Many of use have read the Josh Zyber article that says the biggest improvement you can make in your LD quality on new TV tech is a proper calibration. The Video Essentials LaserDisc is essential in achieving this goal. However the contrast pattern is designed for CRT tech, and not for current tech. In the article Josh gives some very vague instructions on how to calibrate contrast. He says "Lower your Contrast so that whites still look pure white, but fixed pattern noise doesn't jump out at you." I personally haven't found this very easy to do. I never really know exactly where my contrast should be, or exactly what I'm looking for. I have used the SMPTE color bars because more noise is apparent in the color bars to turn it down. This has worked okay for me. Does anybody have some suggestions on how to really get contrast nailed down on current tech?

The first thing is go to the pulge pattern. It has an area with below black next to black next to just above black. Adjust the brightness so you cannot see the below black, it will be equal to the black, and you can also just see the above black. Could be interesting with LCD or LED area darkening TV's so you may just have to adjust to where you just start to see the above black bar. Then go to the gray scale step pattern and adjust the contrast so that you see each step getting brighter. Once the brightest steps stop getting whiter together the the lower starts to equal the higher step you have gone to far. This is the maximum contrast you want to have. You can now adjust it lower it that pleases you but don't go higher unless you don't care you loose top end brightness.