - then depending upon how much enjoyment (or frustration) I get out of it I can decide if I want to pursue other calibration DVD's.

What about using the standard THX Optimizer found on many DVDs (a couple of which are in my home library, thus don't have to buy anything else.) I know they are more basic, but surely they'll work fine with my new plasma? I'd value your opinions...

The THX optimizers are sometimes different from DVD to DVD, i.e. they are not all "reference" levels.

Acceptable for a temporary basic solution, but I do not recommend THX discs because they can vary, also the patterns are quite limited. It's hardly cost prohibitive to purchase a proper comprehensive calibration disc. You can use optimode stuff while you're waiting for your calibration disc to arrive, but otherwise....

Is it true that DVE is finally being updated? My favorite DVD dealer is showing a pre-purchase for a hybrid version of DVE to ship on 1/30/07.

They're supposed to be coming out with a HD + SD version of it (don't remember if it's Blu-Ray or HD-DVD though).

NOTE: Looks like it's HD-DVD, see http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=781072.

I have an older version of DVE, it's in LD format and was bought sometime around 1995. Is there any advantage in going to a newer version on DVD given my LD player still works great?

Strange that I can spend thousands on AV equipment every few years and never want to spend another $30 on a new calibration disk.

Ideally, you need the patterns to be generated by the device being calibrated. If you had a LD player and DVD player, you'd want patterns from both and calibrate both independently. I have thme but I don't know what the differences are in VE and DVE, but if it's DVE, I do not belive there is more than one version of it.

Thanks Gray. I'm not sure off the top of my head if it's VE or DVE... but I want to say it's DVE. Then again, was DVE even out in 1995? Maybe it is VE.

Either way, I understand your point regarding the source, but I have multiple sources (and connections) so I'm not sure if I want to go to those extremes... unless it's really needed(???).

umm this may be a sacriligious question to pose on this forum but....any chance factory settings are ever good or is calibration always suggested/beneficial? I ask because I think my new Samsung LCD looks amazing but then again i have no clue about anything a/v and just about anything would probably look better than the 12 year old crt my samsung just replaced. Just wante dto confirm before i start messing with my new equipment and ruin everything=)

Wetone: I understand. If you have one source that is fairly neutral and you calibrate a display to that, then you can get close. For example I have a SDI output DVD player so it does not go through a color decoder but takes the YCbCr digital righ off the DVD and passes them along. A signal generator is jsut that, a "perfect source" and you calibrate to that, then calibrate everything else to that reference point. You can't always get source patterns for your device (e.g. my HD Tivo) without heroic efforts ($$$ - Sencore ATSC signal generator) and you just have to use what you've got. Then again, $25-30 bucks for a DVD is a long way from a couple three grand for a Sencore, or $1300 for an Accupel.

mirlene: It is device dependent. For example Infocus is known for having their PJ's be almost spot on D65 out of the box. My 777 was that way. My Optoma PJ's on the other hand were ridiculously off. Again, I'd say it varies by device. At the least any of the popular calibration DVD's can assist withthe 4 basic adjustments (Brightness, Contrast, Color, Tint) adn they can help you determine if it needs pro help by looking at it's grayscale. I think it varies on user, too. Some people are perfectly happy with a picture that I see as clearly off. I have a relative who had a LCD unit that had never seen anything close to black. It's black bars looked like a 30% pattern. They were perfectly happy with it and didn't know better. Until I showed them how far off is was

Some displays (not very many) are fairly well calibrated from the factory. I've seen some Sony projectors amd CRTs that weren't half bad. However, at least based on my experience Samsung LCDs do NOT fall into this category. The gray scale is MUCH too blue and the color points are significantly off, though I saw no way to adjust this.

Thanks again Gray.

BTW, sometimes ignorance is bliss.

Thanks Gray - I have ordered the Digital Video Essentials DVD to see what I'm missing out on - hope its not way over my head =)

Thanks, Tom - so its possible the calibration cd won't be able to help me adjust? =/

Mirlene,

DVE should give you the ability to make some significant improvements to your display. Most displays have enough adjustments to get you very close. Chances are your display out of the box is not very close to being calibrated so I suspect you'll be more than happy with the results after you play with DVE. Then again, if you're that happy with the way it looks now, well... like I said above, sometimes ignorance is bliss.

BTW, DVE is pretty easy to use for just doing the basics (which is probably what you'll want to do), you'll have no problem. DVE also contains a lot of advanced stuff, but that can get very complicated if you're not in the business.

Good luck!

This might sound foolish but why is GetGray only available as a download? Surely you could make decent money offering this as a complete DVD for people without burning capabilities? I'm a Mac user myself and I'd love to get my hands on a copy of GetGray but I'm not willing to go through the trouble of finding a PC (the enemy), DL'ing the files, going through a massive PC headache, burning it, etc. So I was forced to buy DVE instead just this week.

IMO you should take some marketing steps and take this to the next level. I believe your product is better (everyone seems to think so), but since your web site doesn't offer a complete DVD for people like me, you're missing out on sales.

You'd be surprised what an actual product (versus DL only) can do to boost sales.

It's available as a download to avoid duplicating & (world-wide) shipping hassles, as GetGray explained early in his thread. I don't see why you can't burn the DVD from your MAC. You can certainly unzip the files (either the ISO or the Video_TS versions - they are not OS dependent), and there is DVD burning software for the MAC that should work.

Claus: I removed the VIDEO_TS version, it casued too many problems. Mainly people putting it on a CD then complaining (privately) that it didn't work in their particular player (until they put it on a DVD). But also from having trouble creating a DVD video compliant disc (i.e. UDF file system, etc.). The iso only option cured both problems, particulalry since the contributed suggestion of using imgburn. It was the initial lack of Imgburn (knowledge of) that I didn't do iso's in teh first place, some software is hard to operate with isos. Obviously not imgburn. I presume they do not have a Mac version, but have not looked.

Claus is mostly right about the D/L vs a hard disc. No time to ship all over the world. The thing is used from Iceland to Au. on every continent. It's gone to places I figured might not have mail . But I understand your point and agree there are a few misses. There are others where people don't or won't use Paypal, too but that takes a huge load off of me.

I've had a couple "big-dogs" interested in bundling it with their products (can't say who) and for that I'd have to have some "pressed". If I do that I'll make the hard copies avail, time permitting. Really it is not practical to get less than 1000 copies made. And although there are a lot of contributors, I think it woudl take a while to unload a pressed set. Not to mention the duplication cost vs the cost of the bandwidth.

Right now my focus is on finishing the CineSlide (www.cineslide.com). If someone could come fnish my theater room while I work on this cool stuff I'd have more time . Unfortunately none of it pays enough to have Dennis Erskine come do it for me .

Does GetGray work for plasma TVs