joshd is Josh Z's own personal Tyler Durden.

Hey, you created me. I didn't create some loser alter-ego to make myself feel better. Take some responsibility!

:D

Ohhhh......it's just too easy. ;)

I rented it from Netflix & have to agree with everyone else, I was not impressed at all with the PQ, though the sound was nice... my SuperBit will do for now.

Now, Kingdom of Heaven DC, that's a good-looking BD. Sucks that I have to keep the SD for all the extras, but the movie looks & sounds great.

The Kingdom of Heaven BD doesn't have all the extras from the DVD? Screw that. That was the title I was most interested in of all the currently available Fox discs.

It's got the trailer! :rolleyes:

On a good BD note, I agree with ianholm, Black Hawk Down was tremendous... the lossless PCM 5.1 is the best HT audio I've ever experienced :up: , and the PQ is also solid. I still need to hold onto the 3-disc Special Edition cause all the extras are missing, but at least the SuperBit can be retired.

I just got done watching Fantastic Four and was disappointed. It didn't feel like HD to me. I even put in the dvd in my A1 and switched back and forth and couldn't tell much difference between the BD and upconverted DVD. Maybe it was the film's style, but the colors just looked drab and lifeless most of the time. The audio was terrific, but this is probably my first BD title where I was very underwhelmed with the video quality.

In the end a huge problem with reviewing HD-DVD's isn't so much the fact of 720p vs. 1080p. This does alter perceptions a bit I understand, but even if two people were viewing 1080p, there would still be very different opinions for many titles. Some people have different expectations. On DVD's, it's pretty clear cut... the color saturation, the artifacts that are easily seen, the digital blocking that comes up, the edge enhancement, so on and so forth. HD-DVD/Blu-Ray, different beasts that require a more trained eye and since the standard for high definition is to be 'flawless', there's definitely a lot more knit-picking that's bound to go on, and people will disagree.

I think it really depends on just what your able to do on your own when it comes to deciding wether or not to hire a company to come in to optimize your setup. I am sure that every single home theatre system out there can be improved in one way or another but the price these places charge for a full calibration is just too much money IMO. Prices usually run anywhere from 400 all the way up to 750 bucks at some places.

If your absolutely clueless on how to set up a home theatre system and you just spent a boatload of cash on a nice set up then it might be worth it to hire a company to do a calibration however if you understand the basic principals for these calibrations and have a few basic tools you can do an awesome job setting up your own system, well enough that the extra 450-750 bucks certainly wouldn't be justified. Given I own a few tools that most people dont like a color meter, but for the prices that these places charge you could actually go out and get some of these tools yourself and learn what to do yourself. Then you could optimize every system you ever upgraded to.

I just feel the same way about this as I do hiring someone to come in and set up your home theatre to begin with like the Best Buy packages and such. I just feel its much more rewarding to do it yourself and you will save a lot of cash that you can actually turn around and put right back into your system if you so wanted. I just feel that if your that serious about home theatre to where your buying really expensive equipment and your contemplating hiring a company to come out and optimize your system for a good chunk of cash that you would just be much better off learning how to do it yourself.

If you go out and buy a set of Kodak color correction filters (15-20 bucks), Get a set-Up DVD like the one from AVE (20-30 bucks), & an 18% grey card w/ a white backside and you can do a pretty darn good job setting up your own TV if you understand how to do it. There are some really good books out there that go over every aspect of professionally calibrating monitors and TV's as well as some great websites that do the same. And if your really serious about doing it on your own you can invest in the more expensive pieces of gear that can help you out like light meters and color meters.

Again the great thing about learning how to do it yourself is you can professionally calibrate every single display you ever buy without having to hire anyone to do it and thus throwing more money out the door for something you could have done yourself. Another reason why its better to do it yourself is everyone has different opinions on what looks good and what looks bad. What one guy thinks looks great another guy thinks is too dark or too light etc.. Everyone is different and you will be able to set your system up according to what you think looks the best.

Again if your completely clueless on setting up monitors and TV's correctly and you have invested alot of money in a sweet home theatre system then by all means hire someone to come out and tweak your system to work to its optimum potential. However if you have the desire to learn how to do this stuff yourself or you already know alot about this stuff then save your money. This stuff isn't cheap and you could do alot better things with 450-750 bucks like investing in equipment that will allow you to do this stuff yourself. It really isn't that hard once you get the basic principals down.

