Rating: 
Summary: Out-of-date and disappointing
Review: First off, if you want to calibrate your LCD, plasma, LCOS, or DLP TV, do *not* get the Avia Guide DVD. This guide was published in 1999 and about 2/3 of the video calibration tests do not apply to non-CRT TVs (direct view or projection). For example, all the needle and convergence tests are useless for flat panel TVs. A lot of the introductory material is also out of date. Even the two actors look out of date.
Second, despite its reputation, the Avia Guide proved very disappointing to me. I'm a gadget freak, so I already knew most of the ins and outs of home theaters when I bought this from Amazon -- I bought it to calibrate my new LCD TV. So the tutorial section was mostly a waste of time for me -- but again, had the material been updated enough, it would have been more fun. Unfortunately, the presentation is boring, the two actors can put you to sleep, and the navigation is poor.
The navigation gets worse when you get to the calibration part. Only the basic video calibration part (for black level [contrast], white level [brightness], color, hue, and sharpness) has voice-over guidance. Other tests (and there are a lot of them for audio and video) are broken down into groups. Each group has 6-12 tests. On the group menu, each test has two separate entries: description and testing pattern. This is stupid because you'll have to punch your DVD's remote control ad nauseum to pick the test you want. And when you get back to the group menu, the highlight goes back to the first selection, so you'll have to push the arrow buttons 20 times to get to the 10th test pattern! This is absolutely a nightmare.
Also, the tests are not explained clearly. For the basic video tests with voice tutorials, you have to view the tutorial and do the test separately, and what constitutes a "perfect" calibration is never explained clearly. The other tests require you to read through one or more screens of test description. If your TV is less than 30" and you don't have progressive scan, forget about reading the text. It'll just kill your eyes and your interest in this whole process. (Of course, this won't be new to you if you've ever used one of those THX calibration programs on a THX DVD.)
In summary, the Avia Guide DVD is out of date and very user-UNfriendly. In fact, my own first-hand experience as well as online research reveal that most namebrand HDTVs (such as Pioneer [best for plasma], Panasonic, Sharp [best for LCD], Hitachi, Toshiba and Sony) pretty much come well-calibrated. In the end, I really think it's your own eyes and ears that are the ultimate judge of what's good calibration and what's not. Cheerios.
Rating: 
Summary: Avia vs. Video Essentials: No Comparison
Review: Having purchased both discs, I have very strong feelings about this. Avia bests VE in almost every respect:1. Navigation: On VE, the navigation is handled by a very confusing set of menus within menus. On my DVD remote, I could only access one of the menus using a button that I otherwise never use. Until I figured this out, the only way I could skip through the initial (not very useful) audio stuff was to fast forward! Avia's menus work like every other menu I have ever used. No problem with navigation. 2. Color calibration: VE offers only a blue filter. However, Avia provides red, blue, and green filters and allows you set each independently. 3. Sharpness: VE simply tells you to turn your sharpness all the way down. The pattern for setting sharpness is so under explained, it is useless. Avia provides a full explanation and resulted in my setting the sharpness level considerably above zero. 4. Brightness and Contrast settings: VE provides only static bars (and requires that your DVD passes pure black). Avia provides bars that flash. This makes getting proper settings much easier. Also, your DVD doesn't have to pass pure black.
Rating:
Summary: REVIEWERS CREDIBILITY
Review: Hey Marc Evans. How can we take your review seriously when you don't even know the right form of a word to use. It's waste of time not waist of time. At first I thought it was a typo but you made the mistake twice. First learn the english language, then tell us which DVD not to buy.
Rating:
Summary: "A must have"
Review: I am a big home theater tweaker and love to set up systems, program remote controls, and calibrate the sound and video systems, but I was disappointed with this guide. The sound calibration section does not contain anything more useful than the calibration tools already built in all Dolby Digital and DTS receivers. The video calibration is more useful to people with rear projection tvs that need their lenses converged periodically. However, most newer tvs have an auto convergence feature anyway. As mentioned in other reviews, the Star Wars dvds have a simple calibration tool to help you set the contrast and brightness. Videophiles like to scare people into calibrating their displays by spouting off about manufacturers' settings being too bright, too red, etc. That may be true especially with CRT and rear projection tvs, but I have found the factory settings on my LCD front projector to be very close to the calibrated settings obtained with AVIA. AVIA does have some nice explanations of some of the theory behind display deives, but my advice is to find this for free on the Internet and save yourself some money. The easiest and cheapest thing to do is to watch some DVDs with dark scenes and adjust your contrast and brightness to give you the black levels you like while retaining the amount of detail you desire. Look at flesh tones to set the color and tint of the display. That is the easiset, least expensive way to give you a picture that you like.
