169 replies to this topic

[The D-Train]

yorac, on Jul 19 2008, 11:51 AM, said:

The last person to get it was SKG

may as well been Christopher Skase  

[yorac]

The D-train, on Jul 19 2008, 12:26 PM, said:

may as well been Christopher Skase  

well at least we got him back

[bernievink]

Hi Guys and Gals

The list is getting somewhat long, maybe it's time someone ordered another one from Amazon
they are only $16.95 from there. then we can circulate 2 of them and improve the flow.

I would not buy one from Amazon.uk they are still selling them for 13.98 british pounds
that's too much, but then EzyDVD are advertising them for $39.83 so that's no better.

Regards

Bernie

Edited by bernievink, 19 July 2008 - 01:46 PM.

[The D-Train]

bernievink, on Jul 19 2008, 01:16 PM, said:

The list is getting somewhat long, maybe it's time someone ordered another one from Amazon
they are only $16.95 from there. then we can circulate 2 of them and improve the flow.

Good idea Bernie.  I nominate Bernie, anyone to second it.  

[williamtassone]

i wouldnt recommend anyone buy DVE HD basics at all

it has 2 patterns (yes 2) that are useful

Greyramps and PLUGE

which allows you to adjust contrast and brightness

the marketing spiel implies Joe Kane has given us a calibration disc. He hasn't

if anyone wants to actually calibrate their TV the best bet always remains an experienced calibrator who knows your TV and its service menu

for the more adventurous you could try

http://www.curtpalme...pic.php?t=11378

[SimonNo10]

Hmm I've spent a good 2-3 hrs with this disc (borrowed from a friend) and found it very useful and it has made some substantial improvements to my display being a Sanyo Z4 projector. Williamssone is correct though I only used the brightness/contrast pattern and the colour pluge for colour balance. The hardest part for me was definatly trying to get a correct balance with all 3 colours RGB. I can get the blue and red to complety match the the pluge but cannot get the same result with the green. The 2 trailers I use to judge the colours I downloaded from the Playstation Store: Ironman (720p) and Kung Fu Panda (720p). After I've set up the colours as best I can I find that the yellows are far too high so I use the color management under advance settings and target a very yellow skin tone on Gwyeneth Paltrow and make the adjustment.

Now tell me this is correct or not but I went back to see if I could improve again what I did a few days ago and something dawned on me. After setting up the colours using the disc with the colour filters as best I could I then went into the pluge again but this time used the colour management tool and targeted each colour and made minor adjustments with the 3 values. I was able to get the yellow which was a dull green and get it much closer to yellow but still not perfect. Is this a method that should be used or should I stick to using the colour filters only? I found another nice image to judge colour and it's on the DVE disc and thats the bowl of fruit which atm looks accurate to me.

I will buy this disc as I believe it's worth it as the demonstartion material is excellent and if you dont know much about the evolution of TV it's worth a look. I found it very imformative and interesting. You can easily waste (not the appropriate use of this word) on this disc trying to tweak your display but I've learnt alot more about my projector and what the settings actually do to the overall picture and that can only be a plus imo.

Great idea guys sharing the disc by the way  

Edited by SimonNo10, 20 July 2008 - 10:05 AM.

[Gutty]

On it's way to Hello1212 this morning.


Then to:

Protagonist
Simbot41
Drobes
Skitzo
matty.p
rareairunc
mr.bitey
The D-Train
momaw
the wonderchild
struggo
ministry
skyline7
darockk
gravedilute
David K
Harry72
browny
crowroad
boric
com5984
evo2
Yorac
Kazz

As for circulating another... I had the disc since thursday, yesterday was the first chance i had to run it, only took me about an hour to do a decent calibration of brightness, contrast, sharpness and colour. If people only hang onto it for a few days it should do the rounds reasonably fast.

Edited by Gutty, 21 July 2008 - 11:49 AM.

[bernievink]

The D-train, on Jul 20 2008, 12:16 AM, said:

The list is getting somewhat long, maybe it's time someone ordered another one from Amazon
they are only $16.95 from there. then we can circulate 2 of them and improve the flow. Bernie

Good idea Bernie.  I nominate Bernie, anyone to second it.  

what's your opinion folks, should I order another one for speeding up of the flow?
If enough people want it I am happy to order one for circulation.

Bernie

[bernievink]

Hi Folks

went to another website and found this rant about the Digital Video Essentials: HD Basics (Blu-ray) disc.

Quote

Much of the narration on this disc deals with what is wrong with current HDTVs.
Frankly, I didn't buy this to educate myself about how current technology is lacking;
I bought this so I could optimize my TV to it's fullest potential.

