Video Calibration for A2000 (1 Viewer)

[snash22]

I am working on tweaking my A2000 to perfection. I am currently using the Avia calibration disc and I have a few questions.

1. Is Avia still a good choice for calibration disc or has anything better come along in the past 5 years?

2. What is a good test pattern to determine whether my player's upscaling is better than the TV's?

3. The A2000 has Advanced Iris settings, I think they impact the "picture/contrast" and the "brightness/black level" levels. Should I use Avia any differently?

4. What is the correct color temperature to start with? I thought "standard" would be correct, but some people have said that "warm 1" or "warm 2" would be closer to 6500K.

5. What do the gamma settings do?

Thanks in advance!!

 

[Steve Schaffer]

1-Don't know, haven't tried anything else on the set.

2-I prefer not to use any pattern, just try any well-transferred movie whose pq you're very familiar with. I use the anamorphic release of Titanic, ymmv.

3.-the set has a variable iris which regulates how much light from the lamp reaches the lcos chips. There are 2 Auto settings in which the iris opens and closes according to picture content--closes for dark scenes and opens way up for bright scenes. There are also a number of fixed settings. I use Auto2, it doesn't vary the iris as much as Auto1 and I've never had any distracting effect from the automatic iris operation in this mode.

4-Warm 2 is supposed to be closest to 6500k, I use it for serious movie watching and Warm1 for tv viewing. (settings can be saved on a per-input basis. You can also use the grayscale pattern on AVIA to make adjustments in the advanced menu for White Balance--Gain adjusts Red, Green and Blue for bright parts of the screen, Bias for darker areas.

5-Gamma increases detail in dark parts of the screen without lightening true black, I use the lowest setting.

Unless your room is very bright you should also consider turning the power saving feature on--this actually reduces the lamp brightness a bit which can help in medium to low lit rooms along with saving wear on the lamp.

I leave most of the advanced features off except detail enhancement which I leave on the low or medium setting.

 

[snash22]

Steve - Thanks for your comments. I have a few questions.

"There are 2 Auto settings in which the iris opens and closes according to picture content--closes for dark scenes and opens way up for bright scenes. "

So does this opening and closing of the Iris affect the contrast and black level? It seems like these two are now moving targets rather an static settings.

"You can also use the grayscale pattern on AVIA to make adjustments in the advanced menu for White Balance--Gain adjusts Red, Green and Blue for bright parts of the screen, Bias for darker areas."

I'll look into this. To be honest, I'd have no idea what I'd be looking for. I'll see if the Avia disc has any detailed information.