Originally posted by chuft
Can someone tell me what the story is with banding on these TVs?

I have a VGA splitter that I use to send a video signal from my computer to both a 17" Samsung LCD flat-panel TFT monitor next to my La-Z-Boy chair, and also across the room to my 50" HLN5065.



I've had the same thing on my HLN617w. At first I thought it was D* compression artifacts but then I started noticing it on lots of OTA HD broadcasts so I figured it was probably something else. I've been trying to spend some time tweaking the set (such that I'm capable of) to see if I can mitigate it, but it's getting really annoying- especially on SD when anyone who has a bit of glare on their face or any sharply contrasted color shows it up very plainly.

A gamma curve calibration apparently clears up most of these banding issues on Samsung DLPs.

Originally posted by jb33
I may be confusing the issue but I think its 64 colors. 8 bit color space...

DVI and tweaks here do seem to mitigate it some but you wont match the lcd performance.
It's actually 8 bit per prime color to a total of 24 bit, hence around 16 millions colors (16,777,216).

so yeah, I was confusing it. but why doesn't it look like 16 million colors. watch a sceen from finding nemo and the ocean makes it look closer to 8 shades of blue!

Anyone get their set professionally ISF calibrated in the Westchester, NY area? Looking for recommendations. Checked the ISF website but so far most will not do ISF unless they are designing your whole system. I have a HLN467W.

Thanks:)

Originally posted by jimmy5pennies
Anyone get their set professionally ISF calibrated in the Westchester, NY area? Looking for recommendations. Checked the ISF website but so far most will not do ISF unless they are designing your whole system. I have a HLN467W.

Thanks:)

I'm using Kevin Miller for my HLP. He's in the tri-state area. Website is isftv.com. He was highly recommended by a friend. I'm sure he goes to Westchester.

You can also check with Eliab @ www.avical.com (http://www.avical.com)
He's located in NJ and has a lot of experience with calibrating DLPs

ouch, that can get pricey quick if you need more than one input done.

Originally posted by xortam
A gamma curve calibration apparently clears up most of these banding issues on Samsung DLPs.

Well that struck a cord. I'd restored all my original color gain/offset settings and sub-contrast/sub-brightness after trying some suggested values on this thread (from k2ue if I recall) but I'd left the gamma at 4. So I set that back to 0 and reduced by brightness a bit in the user menu and it was a lot better. Probably half the noticeable banding as before and highly contrasted faces looked a lot better but not perfect.

However, on certain things- especially bright reds and blues, you can still see it. Some of the uniforms folks were wearing in the Olympics coverage I was watching that were mostly red turned into blocky, banded, psychedelic light shows. I may give it a bit more tweaking myself when I can borrow the DVE DVD from my co-worker again.

Can someone explain to me, succinctly in laymen's terms what the difference between the gain and offset settings are for a given color? That might help me a bit with this. How about what exactly sub-contrast/sub-brightness are and how they differ from normal brightness/contrast? Is there anything other than the color gain/offsets, sub-ct/sub-br, and gamma that typically gets tweaked when you're trying to tune one of these sets? The only local guy I got a response from quoted me $450 to calibrate one scan rate/HDTV resolution. It was then between $100-200 for each additional "scan rate". That just seems too high.

Don't worry- I've got all my original settings safely recorded for all inputs so I can get back to "out of the box" in the worse case.

During the Olympic's diving meets the motion artifacts was really bad, at normal speed. If I get a good calibration will this help remove some of the distortion?

Samsung HLN467W
Comcast Scientific Atlantic Model 3250
Gefen DVI 4x1 switch

Were you watching it on your local NBC station in HD, on DirecTV in HD, or on some semblance of coverage in SD?

Regs,
Jeff

There seem to be different required gamma settings for different models.

I have noticed the banding as well. I have a HLN4365W. I've adjusted the colors and everything, but should my gamma be at 4 or 0?

Originally posted by Iceblade
Were you watching it on your local NBC station in HD, on DirecTV in HD, or on some semblance of coverage in SD?

Regs,
Jeff

I was watching my local NBC OTA broadcast (via an HR10-250 attached on DVI, if it matters). I haven't seen that much degradation on D*'s 84 but I've stuck with the OTA version. There was one guy in the discus last night who had red shorts. It looked like it was being rendered as basically two different shades of red with the boundary fluctuating has he moved. Very bad. And this wasn't fast motion causing artifacts, this was when he was just getting ready for his throw and walking around.

In general, every ISF cal I have seen results of to date on the HLM/HLN series of DLP sets has opted for Gamma 0 across all inputs. Hope that helps.

Regs,
Jeff

Thanks for the info. Followup question. Is your local NBC affiliate using multicasting? i.e. let's say that your HD broadcast station is on 2-1. Is there a 2-2 and/or 2-3 playing at the same time? That's the case here in Houston and the artifacting, macroblocking and dithering issues are too many to mention. It's dreadful. DirecTV's feed is MUCH better. If you are a victim of multicasting on your OTA feed, this could account for some of the video PQ issues you are seeing. If not, it could be a few different things... obviously the source component could be at fault or the DLP itself. With DVI, you have pretty much assured yourself that you are using the best quality input on the DLP. That leads us down the road to "garbage in, garbage out". i.e. if your source component is causing unwanted PQ degradation vs. the actual feed from NBC being crappy to begin with. Is there any way for you to A-B test either another HD source component with the same OTA feed, or watch the DirecTV version via the same source and note any differences? This may help rule out a source vs. broadcast issue.

Regs,
Jeff


Originally posted by mercurial
I was watching my local NBC OTA broadcast (via an HR10-250 attached on DVI, if it matters). I haven't seen that much degradation on D*'s 84 but I've stuck with the OTA version. There was one guy in the discus last night who had red shorts. It looked like it was being rendered as basically two different shades of red with the boundary fluctuating has he moved. Very bad. And this wasn't fast motion causing artifacts, this was when he was just getting ready for his throw and walking around.

Originally posted by Iceblade
Thanks for the info. Followup question. <<SNIP>>

Regs,
Jeff

No multicasting. It's WRC-DT here in DC.

I don't think it's the channel. I notice the same thing on other OTA stations and D* channels (ESPNH, DSHD, HDN, HDNM, HOBH, SHOH, PPVH, etc.).

So far as an A-B comparison, I did notice it some when I had the SIR-TS160 but we didn't watch that much HD due to our addiction to TiVo. But I sold that to subsidize the HR10-250 so I can't do an A-B compare right now. It could be the source, but I don't think it's wholly the HR10-250's fault either.

I will say that sometimes when watching SD material, it looks better via the SAT-T60 connected on S-video than the HR10-250 on DVI so I think the properties of the DVI input may be exacerbating it. (But you can still see some banding in SD material on the T60.) I've thought about hooking the HR10-250 up via component cables to see if there was any noticeable difference, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

EDIT:

Also, I mispoke, my original Gamma setting was 4. I had changed it to 0 then back to 4 after restoring my original setting afterall. When I changed it recently, I changed it back to 0 which was the setting I picked up from k2ue's post- not the original value of 4.

Did that make sense? :)

Originally posted by mercurial
The only local guy I got a response from quoted me $450 to calibrate one scan rate/HDTV resolution. It was then between $100-200 for each additional "scan rate". That just seems too high.
That is too high. I believe the ISF rate for a DLP calibration is $275 + $100 for each additional input.

Originally posted by lvhjr
During the Olympic's diving meets the motion artifacts was really bad, at normal speed.

Try watching water polo. The blocking on the water due to the wave action is so bad it'll make you cross-eyed. I think this is a source issue though, not a display issue.

merc,

Yeah, I think I followed what you were saying. :)

So, reading some of the other responses, it sounds like the broadcast source is somewhat circumspect with regards to what they are sending out. I'm still a big 720p over 1080i advocate as far as high motion stuff like sports goes... so I would say that NBC's choice to go 1080i might be one small factor. That being said, I'm not sure what bitrate they are currently sending the feed out at from "the home office". It could be that they are using something less than optimal at the behest of local stations like Houston NBC which ARE multicasting. I just don't know if my local station is taking a good feed from the home office, compressing things even more, and then multicasting that signal with the SD and Doppler Radar feeds or what.

It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on the component output aspect of PQ vs. your current DVI. FWIW, the amount of vid processing in your set is at it's minimum when using the DVI vs. any one of the other inputs. This can be verified somewhat well by looking at the block diagrams in the Service Manual for the sets.

Let us know if you get a chance to observe another set of inputs from your HD-TIVO.

Later,
Jeff

I wonder if it is beign compressed more than usual in order to broadcast/transmit it to the US from Greece. I noticed this too - still shots look fine, but the swimming events get all blocky (like a low-bit / high-compression rate) when the water is splashing a lot.

And thanks for the Gamma setting advice, Iceblade/Jeff. I think mine is at 4, so I'll try 0. I think I remember seeing something about certain models being best at 4, while others need to be at 0 or something.

I didn't see motion artifacts in the diving. When was the water polo on? I've been recording the Olympics off of ATSC (MyHD card) and the video path is DVI-D onto a 23" WUXGA LCD. I'll try to hunt for the water polo footage but an airing time would help.

Suffice to say motion artifacting is something we deal with and is inherent in today's HD technology. Of course source, input and interlaced vs progressive are factors but there are not many if any options inside your TV itself to combat this problem. I have yet to read a service menu tweak to help motion artifacting

The question is are the artifacts due to the encoding or is some of it due to the inadequate decoding. You can process your video before it gets to the display and then feed it a native signal so you don't have to rely on the TV's inferior scaling/de-interlacing logic (assuming you can do a better job than the TV).

During the Comcast HDNBC broadcast of the diving competition the artifact made the divers appear as blocks as they descended with the camera following them to the water. Just before they entered the water it stopped. The replays in slower motion were clear.

Originally posted by Sea Ray
Suffice to say motion artifacting is something we deal with and is inherent in today's HD technology. Of course source, input and interlaced vs progressive are factors but there are not many if any options inside your TV itself to combat this problem. I have yet to read a service menu tweak to help motion artifacting

I still assert it isn't (at least not wholly) motion artifacts. I've seen that quite clearly (to me it usually looks a little blurry due to all the "microblocking" that tends to go on) but I don't think guy standing still and taking off his sweats is high motion! Also, I've seen it a lot on shots from every OTA and D* HD station. (It's really bad in underwater shots where you can get some odd purple bands). I'll keep tweaking (maybe a run through DVE will make a difference) and see. If not, maybe I can find a cheaper local ISF guy.

Originally posted by Iceblade
merc,

Yeah, I think I followed what you were saying. :)

<<SNIP>>

It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on the component output aspect of PQ vs. your current DVI. FWIW, the amount of vid processing in your set is at it's minimum when using the DVI vs. any one of the other inputs. This can be verified somewhat well by looking at the block diagrams in the Service Manual for the sets.



Yeah, I'll let you know. My wife is due with our second child in a couple of weeks. Hopefully, I can borrow the DVE DVD from my cooworker and get a chance to try that and the component hook-up while I'm off from work and have a few days. Of course my eyes may not be able to focus as good during that period as they usually do due to the sleep deprivation... :D

The most I saw was during the swimming races last week, with the splashign water by each swimmer, especially on close-ups.

I just attributed it to compression and live with it.

Originally posted by xortam
[B]...When was the water polo on? I've been recording the Olympics off of ATSC (MyHD card) and the video path is DVI-D onto a 23" WUXGA LCD....

I'm not sure the Water Polo made it to HD, but you see the same affect on SD (channel 4) Water Polo as the HD Swimming, only the Water Polo looks even worse.

The entire field of splashing/wavy water looks like a fish net had been strung over it. I suspect it's because the image frame has such high detail over the whole frame that the compression just can't keep up...

I guess the PQ goes along with the crappy piecemeal coverage....

Originally posted by lvhjr
During the Comcast HDNBC broadcast ... 'Nuff said. Comcast is re-encoding the source and over-compressing the signal.

Originally posted by jb510
I'm not sure the Water Polo made it to HD, but you see the same affect on SD (channel 4) Water Polo as the HD Swimming, only the Water Polo looks even worse. ... I question the signal source. The OTA NBC HD coverage has been very good from what I've seen.

P.S. SD signals fed to an HD display are being upconverted and de-interlaced by the STB or TV or some sort of external processor. The quality of that conversion is suspect and the Samsung DLPs don't have a good reputation in that regard.

