So you bought an HD television. Great! Oh, that's not enough? Okay, how about digital programming free over the air? Not bad. How about some movies? Well, Bluray just won the war, so lets kill 2 birds with one stone and buy a Playstaion 3! You know Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is out, right? Mmm...

"Everything looks great, right? Hmm... something seems a bit off... what is it?" Well, if you find yourself thinking the same thing, you may need to calibrate your equipment. Those THX calibration tools included in some movies do help, and if you haven't tried it, you really should! It's free, and the results can be refreshing. Also, if you have a Windows Media Center, both MCE2005 and Vista Media Center have their own calibration tool built-in. The difference from watching a overly bright and saturated display out of the box and a well-calibrated picture is immense.

What if that's not enough? You want the ultimate in picture quality for your room? You want to know more about setting up the best environment for a home theater? You want to calibrate more than just the picture, but audio as well? And you don't want to pay out between your buttocks for THX certification because... well quite frankly... calibrating home theaters is not your chosen profession? Although after buying this disc, you might want to consider it...

Enter Digital Video Essentials HD Basics. This is a Bluray movie disc that everyone with a Bluray player should get. It's inexpensive (cheaper than real Bluray movies) and can be found at Amazon or Buy.com for under $20. And it not only helps you calibrate your system, it explains everything in depth!

Overkill?
If the free THX calibration tools included in most Pixar films are good, why pay for a dedicated tool? The question should actually be "why not?" For less than $20, it's a great tool to have in your collection, and have some great sample high definition content to stress out your set up. Those same samples can also make you feel good about your purchase, as they are reference-quality materials.

Not only that, but it's a great learning tool. It have hours upon hours of videos explaining how audio and lighting works, why and how your environment affects video and audio quality, and many more. It doesn't just provide the tools to calibrate your picture and audio, but also the environment itself such as lighting, carpeting, sound deadening, speaker placement, and seat positioning.

It sure sounds overkill right? But all this for under $20?

Navigation
When you first pop the disc in, you will see 4 menu items to choose from:

Complete Program Menu
HD in Detail
Setting Up my HDTV
Just the Test Patterns

"Complete Program menu" is where you would start if this is your first time. It goes through "HD in Detail", then "Setting Up my HDTV", and lastly it will display the Test Patterns.

"HD in Detail" includes multiple videos that explains how to set up the environment, audio, and video, and have in depth explanation of video quality, color quality, how lighting affects quality, etc. It's basically a tutorial or training video. For most, this is information overload. I found it interesting, but others would bang on the remote, yelling "GET ON WITH IT!".

"Setting Up my HDTV" includes multiple videos that shows you how to actually use the test patterns and tools. The disc comes with a 3-color filter that you can use to help calibrate your TV's color and gray scale setting. It also explains why each test is done.

Lastly, if you rather not watch any of the videos, and just go straight to calibrating, "Just the Test Patterns" is where you'd go. You can go straight to the individual test that you want if you need to.

The problem is once you are deep into watching one of the videos or in the middle of calibrating, it's hard to move around to a different video or test. The program seem to take a long time to move to the next or previous test if you interrupt it. It's the same for the video. It could be the player itself that causes the lag, but the menu system can create a bit of confusion as well. Where to start? Which video should I watch? Should I just skip the video and go through the patterns and start calibrating? That isn't the fault of the player.

Results
In the end, I noticed that I watch in a relatively dim living room, and even though it's not a dedicated home theater with a completely darkened environment, my Norcent 32" LCD HDTV (720p) seem to have a better dark levels. The picture wasn't overly bright as it was before, and it felt more comfortable and natural watching it. I noticed that when I open up the window blinds to let in sunlight in mid afternoon, the picture would seem too dark, however. Calibrate to the environment and lighting conditions to which you watch it the most, or if your television supports several profiles, calibrate and save to the different profiles so you can recall them in different times of the day.

I usually get home around 6pm from work anyways, so it that isn't a huge problem for me. Of course, if you have a dedicated home theater room, chances are that you can control the lighting no matter what time of the day it is.

Conclusion
For less than $20, even if you don't utilize all the tips and tricks, or even have a dedicated room for a proper home theater, it's a good to have. Plus, lets not forget you can help out friends and get a pretty penny for friend's of friends for calibrating their outstanding set up! If you help someone with an awesome set up for free, you might get invited over to watch the Super Bowl. :)

It is not to say that it's perfect. I found that navigating between different tests and videos is cumbersome. It takes a while for the program to respond. It could just be the the player (we used the PS3 as our main Bluray player) which causes the lag in response, but it's not the player's fault for the difficult to use menus.

Other than that, this calibration tool is anything but "basic", and can help you get more out of your high definition equipment.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 9 - 12