Basic 5 Minute Calibration with Avia

1. Adjust all "sharpness"" settings on TV and DVD player to "off" or the lowest level. 2. Set your video display and DVD player settings to "Pro", "Normal" "Advanced" or whatever setting you might think, or have heard will set your display near to the "6500K" standard. 3. Next, insert the Avia DVD and sit through the title if you have to and then click next whenever it lets you. You should be at the main Avia screen:

4. Next, select "Advanced Avia".

5. Select "Video Test Patterns".

6. Select "Gray Scale and Levels". 7. Pause the disk!

White Level (Contrast or Picture).

1. Set up display to adjust White Level (Contrast or Picture). 2. Click the next chapter button until you get to the White Level (Contrast or Picture) adjustment screen.

You will see this"

3. Adjust your white level until the right hand side bar of the two moving white bars becomes invisible. Then bring down the setting until the right hand side bar becomes just slightly visible. 4. Click the next chapter button or let it play until it gets to the Black level adjustment.

Black Level (brightness)

Set up display to adjust Black Level (brightness) 1. Click next chapter button until you reach the Black Level (brightness) screen.

2. Adjust the left side moving bar on the left side until the left side bar just blends in with the black around it, and no further. You will have to go back and forth with the Black level and White level adjustments to get them both just right. Use previous and next menu controls on your DVD remote for navigation. OK, the black and white levels are done it is time to adjust color.

COLOR and TINT (Saturation and Hue)

1. Click next chapter button until you get to the Saturation (Color, Chroma) Hue (Tint) screen. 2. Pause the video!

Now you have to use the blue filter provided

3. Enter service menu a. Turn TV OFF. b. On remote press (all within 1 second of each other) i. DISPLAY (INFO), ii. 5, iii. VOLUME + And iv. POWER. c. Press 1 repeatedly until ROFF is displayed in upper right corner.

d. Press 6 to change data value from 1 to 0. e. Press 1 again to get to GOFF. f. Press 6 to change data from 1 to 0. Adjust both the Saturation (Color, Chroma) and Hue (Tint) at the same time. Hold the blue filter
across both eyes.

4. Un-pause the video. 5. First, adjust the Color (the outside two bars) to as closely as possible match the background. One way to think about it is they should stop flashing. 6. Now adjust the Tint in the exact same way. This is a very intuitive adjustment, which is one of the strengths of the Avia color adjustment. 7. Switch back and forth from color to tint until flashing is at a minimum on all of the squares. Done!

Testing your setup: A very good idea

1. Go to Video Calibrations/ Video Test patterns/Gray Scale and Levels/gray Steps and Ramps/Crossed Step Scale

2. There should be 11 steps of gray, from black to white. Count them. 3. Pause the DVD.

4. Make sure Contrast is not set too high or your upper white/grays will blend together and become the same. Also, notice that adjusting your Brightness affects this. Contrast (white level) is a crucial setting that determines the difference between light and dark images. The goal is to have a high contrast ratio. The problem is, if set too high, your higher brightness levels will all be white and all dark levels will all be black. Contrast, especially, can cause color shifts, which are more apparent on the white end of the scale. Your higher white levels may take on a bit of color, which is not good, so you need to adjust contrast for maximum dynamic range of your image without "white crush" (whites too white), "loss of shadow detail" (blacks too black) or any color shifting.

Alternate White/Black Level Method:

If you just cannot seem to get contrast and brightness set so that you feel good about them, try this: 1. Display the reverse gray scale steps. 2. Set brightness to the standard setting. 3. Adjust contrast to reasonable maximum, higher than where you normally think it should be. Those with CRT's should avoid blooming, etc. 4. Adjust brightness until last black bar is just different from next one. If not possible, turn down contrast a bit and try again. 5. Adjust contrast until all white steps are just visible. 6. Bring down Brightness until the last black bar is as black as possible, yet still different from the step next to it, again! Do over as many times as is satisfying. Also look at the gray ramps, they should be as smooth as possible with no color shifting - just shades of gray. Color shifting could be due to the contrast being set too high or problems with your color/tint settings.