For my HLN4365W, the Gamma 4 setting works best. I adjusted the S_BR (DDP) and S_CT (DDP) settings for DNIe (main color settings page), and got the brightness and contrast where I like them.

There are also different NR settings, so you can turn the Digital NR up or down (DNIe page, 4th from bottom or right side).

Originally posted by cyberbri
For my HLN4365W, the Gamma 4 setting works best. I adjusted the S_BR (DDP) and S_CT (DDP) settings for DNIe (main color settings page), and got the brightness and contrast where I like them.

There are also different NR settings, so you can turn the Digital NR up or down (DNIe page, 4th from bottom or right side).

What is digital NR? Noise reduction? Adjusts how soft the picture is?

Yes, if turned on, it filters out noise. Once you're into the Service Menu, you can change inputs the same way, and test out on different inputs (different TV stations, different DVDs, etc.) and get up close to see which NR setting you like. Before you do so, you might go through the inputs to see which are default to ON only (can't turn off), and which can be turned on/off.

IIRC, there are 4 settings, with an adjustable value.

Currently watching the Colts/Pats game on my HLN5065W. I'm noticing on the scoreboard where it shows the quarter and the time remaining is pretty fuzzy/blurry. The larger text/picture looks okay but as the text gets smaller it doesn't look so hot. Has anyone experienced this before?

The blurry scoreboard has to do with how ABC is presenting it. Yes, it looks a little "digitalized" just like their flag arrows have jagged edges on them...it all comes from ABC. Your set is fine. You're seeing what we all saw 'cause that's how it came from the source (ABC)

I took the plunge this week and got an HLN507W1. So far I'm loving it except for the small delay while playing video games. I'm going to buy the HD pack for my Xbox and I have heard that this will help with the delay. Question for other Xboxers: I was told to disable 480i when I get the HD pack but I do not see an option to do that. Does that option only show up once you have the HD pack? Also Does the Gamecube support wide-screen 480p.

I have gone through DVE but I have not made any changes in the SM. I'm still ready up on what does what in the service menu and looking through this thread to see what others have changed. Using DVE I noticed that in the red push area the TV preforms pretty good but notice that it had quite a bit of green push. Have others been successful at reducing G push in the SM?

I have one last question concerning progressive DVD players. I know that a lot of people say to turn the progressive mode off and let the TV do the work. Well I have played with it on both settings and I swear that (at least for me) the picture quality looks better with progressive mode turned on. I was just wondering if I'm alone in that or are there others who prefer to have their DVD player in progressive mode. Just so you know I'm using a Sony DVP-S9000ES connect with a component cable.

I love these forums and everyone here has been extremely helpful on many occasions. I love my new DLP TV and I would be in heaven if I could get rid of the delay when playing video games (mostly Xbox).

Originally posted by rolltide1017
I took the plunge this week and got an HLN507W1. So far I'm loving it except for the small delay while playing video games. I'm going to buy the HD pack for my Xbox and I have heard that this will help with the delay. Question for other Xboxers: I was told to disable 480i when I get the HD pack but I do not see an option to do that. Does that option only show up once you have the HD pack? Also Does the Gamecube support wide-screen 480p.

The options for selecting 480i/480p/720p/1080i don't show up until the HD pack in plugged in. Since the dash board is 480i only, unless you set is a newer one that supports all the modes on the component inputs, you'll have to swap the cable to a different input to do the initial setup and then back for HD game play. But you won't be able to see the dashboard or any 480i only games. I solved this by keeping an S-video cable plugged into the TV. Then I just have to switch which is plugged into the Xbox. Since I only bring the Xbox up to play on the "big set" occasionally, it really isn't too bad for me.


I have one last question concerning progressive DVD players. I know that a lot of people say to turn the progressive mode off and let the TV do the work. Well I have played with it on both settings and I swear that (at least for me) the picture quality looks better with progressive mode turned on. I was just wondering if I'm alone in that or are there others who prefer to have their DVD player in progressive mode. Just so you know I'm using a Sony DVP-S9000ES connect with a component cable.


I have a Sony progressive scan player as well and I think the same thing. Doesn't make since to me as the scaler in the TV should be much better than that in a 3-year old sub-$300 player but that's what looks better to me.

I borrowed a coworker's DVE disk so when I'm home after our new baby comes, I'll probably spend some time tweaking with that.


I love these forums and everyone here has been extremely helpful on many occasions. I love my new DLP TV and I would be in heaven if I could get rid of the delay when playing video games (mostly Xbox).

What delay are you talking about? I haven't noticed any but then again I don't do THAT much gaming on my HLN617w....?

He has the W1 model, so all of his component inputs should support ALL input resolutions 480i->1080i.

As for the delay, alot of us with the W and W1 and even the new HLP versions experience a clear delay between the video and the audio. Basically the video is lagging the audio because it takes so long to do all the video processing. Some people have no discernible lag... some have HUGE amounts, some have none and some just have it intermittently. There is an ENORMOUS thread on this issue. Samsung put out a new chassis called the "Malibu" chassis to try to combat this lag. They now allow you to set an audio delay to one of three levels in the service menu of the set. This will ONLY affect the sound coming out of your sets speakers though. If you use an external sound processor/receiver/whatever, this won't help you. Samsung is doing it's best to help people out who have this issue. I myself got all the guts swapped out with new W1 Malibu internals. The sync issue is still there, but not as bad. The internal reflection issue is gone. The blacks are a little blacker. Since I had mine done, Samsung has scaled back the amount of stuff they swap out to just the digital board instead of all the guts.

Here's the link to the monster thread:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=295677

Hope that helps,
Jeff

Originally posted by Iceblade
As for the delay, alot of us with the W and W1 and even the new HLP versions experience a clear delay between the video and the audio.

I've seen that issue before but I thought it was only DVI connections that had that problem. All I can say is mine is run through a separate receiver and I've never noticed any (and I'm a bit picky about that). Seems very odd that it would vary so much- I mean, this is fairly deterministic hardware, you should get the same results every time. Wierd...

Not sure where you heard that it was the DVI that was plagued with the issue. The DVI input has the LEAST amount of processing done to it and is the one input that seems to have very little if any lag problems associated with it.

I agree, it's a real PIA of a problem since it doesn't exhibit itself the exact same way on any two people's sets. I've seen the issue on various tv's... some of which had upwards of 200ms worth of delay... it was UNWATCHABLE.

Later,
Jeff

The delay also can vary immensely depending on which station you're watching. For that reason I think most of this is not determined by the set. Personally mine is fine with DVDs but some stations are horrible. No rhyme or reason as to which ones. It varies. Some are HD, some are SD and some are analog.

Luckily I generally use my "older" HLN for sports and in that case the lip synch has to really be screwed up to make a difference...

You can also get your Xbox Dashboard in 480p with an Xbox Live update. You don't even have to be subscribed to Xbox Live.

Just hook your Xbox up to a network connection, and then put in a game that's Xbox Live compatible. Try to log in to Xbox Live, and it will take you to the Dashboard to sign up for a new account - but before doing so, it will download an update for the Dashboard.

Once you have the update, make sure 480p is enabled, and from the main screen of the Dashboard, press and hold at the exact same time the L/R triggers (shoulder buttons) and the L3/R3 (press analog sticks in).

I am on an HLN, so my Component 2/3 don't accept 480i. I could never see the Dashboard without switching to a composite cable and plugging it in to the front of the TV. But with my screen blank, I tried this, and ta-daa, the dashboard came up (in 480p).


And the only lag I've ever noticed on my set (HLN4365W, purchased about 6 months ago or so) is that the PIP screen is a second or split-second behind, if you have them both going on the same TV/cable input.

I just got a HLP6163 and am using a Denon 1910 DVD player through the DVI input. Using Avia, I see on the convergence patterns that there is some shift of the reds on the crosshatch pattern. Is there an adjustment in the service menu for this? I wouldn't think that there would be any convergence issues with a DLP because all colors go through the same color wheel.


BTW, I tried looking through this thread --but 53 pages?!! I'm glad to see the thread exists, though, and will poke around in the service menu. I previously had a Mits 65" since 1999, and had it ISF'd and self-tweaked to get the most out of it. I wasn't expecting I had to do much with the Samsung, however, but, as always, you always find something that catches your eye...
:)

Originally posted by Darrel Johansen
I just got a HLP6163 and am using a Denon 1910 DVD player through the DVI input. Using Avia, I see on the convergence patterns that there is some shift of the reds on the crosshatch pattern. Is there an adjustment in the service menu for this? I wouldn't think that there would be any convergence issues with a DLP because all colors go through the same color wheel.


A "shift in the reds" --- it sounds very odd. Try using PATT_SEL (pattern select) under DNIe in the Samsung service menu (MUTE-1-8-2-POWER to enter). Toggle from the default value of 0 up through the about 16 test patterns generated by the Sammy itself. While there's no crosshatch (at least, not on my HLN617W) there is a pattern with white rectangles on black that ought to show the same problem. (Or, try some of the related test patterns.) If there's anything that looks like a convergence error, something is very likely wrong with your HLP6163. But if the error goes away, you can probably blame the Denon.

Do you get the problem via any of the analog interfaces from the DVD player to the TV?

If the Denon is at fault, but only on DVI, maybe there are settings in its menu that will help ... ??? Maybe the upscaling it is doing is somehow amiss???

I had been using ffdsow's Overlay adjustments to compensate for a dark picture through my VGA input on my HLN4365W. But I dl'ed the pdfs for ISF, where you write down all your default and post-cal settings.

As I was doing it, I realized that you can adjust the DNIe settings per input (I had adjusted them for DVI / cable, and thought those settings would carry over to all other inputs). So I adjusted mainly the DNIe Br and CT (brightness to 247, from 240). I used the THX video setup on Monsters Inc., and brought brightness up until I could see the THX, and back down until all the dots disappeared from the BG and it was pure black. Then I checked the convergence/greyscale/color screen (after tint) and got a good picture there.

Then I watched Passion of the Christ last night, and although part of it is probably watching it upcaled on HTPC to 1920x1080, but that DVD has amazing PQ (very sharp - nearHD quality). With my SM brightness adjustment, major noise was gone and there was no banding (colors blended together great, no visible color steps).

I was very happy after watching the movie, and popped in my test DVD, Matrix Reloaded (Chapter 3 - Upgrades) to see how much dark/shadow detail I saw in Neo's coat when he comes upstairs - it looke great, better than on the regular DVD player, which I had used as my reference for how much detail I should be getting.

Boy, am I even more happier with my set now.

Watched the International CES show in HD on local KRON(?) in HD, which shows partial HDNET programming -- I'm very happy with my set, but in 4-5 years hopefully I'll be getting a 50-60" plasma or projector or something. I know RP CRTs have a great picture, but I don't want a 300 pound TV to move around.

I have only had my HLN for a week now and when I got home from work today my wife said that when she turned the TV on everything was green. She turned it off and then back on again and everything was fine. Is this something I should worry about? Is this a known problem and if it happens some more is there a fix for it? Any help, please. I just hope I did get a defective TV.

Thanks

Just a guess, I'd say the color wheel was stuck. If it happens again, have it looked at.

What input was this happening on?

I've seen the DVI input go green/purple (on Comcast/Motorola)

Originally posted by cyberbri
As I was doing it, I realized that you can adjust the DNIe settings per input (I had adjusted them for DVI / cable, and thought those settings would carry over to all other inputs). So I adjusted mainly the DNIe Br and CT (brightness to 247, from 240). I used the THX video setup on Monsters Inc., and brought brightness up until I could see the THX, and back down until all the dots disappeared from the BG and it was pure black. Then I checked the convergence/greyscale/color screen (after tint) and got a good picture there.

Then I watched Passion of the Christ last night, and although part of it is probably watching it upcaled on HTPC to 1920x1080, but that DVD has amazing PQ (very sharp - nearHD quality). With my SM brightness adjustment, major noise was gone and there was no banding (colors blended together great, no visible color steps).



hello.. ive created a gradient jpg that shows color banding on my set, especially in the greyscale, reds, and blues.. if you don't see it in your set, coul you reconfirm your SM settings?

The greyscale looks fine on my set - no banding.

I'm not sure how the blue and red are supposed to look, but...

In the blue bar, just above about 1/2 way down, I see some lines (when I get close), which move down/spread out as I lower the contrast in my user menu.
In the red bar, I see a tiny amount of banding if I get closer than 4' to the TV.
I could probably use a bit of minor tweaking in my rgb SM settings, but unfortunately the SM patterns don't have any gradations other than the b-w...


