Abt ISCAN VP50 Owner's Manual - page 42
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correctly, black objects should appear ‘black’ with the details still intact and lighter areas should be
‘light’, not gray, with the details still intact. When the contrast is adjusted correctly, white objects will
appear ‘white’ with the details still intact. because the contrast settings can affect brightness settings
we recommend that you check the brightness setting after making this adjustment.
NOTE: If you have a CRT based display, following the instructions above may yield a contrast setting
too high. if the contrast is set too high, you will get blooming and loss of details in the highlighted
areas. It is more helpful to use the two vertical lines in the test pattern. Adjust the contrast up and
down and you will notice that these lines will bend as you increase the contrast. To properly adjust
contrast on a CRT based display, decrease the contrast until the vertical lines start to straighten out.
If possible, the two lines should be straight. On some CRT, the lines may not straighten even if you
turn the contrast to its minimum. if this is the case, slowly increase the contrast to a point just before
the vertical lines have extreme bending. You have now properly set up the contrast of your display.
Continue to set up brightness as detailed above.
The ‘Color8 Bars75’ and ‘Color8 Bars100’ will assist in setting up the saturation (color) and hue (tint)
of your display. The ‘Color8 Bars75’ test pattern consists of 8 vertical bars across the screen at a 75%
saturation level. The ‘Color8 Bars100’ test pattern consists of 8 vertical bars across the screen at a
100% saturation level. From left to right the bars are: white, yellow, cyan, green, magenta, red, blue,
and black. To properly adjust the saturation and hue you will need to use the blue colored filter that
comes with DVD’s like AVIA. You will also need to turn off any automatic flesh tone controls on your
display before making these adjustments. When the saturation and Hue are adjusted correctly, the
white bar and the blue bar should be exactly the same shade when looking through the blue filter.
saturation and hue settings interact with each other so after making this setting you may want to go
back and check that the saturation setting is correct.
The ‘Gray Ramp’ can help verify that your display is showing the gradients between black and white
correctly. You should see a smooth transition between black and white with this test pattern.
SourceCalibration
Test Patterns Used: Half Black/White
H-Clr7 bars75
H-Clr7 bars00
H-Clr8 bars75
H-Clt8 bars00
To get the best performance out of each of your sources you should individually calibrate each input
specifically to the connected source. In this section, all picture control adjustments are made using
the iscan’s picture controls. Keep in mind that if you replace a source with a new component you
will also want to recalibrate the input. To calibrate each source correctly you will need the source
to output a reference test pattern similar to what is built in to the iscan. for sources like dVd, ld
and D-VHS, this content is readily available. But for a source like HD satellite or cable, these test
patterns are played on channels like HDNet at off hours. So if you have a DVR, ABT recommends that
you record these test patterns. The VRSOptimizationandEvaluationDVD will assist in setting up
the input to which your dVd player is connected. abT recommends that you use a digital connec-
tion, DVI or HDMI, or a high quality analog connection, like component video. Don’t use S-Video or
Composite video for a higher quality source like DVD. Before calibrating the input for your DVD player,
make sure that your DVD player is set to ‘16:9’ output, not ‘4:3’. You will also want to turn off any
extraneous features like noise reduction which may add more noise than help. set all picture settings
on the dVd player to either ‘off’, ‘default’, or ‘0’.
use the test patterns included on the VRSOptimizationandEvaluationDVD to adjust the pic-
ture controls on this input. if you are not familiar with how to make these adjustments, abT highly
recommends that you watch the guided setup on a dVd like AVIA or DigitalVideoEssentials first,
and then make each adjustment. Each picture control is explained in depth and the narrative will tell
you what to look for in a properly adjusted display. Once you have made these adjustments, there
are several patterns on the VRSDVD that can be used in conjunction with the built-in test patterns
of the iScan to verify the settings are correct.