So to sum this long post up, save your money and learn how to do this stuff yourself. Sure you might not be able to do as good of a job as some company charging you an arm and a leg but if you learn what your doing and do it right, the difference between what you can accomplish and what they can accomplish wont be worth the money spent.


PS...

Good post, I agree... different strokes for different folks. I recently watched V For Vendetta and Reds back-to-back, and I may be the only one who would say this, but I was much more impressed with Reds. Nowhere near as flashy as V, but the picture looked more like film to me.. the sound was not as bombastic either, but still rock solid. As a movie, Reds was so much better though, that may have swayed me a little.

I disagree.....Companies setup televisions for selling, not for viewing. Its a fact unfortunately. There is only so much that you can do with the user settings.

There are some things that are just too hard to change (in the service menu) without professional help (greyscale, color temp, iris settings and more).

Yes, you could buy a service manual and try experimenting on your own, but really its not worth the time/effort. The pros have the experience and know what to do.

In my opinion, people should take the cost of professional calibration into account when buying a television. I would spend money on calibration before buying a warranty.

DVD Talk now has 100 HD DVD software reviews. (101 reviews if you count Josh's detailed write-up about the HD-A1 player.)

Nice. Here's to the next 100! :beer:

How is Casablanca? Are there any audio synching issues like in Robin Hood?

I just dont see this at all unless your somehow unhappy with the picture your television is giving you. I can only speak for myself and what my personal experiences are and for me, there is no way I would spend that kind of money for someone to come in and calibrate my TV for me. Take now for instance, the picture I am getting now after calibrating my Pioneer by myself is simply stunning. There is just no way I would ever spend that kind of money to bring a company in to calibrate my own monitor or TV when I am this content with the picture I am recieving.

Maybe a day will come when I no longer can get that quality picture on my Pioneer and feel obligated to call someone in to see if I need to have it professionally calibrated to bring it back up to where I am content but I have yet to ever see that day. Again if you understand how to properly calibrate a monitor and you have the proper tools, you can do an awsome job doing it yourself. I am not saying you can do everything by yourself and I stated that up above. I just said that if you know what your doing you can get very close to what a professional will get you.

You would be surprised how good you can calibrate a monitor without going into the factory settings and only using the user setting along with the proper tools. Unless something was done improperly at the factory for the TV's initial settings then there is no need to go in and adjust them unless you personally see something wrong. The user settings are powerful enough to get you a picture that satisfies almost everyone.

Again this is a personal preference and its up to each user to judge for themselves if its worth it or if its not. I would much rather go and spend 400-750 in HD-DVD's then spend it on a professional who might tweak my TV to look a little bit better, thats just my preference but I have also had professional instrustion on how to calibrate monitors and TV's properly so I am able to get a damn good looking picture using just the user settings with a calibration DVD and my tools.

In the end its just a lot of money and I just dont see many people today running out to spend another 400-750 on a TV that just cost them thousands so they can get a little bit better of a picture. You have people that wont spend that to even enter the HD DVD formats at this time cause its too much money. If it was around 100-200 then it might be a different story but that is not the case. Until the day professional calibration comes way down in price, I just cant justify spending that kind of money on a TV that isnt broken and with a picture that is absolutly stunning every time I watch it.

PS...

If your happy, then dont spend the money.

This is where I disagree. Ive used DVE, HDnet test patterns and Avia on my sets. I know how to tweak the user menus. Im not a joe six pack.

But, the pros that I hired went way beyond the user menus. There is no way to achieve this without buying a service manual and knowing what to tweak in the service menu (iris settings, color wheel settins, disabling overscan, exact 6500 color temp, greyscale, DNIe settings and so on). Its just a fact. Thats not to mention that you have to make service menu changes to each input for the type of input.

Now, the difference can vary from set to set or brand to brand, but there will still be a difference I assure you.

Sure, the picture looked great on my Samsung DLP when I calibrated it, but after professional calibration, it was even better. A significant difference.

Like I said, you cant adjust the Iris, DNIe (on sammy), any color correction from just the user menus.

The engineers have set up the service menu for the best possible picture to sell, not for viewing. I assure you that a professional (a good one) can get a better picture than you or I. Its just a matter of how much its worth to you.

Well, ill say it again. It was a big difference on my set. Not little. Even my fiancee could see the stark difference. And, thats saying something!