If you are interested in optimizing any of the following settings on your HDTV;
you might be interested in knowing this disc either NEVER mentions them at all, or never explains HOW to adjust them:
HDMI black level, Gamma, Tint, White Balance, Color Space, Saturation,
Temperature, xvYCC, Black Adjust, Backlight (no, not even backlight!).

hmmm maybe we should be looking elsewhere for our calibrations

Bernie

Edited by bernievink, 22 July 2008 - 10:15 PM.

[Gutty]

The DVE disc is absolutely fine for doing basic calibration of brightness, contrast, sharpness and colour. That alone will get your TV/PJ looking so much better than most factory settings. If you really want your image tweeked to perfection, pay a couple of hundred and get it done by a pro.

[ajm]

Gutty, on Jul 23 2008, 07:25 AM, said:

The DVE disc is absolutely fine for doing basic calibration of brightness, contrast, sharpness and colour. That alone will get your TV/PJ looking so much better than most factory settings. If you really want your image tweeked to perfection, pay a couple of hundred and get it done by a pro.

Unfortunately I do agree with williamtassone (and the person quoted by bernie) insomuch as this disc is extremely limited in it's calibration features and most of what is narrated disusses issue with the technology rather than calibration - it's really nothing like as detailed as I had hoped.  Having said that, it has it's uses and it will help with basic colour, brightness and contrast.

I would love to have a professional calibration done but the cost is more like $400 than $200 Gutty.  I'm sure the results are good but that's a LOT of coin! Another alternative is to invest in a calibration tool and software like the Colourvision Spyder which is around $140.

[Gutty]

ajm, on Jul 23 2008, 08:07 AM, said:

I would love to have a professional calibration done but the cost is more like $400 than $200 Gutty.

To be honest, i simply took a wild guess.  

I didn't listen to any of the naration really. I already own the SD version so basicly just went straight to the test patterns. Hence, i was done in under an hour. Actually probably around 20mins, including a re-check of all settings once finished.

I won't be buying the HD version, but IMO it is still worth the small effort involved to adjust the basics, and it did IMO improve the picture over factory settings.

Never heard of the Spyder before.... looks interesting.

[SimonNo10]

Your right AJM. I've thought so many times about getting an ISF professional to come out and do my Sanyo Z4 but at $500+ (what I was quoted) it's alot of coin and now that 1080p projectors are at reasonable prices and will drop in the future, I would rather put that money towards a new projector. I have no doubt that the service that ISF calibrators offer are second to none and make a huge improvement to any display and it's worth every cent but only if you can afford it of course. I'm more inclined now to purchase the Eye rather than the Spyder 3 as it is going by some reviews more accurate. I have a guy at work willing to go halves as he will also use it so I might go that route.But for now the DVE suited my needs and definatly made an improvement

[ajm]

SimonNo10, on Jul 23 2008, 08:33 AM, said:

Your right AJM. I've thought so many times about getting an ISF professional to come out and do my Sanyo Z4 but at $500+ (what I was quoted) it's alot of coin and now that 1080p projectors are at reasonable prices and will drop in the future, I would rather put that money towards a new projector. I have no doubt that the service that ISF calibrators offer are second to none and make a huge improvement to any display and it's worth every cent but only if you can afford it of course. I'm more inclined now to purchase the Eye rather than the Spyder 3 as it is going by some reviews more accurate. I have a guy at work willing to go halves as he will also use it so I might go that route.But for now the DVE suited my needs and definatly made an improvement

The Eye-One is another option but at about $400 it's not cheap either.  I did find a place that will let you rent it for $50 for 24hrs which is probably a reasonable solution for most people.

[SimonNo10]

Well if you buy it local then it's $399 but on Ebay in the states it's cheaper:

http://cgi.ebay.com/...1QQcmdZViewItem

A bit of hunting around and I'm sure one could find it cheaper. The Eye One has now dropped with the release of version 2 if you look on Ebay.

Quote

I did find a place that will let you rent it for $50 for 24hrs which is probably a reasonable solution for most people

Thats a great option for most people.

Edited by SimonNo10, 23 July 2008 - 10:12 AM.

[tb123]

you can add me to the list of people who think this disc is a waste of time and money.

I'm sure the test patterns are useful if you know what you are doing, but there could be a whole lot more information in tutorial format on what settings in your TV do what than spend most of the disc telling us what is wrong with manufacturers and how they market their brands etc.

The instructions on how to adjust brightness and contrast are ok (mine were ok anyway), but adjusting colour was completely glossed over. I spent 2 hours staring through red /blue /green cellophane wondering what I was doing. There needs to be some sort of description of "if you see this, do that" and "adjusting this setting, will have this effect on what you see" etc, etc. I could't help but think Joe K is stealing the pooty a tad with this product.

