| Editorial June 2007
 Getting Your Money's Worth Out of HD
I recently helped a friend set up his new widescreen
high-definition monitor. The process made me realize that such components, no matter how
expensive, often arrive at the buyer’s home working at only half their capacity. We
got the brightness, contrast, and sharpness adjusted properly, but the color and tint
still needed some work. At least it’s now better than it was at the Vivid setting my
friend had used, and which to my mind shouldn’t even be an option -- it made images
look garish and overly bright.
Television as we’ve known it for the past 60 years is
almost dead. What we have now is an entirely different situation: home theater. We can now
have a monitor in our home-theater room (which usually does double duty as a living room
or den or family room) that will reproduce images that look like film footage. It seems an
insult to any longer refer to such images as "video."
But there are hangovers from the age of standard-definition
TV. Most of us became accustomed to watching video images that were actually too bright.
It all begins in the television showroom. The typical TV dealer will have two dozen or
more monitors competing with each other in a showroom bathed in fluorescent light. Each
manufacturer assumes that they must make their set the "hottest" -- i.e.,
produce the brightest picture -- under such conditions so that it will grab the
browser’s attention. So when we buy such a set and take it home, we assume that
that’s the way the images should look, even if our home viewing environments are
totally different from the showroom.
Now, with home theater on the rise, most of us know that
something better is possible. But how do we achieve that? How can we make our video
displays "flat" so that any inaccurate use of color, focus, or contrast will be
on the producer’s head, and not a problem created by our monitor. I would hire a
technician licensed by the Imaging
Science Foundation or CEDIA to
calibrate any new display I bought. It doesn’t make sense to pay thousands of dollars
for a video display and then treat it like a mere TV set.
But such technicians are expensive. If you want a less
expensive (though less thorough) calibration, DVD International has just the ticket: the
new Digital Video Essentials: High Definition test disc from Joe Kane, the
industry’s chief picture guru. Those who’ve been around a while will remember
that Joe had a test disc in the days of laserdisc, Video Essentials, and later a
DVD version, Digital Video Essentials. The new High Definition edition is a
double-sided combo disc: the regular Digital Video Essentials is on one side, and
on the other is an HD DVD version with video test patterns and demonstrations in both 720p
and 1080p. There are also audio calibrations in Dolby TrueHD (the video demonstrations are
limited to Dolby Digital Plus). The tests range from the rudimentary -- basic contrast,
brightness, sharpness, color, and tint settings (color filters are supplied to aid in
this) -- to incredibly complex material that will be over the heads of most users.
A narration explains which tests you should do yourself and
which should be done by a professional. It also mentions a few times that if you
can’t get a certain result, you might need a better display. But don’t panic --
most brands you can buy at Circuit City and Best Buy will pass these tests with colors,
whether flying or somewhat compromised, and you’ll be seeing images as never before.
Digital Video Essentials: High Definition isn’t
a mere accessory -- for anyone who owns an HDTV, it’s a necessity. After executing
the adjustments you can and listening to an explanation of the other adjustments that can
be made, you can then decide whether or not to hire a professional technician to complete
the calibration.
Another tool you might consider that will help you get the
most out of your system is a simple sound-level meter. RadioShack sells a relatively
inexpensive one, but other stores carry them as well. As we now live in a multichannel
world that is going to go from 5.1 to 6.1 to 7.1 to who knows how many channels, we need a
meter to balance those channels so that our listening experience will be as optimal as our
viewing experience. Most people probably think they can balance things just by listening,
but that’s no sure way. I have a sound-level meter, and I use it. With a meter and
the test tones on DVE: HD, you can get your audio channels balanced to perfection
with very little effort.
Using such tools as these will make it more likely that
you’ll get your money’s worth out of your new equipment. Never assume that any
video equipment will arrive from the showroom without needing to be calibrated; it will.
Now, thanks to Digital Video Essentials: High Definition, much of that
calibration can be done by just about anyone.
...Rad Bennett
radb@hometheatersound.com |