EDIT:
Is the red supposed to get lighter towards the bottom of that? In the red all I see is black/red at the top and the rest is almost all the same to the bottom, just more saturated -- even though the blue gets lighter(more white) near the bottom.

I tried to go into the SM and see if I could calibrate to match the blue here, but I couldn't find anything that worked. I can't see anything from my couch/seating area anyway, so I just set it back to my default settings. I could spend all day and all night tweaking, find other stuff to try and tweak/match to, and spend more time on it.

My calibrations aren't perfect, but they're much, much better than before...

Originally posted by cyberbri
What input was this happening on?

I've seen the DVI input go green/purple (on Comcast/Motorola)


It happened on the S-video 1 input.

S-Video coming from what? A cable box? What provider, what kind of box?

Like I said, I've seen it happen with the DVI, but it may happen with the S-Video as well. As long as you can turn off the box and get rid of it, you're okay. Sometimes you may need to switch the input on the TV to something else, things like that. Hopefully it was just a one-time glitch, though.

Hopefully it was just a one-time glitch, though.

I hope so too.

It was a Samsung DirecTV w/ Tivo box. I'm not sure what model number (I'm at work right now). No problems this morning with the TV so I'll keep my fingers crossed. I'm not that worried b/c I have a great 5 year warranty plan from Sound Advice. Cover everything except the lamp and floods. The guy at the store said that even if lightning strikes the TV they will fix it or replace it. So if it is a problem with the set I know that I can get it fixed. I just wanted to find out if this problem was common. Thanks for the help.

Originally posted by cyberbri
The greyscale looks fine on my set - no banding.

I'm not sure how the blue and red are supposed to look, but...

In the blue bar, just above about 1/2 way down, I see some lines (when I get close), which move down/spread out as I lower the contrast in my user menu.
In the red bar, I see a tiny amount of banding if I get closer than 4' to the TV.
I could probably use a bit of minor tweaking in my rgb SM settings, but unfortunately the SM patterns don't have any gradations other than the b-w...


My calibrations aren't perfect, but they're much, much better than before...

Everything should look smooth in the gradient bars.. bu im getting solid banding on the grey scale too.

Could you repost and summarize your final SM tweaks and user settings?

Just got a new Samsung 61" HLN617W. Trying to upgrade from my Sony 40XBR800. This is my first non-direct view set, so I am still optimizing it. I am having to upgrade my sources to make the screen look better. The Samsung is not bright enough in the daytime when watching DVDs but is bright enough on the cable input during the day. It's a little puzzling. I am using the component input for DVD.

I want to upgrade my DVD player, which worked fine on the 40" Sony. How much better will a progressive-scan player be? How much difference will DVI make? What about the new Samsung HD941? Will the scale up make a difference? The player has Faroudja DCDi technology, but since the monitor has that, is it unnecessary?

I am surprised and disappointed that there is no audio output from the 617W that uses the volume control on the TV. I have whole house audio and never use the speakers on the TV. On the Sony, I could disable the speakers but still control the volume to my receiver using the TV remote. I ordered a universal remote last night to solve this problem. It just seems lame that the Samsung wouldn't have a volume modulated audio output.

I am upgrading to digital cable and HD (arrives Tuesday). The standard cable looked fine on the Sony, but is fuzzy on the Samsung. I don't know if it just the size difference. It seems like the tuner is better on the Sony.

Any comments?

Thanks

Originally posted by SeattleDesi
Everything should look smooth in the gradient bars.. bu im getting solid banding on the grey scale too.

Could you repost and summarize your final SM tweaks and user settings?

I'll give you my SM settings for my VGA input, but this is just for my HTPC, video card, setup, light engine, viewing distance, etc. etc. Your mileage will most definitely vary...

This is with Gamma set to 1 in the DDP1010 menu.

JAGADC PC input - All 3 gains at 180, and all 3 offsets at 24.

For the DNIe settings on the VGA input, here are the main ones:
R_Gain 127
G_Gain 118
B_Gain 114
R_Offset 128
G_Offset 120
B_Offset 130

S_BR (DDP) 250
S_CT (DDP) 105

Check the PATT_SEL to see the greyscale patterns at the end.


Note that the brightness setting is adjusted in a pitch black room, meaning that watching dark movies during the day means I would need to boost Brightness in the user menu from 50 to about 65-70 to see the detail. We get a ton of light in the room, and I need the boost in Brightness even with all the blinds closed. It doesn't matter too much, though, since I don't watch any dark movies until about 9-10 at night, having to put the kids to bed first. Sometimes I have to boost the brightness when playing video games though, if there are a lot of dark scenes.

In my User Menu for VGA, I have Contrast at 100, Brightness at 50, Sharpness at 0, and Color at 50.

The way I got my Brightness setting of 250 was to use the THX shadow screen in the THX calibration of Monsters Inc, finding where the noise disappears from the black, but I can still see the THX logo well (this totally disappears during the day). Since my HTPC DVD player severely crushes the blacks in the images, in Zoom Player / ffdshow I have the FFDSHOW Levels Output set to 18 to make sure I'm getting all the blacks from the image. If I turn the SM DNIe menu brightness way up, and turn the Output to 0, the below-black areas disappear. But they come back and I can see them among the bright grey when I turn Output Levels to 16-18.

Use that as a base, if you want. The AVS Forum here is a good place to adjust for colors as well (viewing pages while in the SM), as you have white and different shades of grey. Try to keep the greys grey with no color pushes visible.


I use the same DNIe color settings for DVI (cable), but have a Brigthness of 238 rather than 250. This is for lack of a better way to adjust that input, but I found that at 238, the noise disappears from the black side/top/bottom bars on the screen.

I had also noticed that the PIP window always looked different (greener, darker than main image) when watching cable over DVI and viewing the PIP window through S-Video. But since I was just in the SM now getting those settings for you, I went to the S-video input, changed the DNIe color settings to what's listed above, and brought up the Brightness from about 230 to about 240, brought the contrast to 105, and now the PIP window looks great, just like the main window.

This means that the DNIe menu settings affect the actual input, and then they are affected again by the User Menu settings on the input being watched when put in PIP, including the DNIe on/off. And I don't have any idea why, except that it may be because I changed the DNIe menu color settings to the same thing, but I used to notice a .5-1.5 second delay between the main DVI picture and the PIP picture -- the PIP used to be slightly behind. But just now, changing the S-video settings like that, now there is no delay and the images are perfectly timed.


HTH.

Was looking at buying a replacement lamp just to have for backup. Which is better the Toshiba or Phillips lamp? Is there really any difference?

Thanks

I am having dish network installed tomorrow i really would like it if someone who has it can answer some questions for me. If anyone wants to help me out please PM me.

Thanks

Originally posted by rolltide1017
Was looking at buying a replacement lamp just to have for backup. Which is better the Toshiba or Phillips lamp? Is there really any difference?

Thanks

I could be wrong, but I don't think you have a choice. You need the right lamp for your set, or you'd have to change the ballast as well.

Yeah. I think the part number or whatever should be on the left side of your TV, near the place you install the bulb.

Just found this great site for calibrating your display, for free:
http://www.displaycalibration.com/

Originally posted by cyberbri (July)
I was tweaking my SM adjustments last night, trying to get the color down right, when I noticed in one of the menus this:

SLR -> Off (default)

I tried turning it on, and on HD signals I noticed really bright whites getting just a little bit brighter. Does anyone know what this is and/or what it does?


BTW, I have the HLN4365W.

Thanks

Found my own answer, and thought I'd share it.

When I found this SLR option, I turned it on and left it that way.


In the past few months I have been doing a lot of tweaking to my Service Menu, especially for VGA (HTPC). I had good results, but no matter what I did, there was always an annoying fuzzy blue line between pure white and the next step - viewing TV (like INHD logo screens) or the greyscale patterns in Pattern_Sel in the DNIe menu.

Last night I tried turning it off, and it disappeared! Boy, I thought my picture was good before. Now my greyscale gradations are perfect (Pattern_Sel patterns), and on my VGA-HTPC I have (what seem like) perfect gradations with the Phillips Pattern Generator (http://www.mooneyass.com/testpatterns/) - I can see 95% and 5% in the grey bars, from my couch, and all the other gradations are perfect as well (in optimum, nighttime settings, how I watch movies).

The SLR must turn on super-whites or something. It's set to OFF by default, so leave it off.

If anyone else had noticed that, hopefully this post will help.

Anyway, that fixed my biggest remaining concern for my tweaks, so hopefully I'm good to go for sure this time. :)

Another great site I found, with a ton of info on calibrating and more:
http://www.keohi.com/keohihdtv/experttips/panelofexperts.html

The good news is I finally had a guy out to ISF calbrate my set. The bad news is, I apparently need to get Samsung to pay a service call.

I was showing him an HD channel with the issue I was calling banding (he called it solarization) and he immediately said, "That's not good." He said it looked like a video processing problem. When he hooked up the pattern generator, all the gray scale patterns had many "breaks" and was not gray, there were shades of pastel in it.

I dashed off an email to Samsung to see about a service call, but does anyone know if this is a known problem or have any idea what may be going on? The better I can narrow it down for them before they come out, the better chance I think I have at getting a good resolution.

Thoughts?

I thought that was what a pro calibrator was for - adjusting color levels and br/ct to get rid of that kind of stuff...

Originally posted by cyberbri
I thought that was what a pro calibrator was for - adjusting color levels and br/ct to get rid of that kind of stuff...

I think when a gray scale test pattern has colors in it, that isn't a calibration issue. What he said makes sense to me, but I've been wrong before.

If the greyscale has colors in it, you adjust the r/g/b gains and offsets to balance it out.

When a set has a red or a green "push," that means there is a red or green tinge or tint to the picture, and you can see this in the grayscale. If there are colors in the grayscale, then that will produce a tint. A calibrator should be able to adjust the rgb offsets and gains to balance this, get rid of the colors, and produce a 6500K color temperature (slightly red, I think). The calibrator is there, in fact, to give you a 6500K color temp. That is what the colors are all about.

(somebody correct me if I'm wrong).

Ok.. I dashed off a note to the calibrator and hopefully he'll re-explain it better so it will make more sense what he saw and why it is a set issue. The guy was recommended from this site and has references from other A/V sites so I don't *think* he was taking me for a ride.

I sure hope it wasn't Josh Lehman (a.k.a. DocDVD). He's sure taking me for a ride. Took my money, never calibrated my TV, and now he won't return my e-mail messages!

Edit: In December of last year, DocDVD calibrated my TV over the phone. The process was fairly painless, and the TV looks pretty darn good. In fact, I haven't made any changes to it since. Thanks DocDVD.

Originally posted by mercurial


I dashed off an email to Samsung to see about a service call, but does anyone know if this is a known problem or have any idea what may be going on? The better I can narrow it down for them before they come out, the better chance I think I have at getting a good resolution.

Thoughts?

Hopefully, the service department doesn't see this as voiding the warranty.
Becareful what you say to them!

Originally posted by johnevo
I sure hope it wasn't Josh Lehman (a.k.a. DocDVD). He's sure taking me for a ride. Took my money, never calibrated my TV, and now he won't return my e-mail messages!

No, it wasn't.

Originally posted by Fedreams
Hopefully, the service department doesn't see this as voiding the warranty.
Becareful what you say to them!

Good catch. I'd assume ISF trained technicians would be allowed to calibrate sets but then again, I can honestly say nothing was changed in the service menu... Or I could just say he never calibrated the set... Service menu? What's a service menu? ;)

Originally posted by mercurial
Good catch. I'd assume ISF trained technicians would be allowed to calibrate sets but then again, I can honestly say nothing was changed in the service menu... Or I could just say he never calibrated the set... Service menu? What's a service menu? ;)

Samsung makes the service manual readily available for purchase, and their own DLP brochure states the DLPs can be calibrated & provides the URL for imagingscience.com.

Well good to know that Samsung is progressive about ISF calibration. I've asked the guy that did it to help me explain it better. I know he was booked up with jobs this week, so hopefully he'll get back to me soon. So far as him calibrating it to the correct color temperature, he had a pattern generator and a color analyzer with him. I'm pretty sure if it was just a matter or correcting the color values in the service menu, he'd have fixed it.

I'll try to explain the issues better. It is quite hard to describe and I've been told many times that it was issues with the source, but assuming this guy is right, I think that can be ruled out. The solarization (that I had called banding before) is so bad that on some programs, most of a person's face (the brighter part) may be entirely one color. An HD underwater or sunset shot may show the water/sky as being made up of 3-4 bands of solid color. When things fade in and out, it is rarely smooth and colors may jump several shades rapidly.

