Go Forth and Calibrate.

Who likes to play games and watch movies in shiny HD resolutions? Of course you do, look at what you're reading. And anyone that's ever messed with the settings has probably wondered what they're "supposed" to be set to. There are several ways to attempt and line the settings up to how the source material is meant to look. These range from "eyeballing it" to hiring a certified Imaging Science Foundation (ISF) tech to come hook up all kinds of gadgets to your TV and professionally calibrate it...for around $400.

The option most people take, assuming they take any, to attempt some kind of "pro" calibration is an optimization disk. This, itself, has quite a range of options to it as well. A few basic test patterns can be found on many DVD or blu-ray movies. The more dedicated can buy discs specifically intended for testing accuracy of colors, black levels, sharpness, tint, light levels and a number of other things. Calibrating an HDTV this way was limited for quite some time, as standard definition DVDs do not have the same range of colors and other, little(*ding* sarcasm detected *ding*), things as high definition video content.

Recently, Digital Video Essentials updated their offering to an HD version on Blu-ray. Other companies like Monster (most commonly known for grossly overpriced A/V cables) and even Disney threw down their own version of HDTV optimizer discs.
These discs will all do a fairly accurate job of giving you settings that will really make your TV's capabilities, and advantages of HD content, apparent to you. If you don't want to buy a disc just to get the settings on your TV at optimum, you can always rent it. Yes, Netflix has that. Or, you can get one for (mostly) free.

The answer to that "really?" that just popped in to your heads is the AVS HD 709 software. It's an open project that not only allows you to download free software for optimizing your HDTV, but also allows you to burn it to a regular dvd. And let's face it, if you have a blu-ray burner, you can afford to have a pro hook up your baby like it's going into the Matrix.

Yeah, that just happened.

The key to this disc is that there's not really anything about Blu-rays, other than their storage capacity, that allows you to have HD movies on them. And since an optimization disc is a just a few minutes of mostly static patterns, there are ways to get appropriate HD content on a regular old DVD disc for HD display calibration. The catch is that you lose out on some of the more advanced features, (pop-up menus mostly) a couple of the more optional test patterns and the disc will only work in certain Blu-ray players. But there is a list of working Blu-ray players included on the same page as the various downloadable formats of the software.

There are three different version of the AVS disc in total. One for burning to Blu-ray, one for burning to DVD to be played on a Blu-ray player, and one for burning to DVD to be played on certain DVD players. Yes, the 360 and PS3 work for their respective media formats. Exhale.
There is also extensive instruction on the site regarding which format you should use, how to burn it to the media of choice and issues you may encounter with certain layer/format combinations. I recommend downloading the manual as well. Not only does the explain the why and how of each test pattern on the disc, with excellent detail on what your trying to do with that pattern, it has useful links throughout the PDF document. These include direct links to resalers of the optional color filters.

The THX glasses may seem like the way to go, being only $1.99. But the shipping always seems to be $8-$15 so that price quickly goes up to the point where it's better to just buy one of the discs that includes a filter. Plus, it only contains the blue filter for the basic test. I recommend the more "expensive" option. A $4.99 pack that has blue, red and green filters with shipping around $2. These are the same filters often used in filming, so they're absolutely adequate for you to optimize your TV settings. You'll honestly be quite pleased with the results even if you don't get any filters, but it is definitely an available option.

On the disc you will come to a menu with several options. The ones you're really interested in are the Basic Settings and Misc. Settings. The HD Nation video is also quite helpful as it will explain to you that basics of how to use the test patterns on the disc. This is not a substitue for reading the manual however.

In Basic Settings you will find some basic test patterns for setting black level, (usually Brightness on your TV's settings) white level, (contrast or picture) scaling, sharpness and color. The color test pattern actually requires a blue filter to use properly, but you can get an idea of what all the colors look like and if you can pick out the individual shades.

The Misc. Settings menu will give you more test patterns to check out the same thing. here you really need to check out the manual though, as some patterns are intended specifically for Plasma, LCD or CRT, etc. Here is where order the filter three pack really shows its advantage over the THX blue glasses. In the Misc Settings menu there is a pattern for adjusting all of the colors and tints of your display. If you TV has the options available (typically under Advanced or Expert or some other heading) you can really fine tune each individual color your display outputs. I'll say it one more time, read the manual.

