Quote:
Originally Posted by thewhofan
Can anyone explain to me how to use the test card? what part of the image do I use for brightness, contrast, colour?  |
I'm no TV engineer but I've been using Test Card F (of which this is a variant) for many years to setup my picture so here goes with the Eejits guide.
Firstly you're going to need your TV remote, not the Sky one. That's where all the colour, contrast and brightness settings are. My guidance is based on a plasma display so it may work out differently for LCDs.
I suggest you pause the playback once it starts as it's only 3 minutes long.
Colour. First turn down the colour to zero so you have a black and white picture.
Contrast. Next adjust the contrast until you have the brightness at the level you want. This is not a typo. Contrast works differently on digital displays.
Brightness. Notice at the top right and bottom left you have a grey scale of 8 blocks. Adjust brightness until you can just see the small grey box in the whitest block and also the grey block in the blackest block. Then turn down brightness until the grey block is barely visible.
Colour. If you are happy with the b/w picture now increase the colour until the red block starts to flare and then reduce it slightly. Also check the skin tone on Santa is natural. Too little colour is better than too much.
Leave Tint and Sharpness alone. They should be at their zero values.
Picture Size / Position. If you have picture size and position controls adjust the picture until the two grey side bars are equal distance from the picture edge and likewise with the grey scale / colour bars top and bottom.
This broadcast also includes lip sync test. A caption appears top centre when it's playing. I found a value of 40ms was okay on my system.
If anyone knows of any more technical tests including the vertical bars then feel free to post. I've found that increasing sharpness doesn't add any extra detail. It just adds extra picture noise.
Hope that helps.