When looking at the gray-scale ramp (being generated at both 720p and 1080i via DVI), it was not a smooth transition from pure black to white. There were several "breaks" in it. In other words going left to right, it looks like this: dark lighter lighter light dark lighter lighter light dark and so on. The light bars are shades of pastel but not the same they're blue, green, pink, purple, etc. If you adjust the contrast in the user menu, you can find spots where going one notch up or down will cause the spots where the "breaks" occur to shift quite a bit and the colors to fluctuate.

His thought was that some bits of color information were getting lost in the video processing reducing the range. Based on the way paint programs work with the soloarization effect (and the fact that once he said it, that sprung to mind) it seems plausible. I would think that would be a firmware bug but I guess it is possible that it is a hardware failure. I know that I didn't seem to notice it at first but seemed to see it more and more after I'd been watching HD programs for a while. So I'm not sure if it's been there all along and it took a while for me to notice the problems or if it was something that occurred more recently.

I did do some SM changes on my own but was quite meticulous about writing down the original values for everything and restoring them. I suppose it is possible (though I think unlikely) that I accidentally bumped something I didn't mean to when I was in there. Just in case, does anyone have a list of ALL the SM values from all the menus for their set written down I could have a look at? I know some things vary from set to set, but I assume that anything outside the normal color gain/offset and sub-contrast/brightness is pretty standard. Worth a look to be sure but I don't think this is the problem.

The reply from the ISF tech was:


The RGB gains and cuts won't fix the color issues in your gray scale. If the gains and cuts were the problem, a gray scale pattern would start out the wrong color, and generally remain that way from one gray step to the next. In your case, you have one "gray" bar that's pink, and the next one is green, and the next one is blue, and that's because of this bizarre digital error that's in the signal processing chain in the set.

I'm not saying he's wrong or anything, but I've been able to get rid of and accidentally add that kind of stuff. It's just a matter of trial and error, getting the balance right to get rid of the colors. I don't know how "bad" yours is, though (do you have/can you get a picture?)

Some inputs have settings in more than one spot, but adjusting the gains/offsets I've been able to do pretty well. Offsets affect the amount of color in the dark areas (raise all three to increase overall amount of light in darks), and Gains affect the amount of color in the lighter areas (raise all three to increase overall 'brightness' of whites, without the 'black level' brightness adjustment and without using the 'white level' contrast setting).

A few notches up/down on a couple of the settings could potentially throw this off and put colors in the grey bars (I've seen blues in some, pinks/reds in some, and purples in others, all on one greyscale bar).

For calibrating my HTPC's input, anyway, I use:
http://www.displaycalibration.com/
the Phillips Pattern Generator here: http://www.mooneyass.com/testpatterns/
and some test/reference DVDs I know well (Monsters, Inc. THX screens, certain screens from Matrix Reloaded, etc.)

One thing is, although you can hook up a machine/test generator, you also have to calibrate it to the output device. At least this is easy on PCs, and DVD players (test discs). Trying to do it for a TV input is harder, so a test generator is a good start for color temp, doing brightness/contrast fine tuning with the actual source (STB, etc.).

Originally posted by cyberbri
I'm not saying he's wrong or anything, but I've been able to get rid of and accidentally add that kind of stuff. It's just a matter of trial and error, getting the balance right to get rid of the colors. I don't know how "bad" yours is, though (do you have/can you get a picture?)


Well, I ordered the Avia disk so once it comes I can reproduce the pattern. I can look into finding a scene with the bad solarization as well. The only question is, how to get a decent picture. I guess I could setup my Coopix 995 on a tripod and turn off the room lights and use the delay mechanism to get a good shot with no flash.

I have to say though, this guy was rather highly recommended and I've seen positive references to his work on other sites. So when he sees the picture straight off before even going to the test patterns and says something is really wrong, I tend to believe him. He could have easily done the full calibration, charged me, and been on his way with a "that's just how these sets look" but he didn't.

I can confirm this issue. It cannot be calibrated out. See the new thread:
Samsung HNL617W: Odd colors in gray ramp test pattern. Known issue?

(Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to paste the link).

Gary

This problem shows up on my HLP 6163 also.

Ok... First a question, can someone with a HLN617W be so kind as to post all their default values from the service menu? I want to double check that I didn't bump something by mistake or at least my values are in the ballpark. I found the old defaults thread but it only had for firmware 302 (304?) but mine is 309 (T-B3K6101-309, Sep 29 2003 10:47:58). Specifically the "global" and DVI input values if you don't have time to do them all. Many, many thanks in advance if you can help out.

I don't have the Avia disk yet to get some pictures of the grey ramp, but I did take a few shots tonight of regular stuff just so you can see the issue I'm talking about. I know some banding/solarization is expected but I think this is too much. I got the shots with my Nikon Coolpix 995 using a tripod and the shot timer with all the lights out. I used the raw TIFF format to prevent additional JPEG noise from being added.

The shots are all from Discovery HD and HDNet via DirecTV but I can see the same thing on local OTA stations. Unfortunately the debates are on tonight and I didn't have any OTA shows recorded (except some 480p PBS "widescreen" programs) to use. But I can assure you it isn't just DirecTV compression and it happens both on locals that multicast and those that don't so it isn't that either. You can see from the full screen reference shots that the close up shots with the detail of the problem aren't small parts of the screen that have been zoomed in too much, they're very large parts of the picture. These also aren't the worst examples. Just the easiest ones to grab tonight.

Take a look here. (http://www.thejeffersons.net/HLN617W/example_screen_shots.htm)

The default values are not the same within a model. The first thing to do is record your own default values.

Originally posted by Gary J
The default values are not the same within a model. The first thing to do is record your own default values.

Yes, I am well aware of that and I did record everything that I intentionally changed but I didn't record every single value. What I want to know are the factory defaults of someone with the same set and same firmware revision so I can do a sanity check to be sure I didn't accidentally touch something that I didn't realize- which is doubtful but possible considering the clunkiness of the service menu and the remote itself. I presume that a PQ issue this bad, if related to a SM value change, will be a rather large change or something that is a toggle where is on/off and should be off/on. That's why I want to see someone else's values to see if they are close. It seem due diligence to check this first.

For the record, here are my SM settings (per-input settings are for DVI). If anything has been changed, the original default is in parens:

DDP1010
POS-Y 15
POS-X 143
LAMP TOS/PHIL
DELAY 222
V-FLIP NORMAL
H-FLIP NORMAL
Gamma 0 (4)
SLR OFF

DNIe
R-GAIN 120 (122)*
G-GAIN 120
B-GAIN 111
R-OFFSET 126
G-OFFSET 127
B-OFFSET 132
PATT_SEL 0
S_BR(DDP) 246 (248)
S_CT(DDP) 100
SCA_MAX_Y 48
SCA_MIN_Y 16
Y_TH_HPF 0
Y_TH_EDGE 4
NR_SEL 2
CE_UPPER 220
CE_CUTOFF 160
ALPHAL 75
D_ALPHAL 127
TH_CORING 5
DET_GAIN 8
R_INT 64
R_H_CONT 128
R_V_CONT 128
B_RATIO 200
W_RATIO 200
W_CCT_FAC 300
SCALE_ALP 40
R_LIMIT 150
NOISE_TH2 8

*When I restored the default values after trying someone elses tweaks, I must have missed this one but I don't think that is the issue.

3D_COMB
DYCOR 1
DYGAIN 10
DCCOR 2
DCGAIN 10
CORING OFF

OPTION
AUTO POWER OFF
WB CONTROL ON
COLOR ON
WBDEFSET 0FF
LAMP LIFE 2518
MUTE_TIME 700 MSEC
DNIe DEMO ON
FAN_NUM 3
V_SLICE 50

USER MODE SETTINGS
MODE DYNAMIC
CONTRAST 100
BRIGHTNESS 50
SHARPNESS 50
COLOR 65
COLOR TONE NORMAL

Firmware T-B3K6101-309 (Sep 29 2003 10:47:58)

Guys,

One thing that is of PARAMOUNT importance that I don't think everyone understands/knows is that the ORDER you go through with regards to the inputs makes a difference when you go into the SM.

Here's what I mean. When tweaking the SM, one should always write down your defaults FIRST. That being said, you should tweak the inputs individually in order from least quality to highest quality. i.e. Composite/S-vid/Component 480i, Component 480p, DVI, PC. The reason you need to do this is that the SM settings of the higher quality inputs effect the values of lower quality inputs.

Example:
Let's say you wrote down the defaults for EVERY input once you took the set out of the box. Now let's say you only tweak the DVI input. Once you are done tweaking, if you happen to switch the inputs back to something like S-video 1, you'll notice that the default values have CHANGED for this input.

Just an FYI. Again, it is a huge deal when you are tweaking multiple inputs. ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS tweak from lowest quality to highest.

Sorry I can't help with the defaults... I have version 1030 on my upgraded 617W1 model.

Regs,
Jeff

Originally posted by Iceblade

One thing that is of PARAMOUNT importance that I don't think everyone understands/knows is that the ORDER you go through with regards to the inputs makes a difference when you go into the SM.

Well, in that respect, then I'm a bit screwed because I wrote down the settings I changed but I did it as I went though as I understood the inputs were independent. Still, I don't think that is the issue- unless bumping R_GAIN in DVI changes some completely different parameter for COMP1 (which I doubt). If you saw the pictures, I don't think this is a matter of gains and I don't think it is a matter of something being a few steps off- there is something major amiss...

Wow! Those pictures are U-G-L-Y!
The first few look like some sort of extreme mutation of the old 'clay-face' problem.
And on the test pattern shots you can see the color pushing in completely different directions at each IRE step. Very extreme.
I think your ISF guy is correct, and did the right thing by telling you to get it serviced instead of trying to take you for a ride.

Thank goodness someone else sees it. I was beginning to think I was going insane. (I've been trying to describe it and told it was everything from my imagination to compression artifacts.)

So now the question is, how do I convince a technician this is a problem, and should I go through Samsung since it is still under their warranty or use my CC extended warranty? The only reason I can see to go through CC is it would be one strike toward the lemon policy clause that might get it replaced with a newer model if it continues to have problems, but I presume a tech sent by Samsung would be better.

mercurial,

Yes, you are correct. To the best of my knowledge, the lower inputs are only affected on the SAME setting that you tweaked a higher input on. So DVI R_OFFSET would affect 480i input S-vid/Composite/Component R_OFFSET.

Wow.. just looked at your pics. You are correct, this is not simply a matter of your offset or gains being wrong... you have major issues with another setting... most likely in the DNIe menu from what I can gather. Not sure what you may have touched, but something is hosed. I know, that's helpful, right? Let me see if I can pull up a spreadsheet for my SM and "guess" what might be doing this.

Later,
Jeff

Originally posted by Iceblade

Wow.. just looked at your pics. You are correct, this is not simply a matter of your offset or gains being wrong... you have major issues with another setting... most likely in the DNIe menu from what I can gather. Not sure what you may have touched, but something is hosed. I know, that's helpful, right? Let me see if I can pull up a spreadsheet for my SM and "guess" what might be doing this.


Thanks. Now that I have the "current" setting written down, I could just go in there and freeze-frame the scene in the HD TiVo and play with them one by one to see if any of them help. I'm relatively certain that if I bumped something by accident, it wouldn't have changed much (I put in kue2u (sp?) settings at one point but I only changed the gains, offsets, sub-con/br, and gamma for that and they weren't far off my original values). I can't imagine anything changing by more than 5-10 steps and could that really do THAT to my picture.

That is why I was hoping that someone with the same set and firmware revision would post their defaults. They may not be exactly the same as what I had, but they should be *close* and then I can at least see if the values I have pass the sanity check.

Let me know if you come up with any ideas or suggestions. It is most appreciated.

EDIT: You know, it is POSSIBLE it was always this way. When I first got the set, I had no HD sources and I attributed this sort of effect to a combination of D* compression artifacts and the screen size exaggerating them. When I go the $99 HD deal from D*, I did still didn't watch much HD because most of our shows were TiVoed in SD and when I saw this crop up, I often thought it was due to the MPEG compression and/or OTA multicasting. Then, when I got my HD TiVo and started watching a lot more HDTV, it really began to show up and I started to notice it on all the other inputs all the time. That is when I tried the tweaks from this thread to correct it. What do you guys think a tech will do when they see this PQ on this set? Do you it will be easy to convince Samsung to send someone out?

