Contents Introduction 1 Performing A Basic Calibration Preparation Video mode settings Picture Mode Advanced Video Modes Performing the Basic Video Adjustments Set a Default Color Space Set the Initial Contrast Calibrate the Brightness Control 2 2 3 4 4 5 5 6 7 7 7 7 8 8 Standard Brightness Adjustment Alternate Brightness Adjustment (when you can't see the left bars) Recheck the Contrast Control Calibrate the Color and Tint Controls Checking the Filter Strength Calibrating the Color Control Calibrating
Notes On The Main Disc Sections Video Calibration Audio Calibration Advanced Video Setup Evaluation SO Evaluation Contrast Ratio Video Measurements Video Processing 24p Source Adaptive Edge Adaptive Motion Equal Energy Gamma Equal Energy Windows Equal Energy Gamut Stereoscopic General Visual Crosstalk Measure Crosstalk Demonstra tion Material Color Space Evaluation Form 20 20 20 20 21 21 21 21 22 22 22 22 23 23 23 24 24 24 25 25 26 26 27
User's Guide Introduction Thank you for purchasing the Spears & Munsil HO Benchmark, 2nd Edition. If you're new to home theater calibration, we recommend reading this insert before beginning to explore the disc. If you're familiar with our previous disc or other calibration discs, feel free to jump right in.
Performing A Basic Calibration Using the tests on the Spears and Munsil High Definition Benchmark to adjust your display is not difficult and performing the basic calibration should take 30 minutes or less. It's important to be methodical and careful while performing the adjustments, and to understand what to look for in each test. Before beginning you may want to review the detailed background articles about the basic adjustments found on the Spears and Munsil web site.
• • • • remote, as you may need to access special functions that are only available on the original remote) The original remote for the display (again, preferably not a universal remote) If the video passes through any receivers, switchers, or video processors, you'll want the original remotes for those. The owner's manuals for the player and display, and any receivers or processors that the video signal passes through.
Picture Mode There are no standards for what these modes do, and the names vary considerably. Generally if there is a "Movie" or "Cinema'' setting, that is the one to use. On some displays, the "Movie" or "Cinema" mode is preset and locks out all the other picture controls. In that case, or if there is no "Movie" or "Cinema" mode, try using "Custom," "Normal" or "Standard.
If you encounter a mode with a similar name to one of the above settings, or a mode that is described in the owner's manual as a video enhancement or improvement, it's best to turn it off. If you are curious to see what some of these modes do, our recommendation is to wait until the calibration and adjustment is done, then try them systematically, one at a time.
you arrive at as you work through the calibration, or you can download and print a larger version from our web site (www.spearsandmunsil.com) . If your player has a setting for output color space, start by setting it to 4:2:2 Y'CbCr (sometimes just called "4:2:2") and write your calibrated numbers in the center of the form under the 4:2:2 column, as you work through the following steps.
Calibrate the Brightness Control Now you are ready to set the Brightness control. Bring up the PLUGE Low pattern using the Blu-ray remote, then bring up the Brightness control using the display remote. If you haven't already written down the current Brightness control setting, do so now. Try raising the Brightness control all the way and then lowering it all the way and watch what happens to the pattern.
the same instructions given above to check the Contrast pattern to set the Contrast control to the highest level that doesn't clip. Calibrate the Color and Tint Controls For this adjustment you'll need a colored filter or a display with a blue-only mode. Most displays do not have a blue-only mode, but it's worth checking the advanced settings menus and/ or the owner's manual to see, because usually the blue-only mode is easier and more accurate than using the filter.
Calibrating the Color Control Once you know what strength of filter to use, bring up the Color control with your display remote. If you haven't already written down the current Color control setting, do so now. Look through the filter and watch the large blue rectangle in the upper right and the white rectangle around it as you move the Color control up and down. You'll see the relative brightness of the blue and white areas vary.
Set the Sharpness Control The Sharpness control is perceptual, so it has no "calibrated" setting other than the one that works best for your particular display, seating position, and eyes. Sharpness is generally a good thing, but not if it makes the image look strange, so the goal is to turn it up as high as possible without adding artifacts to the image. Bring up the Sharpness pattern using the Blu-ray remote, and then bring up the Sharpness control using the display remote.
temperature settings with no test equipment other than your eyes. Bring up the Color Temp pattern using the Blu-ray player remote. This pattern has two rows of 11 gray steps from black to white. Now run through all of the available color temperature settings on the display using the display remote and look at the overall tint of the gray steps. The goal is to pick the color temperature that looks closest to a neutral white. The proper calibrated white point is 065, which is sometimes referred to as "6500K".
conversion hardware. For example, some displays convert whatever they receive to 4:2:2 Y'CbCr so they can do signal processing (usually because they're working with an off-the-shelf chip that can't handle anything else). So if you feed these displays RGB your processing chain gets extra complex: 4:2:0->4:2:2->4:4:4 ->RGB->4:4:4>4:2:2->4:4:4->RGB. Since each conversion involves small degradations to the picture, this is not an optimal approach.