Personally, I like the semi-DIY route for HDTV calibration. You're the one that's going to be watching it all the time, after all. Whatever you do, you'll find yourself much happier with the results of a "properly" calibrated TV. At least when watching movies.

Games are a different matter. Games don't have the same universal standards for color and light depth, which is why you so often find a brightness, or similar, control prominent in the options menu. Some games even ask you to set this before playing. This will often lead to games looking far to dark when played on settings that have been calibrated for movie playback. There are a few ways around this.

The first is to utilize presets, as most modern sets have several presets that can be altered however you like. These are usually called standard, normal, cinema, movie, game, sport, vivid, etc. You should have the same set of adjustment options available to adjust for each of these settings. Use your calibration disc to calibrate everything the way you want it for normal TV and movie viewing. Once you're done, apply those same settings to whatever "mode" you want to use for games (Game is generally a good one) and pop in a couple games that you know have a brightness setup that uses one of those "increase until you can barely see the image" patterns. Now adjust the brightness setting on your set until you can just barely see the applicable image. Average this number out across multiple titles. Even Dead Space 2 seemed to take a lot more adjustment to make visible than Dead Space 1 did, so try a couple. This way, whatever your playing you should be at a black level that's just barely visible for the darkest parts of most games and can fine tune it from the game's settings if you need to. The other way is to find a middle ground between the movie black level and game black level and live with it. If you manage to have a set that works perfectly for both on the same settings well...aren't you special.

However you go about it, in the end you should find that your set is living up to its full potential of HD quality. And to make this a truly sweet deal, you did it for the cost of a couple minutes and a blank DVD. Big thank you to the people over on AVS forum that put this software, and accompanying instructions, together.

Bulletstorm: Everything Old is New Again...Maybe

Ahhh Bulletstorm, from unknown, to potential sleeper hit to regular guest star on Cliffy B's Twitter feed, the game's momentum just seems to keep growing. My enthusiasm, on the other hand, maxes out at "curious" at best. While the game does seem to have the potential for some serious fun, I have some issues with the "kill with skill" combat system at the core of most of the hype that ranges from serious potential for fun-killing repetitiveness to the fact that it's not as original as the parties involved would like you to think.

Full Story (360)
Full Story (PC)
Full Story (PS3)

Beyond Good & Evil HD. It's Not a 2, But I'll Take It.

The good folks over at Joystiq have posted a trailer for the forthcoming LIVE and PSN HD re-release of (sorely underappreciated) cult hit Beyond Good & Evil. Since I played the original on PC, the addition of HD resolutions means little to me, but I can get excited about anything that encourages new gamers to discover this little gem and possibly renew interest in a sequel. Now if only someone could post a release date...

Pleased to Meet You, Hope You Guessed my Name

There's an interesting editorial over at IGN about whether or not Activision is the most evil company in the world. While a lot if it is pointless fluff (comparisons to Pfizer, BP, Halliburton etc.) there are some good points in the latter part of the article. There's also the irony of an IGN article tackling such a subject in an editorial. You know, IGN, a company with a notorious reputation for giving overly favorable reviews to games or movies that pay hefty prices for advertising on their site. Yeah, those guys.

As much as I love using IGN as a resource, since they've got all kinds of tentacles in every bit of the world of video games, the bigger they gotten (I've been following them since they were Imagine Games Network) the more of their integrity seemed to be for sale, and the less professional some of the writing seemed to get.

Hey! We can get away with a lack of professionalism in our writing here, it's a blog. So there.

I digress.

I'm not going to get too much into the IGN article, you can follow the link and read it for yourself if you're interested, instead I'm going to give my take on the question of just how full Activision's evil-o-meter is. Since I've already stated that I worked at Activision recently, you are free to grab your grain of salt and hang on to it for everything that follows, but keep in mind I am still a gamer, and I still love Tim Schafer. Onward.

The biggest issue with thinking of Activision is evil is thinking of it as a singular entity, rather than a company made up of people. To say Activision is evil is to say that every employee of Activision is evil (or bad or crooked or greedy or whatever else the general gaming population associates with Activision) which is simply not the case. The people I worked with in the QA department were some of the nicest, coolest people I've ever had the privilage of working with. This includes the Senior testers, Project Leads - you know, the general boss types - and not just my fellow testers. So already the idea that everyone at Activision is out to trick gamers into paying as much as they can for whatever crap Activision poops out should be busted. There's more to it than that, however.

