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View Full Version : Calibrating Your TV w/ Sony's Picture Calibration Easter Egg...


Evoking1230
April 14th, 2008, 04:33 PM
so I was figuring out how in the world do I use this wonderful little tool included on all Sony Pictures Blu-Ray movies...

well for starters...

at the Main Menu...press 7669 from your remote

and this was taken from a site I came across...

From an employee of Sony Pictures:

There are a few adjustment where the included test patterns can be particulary useful for getting the best possible picture. Most of our discs have at least 4 test patterns included, SMPTE bars, monoscope, ramp and cross hatch. The first adjustment I usually concern myself with is the black level or "brightness". Bring up the colorbar signal and pause your player. Turn up your monitor "brightness" and confirm that all 3 pluge chips are visible in the lower right hand corner of the screen. If all three can be seen, then you have confirmed that your player and monitor are passing signals "below black". Next, adjust the brightness control down until the right chip is just visible. You now have an optimum black level setting. Put the player back into play mode and chapter skip to the next pattern, the monoscope and pause once again. Ideally, you should see a complete image with 16:9 shown at the corners and no truncating of the triangles. If you don't see the full image, check if you monitor supports "full pixel", "dot by dot" or some other description of a mode that allows a 1:1 relationship between the incoming signal and the pixels on your display. Some displays do not allow the disabling of "overscan" so you will not be able to make this adjustment. The monoscope is also useful for checking over sharpening, or filtering of the image. Ideally the round patterns comprised of wedges should be clear, sharp with no asymetrical gray bars or ovals. Distortions in the pattern usually indicate that a scaler is being used in the display. Also check that the squares comprised of 2x2 pixel black squares are distinct. If sharpening is used, the black or white portions of these squares is often exaggerated. And finally can you read the text on the bottom of the pattern for the company that created it? If you can, you are likely getting a full 1920 x 1080 image.

Of course there are many other important settings for Contrast and color, but these settings need to be adjusted according to your average room light. I recommend turning off all of the processing that is available in todays displays such as Noise reduction, DRC (Sony) or whatever a given CE company happens to be calling their image enhancement feature. If you have a good blu-ray disc, "Black Hawk Down" for example, you should be able to see the film grain from the original master faithfully reproduced. If it looks mottled or irregular, there is a good chance your display is using noise reduction or other processing and hurting, rather than helping the picture quality.

and the site:

http://forums.highdefdigest.com/archive/index.php/t-256.html

and for anyone else who may want to read up on calibration some more...

http://www.smartcalibration.com/hdnetpatterns.html

mods...if this has been posted all ready...sorry and please delete :)

sweetvar26
April 14th, 2008, 04:52 PM
I have done this like back when the PS3 came out, but its always useful for those who don't know about it !

Scott64
April 14th, 2008, 05:44 PM
I didn't know about it. Thanks for the tip! I'm going to try it when I get home.

REFLEX
April 14th, 2008, 08:01 PM
Its a decent thing... not going to give you a very good calibration though to be honest about it. But better than absolutely nothing.

Scott64
April 14th, 2008, 08:22 PM
Yeah, that's what I'm hoping for. Something better than nothing until I place another amazon order and get a calibration disc. :)

Beodude123
April 14th, 2008, 09:26 PM
I'll definitely check it out. I have Casino Royale on BD, so I'll give it a try later on. Thanks for posting this dude! I didn't know about it...

Kyo-Unit
April 15th, 2008, 01:58 AM
im going to have a look cuz i didnt know about it. but apart from that im happy with my picture on my tv

juice8367
April 15th, 2008, 07:36 PM
Does anyone know where you can get a decent explination of how to use the calibration pics?

Evoking1230
April 16th, 2008, 02:41 AM
^^^here ya go:

Here's a short walkthrough of some of the tests included;

'There are a few adjustment where the included test patterns can be particulary useful for getting the best possible picture. Most of our discs have at least 4 test patterns included, SMPTE bars, monoscope, ramp and cross hatch.

The first adjustment I usually concern myself with is the black level or "brightness". Bring up the colorbar signal and pause your player. Turn up your monitor "brightness" and confirm that all 3 pluge chips are visible in the lower right hand corner of the screen. If all three can be seen, then you have confirmed that your player and monitor are passing signals "below black". Next, adjust the brightness control down until the right chip is just visible. You now have an optimum black level setting.

Put the player back into play mode and chapter skip to the next pattern, the monoscope and pause once again. Ideally, you should see a complete image with 16:9 shown at the corners and no truncating of the triangles. If you don't see the full image, check if you monitor supports "full pixel", "dot by dot" or some other description of a mode that allows a 1:1 relationship between the incoming signal and the pixels on your display. Some displays do not allow the disabling of "overscan" so you will not be able to make this adjustment. The monoscope is also useful for checking over sharpening, or filtering of the image. Ideally the round patterns comprised of wedges should be clear, sharp with no asymetrical gray bars or ovals. Distortions in the pattern usually indicate that a scaler is being used in the display. Also check that the squares comprised of 2x2 pixel black squares are distinct. If sharpening is used, the black or white portions of these squares is often exaggerated. And finally can you read the text on the bottom of the pattern for the company that created it? If you can, you are likely getting a full 1920 x 1080 image.

Of course there are many other important settings for Contrast and color, but these settings need to be adjusted according to your average room light. I recommend turning off all of the processing that is available in todays displays such as Noise reduction, DRC (Sony) or whatever a given CE company happens to be calling their image enhancement feature. If you have a good blu-ray disc, "Black Hawk Down" for example, you should be able to see the film grain from the original master faithfully reproduced. If it looks mottled or irregular, there is a good chance your display is using noise reduction or other processing and hurting, rather than helping the picture quality.

link:

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=47055&postcount=207

kopkiwi
April 16th, 2008, 02:52 AM
I did know about this, but completely forgot the code. Thanks for reposting and jogging the memory. +rep

Terrabit
April 16th, 2008, 03:34 AM
Yeah, that's what I'm hoping for. Something better than nothing until I place another amazon order and get a calibration disc. :)

Yeah, me too.

Thanks for the tip OP.

+rep

Nemy
April 16th, 2008, 02:41 PM
My Dell pc monitor has built in calibration software.
It will show me different patterns and colors so I can fine tune it.
All HDTV's should have this option... but they don't :(

I'll have a look at Spider-Man if it has this calibration menu.