Is this a worthwhile purchase from a calibration standpoint ? The only benefit I see is the ability to judge the noise reduction or edge enhancement (god forgive) features on your TV or player. If the DVD could truly reveal whether any of the noise reduction or enhancement settings improve the picture quality, I would make the purchase.
HQV Benchmark DVD
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In the reviews and discussion thread for my TV, it seems that some people have used HQV for testing the noise reduction setting. Based on that test they have rather positive reports on how well the control works. I tried the noise reduction setting on my TV and shut it off 5 minutes later when I saw the negative effects it can cause. Based on that experience I'm somewhat dubious if the HQV noise reduction setting really offers much value. In the end, the HQV materials explicitly states that it's not a calibration disk.
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The primary benefit of this disc is to test how well your display or player processes interlaced video and film sources. Noise reduction is just one small section of the disc.
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HQV is not a calibration DVD. It is merely a test for processing performance and mainly how well it detects cadences. Obviously you generally can't do anything about this besidess buying a different processor after assessing any weaknesses in your system. There are the patterns for noise which may be handy if you are exploring noise reduction systems, but in my opinion it is of greater interest to view a variety of content and see the impacts on that content. Noise reduction necessarily will end up sacrificing some detail in the image, depending on how good or bad it is. It's more interesting to do A/B testing on a wide variety of content, not just the couple clips on the HQV disc, though they are interesting to examine the reduction of actual noise. But they don't really help that much see how much non-noise is being lost too.
So basically, I recommend it highly if you have a need to assess processor performance. But if you do not, then unless you like having lots of test discs, it likely would not be useful to the average user. If you already have your system assembled, there is really nothing proactive you can accomplish with it unless there are various processor settings and you are unclear as to what they do. Often this is the case, some devices will have a setting for say movie, video 1, video 2 or something like that and it isn't clear what each is doing and how they deal with cadences. In that situation something like HQV is very useful.
So basically, I recommend it highly if you have a need to assess processor performance. But if you do not, then unless you like having lots of test discs, it likely would not be useful to the average user. If you already have your system assembled, there is really nothing proactive you can accomplish with it unless there are various processor settings and you are unclear as to what they do. Often this is the case, some devices will have a setting for say movie, video 1, video 2 or something like that and it isn't clear what each is doing and how they deal with cadences. In that situation something like HQV is very useful.
As the guys above were saying, the real benefit of the HQV disc is to identify the performance of deinterlacers. If you are wondering if it's better to set your DVD player to progressive or leave it at 480i, the HQV disc can help you determine that. It will let you see which deinterlacing tests your DVD player's deinterlacer passes and which tests your TV's deinterlacer passes. Then you can decide which one does a better job for your needs.
Good point, and one I had not considered. I think this (ability to judge de-interlacing performance) is a bigger benefit than the noise reduction assessment. Do you let the player or the TV handle the de-interlacing ? The HQV discs may be the tool to answer that question. I think I may go ahead and purchase the HQV disc after-all, though I think I know the end result with my set-up.
I have a Toshiba HD-XA2 feeding a Sony KDS-55A3000. Given the XA2 has the HQV/Silicon Optix Reon processor, it should win this battle. And I have read that the A3000 does not perform a proper reverse 3:2 when fed 1080i. The Sony is suppose to have decent noise reduction and so it might be interesting to see if it is on par with XA2's noise reduction.
Good point, and one I had not considered. I think this (ability to judge de-interlacing performance) is a bigger benefit than the noise reduction assessment. Do you let the player or the TV handle the de-interlacing ? The HQV discs may be the tool to answer that question. I think I may go ahead and purchase the HQV disc after-all, though I think I know the end result with my set-up.
I have a Toshiba HD-XA2 feeding a Sony KDS-55A3000. Given the XA2 has the HQV/Silicon Optix Reon processor, it should win this battle. And I have read that the A3000 does not perform a proper reverse 3:2 when fed 1080i. The Sony is suppose to have decent noise reduction and so it might be interesting to see if it is on par with XA2's noise reduction.
No, many of the tests are motion-related, so it's important to evaluate them in real time. Each test generally has a couple of specific things that you should be looking for in order to score that test. It's sometimes helpful to put the tests in a loop, so you can pay attention to different things. (I think this may even be built into the disk, but I haven't used it in a while). Anyway, don't pause it, look at the tests in real time.
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No don't pause it, that defeats the whole purpose of what you're trying to observe which is mainly the cadence detection of the video processing. Obviously if it's paused, there's no cadence there to detect...
From reading the posts about the HQV Benchmark DVD (and Blu-ray?), I'm guessing that the results of the tests can be used not only for setting a DVD/Blu-ray player, but also for finding the best settings for a display (TV) when used with a DVD/Blu-ray player. For example, I ran tests from HQV and found a configuration for my Blu-ray (Sony-BDP-S350) and TV (Pioneer Pro-111FD) in which all the tests were passed.
Is it logical to assume that I should leave everything in the configuration where both pieces of equipment passed all the tests, i.e., will this neceesarily give me optimum results from my equipment? Or...are the results of the HQV benchmarks merely indicating the strengths and weaknesses of the processors in the equipment without neccessarily providing a basis for optimal set up?
Seems to me that I should leave it in the configuration where all tests were passed, but I'd like to get other opinions.
Is it logical to assume that I should leave everything in the configuration where both pieces of equipment passed all the tests, i.e., will this neceesarily give me optimum results from my equipment? Or...are the results of the HQV benchmarks merely indicating the strengths and weaknesses of the processors in the equipment without neccessarily providing a basis for optimal set up?
Seems to me that I should leave it in the configuration where all tests were passed, but I'd like to get other opinions.
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You're right, it is also very useful for setting the various cadence-detection and deinterlacing modes. Obviously you'll want to use the right patterns with certain cadences taht are important to you, there are a number of them on HQV, many of which you probably don't care much about unless you're watching some wacky sources like anime or other stuff with bizarre cadences. Most of the time you're probably focused on 24p film content, which should be pretty straightforward. Most of the HQV tests are video-rate, which are usually of secondary importance, but useful for lots of concert DVDs and the like, or watching TV, etc.
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