Calibration DVD warning!!!!!! Best Buy (1 Viewer)

[Rod Melotte]

Last night "the bug" hit me and I went to Best Buy to get a calibration DVD. The first salesperson in the HT department never heard of one. The 2nd did and pointed me to the special interest DVD area.

They had only one type called "Home Theatre TEst and Set-Up Disc" for $9.99.

Well - I had "the bug" so I bit the bullet and bought it.

It's totally worthless. Actually worse. My wife and I tried to tune our 27in Wega Trinatron 3 times and all three times the picture turned out unwatchable.

The Audia section basically tests if the speakers are actually connected to the receiver. that's all.

In this case you get less then what you pay for.

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

Rod,
In response to one of you very first posts over a month ago, Jim_Stu suggested AVIA and a SPL meter to you. And since then, this suggestion has been made to you no less than 10 times.
I think maybe it's time to bite the bullet and just order a copy of AVIA and trot down to radio shack and ask for Cat#: 33-2050.

-V

 

[Rod Melotte]

LOL - give me a chance. I WOULD have gottin AVAI last night if any store around here had one. I missed out on a $26 AVIA by 2 seconds today.

I'll have one by the weekend.

 

[Sean Dayton]

The Sound @ Vision's Home Theater tune up DVD will also do the job and is cheap. One can be ordered online from dvdplanet for 17$ shipped.

Sean

 

[Brian E]

The Sound @ Vision's Home Theater tune up DVD will also do the job and is cheap. One can be ordered online from dvdplanet for 17$ shipped.

You can get it at Best Buy B&M for $15 too.

EDIT: You could get it for $15, but now it looks like they upped it to $18.

 

[MikeyWeitz]

If you want to get Video Essentials go here: http://www.ezydvd.com.au/item.zml/2469/id=80ml4:6ZiW1
It is an Australian company. Totals cost was $18 and change SHIPPED fro AU and I got mine within a week.
BTW, are you the same Rod Melotte from the VDOT forums. If so, I am the same Mike from NJ that you know

 

[Anthony_J]

I picked up the S&V disc the other day at Best Buy. pretty effective considering the ease of use and price. It also has some corrections for mistakes on the Avia and VE discs (I don't quite remember what the corrections were.)

the only problem is that i'm dying to use the advanced test patterns, but can't figure out what they do (I'm a relative newbie).

If you really can't bear to spend dollars on a real calibration disc, and don't have a TV that demands in-depth calibration, go with the THX optimizer present on some of your movie discs (no flames from the hardcore calibrators, please). It'll get you pretty close to S&V or Avia (if you only intend on making user menu adjustments), although you'll have to adjust color and tint without the blue filter, and eyeball the brightness.

 

[JohnnyDee]

The Australia site says the disc is formatted in NTSC format. What is this? It says your monitor must be compatible. Is this something for certain countries only? My TV is an older model Pioneer--will this work? Any info would be appreciated.

 

[MichaelGomez]

NTSC is the standard for TV. They just mean that the test section might not be that great for HDTV.

 

[JohnnyDee]

It talks about NTSC and PAL. Says newer tv's should be NTSC but not all older ones. Maybe this is just a concern outside the U.S.? It says the display would not be in full color. Just want to be sure before I order. No use trying to save a few bucks and ending up with a useless disk.