Rating: 
Summary: overpriced and unnecessary for most
Review: I am a big home theater tweaker and love to set up systems, program remote controls, and calibrate the sound and video systems, but I was disappointed with this guide. The sound calibration section does not contain anything more useful than the calibration tools already built in all Dolby Digital and DTS receivers. The video calibration is more useful to people with rear projection tvs that need their lenses converged periodically. However, most newer tvs have an auto convergence feature anyway. As mentioned in other reviews, the Star Wars dvds have a simple calibration tool to help you set the contrast and brightness. Videophiles like to scare people into calibrating their displays by spouting off about manufacturers' settings being too bright, too red, etc. That may be true especially with CRT and rear projection tvs, but I have found the factory settings on my LCD front projector to be very close to the calibrated settings obtained with AVIA. AVIA does have some nice explanations of some of the theory behind display deives, but my advice is to find this for free on the Internet and save yourself some money. The easiest and cheapest thing to do is to watch some DVDs with dark scenes and adjust your contrast and brightness to give you the black levels you like while retaining the amount of detail you desire. Look at flesh tones to set the color and tint of the display. That is the easiset, least expensive way to give you a picture that you like.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't believe the hype.
Review: I am greatly disappointed with this DVD. Its creators were apparently unable to decide whether it was intended for complete ignoramuses or for professionally licensed video technicians. We can safely say, however, that the target audience is certainly not the intelligent consumer. Consequently, one is alternately forced to sit through some cable-knit-sweater-wearing chump's insultingly horrid discussions of just what constitutes a home theater, followed by either bloatedly pedantic or confusingly brief instructions on how to adjust one's audio and video equipment. Both the onscreen menus and the various tests are very frustrating. I often found myself repeating tracks simply in order to make some sense of just what adjustments I was supposed to be making. As to whether or not all the effort was finally of any benefit, I can definitely say that the picture on my television is different than it used to be--"better" would be too much a leap, however. I haven't tried any of the other a/v adjustment dvds, but they certainly cannot be any worse than this one. Try your luck there, because this one stinks.
Rating: 
Summary: A good primer and guide
Review: I found the set up and instructions to be clear and easy to understand. The tests are workable but not completely intuitive. You need a good eye and a certain amount of patience to properly set your system up with this DVD. That being said, in the end I found that I needed to further adjust a few parameters by eye to suit my own preferences. Not perfect...but a worthwhile product.
Rating:
Summary: Indispensible for adjusting picture on your TV
Review: I have only used the video settings part of this DVD, and they alone are worth the price of admission. I was having trouble adjusting the picture settings on my new Toshiba, particularly with the way the settings interact. Using this disk has the picture looking great (and I can't believe how far I had gotten things misadjusted trying to get the color right before I got this DVD).
Rating:
Summary: A must-own for any home theater enthusiast
Review: I purchased Avia after reading dozens of glowing reviews about its merits. Having used it, I can attest to the benefits of having this DVD in my collection. The tests are laid out in an intuitive manner, with very helpful instructions on how to properly use each test. There's a complete walk-through which takes you through the basic adjustments in very thorough detail. I was shocked to see how out-of-adjustment my television really was, and am happy to say that I enjoy my set a LOT more now that it's tweaked properly.
5 stars for Avia!
Rating:
Summary: Decent, but not for digital TV
Review: I purchased Avia over Video Essentials. I own a Hitachi Ultravision Digital Television driven through a Sony surround sound system. I was concerned with fine-tuning the TV. I ran through the DVD and found the explanations and menus rather simple and easy to follow. Unfortunately, the only aspects of the DVD truly useful with my TV were the color intensity and tint. The settings for these were very close, but I did adjust them a bit. The built-in Magic Focus and what Hitachi refers to as AI (artificial intelligence) color actually do a rather good job at setting the television to optimal performance. The real advantage to the DVD was to motivate me to experiment with the settings of the television ... like turning off Noise Reduction while viewing a DVD and turning of the AI color setting. I'm not sure the DVD was really worth the money, but I am pleased with the final results. However, most of these I could have obtained without the DVD. I did purchase an audiometer to run through the pink noise signals provided on the DVD and made some very minor adjustments. I do not feel my money was wasted, as I will loan the DVD to friends who will be able to make more use of it, as they do not have high-end digital televisions. I cannot vouch for the usefulness of the DVD with lower end tubes, but I suspect it will be very useful.
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