Spears & Munsil UHD HDR Benchmark (UHD Blu-ray Disc)

Having been calibrating displays for myself, family, friends and others for many years, this is a great update for the new technology of Ultra High Definition. The test patterns are much better than on the old disc I used for SD & HD displays since 1999 and I can highly recommend it. Just by going to the spears & Munsil website, you can find any instructions you may need to understand how to use the disc to it's full potential. I would say that this is an essential purchase if you intend to set up your own TV's & UHD Blu-ray Disc players, without needing to pay for a professional calibration service. Also, with Amazon Prime & this seller I received the disc within 24 hours and what could be better than that?

Very detailed display calibration. The menus are not exactly the most user-friendly. But that is sort of incidental. The test patterns are the important thing here. And they work extremely well indeed. The results they produce are just astonishing. I was worried when other reviewers said there were no instructions, but the previous version (on Blu-ray) does give test pattern instructions. I was more concerned that the blue filter lenses, to optimise the colour/tint values were not included. They were included in the Blu-ray version, but not this 4K one. So you need both. The Blu-ray (1080p HD) optimiser for the blue filter and the instructions, and this disc to optimise your 4K tv. I think my display is now as good as it shall ever get. This is on a 50inch LCD 4K (2160p) with High Dynamic Range. Even then, it requires both patience and practice, but with a little effort it yields amazing results in picture performance. The most useful tool for me has allowed me to perfectly adjust the audio/visual sync settings, so that I finally get perfect lip sync. I found that altering the sync setting on the Blu-ray player gave a more accurate result than using the Soundbar settings. Having sound and picture out-of-sync can be very distracting. There are a series of short clips to use as a test reel. A video slideshow of snowy Yellowstone, which provide good examples for a bright, clear, sharp, precise and very detailed image. I used a few film scenes for testing. The opening of Bladerunner, and bits of Star Trek. I had forgotten how irritating the lens flare is, but the overall picture was better than had ever seen it before. I have deducted one star, because the menus are not helpful and the overall instructions are just missing. Make sure you buy the Blu-ray one as well as this 4K disc, and the result will be great. So....it’s expensive, but it’s worth it for a home Cinema purist. And honestly, only a purist would consider getting something like this. Honestly, I believe my home Cinema setup is now as good as it will ever get, without spending a GREAT DEAL of money upgrading my hardware, all over again.

This test disk is a specialist product, much of what it provides is for designers rather than consumers. However, the documentation on spearsandmunsil.com is good, notably their 'Getting Started' guide and much of the content is fascinating. The disk will help you check/compare/improve the settings of a UHD (4K) display/TV and avoid some poor choices. It's not for the faint-hearted but is a delight for those with an interest in the technology; the test footage will let everyone admire the quality of a new screen. Top Tip: Many (all?) TVs still come with overscan set to 'on' by default. This addresses an ancient problem that digital TVs/sources simply don't have. Turn it off for a crisper image and to see the edges of your picture. If you buy the test disc, it will show you exactly what you're losing!

This is a mixed bag - there are good points and bad points. This is an ideal purchase if you are a professional calibrator and have the equipment you need to calibrate TV's. However, if you want something so that you can just get a good picture on your TV, this may be a waste of money. There are a lot of pattern generators on this disc which only a professional would need, and know, how to use. It doesn't come with ANY instructions on how is the best to use the disc. If you want to know these you have to go to the Spears & Munsil website and look at the guide on how to use it to achieve the best picture on your TV. Neither does it include a blue filter (though if you are a Samsung or LG owner, this filter may be built into your TV settings options) which you need to get get the correct colour & tint settings. This disc can only be used on a 4K blu-ray player, not just a normal blu-ray player. If you are a keen AV enthusiast, you will probably be more akin on how to use some of the generators on the disc, but really if you just want to set your TV up to get a good picture there are cheaper (and some free) options for you. On some blu-rays, you may find the THX Optimiser. This is easy to use and comes with instructions on how to use, you still have to send for the blue filter, but it doesn't cost very much. I have used this in the past and always had very good results. There is something called "AVSHD 709" which you can download and burn it to a DVD or Blu-ray. There is also an online tutorial (You Tube) on how to use it. Just search for AVS HD 709

Any Home theatre enthusiast (and professional) already has this. If you're not there yet, buy it and start a marvelous learning journey. Your eyes will thank you.

