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Editorial Reviews
Stacey Spears and Don Munsil, who created the highly-regarded DVD Player BenchmarkTM and Progressive Scan Shootout at Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity®, have applied all their technical wizardry to this Blu-ray test and evaluation disc.
"The static test patterns represent the current state-of-the-art. They are more accurate than the test patterns found on previous discs. There are a lot of subtle details that go into making them as mathematically accurate as possible, especially since you are dealing with lossy encoding. We have built propriety tools to generate the synthetic patterns. We use a custom encoder that will preserve as much detail as possible. Even the simple color bars have unique traits that make them cleaner. - Stacey Spears, author of the disc"
[Picture Quality Calibration and Evaluation Tool for Displays, Blu-ray Players and Video Processors]
(IMPORTANT NOTICE: This disc is a high-definition disc and is compatible only with Blu-ray players. It will not play on a standard DVD player.)
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
108 of 113 people found the following review helpful
Format:Blu-ray|Amazon Verified Purchase
I suppose I really should have chosen a different title for my review as I have not tried the Digital Video Essentials one; however, I have tried Avia, one from Monster, and of course the THX and Disney optimizers that come on various dvds, and this one makes those look like a joke. It's easy to navigate through the various test patterns, and within each pattern is readily available help information with correct and incorrect examples to give you an idea of what you should be looking for. I found the majority of them easy to use and helpful, though I must confess that with a couple of them (I think one was the chroma one) I couldn't tell any difference, either with the examples or with the actual test pattern. Additionally, some of them (e.g., the cadence ones) seemed to me essentially pointless in that they tested performance aspects not readily correctable; however, I suppose they would be useful for deciding whether or not to keep or return a product. With this disc, I was able to dial in a noticeably improved picture. I personally don't care about the lack of audio test tones as I leave audio calibration up to Audyssey and my receiver, but the DTS Master Audio and to a lesser extent the Dolby TruHD clips are fun. Oh, yeah, and they include the blue filter glasses too, which is great. Not having the glasses included in any of the calibration discs I have bought previously, until now I had always just skipped over those patterns. I highly recommend this calibration disc. It has given me confidence that I am getting the best performance possible from my setup.
82 of 86 people found the following review helpful
Format:Blu-ray|Amazon Verified Purchase
Im an dedicated reader of "Home Theater" magazine and they wrote an article for this BD. So being the enthusiast I am, I purchased this BD with in minutes of reading the article. I'm glad it did! Spears & Munsil have definitely set the standard for HDTV calibration. I have used other cal BD's and they were great, but none come close to this one. The BD offers a array of test patterns to calibrate/adjust your TV. It even prove that my TV "Cine-motion" feature was better turn "off". They are also video in 7.1 Dolby HD and DSP HD to test your surround speakers. They dont offer test tones, thats my only complaint. But don't let that stop you from getting this BD. I'm still a fan of ISF calibrations, but if you don't have $400.00 to invest in a full "ISF" cal, then I would highly suggest you buy this BD.
Sony XBR6 52" is perfect after Spears & Munsil.
Sony XBR6 52" is perfect after Spears & Munsil.
151 of 170 people found the following review helpful
Format:Blu-ray|Amazon Verified Purchase
I have mixed feelings about this disc. I bought it expecting a simple to use disc that you pop in your Blu-ray player and calibrate your TV according to the different tests that are performed.
It's not quite that simple. First off, a large section of the tests appear to test items on your TV that you have no control over. This is confusing to those new to "calibrating" your TV. There should be a section called "This will test stuff you can fix" and "This will test stuff you can't fix" to clarify. Example: a section will say "you should not see stepping of shades in the following test" and then refers to NOTHING to fix the problem. Ok, my TV is showing the stepping or sectioning of shades, so what do I do to fix it?
Also, the disc comes with what looks like 3-d glasses that are blue-ish in color. Nowhere, I repeat nowhere, in the booklet does it explain what these do. It refers to a "blue filter" in the booklet at one point, but it does not say it's the film that came with the disc and that you should, oh, you know, put it up to your eyes in some of the calibration tests!
A helpful manual or booklet would remedy all of the issues I've experienced thus far, but the booklet is simply made for those who have done calibration before.
