I feel ignorant for not figuring this out earlier but does anyone feel that the letterbox black bars really help when adjusting your black levels with your brightness setting on your TV? I was messing around with it last night, found a level I was content with and then went back to compare it to my previous adjusted brightness setting and was amazed with the difference it made! Initially the black bars were more like grey and the picture looked a bit washed out and well bright, so toning that done (as well as the backlight) really helps enhance the quality. I guess I never noticed it before because I had nothing to compare it to but now I can never go back to those previous brightness settings because it looks so so much better then before.

i remember when my father bought our first LD player back in the day he always said that the bars are supposed
to be black only, not off at all.

so if you had it gray then it was off and now since it's black they are correct.

but every disc is mastered differently so you will have to do some fine tuning, even if you have a test disc.

Yeah I don't mind tweaking the brightness control for different individual tittles that need it since its really not that hard and can generally be done very quickly from disc to disc.

Yep, they're a good guide for eyeballing black levels. In fact, if your display has a 16:9 and/or underscan mode, you can turn those on and use the borders as an additional reference.

It's what I do on VHS and LD these days, anyway... black levels vary so much especially when it comes to analog video so relying on the PLUGE from one set of color bars isn't going to cut it. Fortunately I have a Sony PVM with a nice set of knobs on the front so these sort of adjustments can be done on the fly.

Does anybody have any other tips for adjusting other picture quality options much like setting up the black levels with the letterbox bars?

I don't have the funds right now to buy any calibration discs (with shipping being crazy expensive over here to send to me), so I'll have to make do with these little optimizing ideas which thus far (with the brightness control) are already making substantial improvement anyway.

Do you have any way of playing video files on your display of choice?

You could always loop up a video file of SMPTE bars and adjust that way. It might be slightly less accurate than using an actual color bar generator and the like, but it'll get you much closer than what most people view on a daily basis.

Umm, well I do have a Panasonic upconverting DVD player and XBox 360 hooked up to the same HD TV display that my Laserdisc player is connected to. I do know that both those machines can read and play music, picture and video files either via USB or by disc. So if there is a way I can some how load up a video file of the SMPTE bars you speak of that way (stored on a USB stick or blank disc) then I guess it could be possible. However I'm just not sure how or where to get these SMPTE bars. Would you be able to please help me out with that?

I've always used the ones provided here.

I personally play back the NTSC version via my soft-modded Wii for chroma and phase adjustments, while I adjusted contrast to match my computer display for consistency. For brightness, I just eyeball it as-needed.

Hope that helps.

well, some discs have the color bars at the end of the disc, so you could use that.
but then other people on the forum will say to never use them as you should only use video essentials.

each film that is released is under their own color bars so then you will set it to video essentials
and then have to tweek it anyway.

i don't have a video essentials yet, i had the DVD but was told that you can't set the TV to the DVD
for LD playback

so i think personally that you have to set the black levels and then tweek the colors to a mid ground
with some type of color bar pattern and then tweek from there.

Thanks for the link but the download instructions claim you need Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere Pro, Vegas Pro, Avid, etc to open them, and I don't have any of those sort of programs/software.

It also specifies that the colour bars are for CRT Monitors and I am using a LCD TV for Laserdisc.

Is there any listings that specify which Laserdisc releases include the colour bars at the end?

i don't think so, but i am pretty positive that my widescreen big trouble in little china has it? i know it has surround checking at the end.

some criterion releases have it.
i think even the USA release of Zardoz has it also, but i can't remember right now.

I don't have any of that software and have no problem playing them back... they're just .mov files.

Most Criterion LDs have color bars at the end, some AnimeEigo releases have them, too. I'm not too trustworthy on bars displayed via analog video but it's something.

If you've imported any Criterion DVDs or BDs they all have color bars, as well.

yes, but a few mentioned that you can only use the format color bars.
i.e. LD with LD colorbars or DVD with DVD colorbars
so that you get the correct settings as they are different.

I'm also using the balck bars to adjust picture; but I've been known to change it every channel or movie.

My Criterion "sex,lies,and videotape" claimed it had color bars and a few other calibration goodies "at the end of side 5 chapter 51)".

All my player does I say "end". There's not even a chapter 51. I went frame by frame at the end...nothing.

Probably a misprint.

Thank you.

Some TV-sets also come with various preinstalled picturemodes to select from, depending on what you would like. Even I thought the color was a bit grey but I toggled "movie-mode" on my Wega-Trinitron tube and the color turned darker, a little bit. Thats is one way of changing the gamma without tampering with the settings

Yeah wery, my 32" LCD comes with a few pre-programmed picture modes as well. Standard, mild and vivid options, however for playing back DVDs, playing video games, watching stuff on regular TV or watching Laserdiscs on my LCD all on their own individual inputs, I just use the fully adjustment user mode.