I am well aware of the things you cant get to with the ordinary user options and I stated that in both of my original threads. I stated simply that the user setings are powerful enough to get an awsome picture that would satisfy 99.9% of the public. Again I am well aware of all the items you listed that require more than just playing with the user settings but Isee no reason to do so with a brand new TV that has been calibrated properly.

Like I said maybe in a couple years down the road my image will degarde to the point where I need to bring someone in to adjust the color temp or the other items listed but Ihave yet to ever come to a point where I needed to do that.

Sure you can argue that the factory settings are not set to optimal for each different persons viewing space and ill agree. I however wont agree that with a brand new TV that has been properly calibrated, that bringing in someone to tweak those settings to get a slightly better picture is worth 400-750 bucks. Most calibration places wont even adjust the settings your talking about unless you purchase thier top of the line optimization plan. Most of the professional basic plans consist of coming in and calibrating just the user settings and using a disc like DVE and that will run you like 250 bucks on its own.

I can certainly see bringing in someone if your TV has had years of use and just doesnt look like it used to. That is a different story because as a TV ages you can certainly encounter problems that can be fixed with a proper calibration. With a brand new TV, I just dont see it.

As I said in my previous posts, I am well aware of everything you have brought up and ill state again this is just a personal preference and if your unhappy with your TV's picture then by all means bring someone out and have them calibrate everything. For me its just not worth the money being spent. I am way too content with my picture right now to spend that kind of money even if it did improve the picture slightly. As I said before if it were a 150 dollar job then even I might think about doing it just for the hell of it but that is not the case. These places charge an arm and a leg for the whole 9 yards and I just wont spend that kind of money for a slight picture adjustment, at least not at this point in time when my current picture is so damn stunning. If my picture changes then so might my decision to hire someone.

Your making it seem like I said that there wouldnt be a difference by hiring someone to do the full calibration and I never said that. I know for a fact there would be a difference but the difference would not be worth the price they charge, not on a brand new TV, not for me.


PS..

Also I forgot to metion color balance is one of the most important things professional calibraters do to your set. They set it at 6500k as you yourself stated. As I said in one of my previous threads one of the items people should have is a set of color viewing filters by Kodak. With this set of filters you can clearly see if your set looks better with very subtle or very large differences in color and color temperature.

Why pay someone to come in to adjust your color Temp if you dont even know if its out of whack? One of my points was if you have the proper tools you can not only calibrate your own monitor extremly well but also know if certain things like color temp are out of whack thus making you need to get a professional adjustment. I can do visual tests on my set any day of the week with a 30 dollar set of filters by Kodak.

Again bottom line is it depends on what TV you have, wether your happy with the picture and wether its worth paying that much to get it calibrated properly. My point again is that with the proper tools and the proper knowledge you can do a hell of a job calibrating your TV without having to adjust the setting requiring a professonal. You can at least get some tools that will help you know if a professional is in fact needed. Bringing out a professional calibration person just to do so because you have purchased an expensive TV just doesnt make any sense to me, not for the money they charge.

PS...

I guess im in the .01% then...Because after having a professional calibration, it looks ALOT better.

I was talking about ISF calibration which usually means tweaking service menu settings, not just calibrating the user menu. I would never pay someone $250 to tweak the user menu settings. I can do that just as good if not better.

No, like I said, if you happy, then dont spend the money. For me, its worth it to get the best picture possible. I spent $3700 on a set, an extra $500 for calibration is worth it. I never have to tweak the user menus again.

I really think you would be surprised what Avical could do.

How many titles have TrueHD soundtracks?

Unfortunately, virtually all brand new tvs do not have the proper color temp across the inputs. Mine was definately off. The only way to fix this is in the service menu. Selecting cool1, cool2 or warm and so on just doesnt cut it.

Not to mention overscan, though this is usually easier to adjust if you know how to get into the service menu.

Also, with a properly calibrated set, you should not have to adjust Tint for component or HDMI.

BTW- Porno....check out the ISF thread and continue the discussion there....since its getting off topic....

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showthread.php?t=483663

Yes!!! I beat dvdtalk to 100! :eyebrow:

Finally put together my review for Superman: The Movie. This was the most difficult review for me to write. There was so much I wanted to say, but I had the hardest time figuring out how I wanted to say it.

There are audio sync issues with Robin Hood?
Anyway, I watched Casablanca and thought it was pretty impressive. I wasn't quite as impressed as the DVD Talk reviewer, but I really can't argue with anything in the review. 60+ year old films really shouldn't look as amazing as they do on this HD DVD.