Good demo disc for Picture quality? (1 Viewer)

[Michael_Her]

Can anyone suggest a good dvd to take along on a trip to Tweeter and the Home Theater store to look at DVD Players? I am going to go take a look at the Denon's and Mitsubishi.

 

[James_SCEA]

Michael_Her ,

I would highly recommend the Fifth Element as a video reference disc. It is actually available in a Superbit version which includes DTS and DD, along with a higher bit rate which slightly improves the quality of the film.

Good luck and don't by the first thing you see!

 

[JeremySt]

Gladiator, Seven, North By Northwest, Ferris Beullers Day Off, and the recent Starship Troopers Superbit are some of my refrence discs. They all show a variety of style and quality, all are relatively compression and EE-free.

 

[greg_t]

I would suggest you take some with bad transfers and some video based dvd's. Any dvd player should be able to handle well done reference dvd's easily. Take some not so great ones to really see what the players are made of. Maybe take some of the ones that the Secrets of Home theater and HIFI uses to test players with.

 

[Phil Nichols]

greg_t,

Excellent suggestion! What a player does with terrible PQ DVD's shows you best what a DVD player can and can't do.

Michael_Her,

I've heard that the letterboxed "Zulu" is quite poor, so you might want to rent it and take a look.

My best reference disk is a superb demo DVD of independent shorts from Sony called "Dreams". It's formatted in 24 frames per second instead of 30, and it's formatted in 480p (progessive) instead of interlaced. This DVD makes it unneccessary for your DVD player or display to do 3:2 pull-down or to convert from 480i to 480p. This DVD shows DVD the best it can be, but as greg_t says ..... this DVD does not "stress" your DVD player ...... it only shows off what your display can do PQ-wise with your DVD player out of the way.

 

[Dan Driscoll]

If you want a lousy transfer that has poor cadence and bad flags, nothing beats Titanic!

 

[Brian L]

If you want a lousy transfer that has poor cadence and bad flags, nothing beats Titanic!

Oh, I don't know. 101 dalmatians II taught be every thing I ever wanted to know about combing. And the BMW Hire films are a close second in terms of my disc collection!

Side note: I own a Pioneer 45A (almost DFL in the Secrets shoot out). Sitting downstairs is a brand new Denon 1600 (second from the top in the shootout).

This evening, I will be having my own private shootout with the above mentioned discs. I figure that comparing the best to the worst should show me what all the buzz is about.

And if they look the same, I can then ether get my set ISF'd, or get me eyes ISF'd.

BGL

 

[Michael_Her]

Brian_L please post your thoughts when you get done with this tomorrow, I have had several people recommend the 1600 to me.

 

[Drew_W]

I second the Fifth Element disc as a reference disc...there are all sorts of nice vibrant colours in it all through the movie, and it is Superbit, so compression artifacts and the like will be minimal. Not to mention that the audio on it is also reference material, and it's a fairly good movie.

 

[Neil Joseph]

Moved to software.

You would want something with fleshtones (live action) like Vertical LImit SB or The Fifth Element SB.

 

[Brian L]

Brian_L please post your thoughts when you get done with this tomorrow, I have had several people recommend the 1600 to me.

No conclusions yet. My brother in law came to town unexpectedly, thus cutting in to my geek time.

A couple side notes on the comparo. My TV has two component inputs, so I am going to connect both the 45A and 1600 at the same time, and tweak both inputs separately (my TV has memories for each). I am then going to rent a couple titles that I already own so as to be able to toggle back and forth.

Having said that, a couple problems have already popped up.

The 45A only passes below black in interlaced mode (I did not know that until last night. I thought it did NOT pass below black period.). The 1600 does pass below black in progressive mode.

That means that there could be slight differences in calibration between the two.

Next, I ran my initial calibration with the new Digital Video Essentials. While the color, contrast, and brightness patterns worked as expected, I find that the sharpness pattern requires (or maybe the right word is allows) a much higher setting than I even got with Avia or VE.

That applies to both players, but subjectively, I am not sure I like what I see with either player with the sharpness that high.

So, having said all that, since DVE is a relative unknown in terms of these new patterns, I will try to do the whole thing again tonight, but use Avia to calibrate.

One more variable. I have an attenuator on the Pbr line from the 45A. This helps address red push. I don't have that on the 1600 yet, therefore, even when I calibrate the 1600 to the color bar pattern, red still appears somewhat accentuated. I will need to get another attenuator for the 1600 to make this more like apples to apples.

I did play the first 1/2 of SW AOTC through the 1600 (after initial calibration) and it looked great. Very sharp, blacks looked inky, which is a good thing. Colors were vibrant, but again, I need to tweak the reds a bit. They may be too vibrant without the attenuator.

BGL

 

[Zen Butler]

a fifth for The Fifth Element(Superbit)

 

[DaViD Boulet]

some DVD players add extra EE "ringing" to their image. Players that do this make a "sharper" looking picture on small TVs lacking in resolving power but cause distracting halos on larger rear or front-projetion and plamsa screens.

Take a DVD that's got some haloing in the transfer and test it on the various players. You might find some DVD players "boost" the already-present EE to the point where it's *realy* distracting while others leave it alone making it more tolerable. What type of display do you have/will you be using?

-dave

 

[Patrick McCart]

Singin' In The Rain: SE has the best color image I've seen so far. (Lawrence of Arabia: Superbit is close, but the tiny bit of ringing gives SITR: SE an advantage)

 

[JonZ]

Star Trek Nemesis
Amercian History X
Far From Heaven

 

[Clint]

Training Day
The Rock (Criterion)

 

[Bill Williams]

Excellent reference discs I would recommend:

Gladiator
Superman
LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring Extended Version
Star Wars: Episode I
Star Wars: Episode II
Toy Story 2
A Bug's Life

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

The Legend of Bagger Vance

It arguably works better as a reference disc than a film, but it's not too bad and it looks absolutely gorgeous with a nice range of looks from dimly lit interiors to bright exteriors.

Regards,

 

[chuck_b]

For a demo disc used to judge the quality of sets in a store, take something you already know well. Using the Fifth Element is only a good idea if you have a baseline for how it looks and are very familiar with it. Without that, most sets in a store will look great, full of color, etc with a reference disc such as this.

Just as in judging speakers, use a CD you know well already to help you notice the subtle differences that make a selection worthwhile.

 

[Shawn C]

Looking for a DVD with POOR picture quality, just as a test?

Days of Thunder. Absolutely horrible. Not much better than the VHS, actually.