This is going to come off as snooty, but just reading through the other reviews here, it's obvious that there are some people who just should not be buying *any* test or calibration disc. They're just never going to see the difference, and despite explanations both right here on this page and elsewhere, they will likely never understand what calibration is really for (nor do they care to). If this describes you, then just ignore this and all other calibration aids and move along. Enjoy your TV set as is - you don't need this disc. But if you either already have an understanding that calibration is about getting the most *accurate* picture possible - not the "best" picture, because what is "best"? - or you're at least open to trying it out, then a good calibration disc is the *least* you can do for your TV set. Once your TV is properly calibrated, then the picture quality bottleneck will move to the content itself and how well it was shot, color balanced and encoded. And you'll be able to judge individual movies and shows you see on the merits of *their* picture quality, without wondering if your TV or some setting you messed up is the problem. But well-produced Blu-Ray discs, especially - ones that were produced with the same attempt at meeting reference standards as you're giving your TV - will look *amazing*. (This is assuming your TV *can* be well calibrated, of course! But this disc will help you determine that too.) I own the older Video Essentials DVD, which I understand has been barely updated for Blu-Ray. I've read about the Disney WOW disc but came away with the impression that it was basically a showcase for Disney film clips with a few test patterns thrown in. So I bought this, and I'm glad I did. It's about as no-nonsense as it gets. It's almost nothing *but* HD-optimized test patterns and the basic text instructions to go with them to set up your TV (for tests where SD and HD setups would require different patterns, both are provided). A basic 5 minute demo video of landscape scenes is provided so you can check your settings on actual content that's been well-encoded and properly color balanced. That's pretty much it. There are no long-winded explanations about the history of television, and no film clips that basically just serve as ads. With this disc, you're just going to get down and dirty with your TV settings, and that's the whole point, isn't it? It is true, like some reviewers have said, that there's not much you can do about how your TV displays some of these patterns. However, that's still important information. Most people will be (initially) using this disc on a new TV that's still within its return period, and if your new set utterly fails some of the more difficult test patterns, maybe you'd think about returning it for a different model. Luckily, most new TV's will pass all of the tests, and as a new TV owner, I'd think you'd want to know that too. If your TV can display all the test patterns properly, then it can be calibrated properly too. There are many provided patterns that you *can* make adjustments with. I was able to properly set up my color, contrast, brightness, sharpness (which for most TV's should be zero!), and overscan with this disc - all settings that were way off on my Panasonic TCP50ST50 before I bought the disc. Some issues you can't easily see with the naked eye on regular content, but they're there, and while you may not consciously notice them, they reduce picture quality and can even increase eye strain. For example, the pixel orbiter on my TV, which is used to reduce the effects of image retention, was causing not just overscan (which I knew), but a bit of extra edge enhancement (over-sharpening) as well, probably due to the scaling of the picture. As soon as I turned the pixel orbiter off, the overscan test pattern looked perfect, and the edge enhancement went away. I would never have realized that without this disc, but I would have (and did) perceived that subtle over-sharpening as a harshness in the picture, without knowing what was causing it. Because there's no added cruft, you can wiz through this disc in about 45 minutes, even with making changes to your settings. And it's very easy to go back and re-check settings later too, once your TV is broken in or aged (TV's do get dimmer and color shift over time). I was amazed at the demo video after running through all the patterns... smooth and accurate is the only way to describe it. Viewing regular content is more mixed, as you would expect. Not everything on cable looks very good. Some things are biased towards green, some towards red, some shows themselves are over-sharpened, some overly compressed, some just shot with really junky video cameras not much better than a home camcorder. But anything that doesn't look good on my set now, I know is the content itself and not my TV. Most Blu-Ray discs look *amazing*, as do most newer HD films and dramatic shows on Netflix (some of those are 1080p, and they're shot and processed well). I highly recommend this disc as a quick, cheap alternative to a real ISF calibration. This won't get you quite to that level, but it'll get you pretty close, for a lot less money.

鑑賞するようなコンテンツではありません。キャリブレーションや評価で使用するには使いやすいです。完全に、プロ用です。

questa nuova versione di Spears & Munsil in 4K è veramente ben fatta. Con un pò di pazienza si possono ottenere risultati molto soddisfacenti. Consigliato assolutamente.

Diese Disc hat alles was man braucht. Man kann einige einstellung nach Auge vornehmen man kann die Performance des Gerätest testen. Diese Disc hat aber über die standard Testpattern hinaus einen ganz entscheidenden Vorteil. Man kann Fehler erkennen und einordnen, woher soll man schon wissen dieser Fehler oder jener Vorliegt wenn man so einen Fehler noch nie gesehen hat, Hier kann man die fehler sehen und erkennt ob das eigene Gerät diesen Fehler hat oder nicht. Ich habe diese disc geordert obwohl ich schon eine vielzahl an testdisc besitze aber diese ist unschlagbar und das einzige was man benötigt.