TV Color Calibration DVDs-Video Essentials vs Avia vs ??? Any Input???

[Marc]

Hey guys,

I need to calibrate the color on a Sony Television, and I see several
DVDs for sale that claim to assist in this calibration.

Video Essentials and Avia are the two most common that I have seen
advertised.

Has anyone had any personal experience using a dvd to calibrate the
color, or possibly a dvd by a different brand.

Do any of these do what they claim?

Any thoughts, suggestions or input is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Mark

 

[Tom MacIntyre]

Hey guys,

I need to calibrate the color on a Sony Television, and I see several
DVDs for sale that claim to assist in this calibration.

Video Essentials and Avia are the two most common that I have seen
advertised.

Has anyone had any personal experience using a dvd to calibrate the
color, or possibly a dvd by a different brand.

Do any of these do what they claim?

Any thoughts, suggestions or input is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Mark

Two thoughts...does this DVD require you to go inside the set? I find
it strange that something like that is targetted towards the general
public, but one never knows. If not, this may not be what you need
(remembering your earlier post). Also, I think some older sets have
problems with DVD playback. Is this not an older set?

I may be wrong on both counts.

Tom

 

[G. Louie]

I have DVE, not Avia. The disc has all the test patterns needed to
calibrate a TV, and some instructions and tutorials. What you do
with them is up to you. You can adjust the user controls from the
instructions to get "calibrated" as well as you can - depending on how
your TV is internally calibrated. Basically, that's things like
brightness, contrast, color and tint.

Some TVs cannot be well calibrated at all from the user controls. You have
to go to the service menu (or inside the set if old), and even then, many
set designs will not calibrate correctly, and/or show design deficiencies
that you can't do anything about. If you know how to adjust service menu
items, such as RGB levels for white balance, the patterns on the DVD are
what you need, but things like white balance also require a colorimeter of
some sort.

The DVDs are much cheaper than buying a signal generator.

 

[Marc]

Hi Tom, thank you for your reply.

Two thoughts...does this DVD require you to go inside the set?

No. (I located and purchased the Avia dvd yesterday)

I find
it strange that something like that is targeted towards the general
public, but one never knows.

Agreed, given the litigiousness of our society, the product liability
insurance alone would be cost prohibitive.

If not, this may not be what you need

I need some starting point to calibrate this (and one other set)

Right now, I only have my eyesight, and trial and error. (those
results aren't bad, but I would like to make it even better)

I may need to make some adjustments inside the tv, but this dvd will
give me a place to start.

(remembering your earlier post). Also, I think some older sets have
problems with DVD playback. Is this not an older set?

No, you're not wrong. This is and older set, and has only a "coax" in.

On this set, I route my DVD through a Panasonic vcr, then to the tv.

(as a side note: The Panasonic VCR is an older model, and is
unaffected by the macro vision anti copy coding in the dvds. However,
this dvd through the VCR setup doesn't work any of my Mitsubishi vcrs)

Mark

 

[Tom MacIntyre]

I need some starting point to calibrate this (and one other set)

Right now, I only have my eyesight, and trial and error. (those
results aren't bad, but I would like to make it even better)

The starting point is a B&W/grayscale picture and those internal
adjustments. Then afterwards the external adjustments to taste/spec.

Tom