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They made this latest version completely useless. Forces you to guess where certain parts may be, and most have "lecture" intros that you cannot back out of in case you're wrong(see prior complaint).The all the "useful" parts (i.e.
Here are a list of pros and cons in no particular order.Pros:It's a DVD (DVD players are cheap)Cons:Forces you to watch the entire intro (for the DVD and at the beginning of every section) before you can even get to the menu (this was the most annoying). It does not allow you to fast forward through the "lecture" parts to get to the useful information (if you've done this before it gets quite boring very fast.The menu was very poorly structured and difficult to navigate.
I had previously used a prior version of this that I borrowed from a friend to "optimize" my new LCD flatscreen TV. test screens and other calibration tutorials) for your TV were embedded somewhere within the lectures, which again made it difficult to navigate to (see first complaint).Ultimately, I was so disgusted/frustrated with this product I sent it back to amazon, without actually using it to calibrate Dad's TV.
The explanations, guides and menus were very helpful. So I decided to purchase this new version, for my dad, to help him do the same with his TV.
Thankfully amazon has such a wonderful return policy that was the most rewarding part of this whole process (which is actually quite sad).
It is very, very difficult to navigate through this DVD, even harder to find a specific item, and impossible to go back one section or chapter.On the plus side, the instructions and graphic for adjusting Brightness are very good and should be useable by anyone in either the User Menu or Service Menu of a modern HDTV. The instructions and graphics for Contrast, not so much. Good information on the useless Sharpness control and adequate information and graphics to adjust Color saturation.Bottom line, if you want a short course in digital video essentials and have time to spare, this is a nice DVD. This is a very informative DVD for anyone with an interest in TV calibration and several hours available to spend watching and listening to it. However, if you just want to calibrate your TV, it is not so helpful and the disk IS NOT user friendly. If you have some understanding of TV calibration and just want to optimize the settings for your TV, then you will find this DVD very difficult to work with.
I could NOT see what the audio told me I would see, and finally I gave up. Bad eyes. This one is dated; if you are new to Hi Def TV you will get some history lessons. Bad description.I have noticed that many of these fine-tuning video DVD's get poor reviews. Maybe this whole concept of describing video outcomes in print or in audio is a challenge beyond doing. However.I got to the point where I was supposed to test red buy looking at bars on my TV thru the red plastic. I have joined the ranks of the disappointed.
Note, this doesn't cover an HD stuff, this is a SD video. but it'll be worth it. I bought this newer DVD since it covers flat screens, which the older DVD didn't. Out of the box, the Sharp Aquos 32" 1080p displays are way too oversaturated and contrasty, although the colors are ok (they still need minor adjustments). My XBOX360 games look better and my new plasmas and LCDs are now set correctly. The other thing that you will want to be aware of is many monitors and TVs have a different settings (color/saturation/brightness/contrast) for each input, so depending on how you have your A/V system setup it might be a bit of work to correctly set everything. it's the same as they use in the video and is about $45 as of this writing (4/08).I've used this DVD on all my TVs and monitors (yes computer monitors benefit from this too for games and movies).
The Pioneer Kuro 42" was pretty good for contrast and colors, but I still lowered the brightness and made some minor adjustments to the colors. If you already know what to do you can jump right to the test images. My older Pioneer HD1110-Pro was already set correctly since I had used the older Video Essentials with it, but it's a good idea to periodically check as brightness will fade over time for plasmas and LCDs (and CRTs for that matter). If you plan to use this with your PC monitor(s), make sure you can adjust the individual colors (RGB) to make the most of it. I also found my Dell 24" widescreens were too bright and too "warm", I dialed in a lot of green and dialed back the red. I got my sound level meter from Radio Shack, the analog one, not the digital one. I used the older Video Essentials with LaserDisc and DVD (separate media) and that original program has very detailed instructions on what to do and how to do it.
and they now include a 3 color filter vs, the original blue only filter.They don't mention this anywhere, but you will probably want to purchase a sound level meter to set the audio levels for your surround system correctly if your system amplifier doesn't have it's own level monitoring microphone and test. This new program is lighter on the details of what to do and the history of NTSC (US version), but they still go into enough details on what to do and how to setup the screen. You do need to spend the time watching the somewhat dry material to learn what to do if you're new to this, but my dad figured it out and he's not very technical with TVs. I ended up copying the settings from one of the inputs to the cable box input on the TVs and have found color bars being broadcast occasionally to double check the settings.For new TVs (plasmas and CRTs) you will want to hold off on adjusting the settings until you've used the display for at least 100 hours (but don't just leave the display turned on with a static image since it will "burn in" that image into the phosphors).
This product is very useful at basic calibration and defining what different components in the tv and menu are for. I would recomment this dvd for anyone that does not want to spend the $300 for professional calibration.
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