From what I've noticed:

PC-VGA has independent DNIe menu settings, along with JAGDAD(?) PC input settings

DVI has independent DNIe menu settings

Component inputs share the same DNIe settings (I think), and I think other sections of the menu for the 480i/p inputs (on non-W1 sets), etc.

I haven't played around with the other inputs too much.

This is as far as I remember. I just know that I've had separate settings for VGA, DVI, and component. I used to think all DNIe settings were tied together (universal), since it says "(ALL)". But that's not the case.

One way to check is - if all DNIe menu settings are the same, change a single value up or down one notch, then switch to the other inputs and see if any are affected.

I don't see any reason why a Samsung tech that was worth a squirt of whizz wouldn't deem this as something needing repair if it looks as bad in person as your pics make it out to be.

One question, have you turned of DNIe and DNR in the User Menu? Those two "features" are notoriously God-awful when it comes to exacerbating the clay faces issue.

Later,
Jeff

Originally posted by Iceblade
One question, have you turned of DNIe and DNR in the User Menu? Those two "features" are notoriously God-awful when it comes to exacerbating the clay faces issue.

I think they're on. I'll check tonight and see. But, in general, shouldn't they be on? I thought that was part of the whizz-bang processing this set did.

cyberbri,

The HLN W1 sets appear to be different with version 1030 firmware than as you describe, as there are no longer any comments next to each SM item such as which input they pertain to. I know that after tweaking my S-vid greyscale, I went to the DVI input and tweaked greyscale, then returned to the S-vid SM and it's greyscale values had changed from what I set them too... so those the lower quality input setting are being affected, though there are discrete settings for DVI vs. the 480i stuff as a whole.

Later,
Jeff

merc,

Totally marketing hype. Without a doubt, every ISF and serious calibrator I spoke to with regards to these sets turns those damn settings OFF. They are one of the leading culprits of clayface dithering issues. I'm not guarantying that it will fix your issues, but it certainly will help.

Regs,
Jeff

Only by having DNIe on can you adjust the MCC color controls. I have done that to reduce the "low black=green" problem discussed elsewhere.

I have Denon 1910 on DVI and HD Tivo on HDMI. DNIe settings seem to be shared on these inputs.

I'm not sure what you are talking about, Darrel. The color controls are tweakable in the service menu regardless of whether you have DNIe on or off in the user menu. I ALWAYS have DNIe off in the UM and can go into the SM at my leisure to tweak. Were you implying something else? Also, I can only speak for v204, v214 and v1030 of the firmware on the HLN sets. If you have something else, you may be completely correct.

Actually, I KNOW you must be talking about an HLP now that I re-read what you wrote. The HLN versions (what this thread is about) do not have HDMI inputs. I have no doubt that the HLP UM and SM are VERY different from the HLM and HLN versions.

Regs,
Jeff

I hated the DNIe on the HLM, HLN, and HLN W1 sets. But now I have a HLP and DNIe actually does improve the video quality, so I now use it for 480p component (DVD) and 720P (DVI). Both my wife and I agree that the PQ is better on the HLP6163 than our previous HLM/HLN set.

Dean

Originally posted by Iceblade
One question, have you turned of DNIe and DNR in the User Menu? Those two "features" are notoriously God-awful when it comes to exacerbating the clay faces issue.

Ok... On the S-Video 2 input (SD TiVo), both were on. Turning them off resulted in a dramatic DROP in PQ. A red couch became a solid dark red blob with little light red dots buzzing at the highlight points. Very, very odd.

On the DVI input, DNIe was on but grayed out so you couldn't change it...? DNR was off. Toggling it resulted in absolutely no visible change.

<shrug>
Curiouser and curiouser...
</shrug>

merc,

Short answer. Time to get Sammy on the phone and get someone to fix or replace your set. I'm not sure what you could have touched in the SM, but something isn't right. Obviously don't mention that you have been in the SM when talking to them. Be polite and direct to the point. Have your serial number and all that wonderful info when you call them. All else fails, complain that you have the lip sync issue and/or internal reflection issue. That should throw up red flags if you have a decent service rep on the line.. .if not, try calling back later.

Good luck,
Jeff

Originally posted by Iceblade
Short answer. Time to get Sammy on the phone and get someone to fix or replace your set. I'm not sure what you could have touched in the SM, but something isn't right. Obviously don't mention that you have been in the SM when talking to them. Be polite and direct to the point. Have your serial number and all that wonderful info when you call them. All else fails, complain that you have the lip sync issue and/or internal reflection issue. That should throw up red flags if you have a decent service rep on the line.. .if not, try calling back later.

Thanks, I'm going out of town this weekend for my sister-in-law's wedding and won't get back until Tuesday, so I may try to get them on the phone this afternoon and setup something for the end of next week if they can. I won't mention the SM but I saved their own PDF brochure where they indicate calibration is OK and if they say anything about that I can honestly say he never started the calibration! I'll keep you guys informed.

Thanks again to Iceblade and all the rest who reaffirmed the problem. I know it was hard for me to explain until I got some pictures! I know everyone thought I was nit-picking the minor banding that can be seen in DLP sets.

I've never heard of warranties actually not being honored because of entering the SM. I haven't seen it in the manual or stated anywhere else that doing so would void the warranty. If they should ever try to claim that, ask them where it states it in the manual, or anywhere else for that matter.

This is like saying, if you buy a new car, opening the hood voids the warranty - you have to take it to an authorized (car brand) dealer. Taking it anywhere else to get the oil changed or anything else voids the warranty.

It's nonsense, and I'd fight them on it if they tried that BS on me. Not that it's likely to happen, though. Besides, you have a right to have it calibrated by a professional to get the best picture, especially if the factory calibration is so bad.

Well, it didn't even come up. I'm on hold now with the "Digital Service Coordinator Department". I got a service request number from the main line and now just need to schedule the appointment.

I started with "it had internal reflections" (which it did) but it didn't bother me enough on it's own to make a call (which it didn't). The only thing that even remotely seemed to through him was how long it took to call about the current issue. I just said that it didn't seem so abnormal with SD sources since I expected to see some problems with them being shown on so large a screen and by the time we had an HD TiVo and could watch more HD, it took a while to figure out it wasn't a calibration issue. He didn't seem at all surprised when I described the symptoms so I guess this may be a known issue on their end?

We'll see what happens next. I've been on hold for the service coordinator for over 16 minutes now so I guess they're REALLY busy.... ;)

I have a question about getting my HLN507W upgraded so I have 480i to 1080i on all of my component inputs. Reading the comments in this thread leads me to believe this would come as part of a fix for the audio sync problem which consists of replacing two boards in the TV. Is this correct?

I am awaiting a light engine replacement for a noisy fan and/or color wheel, will the component input upgrade come as part of the light engine replacement? If not I am thinking I should look for the audio synch problem to see if I can get the upgrade for free. What is the best way to look for the audio synch problem? I do not currently use the audio output from the TV at all, all my audio is fed to my amp directly and I do not watch the TVs tuner.

Thanks.

I can't see the link to the pictures of this problem. Can you send me the link? I have the HLP4663 and think I am having the same issue. I can get the grayscale pretty damn close, but I see the pastel colors in there no matter which gain I change.

Originally posted by mercurial
We'll see what happens next. I've been on hold for the service coordinator for over 16 minutes now so I guess they're REALLY busy.... ;)

Well, the techs are coming out today between 9:30-10:30. I won't be able to be here but my wife will give them hell in my absence... ;) I'll let you know how it goes.

Ok.. So based on the info in this post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=4522848#post4522848), I tried increasing the delay. They were all set to 222 on every input. When I put it up to 240-250, the display got dramatically better (this was just on Comp 1). Since I didn't have time to try them all or investigate fully, I put it back before the tech came and went to work. I'm 99.999% positive that I never changed that by accident because a) the only other thing on the same screen I changed was Gamma and that I only changed between 0-4 so I don't think I could have bumped the delay by 20-30 notches by accident and b) it was the same for all inputs.

My wife just called and the tech came out, looked at it a bit, wasn't very personable when she was trying to show him examples of the problem, and then just said, "it's the controller board, I'll order a new one and be back next week to install it..." So, we'll see what happens then. In the meantime, I may play with the delay setting and see how that does- I'll post my results.

Sounds like you got a tech who doesn't even know how to get into the SM...my experience as well. Goes to show unfortunately that these techs know less about these sets than those of us on this forum.

Not unlike lot's of other industries, most tech's are not tech's at all but rather parts changers!

So the service company called out of the blue today and said the new controller board was in and they wanted to come over and install it. I was at work but my wife was home. Tweaking the delay was almost a mistake. The tech said, "Hey, you fixed it...!?" and my wife covered and said "Some shows just look a little better than others." So he put the board in and <drum roll> it was signifantly WORSE than before </drum>. So they're ordering yet another video processor and will try replacing it again.

My wife actually got the tech to be a little more personable this time. Apparently he is 19 years old. Not that it means he isn't good, but sheesh, I've got underwear older than that! She said if it didn't get fixed next time, she'd give him the "How many times are we going to keep doing this before it's fixed or you just replace the set" speech. Not that I really expect them to just pony up an HLP as a replacement, but now that my wife knows something is wrong, she will pretty much make them miserable until it is fixed. That's one of the things I love about her... :) Perhaps she can convince them to replace the whole shebang (video processor and light engine) since I have to wonder if something is wrong in that part as well... On bad video processor I can believe but when you swap in a new one and it is worse, I have to wonder if it is just that part.

I'll let you guys know after the next visit...

Good luck, merc. Sounds like you are on the road to... well... something. :)

I'm still not 100% happy with my upgraded HLN either. Color wheel noise and still have the lip sync issue. I'm seriously starting to consider the "money back" thing. I just wish that they had a Kirk model 61" that I could buy IF I end up getting my money back.

Later,
Jeff

Hi -

I have quick question about Clay Faces/Banding on my Sammy HLN467W. I have had the TV for about 9 months now, and it gets a ton of use. It seems that I am seeing a lot more clay faces and banding lately, mostly on SD and sometimes on HD. Does this happen more with age? Should I change any setting to help correct the issue? I use DVI for my HD feed.

Thanks for any help. I did do a seach and found I should change gamma to 0 or 5.


Regards,
Steve

The first piece of advice I would give anyone trying to eliminate banding on an HLN is to change Gamma to 0. Yes, the picture will look darker, but it will actually be more accurate.

The service company came out again today. This time they replaced the light engine. I wasn't home so I don't have any info on it. The picture looks much better now. I'm going to contact the ISF tech and get him back out. I'll let you know how it goes after that.

I'm looking for some help to make my darker colors stand out more. In dark scenes everything is washed out. I've tried tweaking and having gamma at 0 but everything dark still looks very bad. Is there some type of upgrade I can get to improve this?

Originally posted by reneirwolf878
I'm looking for some help to make my darker colors stand out more. In dark scenes everything is washed out. I've tried tweaking and having gamma at 0 but everything dark still looks very bad. Is there some type of upgrade I can get to improve this?

Washed-out color in darker scenes, eh? You may be confronting a problem inherent to DLP and other fixed-pixel display technologies. Various compromises are used by their manufacturers to hide the fact that blacks are not really all that black on the screen. The compromises can affect color renditions in the near-black signal ranges.

To compensate, you may need to tweak the Brightness control to a level lower than the one indicated on (for example) the Avia test disc. In so doing, you will probably lose shadow detail. But you may feel color renditions are better.

Or, try a "too high" Brightness setting, and see if that appeals to you.

You and others in this thread may want to obtain a series of articles by Dr. Raymond Soneira in recent issues of Widescreen Review. He talks about ways in which non-CRT technologies cheat because they can't go as dark as a CRT. So fixed-pixel users may opt to set up their sets in ways that deviate from "standard" as defined by Avia and other test discs.

Also, how bright your room lighting is affects (a) how you set up your display and (b) how your eyes respond to the picture. You may want to increase your room brightness. DLPs, like plasmas, are designed for higher-brightness situations. Supposeedly, home theaters ought to be quite dark, but that makes the black-level oddities of DLPs stand out more.

You also need to be sure ithe problem's not coming mainly from your signal source -- DVD player, etc. Try another DVD player. I've had good luck with a Bravo D2 player by V Inc. It produces a picture on my Samsung HLN617W that is much better than that produced the Samsung DVD-HD931 I used to use. Shadow detail and dark-scene color is much more natural.

