"Source Adaptive Deinterlacing" contains film deinterlacing tests (specifically the famous 'Super Speedway' racetrack clip and a synthetic wedge) in a variety of cadences. "Setup and Evaluation" offers static patterns for the likes of PLUGE, contrast, color bars, grayscale, picture geometry, and the Chroma Upsampling Error. The menus are divided into three categories. Nonetheless, most of the specific patterns provided were built by Spears and Munsil for the disc, and were optimized for HD displays. Users who have at least a modest familiarity with the basics of calibration will likely recognize the purpose for many of the test patterns on the disc. 'Twin Peaks' fans will recognize the Snoqualmie Falls. It's mostly scenery and travelogue footage (with some time lapse) filmed in and around the Seattle area. The disc starts with a 3-minute high-def video montage shot using a RED ONE camera. The 'Spears & Munsil' disc attempts to combine the best attributes of both into one easy-to-use package. Meanwhile, the ' Silicon Optix HQV Benchmark' focuses on measurements for deinterlacing, scaling, and noise reduction. Joe Kane's ' Digital Video Essentials: HD Basics' provides a host of test patterns for setting picture controls such as Brightness, Contrast, Sharpness, and Color. At present, there aren't too many of them available on Blu-ray. Recently, the two men have brought their DVD experience into the Blu-ray realm by producing a new test disc called, simply enough, the 'Spears & Munsil High Definition Benchmark'.Ī good calibration disc is the lynchpin of any home theater. Their invaluable reviews and articles explained the importance of deinterlacing performance in a thorough and accurate manner unmatched by any other publication, whether online or in print. In their time at Secrets, Munsil and Spears instituted a battery of tests that truly set the standard for how DVD hardware should be evaluated. For the benefit of everyone else, Stacey Spears and Don Munsil are former writers for the Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity web site who developed the DVD Benchmark and the Progressive Scan DVD Player Shootout.
Home theater gearheads who frequent the AVSForum boards are no doubt already familiar with the names Spears and Munsil.