I did perform the brightness, contrast, and coloring tests with relative ease - and this did improve the picture on my TV. But it doesn't look better to the point of paying for this disc. I even reverted my changes back to how I had it before and could make an argument that it looked just as good.
Another complaint - most TVs nowdays have built-in adjustment features that automatically change the brightness, contrast, back-light levels, sharpness and other items. The booklet doesn't even tell you you should probably turn these off, as they counteract the progress you are attempting to make with the calibration. I fiddled with the disc for an hour before realizing the TV was adjusting to the picture by itself.
I understand TVs and monitors but I still feel like I'm lost with this disc. I know what brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, black levels, geometric warping, sharpness and all that stuff is - but I can't seem to get the hang of this disc. That's bad. Better instructions are needed for those who don't do this as a hobby. 3/5 stars.
It's not quite that simple. First off, a large section of the tests appear to test items on your TV that you have no control over. This is confusing to those new to "calibrating" your TV. There should be a section called "This will test stuff you can fix" and "This will test stuff you can't fix" to clarify. Example: a section will say "you should not see stepping of shades in the following test" and then refers to NOTHING to fix the problem. Ok, my TV is showing the stepping or sectioning of shades, so what do I do to fix it?
Also, the disc comes with what looks like 3-d glasses that are blue-ish in color. Nowhere, I repeat nowhere, in the booklet does it explain what these do. It refers to a "blue filter" in the booklet at one point, but it does not say it's the film that came with the disc and that you should, oh, you know, put it up to your eyes in some of the calibration tests!
A helpful manual or booklet would remedy all of the issues I've experienced thus far, but the booklet is simply made for those who have done calibration before.
I did perform the brightness, contrast, and coloring tests with relative ease - and this did improve the picture on my TV. But it doesn't look better to the point of paying for this disc. I even reverted my changes back to how I had it before and could make an argument that it looked just as good.
Another complaint - most TVs nowdays have built-in adjustment features that automatically change the brightness, contrast, back-light levels, sharpness and other items. The booklet doesn't even tell you you should probably turn these off, as they counteract the progress you are attempting to make with the calibration. I fiddled with the disc for an hour before realizing the TV was adjusting to the picture by itself.
I understand TVs and monitors but I still feel like I'm lost with this disc. I know what brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, black levels, geometric warping, sharpness and all that stuff is - but I can't seem to get the hang of this disc. That's bad. Better instructions are needed for those who don't do this as a hobby. 3/5 stars.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
De[ends on TV
The video was easy to understand & walked you through the steps but in the end could not improve the picture on my Sharp 60" Aquos with auto pic adjust.
Published 9 days ago by dooleyb
Not Necessary for Modern HDTV
I have a Sony XBR KDL-XBR5 HD display. I was hoping to get a better picture (although I was pleased already) with the XBR, but I did not, after spending 3 hrs with the somewhat... Read more
Published 15 days ago by J. Gates
Very good for adjusting brightness, contast and sharpness
The disc is really good for setting the brightness, contrast and sharpness and is easy to use. I'm not sure why anyone would have difficulty using this disc. Read more
Published 17 days ago by B. Rodenborn
A must have...for video enthusiasts
Why pay hundreds of dollars when you can do it yourself with this video?! This is the best on the market and comes with the blue glasses that are going to be needed in the... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Derick
Works Wonderfully
I've used this on a few different TV's/Monitors and it works great. There are a few important things about using this disc though. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Siege Tenebrous
Not worth the money
Went thru set up and tv seemed a little clearer but didn't do what I expected. Went back to factory setting.
Published 2 months ago by Keith Wagner
Excellent Blu-Ray HDTB calibration disc
The Blu-Ray is very useful. It was shipped promptly and was just as described. Excellent buy! I would do this again.
Published 2 months ago by Thomas Akers
easy to use
very easy to use, setup was simple, recommend reviewing the pattern descriptions from the website.
The patterns repeat themselves so you have time to make adjustments.
The patterns repeat themselves so you have time to make adjustments.
Published 4 months ago by Luxx
Great Bluray Calibration Disc For Anyone Looking To Fine Tune Their...
Great buy for anyone looking for a bluray calibration disc to help fine tune lcd, led or plasma hd tvs. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Cunningham1420
Great tool
This blu ray disc is awesome. It makes your new television look so good that I had to calibrate everyone in my family's television too. Easy instructions. Read more
Published 4 months ago by OG
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