I was also disappointed in the black level when I received my HLN617W.
I watch mostly low-def cable, but then I purchased the VInc Bravo D2.
With a DVI connection from the DVD player to the TV, I was very happy to see much more shadow detail.
The source is half the problem, maybe more than half.

Rear projection TVs are more prone to ambient light contamination than direct-view displays. If light can pass through the screen from behind it, any light can just as readily pass through from the front. RPTVs use fresnel/lenticular screens to increase light output, by focusing it toward typical viewing angles. This is necessary to compete with high ambient light levels in the average home. Most folks want to watch TV the majority of the time with the room lights on, or during the daylight hours with their drapes/shades open. That's the reason RPTVs are built the way they are.

No current consumer television can produce its best image in a well-lit room. Ambient light severely compromises contrast ratio (dynamic range). It's much more effective to increase contrast ratio by improving black level than increasing light output. All TVs look their best in a darkened viewing environment. However, backlighting the TV in a dark room can improve many elements of this kind of situation. Low level backlighting will noticeably reduce eye strain and viewing fatigue. Eliminating any light that originates from in front of the screen takes care of reflections, plus the contamination of blacks and color saturation.

The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) has recommended backlighting color monitors with lighting that comes as close as possible to CIE D65. They also advise the use of neutral wall colors within your field of view with the screen, to preserve accurate color perception. The viewing environment conditions and human factors can have a substantial effect upon image quality. No one interested in display calibration for uptimum imaging should ignore these factors.

Best regards and beautiful pictures,
G. Alan Brown, President
CinemaQuest, Inc.

"Advancing the art and science of electronic imaging"

Thankss for the help guys! I had some help and was able to adjust settings in the SM and UM to greatly improve my viewing.

I am the proud new owner of a HLN5065W1 that I just got 2 or 3 weeks ago. So far I am very pleased with the set but I am very interested in tweaking it to get a little more out of it. I know that messing with the SM is kind of dangerous if you don't know what you are doing and I of course won't do a thing without first documenting every default setting that is currently set. I've been trying to read through this thread but have found it to be a little overwhelming. Not overwhelming in being able to understand the content, it's just that 56 pages is a whole lot to read through. Since I have one of the HLN-W1 type sets, where should I start? Is there any page in this thread that people have posted there results from tweaking their W1 sets? I saw a lot of good things for the HLN-W sets but as I understand it, it doesn't always apply to the W1 models. Anyway, any help on the matter would be great!

Thanks!
Demons :)

Originally posted by mercurial
The service company came out again today. This time they replaced the light engine. I wasn't home so I don't have any info on it. The picture looks much better now. I'm going to contact the ISF tech and get him back out. I'll let you know how it goes after that.

Just to follow up. Things looked good after the support folks replaced the light engine and I got the ISF tech back out (Chuck Williams). He did an absolutely meticulous calibration and installed a neutral density filter that has really helped the black levels. The set really shines now. He did say that on the component inputs, he had some problems balancing red/blue but that it was nothing you'd notice to much- just not quite as perfect as he'd like. He did say that "this set really loves the DVI input."

Thanks for all the help guys!

Originally posted by mercurial
He did an absolutely meticulous calibration and installed a neutral density filter that has really helped the black levels.
This is very interesting. I've seen another thread about doing this on a Panny LCD tv (i think). I'd be interested to know if anyone has had this done, or has done it themselves.

If I could improve the black levels on my HLN I might be able to finally stop reading these forums and get back to the rest of my life.... nah... :)

I knew someone would figure it out eventually. I too have followed the Panny thread very closely. Any details mecurial or anything on accomplishing this?!

Originally posted by HT-Obsession
I knew someone would figure it out eventually. I too have followed the Panny thread very closely. Any details mecurial or anything on accomplishing this?!

I'd have to defer you to Chuck on that one. I don't really know exactly what he did - though I am familiar with neutral density filters from cameras. Basically it was as simple as opening the set, fitting a piece of material, and attaching it over the lens. I know that Chuck does some "tours" where he'll be in certain parts of the country for a few weeks now and again doing calibrations and modifications from a discussion on another thread someone forwarded me. If you want, PM me and I'll give you his contact info after I have time to check with him about forwarding it out. I don't want to just assume he wants everyone to have his email address...?

Originally posted by GeorgeAB
The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) has recommended backlighting color monitors with lighting that comes as close as possible to CIE D65. They also advise the use of neutral wall colors within your field of view with the screen, to preserve accurate color perception...

GeorgeAB,

Thanks for those reminders. I'm currently working on D65 backlighting myself - and it is certainly beneficial for the perceived black-level of my DLP. As you've said, though, the use of neutral wall colors is just as important, otherwise the light reflected from the wall no longer has a D65 color temp.

The trouble is, I have an off-white, sandy color on the wall at home that is not about to change (management has spoken). So the lighting looks MUCH warmer than it should. Another thing - the closer the lamp is placed to the wall, the warmer the resulting light seems to become. What to do? Blue filters are the only thing I can think of. Where can I find some? Any other suggestions?

Gary

I usually use my home theater receiver to listen to DVDs. On occasion for whatever reason I occasionally use my HLN5065 speakers though.

Recently I have noticed that while the TV speakers work fine for cable TV and for DVI-input DVDs, they don't work when I am watching a DVD using the component inputs (which I have to do to watch 4:3 DVDs like Buffy since they are not anamorphic and my HD931 DVD players squashes them when I watch them using its DVI output).

Since the sound cable (and the DVD player) used is the same whether I am using DVI or component outputs from the DVD player, anybody have any idea why no sound is being output when I watch something using the component video inputs, but does work when I switch to the DVI input?

The DVD player should be outputting sound regardless of which video input the TV is using so I imagine the problem is in the TV.

The DVI video input has its own discrete set of audio inputs as does the component video input. If your DVD has a second set of audio outputs, hook those up to the audio inputs associated with the component input.

My apologies for being a total pinhead. I could have sworn I have watchedstuff through the component inputs using the TV speakers in the past, but obviously I am imagining things, since there are indeed sound inputs there and there was nothing plugged into them. Sorry for the nincompoopery and thanks for the swift reply.

Originally posted by mercurial
...the ISF tech... installed a neutral density filter that has really helped the black levels. The set really shines now.

A black level improvement would definitely make this set shine!

I had the "Internal Reflection" fix done on my HLN. The fix is not much of a "fix" at all... it seems to be a simple lens coating. The IR still exists, but the coating darkens the picture a little, improving black level somewhat, and making the IR less noticeable.

A neutral density filter will do the same thing, but you could control the degree of darkening by your selection of filter. By improving black level this way, the picture will be darker overall, but the contrast ratio will not be affected. I think the set is plenty bright enough, and with the right adjustments, could be made to look fantastic. Where do we find these filters? Huge photographic filters may be available at the right diameter, but the lens has a very convex surface, making it difficult to attach one.

Mercurial, what was the "material" you described, to attach the filter to the lens?

Gary

Gary,

The sandy-colored wall is probably a "nearly neutral" color. A reasonable compromise. An attempt to compensate with filters won't give you accuracy without a lot of expertise, time, sophisticated instrumentation and expense. The end results would still likely not be worth all the trouble. Standard filter gels would probably not be precise enough. I've worked with a lot of them and they tend to jump in chroma values by too great a degree.

Some compromises have to be lived with to maintain the peace and balance in life. It's nice to know what the ideal is. Just get as close as is practical in your circumstances.

Best regards and beautiful pictures,
G. Alan Brown, President
CinemaQuest, Inc.

"Advancing the art and science of electronic imaging"

Originally posted by chuft
My apologies for being a total pinhead. I could have sworn I have watchedstuff through the component inputs using the TV speakers in the past, but obviously I am imagining things, since there are indeed sound inputs there and there was nothing plugged into them. Sorry for the nincompoopery and thanks for the swift reply.

No worries, glad I could help.

Originally posted by GSB
A black level improvement would definitely make this set shine!

I had the "Internal Reflection" fix done on my HLN. The fix is not much of a "fix" at all... it seems to be a simple lens coating. The IR still exists, but the coating darkens the picture a little, improving black level somewhat, and making the IR less noticeable.Gary

Gary,

I too had the Light Engine replaced in my set as part of the "lip sync" fix which included changing the analog and digital boards as well. The lip sync issue is still there, but my HORRID internal reflection issues are completely and totally gone. The overall PQ is darker, though not in a bad way.. and the colors seemed a little closer to reality than the old guts were. I wonder if perhaps you might want to contact Samsung about still having the issue, as I can tell you that the IR is completely gone on my set now. It used to be absolutely horrible... whitish-greenish blurry blobs in the lower right hand corner if something bright was in the upper left hand corner. Watching the Yoda-Dooku fight in ATOC was abyssmal with all the IR that was going on every time a lightsaber crossed into the upper left quadrant of the screen.

Just FYI...

Regs,
Jeff

Originally posted by GSB
A neutral density filter will do the same thing, but you could control the degree of darkening by your selection of filter. By improving black level this way, the picture will be darker overall, but the contrast ratio will not be affected. I think the set is plenty bright enough, and with the right adjustments, could be made to look fantastic. Where do we find these filters? Huge photographic filters may be available at the right diameter, but the lens has a very convex surface, making it difficult to attach one.

He used a sheet of, I believe, Kodak material that came in roughly 8.5x11" sheets. Then he cut it to fit and attached it with what I believe was some sort of tape. Then he proceeded to calibrate the set using the color analyzer to get it to the correct temperature and gamma curve so it compensated correctly for the material.

mercurial,

Most likely a Kodak Wratten Filter. I believe Chuck buys the equivalent of a 1 F-stop and 2 F-stop filers so he can cover from 1 to 3 f-stops if needed on a particular set. Do you happen to know if you already had the E10 lens in your set prior to Chuck using the wratten filter? I asked him about this, but not specifically about your set. He basically said he treats each set differently, depending on what he and his customer observe with regards to the black level. Most of the ISF guys play it close to the vest when it comes to sharing info of any kind, unfortunately. Reference the thread over on HTS concerning calibrating a DLP tv for further proof of this. It's a shame that ISF guys that are worth a squirt when it comes to these sets are few and far between. If you happen to be on the left coast or right coast, you're good to go. Anywhere in between... good luck. :(

Later,
Jeff

Jeff,

No idea if it was an E10 lens/light engine. I do know it was replaced by the techs to fix the banding issue (likely due to color wheel timing since the delay hack improved it so much before the fix). I wasn't there when they did it and, likely, even if I was, the tech probably wouldn't have known if I asked (more of a part exchanger than a "real" technician).

I do know that the person that turned me on to Chuck said he did do occasional "tours" of certain parts of the country performing mods and calibrations... Might be in your neck at some point...?

I do know the more I watch this set now, the happier I am with it. Not sure if was just the calibration or the mod or the combination but I really don't think about the picture quality anymore when I watch things....

Though I don have a nag in the back of my head that if the set ever has an issue again that requires a light engine replacement, I might have some 'splaining to do about that neutral density filter being in there... ;) Keep thinking about that scene from Brazil: "Well, were did this come from then? Did you just blow your nose and there it was, eh?"

mercurial,

Hmmm.. ok, well, it's tough to say if your lens does or doesn't have the coating on it if you never saw it inserted, or never saw the E10 descriptor on the box. When abouts did you have it replaced?

As for Chuck, yes he does tour a little.. but not to my neck of the woods down in Houston. He recommended a colleague of his that I already contacted but who just finished up a Houston tour back in October and doesn't look to be doing another any time soon. :(

Back to the E10 issue.. did you never have the internal reflection issue with your set, both before or after the lens replacement?

Thanks,
Jeff

Iceblade

I have always benefited tremendously from your input. And that goes for so many others on this forum too. Thanks for taking the time to share with us.

My light engine has been replaced twice now. Both engines were part# BP9600305C – the latest and greatest. Both engines reduced the IR to such a degree, that in normal viewing, it no longer disturbs me. I have not tried the light-saber scene that you mentioned, though.

However, when using my PC to move a white object in the top left on a black background, both new engines still displayed a faint, inverted image moving in the bottom right.

If I recall correctly, you had an ATI RADEON 9500 DVI card and had a “No signal” issue when switching away from DVI and then back again. Did you ever resolve it?

See the following new thread entitled: “ATI Radeon 9600XT & Samsung DLP over DVI "No Signal"
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=4699318#post4699318

Gary

A few questions...

1. Is it possible that the DLP chip or other components/optics could become dirty, therefore diminishing picture quality? I recall a picture from the DLP website showing a grain of salt on the chip and how big it was.

