I have a number of different sources going to my receivers HDMI port and then I send it all to my TV through HDMI. I have DVE HD Basics (Blu-ray version) and imagine that I should just go with the settings that I get from that.

Can I be confident that the settings for my BDP will be pretty good for my other sources (HD cable in particular)? Do people actually change to different TV settings based on the source they are using (that would be a pain).

Thanks.

Yes, it is likely that each source component should have its own settings. In reality, we work with what we are given. There is no way to test a cable box since every channel and every program seems to have its own set of standards. We use pattern generators as the reference. I generally don't like to use players as my reference source unless that is the only thing you plan on watching on your TV since the settings for the player may be completely different than that for your other source components. This is the case for one of my DVD players that has to have a significantly lowered brightness value than the rest of my other source components. The ideal choice is to have basic video controls in each source player (contrast, brightness, color, tint, sharpness) in order to "calibrate" the source to the TV that was calibrated using a pattern generator. If you don't have these controls in your player, and if your receiver isn't capable of storing seperate video settings for each source component (input), then I would leave it out of the equation. The other possibility is to use your modes on your TV if they can store seperate settings and go about it that way. However, keep in mind that you are not correctly setting the grayscale using DVE, so that will still out of alignment.

BTW, do you live in KS?

No, I live in IL.

Thanks for the answers. I think I'm going to just use DVD HD Basics for my Blu-ray player and see how it looks.

Realistically speaking, in an ideal world, if the outputs are correct, being digital, they will all be the same. But that's a tenuous assumption that you should check with test patterns to ensure that each video source is properly maintained at 16-235. If any are different, then you'd have to do per-input settings if you can't rectify that at the source.

I'd like to say that per-input adjustments aren't needed in the digital domain since unit-to unit variance isn't really an issue, but that assumes that each device is handling the levels correctly, which isn't a safe assumption, but I still find it to be true often, though not always, with equipment that is properly setup.

I know this is hardcore obsessing, but if it was crucially important to individually adjust each device but all devices run thru the receiver via HDMI, I would get an HDMI distribution amplifier (Basically just a glorified HDMI splitter). That way you can still take advantage of lets say HD codecs for blu-ray and still get your input specific calibration settings.

I have a yamaha 663 (which clips to 16-235) and thought of the same thing awhile back. I have found that in a perfect world most settings copy over perfectly from HDMI port to HDMI port, but I've been thrown some curve balls that had different white balance settings.

This still doesn't fix my clipping issue of the receiver but all of my sources that require my HDMI ports thru the receiver run at 16-235 anyways.