I realise the disc has to be created for a generic purpose as every TV has a different level of adjustment and menu layouts, but unless you are just winding the basic colour / contrast and brightness settings up and down (or really know how to use the Pro Adjust settings in the menus), forget it.

That's my opinion anyway.

One thing that did come to mind during the narration though, is that if theoretically all video content is produced to a particular standard using callibrated equipment, why can't TV manufacturers have a default setting in their products that sets all of the parameters to a known callibrated standard and therefore display the original image correctly? I'm sure that's a very simple question with a very complicated answer, but maybe not?

TB

(PS: If anyone has an LX508 and can offer some useful information on which settings to use that have the most direct effect on setting the colours correctly when used with this disc, presumably under Pro Adjust and Colour Space settings etc, I would love to hear from you)

[SimonNo10]

Quote

I spent 2 hours staring through red /blue /green cellophane wondering what I was doing.

That's exactly what I was doing the first time I started to set my colour. I realised what he was trying to say (I think) is that if the white background when looking through each colour and the pluge blends in with the rest of the background then you've set that particualr colour. For my projector (Sanyo Z4) Blue was easy to set as was the red but green was impossible no matter what I tried. I just did the best I could then used the colour management tool on the projector to refine each color while looking through each colour panel to make sure each pluge was disappearing into the background.

I've just found out that the company I work for has a Eye One and that I should be able to borrow it over the weekend. Just need to borrow a tripod and laptop and I'm set. Fingers crossed.

Correction they have the Eye One but not the display version it's called EFI Color Profiler.Can someone tell me if I can use this to calibrate my projector?

Edited by SimonNo10, 23 July 2008 - 12:03 PM.

[tb123]

The Blue was actually nearly ok, the Red and Green needed adjusting but it didn't matter which way I adjusted a variety of colour settings under "Pro Adjust" they wouldn't come good. The best result was achieved by winding the basic colour adjustment to about +6.

Maybe I'm looking too deep for things that arent there, maybe my expectation of what the disc was going to "teach" me was wrong but I based my ideas on this from his website "A ‘quick set-up’ option including an in depth description and explanation of how to use specific test patterns to calibrate your display "
and I'm particularly impressed by the "Joe Kane’s custom Tri-Color reference Filter "


So, when does the Eye One do the pass around!!??  

[SimonNo10]

I just want to confirm that the Eye One Display2 can be used to calibrate a projector? I can get my hands on a tripod and laptop and I have the software that the AVS guys recommend.

This is the one I'm looking at:

http://cgi.ebay.com/...1QQcmdZViewItem

Edited by SimonNo10, 23 July 2008 - 03:06 PM.

[hello1212]

disc on its way to Protagonist.

[Protagonist]

Just an update, arrived this morning. Will evaluate it over the weekend and send it off to Simbot41.

[Ken Tripp]

tb123, on Jul 23 2008, 11:20 AM, said:

you can add me to the list of people who think this disc is a waste of time and money.

That's probably a bit harsh but any disk of this type is pretty limited in what it can do. The most useful thing being perhaps allowing you to set the Brightness for correct black levels as the colour bars and screens are only useful for seeing if the colour decoder is working fine and you have limited ability to correct for errors if it's getting it wrong and you sure as hell can't set the grayscale or temperature using such screens.

For below black, 2% and 4% above pluge patterns you can get these from other sources including all(?) Sony Blu-ray disks which you can access by entering 7669 on the remote.

The good people that brought us HCFR also have a calibration DVD that will work just fine in a Blu-ray or HD DVD player as the levels and settings should be the same...

http://www.homecinem.../DVD_V2.0.0.ISO

But you can also find suitable HD files via this AVS forum thread...

http://www.avsforum....ad.php?t=948496

To calibrate a display properly you need a colorimeter such as the EyeOne Display 2, a suitable test disk with full screen and windowed grayscales as listed above and some software such as HCFR...

http://www.homecinem...re/index_en.php

[SimonNo10]

Thanks alot for those links Ken that one with the calibration test disc file is excellent and I've downloaded it so will burn it tonight.

[????]

Excellent idea - thanks guys!

Protagonist
Simbot41
Drobes
Skitzo
matty.p
rareairunc
mr.bitey
The D-Train
momaw
the wonderchild
struggo
ministry
skyline7
darockk
gravedilute
David K
Harry72
browny
crowroad
boric
com5984
evo2
Yorac
Kazz
????

[xrcist007]

Protagonist
Simbot41
Drobes
Skitzo
matty.p
rareairunc
mr.bitey
The D-Train
momaw
the wonderchild
struggo
ministry
skyline7
darockk
gravedilute
David K
Harry72
browny
crowroad
boric
com5984
evo2
Yorac
Kazz
????
xrcist007

Edited by xrcist007, 02 August 2008 - 10:11 AM.