Digital Video Essentials

[Gordon @ Convergent AV]

Anyone got one yet? I have and just put on the new montage of images to see how it looked.

Anyway the whole point of this post was to say that the guy at table in background in restuarant scene (pouring the white wine) looks suspiciously like Joe Kane. What a laugh, doing a cameo in his own DVD!

Gordon

[cybersoga]

I had shipping confirmation from amazon.com yesterday, won't be long before it gets here :) I wonder if it'll make me want to tweak anything considering I think i've already got it adjusted as good as I can get with Avia (and my own eyes).

I'm more interested in the PAL version from play.com - that hasn't shipped yet.

[Chaos Star]

Just wait till AViA PRO comes out a calibrators dream 5 Disc. :)

[cybersoga]

We need a disc that has specific deinterlacing tests and tests for the chroma upsampling error among other things.

[Chaos Star]

Originally posted by cybersoga
We need a disc that has specific deinterlacing tests and tests for the chroma upsampling error among other things.

WOW that went right over my head im afraid :laugh:

Im sure AViA PRO must have every calibration test imagineable, 5 DVDs is a lot of calibrations.

Gordon wha do you make of the new VE is it superior to AViA,

I asked Ovation software if they would reduce the price of AViA to compete with VE 2. The reply was "NO" as ovation say that their DVD has far more calibrations. What is your proffesional verdict on this ?

:smashin:

[Gordon @ Convergent AV]

Well there is an MPEG decoder test pattern on DVE but my Panny with SDI out doesn't have the faulty decoder to see what it looks like. Will test that tomorrow at SS.

Even the original VE had de-interlacing test pattern. The Snell and Wilcox zone plate on VE has a bouncing ball sequence recorded as film source (to verify 2:3), Video source (ie interlaced at 60Hz field) and PC rate (ie 30Hz progressive frame rate)

I suppose ideal would be faulty flagged stuff, unflagged stuff and bad edit stuff. Original VE montage of images had lots of video to film cuts to allow you to ascertain how fast the processor could recognise the sequence. COuld also do with some really badly mpeg encoded material.

So far I would say the Montage of Images on DVE is fantastic quality but the disc itself is even harder to navigate than the original....if that is possible.

Just sitting through the 1080i version on D-Theater just now.

Gordon

[Gordon @ Convergent AV]

Oh and Richard and Roland should be happy that an interpolator seems to appear alot and the CGI CRT is a Barco 1209!

Gordon

[cybersoga]

Interesting stuff about Avia Pro:-

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=301061

[Chaos Star]

Thanks for the link cybersoga, looks to be a very comprehensive callibration tool. Gonna have to do a little homework, so I can understand all thoose feature.

But its very expensive think it would be out of the range of most hobbiests :)

[cybersoga]

Recieved NTSC version of DVE from amazon.com today, I had a few spare hours this afternoon so i've played with the video sections. The poor navigation screens didn't half give me a headache trying to get to the test patterns, I used the chapter search and the booklet in the end to find the advanced video patterns. Black level (brightness) was already spot on as it seemed to have the same level as avia. I was able to see the "below black" bars but only if I turn the brightness up so far that the background becomes grey, so i'ts reassuring to know that my dvd player can do below black but my screen (plasma) doesn't have enough dark greys to display it, infact the dark greys are quite dithered on my screen. Contrast was impossible to set using DVE on my plasma, much easier with Avia with it's moving bars, so I left it set as it was. The Colour test pattern is very good on DVE, it let me verify that the colour setting is set correctly and the colour decoder works properly on all 3 colours just by looking at one screen through the provided filters. The sharpness pattern isn't so much of a torture test as Avia is for sharpness because it's filtered, and my screen displayed it well with no ringing, wheas with Avia on the sharpness pattern there is a little ringing. The Snell and Wilcox zone plate patterns are very good, they also let you check deinterlacing performance (my screen doesn't do too well because it's ALIS, it looses a bit of resolution when there is movement). The Multiburst Horizontal sweep from 5.75 to 6.75 Mhz - what a torture test! I wonder if there's any screens that can display this properly (as fine black and white lines with no moire). The Pb & Pr sweep is also useful for checking for the chroma bug - it looks pixellised if I switch the dvd player to interlace output but looks fine if it's set to progressive.

If the poor navigation didn't give me a headache it was the limitations of my hardware!

[Jsinger]

Does anyone know if the PAL version is actually available yet?

[Gordon @ Convergent AV]

No PAL is not.
CYBERSOGA: On the S+W pattern you'll see a we white box in top left quadrant I htink. It as a white patch in a white box like avia's moving white bar pattern. You can use that to verify contrast on the plasma with DVE.

Gordon

[cybersoga]

Thanks gordon, looks good, I can distinguish the 2 "white" squares. There's also a couple of "black" squares too. Quite a useful all on one test pattern is that one.