2. I have 2 JVC D-VHS decks, both of which push green more than my Motorola 6208 DVR. Has anyone with multiple component sources (DVD, Cable Box, D-VHS) noticed differences that are substantial?

3. Do different component cables really make much difference in PQ? Has anyone done testing to confirm the quality of cables and PQ? And if so, what differences are noted?

Thanks!

Gary,

Thanks for the kind words. I just try to share what I can in the hopes that my observations/travails might be helpful to others.

I recently just disconnected my desktop from the DLP, but I seem to recall opening Notepad, shrinking it down to smaller than the upper left quadrant of the screen, moving it up to the upper left and checking again for the IR. To the best of my recollection, I noticed no IR at all.

As for the DVI issue (I was using the ATI Radeon 9700 Pro in the desktop), after have that issue once or twice when I first hooked things up, I never had the problem again. It MAY have been Catalyst driver related... as I updated at least twice during the time the PC was hooked up. I never had issues again once that happened. Thanks for the link to that other thread though... I'll be sure to read it.

Thanks and regards,
Jeff


Originally posted by GSB
Iceblade

I have always benefited tremendously from your input. And that goes for so many others on this forum too. Thanks for taking the time to share with us.

My light engine has been replaced twice now. Both engines were part# BP9600305C – the latest and greatest. Both engines reduced the IR to such a degree, that in normal viewing, it no longer disturbs me. I have not tried the light-saber scene that you mentioned, though.

However, when using my PC to move a white object in the top left on a black background, both new engines still displayed a faint, inverted image moving in the bottom right.

If I recall correctly, you had an ATI RADEON 9500 DVI card and had a “No signal” issue when switching away from DVI and then back again. Did you ever resolve it?

See the following new thread entitled: “ATI Radeon 9600XT & Samsung DLP over DVI "No Signal"
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=4699318#post4699318

Gary

Hey, all... it's been quite awhile since I've visited the forum. Could someone direct me to info and/or calibrated service menu tweaks for the HLN467W... the threads are so long now, I'm having a hard time finding it. Thanks!

Originally posted by mercurial
He used a sheet of, I believe, Kodak material that came in roughly 8.5x11" sheets. Then he cut it to fit and attached it with what I believe was some sort of tape. Then he proceeded to calibrate the set using the color analyzer to get it to the correct temperature and gamma curve so it compensated correctly for the material.
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
If you have already had your set calibrated to the proper color temperature installing the filter shouldn't affect that right? Hence, the nuetral part of 'neutral density filter'. The only adjustments you should have to make is to brightness and contrast.

Originally posted by vlapietra
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
If you have already had your set calibrated to the proper color temperature installing the filter shouldn't affect that right? Hence, the nuetral part of 'neutral density filter'. The only adjustments you should have to make is to brightness and contrast.

In theory, no, but you'll have to adjust brightness and contrast to get full benefit and then, if I'm not mistaken, you'll have to potentially touch up the color adjustments a bit to account for that.

Jeff,

My LE was replaced just about a month ago so I assume it is the latest and greatest. I had IR before but it never bothered me enough to seek a fix except on a few scenes (e.g. LOTR Mines of Moriah) and then only if I was really looking for it. I haven't had a good look for it since the LE replacement or calibration. I'll take a look over the holiday break and see how it is.

Sorry to hear how hard it is to get someone where you are. You'd think you'd be in a big enough area that there'd be ISF guys around. Especially since everything is bigger in Texas, you'd think someone would be there to tweak all those big screens... ;)

Originally posted by Iceblade
mercurial,

Hmmm.. ok, well, it's tough to say if your lens does or doesn't have the coating on it if you never saw it inserted, or never saw the E10 descriptor on the box. When abouts did you have it replaced?

As for Chuck, yes he does tour a little.. but not to my neck of the woods down in Houston. He recommended a colleague of his that I already contacted but who just finished up a Houston tour back in October and doesn't look to be doing another any time soon. :(

Back to the E10 issue.. did you never have the internal reflection issue with your set, both before or after the lens replacement?

Thanks,
Jeff

Originally posted by vlapietra
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
If you have already had your set calibrated to the proper color temperature installing the filter shouldn't affect that right? Hence, the nuetral part of 'neutral density filter'. The only adjustments you should have to make is to brightness and contrast.

Theoretically, you are correct... ONLY if the filter is TRULY neutral.

Gary

Kodak Wratten ND filters are made of gelatin with organic dyes and a protective lacquer coating. They should not be used in applications above 50 degrees Celcius/122 degrees Farenheit for extended periods of time. I have my doubts that they will last, without fading or deteriorating in some other fashion, mounted directly on the front of a projection lens. Chuck and others may know definitively how they hold up over time in a RPTV. Photographic grade glass ND filters would likely be more accurate, stable and durable. They are also expensive in the large sizes that would be required to cover a typical fixed pixel projector lense. There might also be some issue with the back reflection off of the glass filter.

The gel filters are not perfectly neutral. The visible spectrum goes from about 400 to 700 nanometers. Here is a link to a spectral transmittance graph for one of the Kodak Wratten filters:

http:www.geocities.com/thombell/filters/wf96.gif

The graph shows that the filter chosen absorbs more in the blue and violet end of the spectrum. It appears very flat from about 480 to 700nm. A less dense filter than the one chosen for the graph would have less effect upon the spectrum. The filters typically chosen for improving black level are much less dense than the 1.0 density (3.33 f-stop) filter in the graph.

I would advise calibrating the display AFTER installing the gel ND filter. However, I haven't seen any definitive data on a measured pre/post comparison. Probably the best way to go, post-calibration, would be to use a glass ND filter. The density rating system is the same for both types of filters.

The ND filters we include in our dimming kits are for high heat applications in the film/video/theatrical industries. Joe Kane personally recommended the GAM ND filters we use, and he worked at Kodak. They are made from polyester, come in larger sheets, and are much more durable.

We see fading occur in our application with fluorescent bias lighting, but that's due mostly to the high levels of UV common to fluorescent bulbs rather than heat. In the last year we started adding UV filter material to retard the fading. I suspect our theatrical "gels" are not as accurate spectrally, and might induce some optical distortion, compared to the Wratten photographic gelatin material. Even with their greater resistance to heat, the theatrical filters would probably not be a valid alternative for a projector lens.

Best regards and beautiful pictures,
G. Alan Brown, President
CinemaQuest, Inc.

"Advancing the art and science of electronic imaging"

GeorgeAB

Thanks again for your valuable input to this fascinating subject. As you've said, life is full of compromises!

Gary

There was some posts a while back (in this thread, I think) about 100W bulbs vs. the currently used 120W bulbs. Instead of using a ND filter, would using a bulb with a lower rating be easier and just as effective at improving black levels?

Originally posted by KRB
There was some posts a while back (in this thread, I think) about 100W bulbs vs. the currently used 120W bulbs. Instead of using a ND filter, would using a bulb with a lower rating be easier and just as effective at improving black levels?

Yes, I'm sure the 100W bulb would help to some degree. I have the HLN437W that comes standard with the 100W, and black level still bothers me. However, a larger screen may benefit more from the lower wattage.

Gary

What should these settings be for HLN5065WX firmware date May 23, 2004?

DDP1010

POS-Y
POS-X
DELAY

Allen,

POS-Y and POS-X should be set by using the Avia DVD's overscan test. The DVE one is wrong, hence my suggestion to use Avia. The DELAY setting is set at the factory and corresponds to the color wheel delay. Most often, you shouldn't touch this setting without a very nice colorimeter to test for maximum red output with a 100 IRE red pattern. So basically, one person's settings for those three items won't necessarily match what your set was/is/.

Regs,
Jeff


Originally posted by allenn
What should these settings be for HLN5065WX firmware date May 23, 2004?

DDP1010

POS-Y
POS-X
DELAY 222

Originally posted by Iceblade
Allen,

POS-Y and POS-X should be set by using the Avia DVD's overscan test. The DVE one is wrong, hence my suggestion to use Avia. The DELAY setting is set at the factory and corresponds to the color wheel delay. Most often, you shouldn't touch this setting without a very nice colorimeter to test for maximum red output with a 100 IRE red pattern. So basically, one person's settings for those three items won't necessarily match what your set was/is/.

Regs,
Jeff Hi Jeff, does avia also help with the geometic (not sure if that is what you call it) settings? On 4:3 material, the left border is sorta bowed in. Are there settings that will straighten this out?

Thanks for the help.

tall1,

Unfortunately there are no settings at all within the service menu or any other menu that can help combat the "bowing" on the DLP sets. IIRC, the bowing is caused by the angle at which the lens assembly is oriented to the screen and also the short throw distance used inside the sets. So, even though you can use several of the geometry patterns on Avia to view the problem, there aren't any ways to "tweak it away".

Regs,
Jeff

Thanks Jeff, in a way this is almost comforting. I was worried I bumped something in the service menu to cause this problem. It really doesn't bother me much at all cept when wifey mentions it.

No prob.

FWIW, you may want to pop Avia in and use the POS-X and POS-Y controls to make sure your picture is centered on the screen and overscan is the same in all 4 directions if you haven't done that already. Mine was off by about 4-6 tics in the horizontal and vertical directions vs. what the setting was from the factory.

Regs,
Jeff

Originally posted by tall1
Thanks Jeff, in a way this is almost comforting. I was worried I bumped something in the service menu to cause this problem. It really doesn't bother me much at all cept when wifey mentions it.

Originally posted by Iceblade
Allen,

POS-Y and POS-X should be set by using the Avia DVD's overscan test. The DVE one is wrong, hence my suggestion to use Avia. The DELAY setting is set at the factory and corresponds to the color wheel delay. Most often, you shouldn't touch this setting without a very nice colorimeter to test for maximum red output with a 100 IRE red pattern. So basically, one person's settings for those three items won't necessarily match what your set was/is/.

Regs,
Jeff

Thanks for the reply. My concern is the color wheel, main and audio / video boards were replaced. The tech that did the work did not change any of the settings after he completed the repairs. Should the Delay change after a new color wheel is installed?

The original firmware date was Sept 2003. How can I find the default values for the original and new firmware?

Thanks!

I know there is a manual in pdf format on the net. I checked it out again the other day, off a link from AVS here, and saw a lot of default plus min/max values for stuff - default at least for the models the manual covered.

If that doesn't help, you could always pay to get a service manual from Samsung.

Originally posted by cyberbri
I know there is a manual in pdf format on the net. I checked it out again the other day, off a link from AVS here, and saw a lot of default plus min/max values for stuff - default at least for the models the manual covered.

If that doesn't help, you could always pay to get a service manual from Samsung.

What was your AVS search argument to find the manual?

Originally posted by allenn
What was your AVS search argument to find the manual?

Go here, Allen.

HLN Service Manual (http://evstar.eatsleepcode.ca/HLN_Manual/)

Enjoy,
Jeff

Just so you all know...

The default values listed in the HLN, etc. manuals are not the same as the settings on shipping units. This has been true for me with both the HLN and HLP displays I've had.

They don't reprint these manuals everytime they tweak factory settings or rev the firmware.

Always record your settings when first entering the SM and before making adjustments. You can really hose things without too much effort.

Ditto, what Dean said. I think I've personally said this about a hundred times myself.... possibly even in this thread, but it can NOT be stressed enough!

Also, if you DO venture into the SM, make sure you understand how the settings for a given input affect other input's settings. For instance, if you immediately head into the SM with the DVI input as the current input, changing the RGB offsets and gains will change all of the Composite, Component and S-video default values as well. You must tweak things in order from lowest quality to highest quality for best results, i.e. ANT/Composite/S-video, then Component, then PC then DVI. I'm not completely certain on the PC input though.

Regs,
Jeff

Originally posted by Iceblade

Also, if you DO venture into the SM, make sure you understand how the settings for a given input affect other input's settings. For instance, if you immediately head into the SM with the DVI input as the current input, changing the RGB offsets and gains will change all of the Composite, Component and S-video default values as well. You must tweak things in order from lowest quality to highest quality for best results, i.e. ANT/Composite/S-video, then Component, then PC then DVI. I'm not completely certain on the PC input though.

Regs,
Jeff

Are you sure this is correct? I believe if you start with DVI it will not affect the other inputs. That's why you start with ANT and work your way towards DVI. The idea is after ANT is set, tweaking COMP or DVI will not screw up what you've already set in ANT.

