Ultimate DVD: Platinum

Officially Endorsed by HomeTheaterInfo

You’ve just spent a small fortune on your new home theater. You have everything all set up. The cables are all connected. What seems like miles of wire are spread around your living room. You spouse has left to visit her mother feed up with your constant tinkering, as you desperately attempt to get the settings ‘just right’. How do you know that all those knobs, dials and controls are properly set for the best performance? You need a calibration disc. I have tried numerous calibration discs but now I have finally found one that is not only made specifically for a DVD oriented home theater but one that will test every aspect of your video and audio systems. Ultimate DVD: Platinum from Unapix is the paramount member of a three-disc family that provides the best demonstration of your system. Unlike the less two discs, the platinum disc is a two-disc set. The first disc is the calibration and set up disc. I have used single disc calibration DVDs that cost twice what this two-disc set costs that does not do half of what platinum can do. The main menu is rather simple. There are four main options; set up audio, set up video, demonstrate audio and demonstrate video. For the two audio options you get another menu that permits you to select the audio mode of your system. This means that if you have a PCM audio now you can still use this disc and as you upgrade to Dolby or DTS six channel the platinum disc will still be there to make sure your system is working up to the highest standards. The audio selections presented are PCM, Stereo, Dolby Prologic, Surround, Dolby 5.1 and DTS. The audio tests are comprehensive. They go far beyond the usual ‘the tone is in the front right speaker…. The tone is in the rear left speaker….’. You get tests that even include diagnosis of the noise floor (volume level you start to hear noise) and polarity tests that match not just the front speaker pair but also the rear, center and all combinations. The sub woofer is treated separately with its own set of tests and calibrations so the effects speaker will roar out those explosions without sounding like its ripping apart.

The video tests are just as comprehensive as the audio ones. Like other calibration discs the set includes a transparent blue film strip to help calibrate the color settings. The usual tests for brightness, contrast, hue, etc. are there but they are greatly augmented by a variety of tests that will fine tune your TV set to the best you can get. One word of caution, almost all TVs come out of the box grossly misconfigured. After you are done with the video calibrations you may think the TV is too ‘dark’. Resist the temptation to brighten it up. TVs are set too bright. After a couple of days (a week at the most, I promise) you will notice details that you never could see before. What is the sense to the ultra detailed video of the DVD is you are washing it out at the TV stage?

While there are several tests on the calibration disc, the really way to show off your newly calibrated home theater is the actual platinum disc itself. This disc will run through all standard features of your DVD. There is a head to head comparison of Dolby 5.1 and DTS, a high-resolution 96/24 audio track demo, multiple aspect ration test, multi-angle viewing, and even DVD-ROM installation and calibration suites. Unlike dull test tones, this disc has real flair in system demonstration. You get some cuts done by great musicians, explosions (from the studio’s Explosions disc ‘What a Blast) and just about everything you need to make the neighbors green with jealousy over your home theater.

Without this disc you are not getting everything you paid for with your system. This is another hit from Unapix Entertainment.