HDTV Calibration (Digital Video Essentials DVD)

Ledneh

I was considering stopping by Fry's tonight and picking up the Monster/ISF HDTV Calibration DVD. My TV has been around a while and I've always been satisfied, but I figure I can take a look anyway, see if it makes a noticeable difference.

My question is, will the calibrations on this DVD universally apply to DVDs, Blu-ray movies, and games? Or is it gonna end up being a tweak-fest with one setting for DVDs on my PS3, one setting for Blu-rays on my PS3, one for games on my PS3, and then a whole other set for my 360 and PC?

minor incident

Ledneh wrote: »

I was considering stopping by Fry's tonight and picking up the Monster/ISF HDTV Calibration DVD. My TV has been around a while and I've always been satisfied, but I figure I can take a look anyway, see if it makes a noticeable difference.

My question is, will the calibrations on this DVD universally apply to DVDs, Blu-ray movies, and games? Or is it gonna end up being a tweak-fest with one setting for DVDs on my PS3, one setting for Blu-rays on my PS3, one for games on my PS3, and then a whole other set for my 360 and PC?

Those discs will help you lay down a good solid baseline for your settings in general. You may want to tweak things a bit further depending on whether you mainly game or watch movies, but they definitely help. Most TVs out of the box have the brightness/contrast jacked way out of proportion and it ends up making everything look weird.

That said, if you have any Lucasfilm DVDs, they all have the THX calibration tools in the menu somewhere (I got mine on my old Clone Wars DVD). These will walk you through a few settings that help a TON. Not quite as all-inclusive as the dedicated calibration DVDs, but they're free, if you've already got the movie, and they get you 80% of the way there.

Improvolone

I think Pixar DVDs also come with a calibration.

Wetsun

http://www.amazon.com/Monster-ISF-HDTV-Calibration-Wizard/dp/B000EEXEIW

Some pretty poor reviews, fyi.

Ledneh

It turned out the only thing at Frys was Digital Video Essentials (NTSC/Component), not the Monster review disc anyway. Worked well enough to fix up my images for all of PC, PS3, and 360 to proper color and contrast/brightness levels, and BOY were they fucked up if those color patterns tell me anything (came with red/green/blue screens to adjust with, and my TV lets you adjust RGB and Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow independently).

So far none of my games or movies look WORSE, and movies mostly look better, so I'll take it as good for now.

Ledneh

Hmm, minor problem. Some background info: I have a Mitsubishi 52" DLP from 2007 (specifically, the WD-52631). I've been running it uncalibrated since I got it a year ago. Last night I went to Fry's and picked up Digital Video Essentials (NTSC/Component). Would have gotten the Blu-ray calibration disc they had, but I also want to calibrate my PC and 360 inputs, so hey ho.

Anyway, I ran through the tests on my PC (DVI), 360 (HDMI), and PS3 (also HDMI). Things look a LOT better now, though it feels odd as hell saying that when I never really realized there was anything wrong. But anyway. I ran into one problem that I can't solve: the contrast.

The DVE disc says to adjust the contrast according to something like the right side of this image (I couldn't find the exact one, but this is mostly it). You're supposed to adjust the contrast upward until the brightest rectangle starts to bloom, then adjust back downward until the bloom goes away.

Problem is, I took the contrast all the way to max and the bloom never happened. I guess the bloom is an artifact of CRTs as opposed to DLPs, but in any event I have no way of knowing if I have the contrast right or not.

Does anyone have any advice on other ways I can adjust the contrast to see if I got it right?