Spears & Munsil HD Benchmark and Calibration Disc, 2nd Edition

Doh! I struggled for hours with what turned out to be the DVD disc and not the second which had all the Blu-ray & 3D magic. The seller was kind and patient - thank you, Stacey - and once the error was nailed my whole experience changed because this is a fantastically effective aid to getting the perfect picture. And sound. And 3D.First, assemble everything you need like pen and paper. You WILL require these. RTFM (read the manual) as this will keep novices calm ‘cause it does require patience. You have to sit in your favourite viewing position (and occasionally get up closer to the screen) with the remote control of the Blu-ray in your left hand (I’m right-handed) and the remote for the TV in your right. The TV remote is the one you’ll use to work the slider controls while the Blu-ray remote takes you through the instructions and patterns.It is worth persevering even if you initially find it daunting.The video appearance settings are fairly straightforward to adjust against the patterns: colour/colour tint; brightness; contrast; sharpness; tones; darkness etc. There’s then a big leap if you wish to calibrate the individual colours (I didn’t need to do this on my Samsung JU7000 TV, thankfully) and you are warned that this bit really is a job for a professional.So far, the picture is amazing, like looking through a window. There are useful clips so you can admire your work. I particularly liked the Big Buck Bunny animated cartoon where every hair, every blade of grass and detail in the shadows can be seen clearly.Think of the disc as an expert holding your hand while you fine-tune to perfection.

Flat panel televisions do not come calibrated out of the box. Unfortunately, this means that the picture you see when the television is first switched on may be bad, to the point where you might think the television was actually faulty.On a flat panel television the video signal is handled and displayed in a different way to the old C.R.T. televisions, and in order to produce an accurate and realistic picture more settings have to be adjusted. Unfortunately, with so many potential settings, getting a perfect picture solely by eye and guesswork is virtually impossible. You might be able to produce an acceptable picture, but probably not much better than that.Fortunately, this disc has been designed to help. By the time I had finished using it, the quality of the picture had improved enormously. The H.D. picture, which was already good, became excellent, and the S.D. picture was improved to a more than acceptable level. When I had finished, some of the now correct settings were nowhere near where I would have expected them to be, which just goes to show. It is worth pointing out that for technical reasons a very good S.D. broadcast picture is impossible to obtain on a full H.D. television.The whole process took about an hour. The guide book says 30 minutes, but I think that would only apply to people who had done it before. However, once you start it is very straightforward, with each test leading to the next by the press of a button.One important note: For users who have both a Sony Television and Blu-ray player, you will need to turn Bravia Sync Control for H.D.M.I. off, as the display remote will not be able to access the picture settings if it is left on.

Bought this to set up my new Panasonic TV and 3d. It certainly did as was advertised, but to be honest, the changes made were minimal and after a few weeks now I cannot really see a difference between this set up and the ones that are on the set as standard. I feel its a bit Emperor's new clothes, but that may just be a reflection of the fact that the Panasonic set up is right for their TV's in a average living room. It certainly proved that I have a good picture.

Recently bought a 4K Philips tv, wanted to calibrate so contrast, brightness and colour more balanced and natural.The disc has lots I didn’t/haven’t used yet, after adjusting colour, (used the blue filter as tv has blue only adjustable settings) and contrast and brightness the picture is now great, much more natural than out of the box settings, and as have lockable settings (ISF day/night) have saved for all sources. Had to turn on/off HDR on Blu-ray player to set up as different settings for each.Is well worth the money, I previously tried with one from ‘know how’ which cost over double the price and is not as comprehensive.Actual ISF calibration would be better without a doubt, but as also 10x the price minimum, it wasn’t worth paying half the cost of the tv to calibrate. A more expensive tv 4K/OLED would be worth doing.If you have the time and patience to use the disc yourself, you will (imho) get a picture which is fabulous.I still get amazed at it watching HDR and 4K content on Netflix and blue ray and HD content from BT YouView.

Televisions typically get switched on and are viewed using settings which scrub out detail, by that i mean the brightness, contrast and colours are usually set too high, same goes for sharpness, setting these controls too high is wrong, this calibration disc will help you set the controls right, by setting your brightness and contrast correctly you will see details in the shadows you never saw before, your sharpness will be spot on so that the image is detailed but not edgy and oversharp, it is possible to oversharpen an image and introduce unwanted artifacts, edge halo's around bodies and objects, that's thin black lines, lower the sharpness control and they disappear and you are left with a nice detailed vibrant image.This disc comes with clear instructions, you can also press the up arrow on your blu ray players remote control while using the disc for detailed information on what you are trying to achieve, even if you are a novice and have not calibrated before i think this disc will help you get the basics right and can also aid those with more advanced skills.Knocking a star off because i think the disc should be ten pounds cheaper.