The Sound & Vision Home Theater Tune-Up TV calibration DVD was produced in the early 2000s by the experts at Sound & Vision magazine. Their goal with the disc was to help instruct and provide tools to accurately calibrate a standard definition television and surround sound system. However, it won’t calibrate an HDTV, and the material seems dated, so it lands in 7th place on our list.

The Sound & Vision Home Theater Tune-Up TV calibration disc is fairly easy to use, and it features a couple who walk you through all the video and audio calibration tools. They keep it simple, so you’re not overwhelmed with all the information.

The TV calibration disc is broken down into separate sections: Home Theater Basics gives you the information on each component like the TV and surround sound system; Installing Your Home Theater has tips on setting up your system; Video Tune-Up houses the picture calibration tools and instructions; and Audio Tune-Up contains the sound tools. Other sections include Operating Your Home Theater and more.

While there is a lot of information to go through, the instructions are simple and straight-forward, as are the explanations, so there isn’t any confusion. Once you become accustomed to how each video test pattern and audio signal works, you’ll be able to go right to the TV calibration tools and skip the explanations.

The Sound & Vision Home Theater Tune-Up DVD has a good number of video calibration tools and test patterns which will help you adjust the color, contrast and brightness, aspect ratio, overscan, sharpness, geometry and more. The overscan setting ensures that you're seeing the whole picture and that none of it is cut off. Adjusting the geometry setting makes it so shapes, such as a basketball or house, look normal.

Audio calibration tools include signals to adjust sound levels, ensure audio is traveling properly around a multi-channel system (like a 5.1 system), subwoofer check and adjustment, and many more.

The Sound & Vision Home Theater Tune-Up DVD was mastered in standard definition (480i and 480p), so it’s perfect for calibrating the picture and sound of an SDTV. We’d love to see the experts at the magazine produce an HD version of their TV calibration disc and deliver it on Blu-ray disc for calibrating HDTV.

If you own an HDTV, a standard definition DVD won’t give you an accurate calibration. The same goes for high definition discs and standard definition televisions. There are too many differences between the two video formats.

If the disc fails, you can have it replaced. We recommend visiting Sound & Vision’s website, where you’ll find reviews of televisions and home theater equipment, a user forum, tips and more. It’s a wealth of information for anyone who has a television or home theater setup.