Rating: 
Summary: If you care about video you MUST have this!
Review: Ignore the people who poo-pooed this title. If you've ever chased your brightness, contrast or hue adjustments all over the place, this DVD will put an end to it. It will show you how to adjust your TV so that it is CORRECT. Period. If you care about that, then you have to get Video Essentials (or rent it if you must).
Rating:
Summary: Well worth the price of admission
Review: In a word, WOW! What a difference it made to my system. Well done and very informative. If you care at all about the audio and video quality of the movies you watch, get this...now!
Rating:
Summary: A brilliant masterpiece
Review: It was amazing. I laughed, I cried, truly one of the best DVDs I own. It is the cornerstone of my collection. The writing and acting are top-notch. I expect to see it clean up at the Academy Awards.
Rating:
Summary: The Reference Calibration Disc
Review: Joe Kane's Video Essentials is widely viewed as the definitive reference disc for home theater calibration. It explains many of the necessary technical details of your home theater system, then provides tests to allow you to optimize both the audio and video sections, and explains to you why you are making these adjustments. Overall its very helpful, particularly if you take your home theater system seriously.A drawback is the relatively high price. If you are an enthusiast you should consider purchasing this disc and a SPL meter. If you enjoy home theater more casually, then simply renting this DVD would be a more cost effective way to go.
Rating: 
Summary: BUY THIS THING!
Review: Made all the difference for our 65" wide-screen Mitsubishi TV. We had a tech come out and try to improve our picture, and he accomplished nothing. This DVD made things fantastic in no time at all!
Rating: 
Summary: Did very little at enhancing my home theatre setup
Review: Maybe because my theatre system had all the bells and whistles and didn't need to be tweaked.
Rating: 
Summary: Good tool but too expensive
Review: Some love it and some hate it. I'm somewhat inbetween. The first part "Audio Setup" does nothing more than help you to connect the wires correctly and adjust the channel levels. I think everyone with a basic understanding is able to do this without this DVD. I expected some more help in finding the correct location for speakers and listener in the room (distance from wall, distance from listener, etc.). But besides a note to try different spots for placing the sub-woofer(s), not one word is spent about this topic. From my point of view, this part is absolutely worthless and could be reduced to a few words on a piece of paper. The "Video Section" is somewhat different. It offers some good reference pictures and explanations to correctly set brightness, contrast, sharpness, tint and color. After going trough all steps, the picture of my TV set really did look a lot better ! But here also I expected some more in depth insight. Summa summarum: It's a really good tool to improove the image quality of your set. But the price is way to high ! $10.- would be a fair price.
Rating:
Summary: Good tool but too expensive
Review: Some love it and some hate it. I'm somewhat inbetween. The first part "Audio Setup" does nothing more than help you to connect the wires correctly and adjust the channel levels. I think everyone with a basic understanding is able to do this without this DVD. I expected some more help in finding the correct location for speakers and listener in the room (distance from wall, distance from listener, etc.). But besides a note to try different spots for placing the sub-woofer(s), not one word is spent about this topic. From my point of view, this part is absolutely worthless and could be reduced to a few words on a piece of paper. The "Video Section" is somewhat different. It offers some good reference pictures and explanations to correctly set brightness, contrast, sharpness, tint and color. After going trough all steps, the picture of my TV set really did look a lot better ! But here also I expected some more in depth insight. Summa summarum: It's a really good tool to improove the image quality of your set. But the price is way to high ! $10.- would be a fair price.
Rating:
Summary: Video Essentials is certainly essential...
Review: The video and audio tweaks allowed by use of this DVD and some good sense can impart an incredible amount of improvement to any set up. It did for mine. A nice addition to have is an audio level meter like that found at Radio Shack.
Rating:
Summary: Good video tests, inadequate audio tests
Review: The video calibration section is this DVD's strength. The explanations of the roles of brightness, contrast, sharpness, color, and tint, together with steps of how to adjust them to get the most proper picture, are great. Also a blue filter is included for use with the color test patterns (but no green or red ones). Still, the program scarcely mentions certain video issues such as grey scales, picture convergence and trigonometry, and only says they need to be handled by professional technicians. Also, there are many clips of what look like real TV programs scattering throughout the disc that are supposedly for you to test your display, but we are never really told what to do with them other than just "eye-balling" them and see if they look right after you made your video adjustments. The audio calibration section not only doesn't tell me anything new, it doesn't tell me nearly close to what I (or most people) already know. It merely comprises of a brief "tour" of surround system, a superficial segment that essentially just reminds you to check your connections, a segment on checking polarity of the center speaker, and separate segments containing pink noises for testing each speaker, which is something most people already have built into their receivers. There is absolutely not a word on important issues like acoustics of the room, speaker placements, cabling, or what type of speakers to use. I sincerely hope the disc maker would release an improved edition of the disc that has expanded coverage on audio. But I would hate to pay a higher price for it since it is already at a premium.
| 
