Any word of a calibration disc?

There's an Easter Egg in Sony's BR discs. Menu + 7669 + Enter.

enjoy
gandalf

What Sony disc would that be , or is it all of the Sony BD's ?

Thanks ,
- Jason

All of the Sony BD's IIRC. I confirmed on Stealth and Black Hawk Down.

Ah , thanks !

So that means if I have a PS3 that I need to get the BT remote in order to enter the button sequence .

I hope to score BHD on Sunday with the BB buy 1 get 1 deal . I dislike BB but the deal is too good to pass up

-------- Jason

You can do it with the SIXAXIS (hit triangle and type the numbers on the OSD), but I do enjoy the remote better.

I enjoy bringing up the EE using the Sixaxis better. So there!

just kidding
gandalf

Are there any instruction anywhere on how to use the different test screens that Sony movies have?

I think there are 5 screens, and I only know what to do on three of those screens.

I should just put in Avia, im guessing they have the same tests too, so once I know what the tests are for (sharpness, brightness, etc...) i can go back to the BD tests.

Whatever you do on the Avia screens should apply to the similar screens on the Sony test screens. Having Avia is nice, then you can use the color filter that came with it to do the color adjustments.

Avia HD would be nice though -- or an updated one... I chuckle whenever I think of how old the video explaination stuff looks on the Avia disc (even though it's only from the late 90s).

I too would like to know how to use the Sony discs calibration screens ?

Also what is Avia ?

The THX test patterns aren't particularly helpful since they are title specific rather than industry wide specific reference patterns.

The problem with the Sony patterns is that they clip WTW and BTB information that is critical to optimal calibration.

We need a proper HD centered calibration disc PRONTO with pro-grade test signals for 8 channel discrete audio too!

Dan

Sounds like the only thing the Sony patterns will do is confirm whether or not SD DVD calibration discs match or come close for calibrating. Avia doesn't have BTB or WTW so the Sony patterns are no different in that regard.

larry

Since we're on this topic, does anyone have a definitive handbook on how to to calibrate based on each screen in the sony patterns? IE: what levers to change on TV?

Dan, how do you know this? Which test pattern(s) do you think this would apply to? Do you have WFM photos (or prints sent to a PC) to backup your statement? Same for oscilloscope?

The PS3 itself cannot currently display WTW or BTB but this is expected to be fixed via firmware IIRC.

Avia is a calibration DVD. It has various calibration tests to get the optimal settings on your TV from the DVD player.

Are you sure it's not the player? My PS3 currently clips WTW and BTB (supposedly fixable in firmware) and during calibration of the grayscale I can clearly see that about 10% on the left (black) and 10% on the right (white) just won't show any gradation no matter what I do on my LCD. I thought that was because the original pattern had all 256 levels but my player was clipping WTW and BTB.

confused
gandalf

It's both. I tested Sony's BD test patterns in the Samsung player, which does pass below black, and there is no visible below black bar in the PLUGE pattern in the corner of the color bar screen. The PS3 does not pass below black on any test pattern.

Thanks for the clarification. I guess I'll have to eventually buy a Blu-ray calibration disc after all.

if anyone can make one
gandalf

Does this happen over component too or just HDMI?

What is the proper way to set brightness when using the Sony test patterns? I used the color bar screen, and then set the brightness at the point where the white bar just barely becomes visible in the bottom right of the screen under the color bars.

At the grayscale pattern, it was clipping quite a bit of black with the above setting. So, I used this specific pattern to raise brightness till all shades of gray are visible resulting in a brightness setting to be higher by about 10%. Some insight will be welcome. Thanks

For monitor adjustment using SMPTE Color Bars click here. At Wikipedia is info on using the other patterns found on the Sony BD.

I finally got a Round TewIt and measured the levels of the SMPTE Color Bar on the Sony BD using a Panasonic DMP-BD10 Blu-ray disc player. It was measured on the Y of the YPbPr output. The PLUGE pattern does not have a level below Blanking*. Therefore the prcedure for adjusting your Black Level Set (Brightness Control) will need to be modified. Adjust till the gray bar in the black area is clearly visible and the black area is just slightly gray, then back down till the black area (Blanking) just blanks out. Alter according to taste.

The White Flag on the SMPTE Bars was .700 Volt and this is perfect.

*The NTSC SMPTE Color Bar was designed to help setup a video monitor. Later SMPTE Split Field Color Bars became available and had a PLUGE added to aid in black level adjustment. Since NTSC RS-170A video has a 7.5 unit Setup (pedestal) added to the video, adding a PLUGE pattern did not cause any problems.

In SMPTE 274M (HD) video there is no Setup (Pedestal). Video is from Blanking to White or 0 - 700 Units or 0 - .700 Volt. Therefore there is no legal video below Blanking and hence no level below Blanking as in the NTSC type PLUGE pattern. SMPTE 274M (for 8 bit) defines video from 16 - 235. (1 - 15 and 236 - 254 are for overshoots, values 0 & 255 are not allowed)

I did not find any fault with the Test Patterns on the Sony BD. YMMV

The Sony titles have test patterns, to access the patterns select the Main Menu then enter 7669 (SONY) on the numeric keypad.

See SMPTE 274M-2005 & SMPTE RP 219-2002 for more info.

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Edit to add: I would love to see Blu-ray adopt 10 4:2:0 (10 4:2:2 for interlaced). This would (could) use more space and is one of the reasons I have always supported BDA. This should alleviate the banding caused by 10 to 8 bit conversion.

Edit to remove one reference that gave incorrect information.

What is BTB & WTW? I know what it stands for but haven't a clue what it really means. BTW I speak English only so fancy AV tech talk is over my head, keep it simple please.

I have removed the link to the Media College because they use one procedure that is incorrect.

Color saturation should be off when setting gray scale. After gray has been properly adjusted then color saturation and phase (Hue) are adjusted.

This is a great thread! Very informative and useful. Thanks guys!

Are you sure about THX Optimizers being title-specific? I have compared the optimizers for all six Star Wars movies, Indiana Jones, and Pirates of the Carribean, and all of them were the same. (I never needed to change the settings) The only case where they are title-specific is for Pixar animated movies where there are extra test patterns added in.