Disney WOW v. DVE HD

[TL_Gator]

Looking at calibrating my new 60inch Sharp 632series via my PS3.
Any of these two discs (Disney WOW and DVE HD) a clear winner?
I'm mostly interested in video calibration, but will also use some of the audio tests.

I'm very familiar with home theatre related stuff.. but not calibration, therefore ease of use and well explained video patterns are important.
Any suggestions? thx

[Michael TLV]

Greetings

The WOW disc is likely easier to use but it only covers user controls. Contrast, Brightness, color, tint, sharp ... geometry ... There is no allowance for doing grayscale with instruments.

DVE has grayscale patterns for doing grayscale and more usable demo clips for testing image quality. The WOW selection is questionable at best.

Regards

[TL_Gator]

Thanks!

If I plan on only playing games with the PS3, no BD movies on it since I am planning on adding an Oppo93 shortly for BDs and DVDs, should I calibrate that input by forcing the PS3 to output RGB (as games are RGB and not YCbCr..). RGB Full or Limited setting on the PS3?

[Tezster]

I have the Disney WOW disc and I would say that its calibration tools are good enough for 90% of consumers out there. I used it to calibrate by PS3 and LCD TV.

I would recommend that you peruse a few "other" online AV-related forums and search for this topic - there is one in particular which has pages upon pages of discussion threads relevant to your query (in fact, the author of the Disney WOW disc often participates and contributes very helpful information).

[TL_Gator]

thanks. I'm on that forum also..

[Leafs13]

I used Disney WOW. It was easy for me and I had never done any calibration before.

One question though.

Does it seem weird that the brightness calibration resulted in setting it to the max? I have a Panasonic plasma.

[57]

Brightness (Black Level) at Max? That is very strange and would typically result in a grey rather than black in black scenes/backgrounds/bars, etc. If you mean Contrast/Picture (White Level) at max, that's not as strange, but should typically be down a bit from max depending on the TV. Here's the FAQ on Optimization:

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=76161

[Leafs13]

It's the brightness. It's set at 98 only because I didn't want to set it at 100.

The contrast is at 67.

I remember using the beginners tool because after using the intermediate, I thought no, that can't be right. But the beginners resulted in the same thing.

[Tezster]

Depending on the input, I found that my TV had had separate 'PC' and 'HDTV' modes under the picture settings, but only the HDTV mode yielded sensible results when calibrating, not sure if your TV might have the same type of setting (under the PC mode, I could never see the 'blacker than black' or 'whiter than white' adjustment bars, so I couldn't obtain accurate results regardless of what I set the contrast or brightness to).

In my case, I found the Beginner mode calibration yielded the best results.

[Arthur Dent]

Leafs13, Black at 100 (I assume that is your maximum) is not where it should be, 98 isn't either. If that's the level required for you to see the second black strip from a grayscale test pattern, then you have set up your colorspaces wrong. Make sure your source outputs 16-235 levels (it's usually marked as "Video" or "Limited") and the plasma is set to accept the same.

[urbanlegend]

on a panny plasma, there's an overall black level setting that can be set at different levels. what do you have yours set to? my thinking is that if you have it on dark, that might lead to the high brightness setting.

sorry i don't have the specific name of the setting or the values - i'm not in front of my tv at the moment.

j

[57]

Yes, that setting should be "light", not "dark". Under Picture - Advanced Settings - Black Level.

[Leafs13]

Thanks everybody. It was set to dark. Changed it then went through all the calibration steps again. Brightness set to 48 now.

I had the colour temp set to cool originally, but to redo all the steps I changed it to normal. I found when I was done and on normal the white looked yellowish. I flicked through normal,warm, and cool. Cool seems to give the best white.

[57]

Cool seems to give the best white.

If you read through the optimization FAQ I provided earlier in post 7 you will find explanations about what each setting does and which order you need to do things. You must set the colour temperature first because the other settings have impact on each other. A "cool" colour temperature setting is the furthest thing possible from an accurate colour or the NTSC standard. The warmest setting is usually the most accurate. Follow the steps properly, or hire a pro. Simply mucking about will not give you an accurate picture.

Part of the reason people like "cool" is because they equate the "blue" colour that it provides with white, when it's the furthest thing from white there is on a TV. That's why detergent vendors (used to?) put blue pellets in their detergent. It dyes your white shirts blue and people think they're whiter! Change the colour setting to a warmer tone and watch it for a week. If, after a week, you still find the warmer setting too "yellow" switch it to "normal", but never to "cool". If you have 4-5 settings or more, raise it only one step, say from Warm2 to Warm1.

[Leafs13]

OK. Did it all again. Thanks.