Blu-ray Movie Reviews

The HD test disk has been designed to provide a mechanism for comprehensive testing of the main elements of video processing, namely noise reduction, format conversion, and image enhancement. The noise reduction test patterns check the ability of the system under test to reduce analog and digital noise. The format conversion test patterns provide a comprehensive test of the capabilities of the de-interlacing done by the system. The enhancement patterns check for the presence and performance of a variety of leading-edge types of enhancements including detail enhancement, adaptive contrast enhancement, intelligent color remapping, and bit-resolution-expansion. The disk also includes a set of test patterns for calibration of the video settings of the system, as well as a demonstration section and an HD video montage to show the visual impact of high quality video processing.

Marvell has been quite the new entry into the video processing arena. While they don’t have the market popularity of HQV and ABT, their video processing chips have shown they have just as much to offer, and in some cases more. This new test disc provides you with tools to make your own decisions with test clips meant to evaluate the might of your video processing. This includes deinterlacing, noise reduction and detail. Unfortunately I didn’t have a QDEO equipped Blu-ray player on hand to do evaluations with but you’ll find this technology in players from LG and Pioneer Elite. I’m sure I will be able to report more on QDEO in future hardware reviews. This disc does offer some interesting test clips that test some of the higher end features offered by HD video processors today. It also features some basic calibration patterns and demo clips for showing off your HD video display.

Most of this evaluation disc is comprised of various tests that look to be sourced from an HD video camera. The footage varies in quality depending on your video processors prowess, but for the most part the footage looks really nice. You get some footage from the Bay area and Marvell’s headquarters just south. The montage is full of great footage though I think I preferred the montage on the recent Spears and Munsil evaluation disc though I think Stacey Spears also helped out with the creation of this disc as well.

The soundtrack is comprised of mainly studio based backing tracks that have a bit of an elevator music feel. They fit fine for their purpose, but I doubt you’ll be using it for demos.

As I mentioned earlier the disc also features some basic calibration patterns that include clips for setting contrast and brightness as well as color and tint.

The QDEO disc definitely delivers some great test patterns for evaluating your HD video processing. We will probably look into incorporating some of the material into our own testing regiment. I will report back more on this disc when I have the chance to couple it with a QDEO based Blu-ray player. If you want to check this disc out yourself, visit www.clearlyqdeo.com for info.