'Spears & Munsil High Definition Benchmark' - High-Def Digest Review

[Attebery]

Josh Zyber has reviewed the 'Spears & Munsil High Definition Benchmark.' He says this is a very useful tool for calibrating and evaluating your HD theater. Recommended.

Full review here:
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/2341...benchmark.html

[Arkadin]

very nice review.
I definitely think I will order this as a companion to my DVE Basics.

[WetLight]

I just got the 'Digital Video Essentials: HD Basics (bluray version) which i haven't tried yet, anyone thinks that it would be worth to get this one as well??

[Stacey Spears]

I will be happy to answer any questions that you may have about the disc.

You can find more info about the disc on our website. We have screen shots of the disc menus. We have started publishing articles on using the disc. We just published the "Setting the brightness control" and have many more coming.

I don't have enough posts yet to actually post the URL. You can type in www dot spearsandmunsil dot com.

[BullRay]

On the other hand, 'DVE' has no deinterlacing or chroma alignment tests, for instance. The two products each serve their own purposes, and I recommend both.

but to what point, can these things even be "tuned" away if badly handled?

in my personal experience calibrating TVs and such, (admittedly close to none) if the screen have a problem with interlace format, the owner is stuck with it.


and what is chroma alignment really? Google helped me to some sickening green and purple drapes but.. maybe some "tech special" could be hlpful to complement these sorts of reviews?

[ruvic]

Welcome to the forum Stacey.. so are you related to Britney?

www.spearsandmunsil.com

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

I will be happy to answer any questions that you may have about the disc.

You can find more info about the disc on our website. We have screen shots of the disc menus. We have started publishing articles on using the disc. We just published the "Setting the brightness control" and have many more coming.

I don't have enough posts yet to actually post the URL. You can type in www dot spearsandmunsil dot com.

[Stacey Spears]

but to what point, can these things even be "tuned" away if badly handled?

It will allow you to figure out if your player or display does a better job with interlace content. Just because your Blu-ray player can output 1080p24 for DVD and BD, it does not mean you want to use it for both.

Some Blu-ray players offer a native, or direct, mode. This mode will output the resolution (480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i or 1080p) based on the content playing. If your display has worse deinterlacing than your player, then you don't want to use the direct mode. And on the flip side, just because your player can convert all sources to 1080p60, does not mean you want to let it do that.

The tests will help you figure out the best path for each. You can also use the disc to help you decide on your next player, video processor or display.

I hope that makes sense.

and what is chroma alignment really?

YC Delay. Some players, like the OPPO, have the ability to adjust YC delay.

In an upcoming article we will show you how to pick the color space that works best in your setup. Some players allow you to chose 4:2:2, 4:4:4 and RGB. It turns out that some displays will introduce YC delay or roll off resolution depending on which color space you chose.

so are you related to Britney?

The real question is, do her friends ask her if she is related to Stacey?

[project-blu]

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

The real question is, do her friends ask her if she is related to Stacey?

nah. they probably ask her when she's going to shave her head and threaten to kill her kids again.

anyways...i think it's neat you're here to answer any questions on the release. big ups, Stacey

[BullRay]

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

I hope that makes sense.



YC Delay. Some players, like the OPPO, have the ability to adjust YC delay.

In an upcoming article we will show you how to pick the color space that works best in your setup. Some players allow you to chose 4:2:2, 4:4:4 and RGB. It turns out that some displays will introduce YC delay or roll off resolution depending on which color space you chose.

well, as much as something makes sense to me at least.


so this is another thing causing colour ghosting like in the good old days of S and component video then, but like in a conversion stage for the digital transfers of today? and here I hoped all this new tech and synced HDMi and stuff was the end of all errors, setup troubles and the road to everlasting bliss.


sounds good that. till then, I found this older article that seems pretty thorough in explaining both the above problems and then some, in the analogue days at least.

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volum...ut-1-2003.html

[Stacey Spears]

I found this older article that seems pretty thorough in explaining both the above problems and then some, in the analogue days at least.

You found one of our articles. For some reason it was not moved over when JJ revamped the Secrets website. Thank you for that. I have added it to our articles section.

The chroma samples are co-sited with luma. You can see this in the chroma bug article. Because of this you have to account for it when you convert back to 4:4:4 or RGB. If not, you will have a half pixel shift.

Some of the previous YC delay patterns actually had a half pixel shift in the pattern, making them incorrect. If someone designed and built a player using that pattern, the player would have the error in it.

and here I hoped all this new tech and synced HDMi and stuff was the end of all errors,

So did we! The first Blu-ray and HD DVD players still had the chroma bug.

[Arkadin]

btw: Is there a direct link to where all of your old articles are?
I would love to read some of them.

[Stacey Spears]

On the spearsandmunsil home page there is a link at the top called articles. The previous articles half at the bottom are the older technical articles we wrote.

[mistergsf@gmail.com]

I'm new to this forum and I'm a proud owner of the new Oppo BDP-83 so I now have this disc. At the risk of appearing ignorant, and in this instance I am, how does a novice like me know how to use this disc?

I know that it contains patterns and images and clips that are useful in helping to calibrate my equipment, but there are no instructions on what to do should my display or player appear not to pass these tests. I got as far as the patterns for adjusting the brightness and contrast settings but beyond that, I don't really know what else to do. Do I adjust the settings on my display first and then the settings on my player? What if I still see "jaggies" on an image or how about if I see "moire" in a clip, what actions do I take?

I have never taken the time to properly calibrate my display and this disc is a valuable tool in helping me do that but it seems that I have to know a bit more than just popping this disc into my player.

[Josh Z]

On any of the test patterns, if you press the UP button on your remote, it will describe the purpose of the test.

The deinterlacing and scaling tests were really designed as evaluation tools, not calibration. In most cases, you don't have any options to adjust the performance of those functions in the hardware.

With that said, if you have the BDP-83, it should pass all of those tests. It's specifically designed to.

[Stacey Spears]

As Josh mentions, the deinterlacing are evaluation tools. For example, you can compare the BDP-83 in source direct vs. 1080p output. This will tell you if your display, or the player is doing a better job dealing with content encoded as interlaced. CSI season 1 is a good example of content like this in HD.

We are slowly writing a series of articles that go into further detail. The brightness article is on our site now. The contrast article should go up sometime next week. Shortly after that we will have the color and tint article.