I just bought a JVC X790R and Panasonic 820, a 1.0 gain AT screen and a Da-Lite HP 2.8 gain screen, and have a pretty good UHD/HDR library. I don't have any calibration equipment. Is it worthwhile to get this disc without any calibration equipment?
I may be biased, But I think it’s worth it for the HDR Montage demo content alone.I just bought a JVC X790R and Panasonic 820, a 1.0 gain AT screen and a Da-Lite HP 2.8 gain screen, and have a pretty good UHD/HDR library. I don't have any calibration equipment. Is it worthwhile to get this disc without any calibration equipment?
The best investment I made in my Epson 5050UB projector is the $40 I spent for the Spears and Munsil UHD Benchmark disc. It's as close as one can get to (but not a substitute for) a professional calibration. The Benchmark disc is an excellent tool.I may be biased, But I think it’s worth it for the HDR Montage demo content alone.
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I concur, one of the best $40.00 investments I've made. Just make sure you go on-line and read the getting started quick guide.I just bought a JVC X790R and Panasonic 820, a 1.0 gain AT screen and a Da-Lite HP 2.8 gain screen, and have a pretty good UHD/HDR library. I don't have any calibration equipment. Is it worthwhile to get this disc without any calibration equipment?
I may be biased, But I think it’s worth it for the HDR Montage demo content alone.
The best investment I made in my Epson 5050UB projector is the $40 I spent for the Spears and Munsil UHD Benchmark disc. It's as close as one can get to (but not a substitute for) a professional calibration. The Benchmark disc is an excellent tool.
Spend some time studying the articles from the above hyperlink. I check my projector's setting about every 150 hours with 4 or 5 basic patterns.
After reading up on the S&M website, it looks like there's plenty of value to be had in just the disc alone without calibration tools, so I just purchased one from biaslighting / The Medialight.I concur, one of the best $40.00 investments I've made. Just make sure you go on-line and read the getting started quick guide.
Peace and blessings,
Azeke
Wow, thanks so much for the update. You are being very thorough and I'm sure it will show in the final product. I was curious if you had any thoughts on including a test montage or pattern where say the HDR metadata is left blank. I know there were and may still be some discs being authored where the data is being left out. Just thought it be nice to have something where we could see what effect that omission has on the image for consumers to compare and be aware of any impact this has on our display.Just want to provide an update on our status.
We started encoding all of the HDR patterns on 8/29. We had to start over twice, the last time was two weeks ago. The first time was for an encoder improvement and the 2nd time was for an incorrect setting. We hope the HDR section finishes encoding around 11/1. Then we will render and encode the SDR content, which has 1/6th the amount of patterns.
One of the things we figured out back in July was how much better we can improve compression quality by not using placebo mode. It turns out, for test patterns, placebo actually degrades the quality. It took some brute force to identify the settings causing the loss. To be clear, this is a test pattern issue, not an encoder issue. An encoder is not trying to lossless encode, in lossy mode. So we are now encoding every test pattern 96 times to find the best settings per pattern. Its a PITA! But worth the results.
Right now I am working on the resolution menu. There are three types of patterns: Multiburst, Wedge and Zone Plate. There are 18 versions of each. There are 6 nit levels of each version. This means 324 patterns in total. Encoded 96 times each is 31,104 encodes I am running right now! Overkill not spoken here! This started on Monday and as of today, I am 1/3rd through them. I guesstimate it will take around 9-days to finish the test encodes. Then it will take a couple of hours for the actual encode for the disc.
I had actually run through all of this back in July, but I only did one nit level per pattern. This time I am doing each nit level as it turns out the encoder settings can be different for the best results. To be clear, these are only patterns that are different at each nit level. For patterns that are the same, and only metadata changes, we only encode once. We wrote a tool that changes the metadata after the fact so we don't have to encode the same pattern 6 times.
We are almost done writing the pop-up help. We should finish the first pass of all help text this week. Then I will do a once over and make notes. Then we will address the notes. Then I will share the help text with others to get additional feedback. Then we have to figure out if these can work as before using menus or if we need to put the help in an encoded video to make it work.
After resolution, we have Contrast Ratio, ADL, Backlight Resolution, Motion Evaluation, Motion Evaluation HFR and all the window patterns to encode. The motion patterns will probably take 3+ weeks to encode. The rest are less than a day each given that they are all static. I also need to en-encode all of the audio graphics. The slowest part is the pre-encode or brute force encodes to determine the best settings.
We are currently waiting on panning audio graphics, DTS:X, montage music (New music and Atmos mix) and Atmos A/V Sync. I believe that is it.
Thank you for the suggestion!Wow, thanks so much for the update. You are being very thorough and I'm sure it will show in the final product. I was curious if you had any thoughts on including a test montage or pattern where say the HDR metadata is left blank. I know there were and may still be some discs being authored where the data is being left out. Just thought it be nice to have something where we could see what effect that omission has on the image for consumers to compare and be aware of any impact this has on our display.
The HSV Sweeps will show a difference. There is no standard on what is correct, so everyone has their own "secret sauce" when it comes to gamut and tone mapping. Our Hue Shift pattern shows differences as well.@sspears Do you think a image or pattern can be created to show the differences between improper and proper gamut mapping?
What is your opinion about the SDR REC.709 grade of Montage?I may be biased, But I think it’s worth it for the HDR Montage demo content alone.
The current SDR version is not a grade, its a trim pass. The new disc has a an actual SDR grade.What is your opinion about the SDR REC.709 grade of Montage?
So the SDR version of the HDR Montage is just the trim pass as Dolby CMU automatically graded without someone to control or adapt it to look like a 'reference' for REC.709?The current SDR version is not a grade, its a trim pass. The new disc has a an actual SDR grade.
Dolby Vision content has been pretty consistent and to an extent HDR10 has as well. The difference is night and day, atleast to me it is.The HSV Sweeps will show a difference. There is no standard on what is correct, so everyone has their own "secret sauce" when it comes to gamut and tone mapping. Our Hue Shift pattern shows differences as well.
Over the coming years, I suspect we will see new and innovative patterns to further evaluate and improve both tone and gamut mapping.
In the end, you need to look at a lot of content. You might do something that makes a certain clip look really good and then break another clip. It is a balancing act.
The Spears and Munsil UHD disc has Dolby Vision content that goes all the way to the edge of 2020. This content was color graded by Dolby head colorist Shane R.
I see your name listed when the SDR Montage Video is starting.I may be biased, But I think it’s worth it for the HDR Montage demo content alone.