Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)This incredibly inexpensive calibration DVD is geared towards people who want to make very simple adjustments to their home entertainment components.
I bought the disc just to see what kind of features it contained, since most of the reviews don't really go into much detail about what's on the DVD. While the DVD does have a number of tests for audio, video, and DVD player/receiver features (ie DTS decoding, multi-angle, multi-lingual, and parental lock tests), the tests are limited to making very simple adjustments that might not result in any major improvements to your television or sound system.
The DVD menu allows the user to jump to specific set of tests, like the audio test for example. Once there, the user can either automatically start a specific test or see a demo, with voice over narration, explaining what to look/listen for during the test. The narration is nice feature to have for people that are not familiar with what to look for during the test, even though the tests might seem fairly simple and straightforward to some users. Being able to access the tests in this manner is also nice in those instances when you simply want to go to the test you need, without having to wait for an explanation or a demo.
There are a number of tests for adjusting the television image including: brightness, contrast, geometry, and color. The brightness and contrast tests are both pretty good. The test for geometry (the shape of the picture on the screen) is more of a check than a test, since most users of older TVs probably won't be able to easily correct the geometry on their set...but the DVD does instruct that if the picture, a graph with circles on it, looks wrong (which is pretty subjective), to call a technician.
The color test is also a bit silly, in that it asks the user to adjust the tint and color of each image by eye. This is not a good way to adjust color and tint for a television -- most people buy a calibration disc primarily to adjust color! -- which I think is the biggest problem with this DVD. More respected calibration discs come with colored filters that the user looks through to make adjustment to the color and tint. The exclusion of these filters is the main reason I gave this disc 3 stars, since I think even a simple disc should allow a user to adjust their color correctly, instead of by guessing on something as subjective as flesh tones.
The audio tests are pretty straight forward, doing a series of phase and balance tests, as well as channel identifications, to verify that your left surround speaker is really on the left.
The remainder of the DVD tests your DVD player and receiver for a variety of options, like whether your system can decode DTS and Dolby Digital or whether your DVD player can take advantage of DVDs that allow multiple angles while playing a scene. The reality is that your system is probably already automatically using the appropriate audio encoding and you're probably not going to be using any of the other features, if you don't know whether your equipment has them or not.
If you're looking for a more extensive and comprehensive set of tests I would recommend the Digital Video Essentials series (also available on Blu-ray). There's also the Avia II DVD, which I bought and returned since I felt that for the cost that the actual product was very flawed (I posted a review...the DVD case fell apart the second time I opened it). Either way, both products allow for fine tuning your entire system with easy to understand explanations. Additionally, both contain very advanced topics and patterns that allow a knowledgeable user, with a couple of inexpensive tools, to perform technician level adjustments. Both the DVE and Avia discs are used by professional calibrators and serious home theater enthusiasts and both DVDs can result in pretty amazing improvements to your viewing and listening enjoyment.
That all said, I would not recommend the Discwasher Home Theater Calibration DVD to anyone looking to make serious improvements to their system.
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