the Contrast or Color controls, you should change them as you change modes. Once you are sure that you have the correct settings for each input picture mode, run through the various tests listed on the bottom of the form putting a check in the box to mean "pass," and leaving the box unchecked for "fail." If you can select modes in both your player and your video processor, our recommendation is to start by trying the various modes in your processor, leaving the player in factory default mode.
what to look for in each: Chroma Alignmen t The center of the Color Space Evaluation pattern contains shapes that are designed to show any horizonta l misalignm ent between the chroma channels and the luma channel. These misalignments can be caused by mistakes or shortcuts in the chrotna upsampling, and it's not uncommo n to find that changing the format sent from the player to the display changes the amount of chroma misalignment.
upsampling conversions. If the horizontal burst is muted, that shows a problem in the 4:2:2->4:4:4 conversion. If the vertical burst is muted, that shows a problem in the 4:2:0->4:2:2 conversion. Another thing that's fairly easy to tell from this pattern is the quality of the chroma upsampling being done. If the chroma upsampling is being done using an algorithm called "nearest neighbor" then each chroma pixel is just being copied four times to make the new upscaled chroma image.
After viewing this pattern with all of the different output modes selected sequentially, put a check in the row labeled "Diagonals smooth" for the mode that has the smoothest-looking diagonal lines. If they all look the same, put a check in all the boxes. Ramps A "ramp" is a smooth gradient of color or gray that goes from one color to another or one level to another as you move across or down the screen.
Put a check in the row labeled, "Red, green, and blue not clipped" if the red, green, and blue portions of the pattern show four visible darker squares each. Color Conversion The boxes at the bottom center of the pattern are to check for two common errors in doing the color conversion from Y'CbCr to RGB. All HD signals are supposed to be converted using the equations in the BT. 709 specification, not the BT.60 1 specification (which is for standard definition NTSC TV).
boxes in the three Chroma Range Check rectangles, put a check in the row labeled "Ch roma range correct " . Evaluation When you're done, hopefully one mode will have the most boxes checked, and most of the time that will be the preferred mode to use. In some cases, you may find that one specific issue is more distracting for you than the others, and in that case you'll want to choose among the modes that doesn't have that particular problem.
difference between the two to get the smallest deviation from calibrated in both environments. If you wanted to check the effects of some of the picture tnodes you turned off at the beginning of this process, now is a good time to do so. As mentioned earlier, try turning them on one at a time, and running through the test patterns and viewing the video montage (under "Demonstration Footage") to see what the effect is on the image, if anything.
Notes On The Main Disc Sections The disc is organized into multiple main sections, and many of the main sections have subsections with "tabs" along the top of the menu area. You can use the arrow keys on your remote to navigate between the various tabbed subsections. Each main section has a "Guide" menu item in its first subsection, which gives a brief overview of that section of the disc, and each pattern has a help page you can bring up by pressing ".
Setup These patterns are useful for setting up a display. Some of them are repeated from the Video Calibration section for convenience, though in some cases the help text is more detailed for the pattern in this section. Evaluation These patterns are useful for evaluating the picture in various ways.
Video Measurem ents These patterns are generally designed for quantitative analysis with a waveform monitor. Some of the patterns can be used with the naked eye to do rough qualitative analysis, especially once you have seen the pattern on a variety of displays and know what the pattern should look like on a properly calibrated display.
.. of 24p film converted to 60i video. The "Difficult Edits" sequence can be handled perfectly by the best deinterlacers, with no drops out of film-mode. The "Very Difficult Edits" sequence contains single fields at each edit point, which cannot be perfectly reconstructed in film mode. The best deinterlacers will drop out of film mode for just a frame or two on each edit. Edge Adaptive These sequences are all encoded in video mode, where the picture changes every field.
grained patterns. To measure the gamma accurately requires test equipment. The patterns are "equal energy" in that each of the target levels is surrounded by a pattern that is adjusted in level to make the entire screen's total energy constant as you move between the various gamma levels. This is useful for measuring displays that cannot display large window patterns without lowering their total light output, most notably plasma display panels.
on this disc have been encoded in "flat 30", so that you can view the pattern while the display is in 3D mode. The patterns will still appear flat, but this mode is useful for setting up the 3D mode of the display and making sure brightness, contrast, etc. are correct. Most displays have a completely different set of presets for 3D mode, so it's necessary to run through the same calibration steps for both 2D and 3D modes.
Measure Crosstalk This is a set of patterns useful for measuring crosstalk using a light meter. You must aim the light meter through the glasses to get the proper numbers. • Pick a side to measure (left or right eye) and tape the glasses to the meter or hold them in place. Ensure the meter is looking through the center of that side of the glasses, and the frames are not obscuring any of the field of view. • First measure the black level (B) by measuring a black field through the • • • • glasses.
Color Space Evaluation Form Display Manufacture r Display Model Number Blu-ray Manufacture r Blu-ray Model Number Connection Type Resolution Bit Depth (HDMI) 4:2:2 Picture Control 4:4:4 RGB Picture Mode Brightness Contrast Color Tiny Sharpness Color Temperature 4:2:2 Test 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Chroma alignment High-frequency detail Upsampling bilinear or better Diagonals smooth Ramps clean White not clipped Chroma not clipped Red, green, and blue not clipped BT.