Audio & Video Calibration DVDs

[marcus68]

Hi,

This week or next I plan to go out and upgrade (finally) to a flat panel TV (plasma), and finally get rid of my huge 34" CRT. I have no experience with plasmas and figure I'll need to calibrate the new TV from the pre-set "showroom settings". I thought that a system calibration DVD might give me a hand. A seemingly simple soultion turned out to be very confusing.

A quick look around the internet offered up many choices (HQV, DVE, Monster/ISF, The Ultimate, AVIA, Discwasher, Sound & Vision...) What to choose? Reviews seem to indicate that the discs are either very complex and without neccessary information for non-pros (DVE), or almost useless because of their simplicity (Monster). Some are really only for testing and evaluation (HQV), and some seem to be so old that they were made for, and are really only useful for CRTs (AVIA, Sound & Vision).

Audiohlics has an article titled, "Benchmark Testing DVDs - Overview of HQV, Avia Pro and DVE" which seems like it might help, but is really only an overview of how they do their testing.

Any opinions out there on calibration disks? Should I just use a THX DVD? Any other general advice for someone with their first plasma screen?

(Audio calibration would be a nice extra, but video calibration is what I'm mostly after.)

Thanks in advance!

Marcus

 

[avaserfi]

Personally I like the avia test disc. It is easy to navigate and has all the audio and video tests you will most likely need. Each test is thouroughly explained and easy to find again. Another plus is its not too expensive.

 

[Adam]

I use Video Essentials, but I've never tried any of the others. I really liked it. It was easy to follow and certainly improved the overall picture once I got it set up. I can't say if it's appropriate for plasmas or not, as I have a CRT. The settings that it steps through for video (that I can remember) are brightness, contrast, color, tint, and sharpness.

 

[marcus68]

Thanks (again) for the replies.

Does anyone have specific experience with using one of these disks to set-up a plasma TV? I keep reading that AVIA, although a long-time, high quality standard, is kind of out of date and doesn't have the ability to allow proper adjustment of plasmas (or LCDs, for that matter).

As for Video Essentials, it's been replaced by Digital Video Essentials, but I've heard that it's very difficult to use if (like me) you're not a professional.

Thanks again,
Marcus

 

[MDS]

I have both DVE and AVIA and if I had to choose only one, I would choose AVIA even though it costs twice as much as DVE.

DVE isn't hard to use but it is hard to navigate and there is no explanation at all for any of the more advanced tests. It has one advantage IMO over AVIA and that is during video calibration. After it goes through the explanation of how to adjust a particular setting, it shows the test pattern and then pauses and will not continue until you hit play again. AVIA gives you about two minutes and then automatically proceeds. If you aren't done tweaking you have to reverse and suffer through the explanation again.

 

[marcus68]

Thanks.

Any truth to the ability or inability of these disks to properly calibrate a 'modern' flat panel TV, specifically a plasma?

 

[avaserfi]

No, these discs work just as well on flat panels as they do on CRTs. I have used my avia disc both on plasma and LCDs and gotten good results.