Actvision is just the publisher, they're "the money." They don't have as much influence over the actual games as many people seem to think. Activision provides the funds to pay the salaries of the people that do makes the games (Infinity Ward, Treyarch, RoboModo, etc.) as well as take care of advertising and actually getting those games on shelves. Any issue you have with the game itself falls on the name of whatever developer you find sharing space with Activision on the back of the box.

This reputation of being "evil" didn't materialize from nowhere, however, so there must be some merit to it, right? Scooping up Red Octane and the Guitar Hero name while kicking the company that created the franchise, Harmonix, to the curb is a move that can only be described as douchetastic. A similar descriptor could be applied to leapfrogging developers on the Call of Duty franchise in order to release series entries on an annual schedule. A move that almost certainly led to the infighting and implosions that affected Infinity Ward. What about kicking Double Fine to the same curb as Harmonix, then attempting to sue EA for the rights to Brutal Legend once it looked like there was some serious buzz about it? Douchetastic to the max. But, who is responsible for all these actions really? Individuals. More specifically, businessmen.

Businessmen trying to maximize profits for themselves and for shareholders. These people are not interested in whether or not their company's game does something new, or "pushes the envelope" or if the game's audience thinks it was a real improvement over the previous incarnation. They're only interested in whether or not people buy it and, so long as people continue to buy Call of Duty and other such games in record numbers, there's no reason to change the way things are going. But this is the struggle that has existed between publishers, developers and gamers since almost the inception of the video game industry. Gamers want some new experience, some significant improvement, developers want to push the limits of their ability and publishers simply want as large a return on their investment as possible. Do the higher-ups at Activision employ some of the more dastardly methods in order to accomplish that goal? Absolutely. But a few years ago the same thing was being said about EA, who is now considered the "good witch" to Activision's wicked witch. Which means some of you need to consider the fact that I'm trying to work in a good Wicked analogy here.

All this talk of how Activision is a publisher and as such is run by businessmen, rather than gamers, can't be complete without mentioning the man every gamer looks upon as Satan's earthly minion: Bobby Kotick. While the level of direct involvement Kotick had in some of the more dubious actions I've mentioned is something I can't comment on with any kind of accuracy, the man's reputation in the public leaves little doubt about how his company came to be considered "evil." Let's review some of his more recent appearances in the news: Lost a lawsuit levied against him by a law firm because he never paid them for providing defense in a sexual harassment suit that he also lost. A suit which was birthed from the "company" he and five friends created to manage their private jet in order to get tax write-offs for the use of said jet. Doesn't exactly create a warm and/or fuzzy feeling in regards to the man. But this kind of behavior isn't exclusive to Activision, the video game industry or even businessmen. Isn't one of the reasons we have "class warfare" and an arguably malfunctioning economy due to CEOs, VPs and the like preferring to dissolve entire buildings full of people that live from paycheck to paycheck rather than forfeit the profits that allow them to drive two Bentley's and have a "summer home" on an island whose name takes practice to pronounce properly?

When it comes down to it, Activision isn't really evil. It's simply a publisher run by a businessman displaying some of the most despicable traits associated with both. I'm sure if the public was able to dig deep enough they'd find there were people besides Kotick responsible for some of the most offensive decisions the company has made. Maybe not. So perhaps there are individuals in charge that could easily fall into the definition of "evil" but their actions are representative of only themselves, not the entire company. The worst thing I can think to accuse Activision, as a company, (rather than specific individuals) of is laziness. Rather than take the huge profits created by their biggest franchises and use them to branch out into new, potentially groundbreaking and risky IPs, the people in charge of the company simply rests on their laurels; assured that the next Call of Duty game or World of Warcraft expansion will buy Kotick another jet.

Should this change, and Activisions starts using those profits to take risks, birth new franchises or simply allow adequate development time on current franchises to create a truly "new" incarnation (again, much like the about-face EA did not too long ago) gamers will simply find another company to paint the evil target on. Because that's just the nature of video games, and I'm as guilty of it as anyone else.