Well, I can say for certain that when I setup my S-vid input for D65 greyscale, recorded those values, then switched to DVI and did the same, when I went back to S-vid, my settings were different from what I recorded. Granted, it's been a few weeks since I did this... but I thought this was the case.

Regs,
Jeff

Originally posted by Iceblade
Well, I can say for certain that when I setup my S-vid input for D65 greyscale, recorded those values, then switched to DVI and did the same, when I went back to S-vid, my settings were different from what I recorded. Granted, it's been a few weeks since I did this... but I thought this was the case.

Regs,
Jeff

What's the point in starting with S-video if it changes after tweaking DVI? I understood the reason to start low and work your way up is that changes made on DVI would not effect what you did earlier on S-Video. Otherwise why not start with DVI? In other words if DVI changes effect S-Video and S-video changes affect DVI what does it matter?

Personally I have not yet been able to use my DVI but I will say that changes in COMP 2 does not effect ANT or COMP 1.

does anyone have a service manaul for the hln5065w in pdf ?

thanks...G

The DNIE settings I think are by group - ant, composite, component, DVI, PC -- I'm not sure 100% how they are grouped - but you can experiment by changing a certain value on one setting and see how it affects the others.

I think I have separate DVI, component, VGA, etc. settings for DNIE. I know that my DVI (HTPC) and component 3 DNIE settings are different - I don't use ANT, composite (except for kid's DVDs when I'm not home), or S-Video, so I haven't really tried to tweak those too much anyway.

However, the VGA, component, etc. will also give you other non-DNIE areas to tweak color offsets/gains as well.


This is speaking from working with my HLN4365W.

Originally posted by cyberbri
The DNIE settings I think are by group - ant, composite, component, DVI, PC -- I'm not sure 100% how they are grouped - but you can experiment by changing a certain value on one setting and see how it affects the others.

I think I have separate DVI, component, VGA, etc. settings for DNIE. I know that my DVI (HTPC) and component 3 DNIE settings are different - I don't use ANT, composite (except for kid's DVDs when I'm not home), or S-Video, so I haven't really tried to tweak those too much anyway.

However, the VGA, component, etc. will also give you other non-DNIE areas to tweak color offsets/gains as well.


This is speaking from working with my HLN4365W.

Just for the record I have the set you do. I don't think they make that one any more.

I'm not sure what you mean by "settings by group" but my settings on COMP 2 do not affect COMP 1. As Iceblade said, you start at the bottom and work your way up so it goes ANT A--ANT B--S-Video--COMP 1--Comp2--COMP3--DVI.

Settings changed on ANT will change all the others in the same manner. Thus if you raise R-Gain 3 points it will raise R-Gain on all the other inputs. If you raise R-Gain on S-video it will raise R-Gain on the COMP inputs but will not affect R-Gain on ANT. Change settings on COMP 2 it will not affect COMP 1 or ANT or S-Video inputs. That's how "our" TV works. I know I've tweaked mine for over a year now.

Sea Ray... having you describe that is starting to clear some cobwebs... maybe I had it backwards when I spoke originally. I'll try to fire it up tonight and see what's what.

regs,
Jeff

Which settings are you talking about? DNIE? A lot of the inputs also have 480i settings, JAGDAC(?) settings (PC), etc. for just color offsets/gains.

I am 99% sure I have been tweaking my DVI and Comp3 inputs DNIE settings separately, usually tweaking the brightness/contrast - without their settings affecting each other.

Are you saying that since DVI is below Comp3 on the list (on my set - goes from ANT, Compos, S-Vid, Comp, DVI, VGA), if I change the DNIE menu settings for Comp3 (cable box), I have to go back and re-do my DVI settings? So if I have brightness at 250 on Comp3 and at 244 on DVI, if I change Comp3 to 252, it will automatically raise DVI's brightness to 246? Or if I happen to go back and adjust my ANT setting, I have to redo everything else below it on the list?

Besides Comp 1 & 2 (PS2 and Xbox), I don't use any other inputs anyway.

What I meant by "groups" was "component inputs," "composite inputs," "s-video inputs," etc. I'm not sure how that works, as I mainly only touch Comp3 and DVI - and formerly DVI and VGA for cable and HTPC, respectively.

This is the list ( http://evstar.eatsleepcode.ca/HLN_Manual/ - part 6)

DDP1010 (ALL) Gamma, screen position, etc.
DNIe (ALL) Color, br/ct, nr settings
AD9883 (Component/480P)
VPC3230 (RF/VIDEO/480I)
JAGADC (PC)
FLI2300 (RF/VIDEO/480I)
3D_COMB (ALL)
OPTION

Some of these are blocked off for certain inputs - ie., must be using VGA input to adjust JAGADC settings.

Originally posted by cyberbri
Which settings are you talking about? DNIE? A lot of the inputs also have 480i settings, JAGDAC(?) settings (PC), etc. for just color offsets/gains.

I am 99% sure I have been tweaking my DVI and Comp3 inputs DNIE settings separately, usually tweaking the brightness/contrast - without their settings affecting each other.

Are you saying that since DVI is below Comp3 on the list (on my set - goes from ANT, Compos, S-Vid, Comp, DVI, VGA), if I change the DNIE menu settings for Comp3 (cable box), I have to go back and re-do my DVI settings? So if I have brightness at 250 on Comp3 and at 244 on DVI, if I change Comp3 to 252, it will automatically raise DVI's brightness to 246? Or if I happen to go back and adjust my ANT setting, I have to redo everything else below it on the list?

Besides Comp 1 & 2 (PS2 and Xbox), I don't use any other inputs anyway.

What I meant by "groups" was "component inputs," "composite inputs," "s-video inputs," etc. I'm not sure how that works, as I mainly only touch Comp3 and DVI - and formerly DVI and VGA for cable and HTPC, respectively.

Yes, I am referring to the DNie. Your example is correct. It has nothing to do with groups. It has to do with the list. ANT is at the top and DVI is near the bottom. Changes to ANT A will affect everything on the list Changes to COMP 3 will affect DVI but not any ANT or composite inputs. Nor will it affect COMP 2 or COMP 1.

Now I will cover my ____ with this caveat: I have never used DVI so I'm not 100% sure about tweaking that but that is the way it's been explained to me and it makes sense.

I am 100% sure about the ANT-S-Video-COMP 1-COMP 2 progression because I have tweaked all those and tested this theory myself

Okay. It's a good thing I don't touch those, then.

If I get a chance, I'll test the theory between Comp 3 and DVI.

Sea Ray,

Thanks for posting your findings. That clarifies it very well.

Now, to put a stick in the spokes, has anyone ever substantiated THIS theory:
(It was posted a long time ago... can't remember if it was in this thread or not):

Originally posted by ???
Avoid changing inputs while in the service menu. Instead, exit the SM (turn the TV off and wait a minute). Turn the TV on, change inputs, re-enter the service menu. I always enter the SM from the TV off state (mute-1-8-2-power).

It is possible for the RGB gains/offsets to change ON THEIR OWN. I first noticed this about 2 months ago. While changing gamma for comp and DVI inputs I found my comp red and blue gains offsets had changed from the factory defaults I had recorded. They changed a lot. I posted this in a tweaking thread at the time and two other people said they had experienced this. One of them speculated that maybe the TV was self-adjusting for bulb burn-in (I had about 70 hours on it). I think they changed too drastically for that (My R gain went up by about 20).

Since then I've come to notice that it only seems to happen if I change inputs while in the SM. Now I always use the workaround described above and it has never happened since. So I thought it might save someone else some grief.

No other SM settings have ever changed on their own for me. Only R and B gains and offsets. I have seen this happen without me changing anything in the SM. This means it is possible to RECORD THE WRONG FACTORY DEFAULTS.

Gary

Originally posted by GSB
Sea Ray,

Thanks for posting your findings. That clarifies it very well.

Now, to put a stick in the spokes, has anyone ever substantiated THIS theory:
(It was posted a long time ago... can't remember if it was in this thread or not):



Gary

No, I've never had that happen to me. I don't know why that would happen. I think the self adjusting after bulb burn-in would be a more likely possibility. I have changed inputs while in SM and the offsets and gains did not change. I was watching that very closely

Originally posted by Iceblade
Go here, Allen.

HLN Service Manual (http://evstar.eatsleepcode.ca/HLN_Manual/)

Enjoy,
Jeff

Thanks for the link and great info!

No prob, Allen.

Sea Ray, verified that what you said was correct and I had it ass-backwards in my brain. :)

Thanks, buddy.

Regs,
Jeff

Does anyone know the overall settings for 1:1 pixel mapping on the HLN467W? I'm looking at a video processor (Iscan HD).

As odd as this may seem, viewing the same program on DVI is a little less sharp than viewing via component. However, there is less overscan. (Using Motorola 6208).

Does anyone know what in the service menu adjusts sharpness for DVI?

I was just wondering what people have their picture set to in the menu's these days. I keep fidling with things. But looking for something different...

Im Using:

Contrast - 100
Brightness - 50
Sharpness - 0
Color - 35
Tone - Cool 2
DNIe - On
Digital NR - On

I have mine tweaked in the Service Menu, so mine tends to be at 100, 50, 0-10, 40-50 (color), and Normal temp for all inputs

Ok I have the HLN5065WX unit. I'm having problems with the picture looking to green & also dark. I was at Sears yesterday and noticed the same thing there compared to other sets. Is there something I can do to change this? It's driving me nuts, now that I seen the picture quality on other sets.

Thanks in advance, Daman

Originally posted by daman4799
Ok I have the HLN5065WX unit. I'm having problems with the picture looking to green & also dark. I was at Sears yesterday and noticed the same thing there compared to other sets. Is there something I can do to change this? It's driving me nuts, now that I seen the picture quality on other sets.

Thanks in advance, Daman

You need a calibration. Paying for one costs about $400. A lot of us on this forum have adjusted the color by eye by going into the service menu. For the green you'll need to adjust the color offsets and gains in the DNie portion of the service menu.

As for the darkness remember you need to be at the same vertical level as the screen. If you're above or below it the picture will fade. Side to side is not a problem.

Otherwise you need to fiddle with contrast and brightness in the user menu. Don't be shy about knocking that contrast up to 100 as some have stated. Adjusting Gamma in the service menu may also affect darkness of the picture

Originally posted by daman4799
Ok I have the HLN5065WX unit. I'm having problems with the picture looking to green & also dark. I was at Sears yesterday and noticed the same thing there compared to other sets. Is there something I can do to change this? It's driving me nuts, now that I seen the picture quality on other sets.

Thanks in advance, Daman

If it's new, wait before you do any adjusting or paying for calibration.

When my HLP6163W was brand new, it also looked too green. But after about 100 hours it improved a lot. Now my set looks great, and it has not been calibrated or adjusted, other than setting Gamma in the SM from 2 to 0.

Dean

Thanks Sea Ray!!! Ok, I go into the service menu by doing mute,1,8,2, power right? That brings me to everything I will need? I won't screw anything up with this will I? I just went in there but I did'nt change anything. I wrote down all the original numbers. So what exactly do I have to change? I just want to get rid of that green haze. I did alittle reading about a Avia disk, would this help me?
Thanks, Daman

To change the gamma to 0

Select DDP1010
Go down to gamma and toggle it down to zero
Power off to exit service menu

Hey dwette,
No it's not new I believe I got it around in July. My bulb has 1300 hours already, I did figure out that much in the service menu (LOL). My gamma is set at 4 are they all different?
Thanks, Daman

My default was 4 as well. I think that's factory.

Ok Zero does look alittle better. So what I just go into the menu & play with the gains now?
Thanks, Daman

The gain tweaks really aren't major for this set.

I'll give you my tweaks so you can compare and maybe others can agree or disagree:

DNIe (ALL) Defaults Tweaked
R-GAIN 126 128
G-GAIN 120 113
B-GAIN 117 105
R-OFFSET 125 128
G-OFFSET 128 131
B-OFFSET 131 135

Man I just got the hell scared out of me!!!! I was in the service menu when there was this loud POP! My kid broke a baloon & when he did I hit the power button off (WHEWWWWW). Thanks bgall, I try your numbers & see what happens I can always change them back right.
Later, Daman

Thanks guys helped some.
Later, Daman

Originally posted by daman4799
Thanks Sea Ray!!! Ok, I go into the service menu by doing mute,1,8,2, power right? That brings me to everything I will need? I won't screw anything up with this will I? I just went in there but I did'nt change anything. I wrote down all the original numbers. So what exactly do I have to change? I just want to get rid of that green haze. I did alittle reading about a Avia disk, would this help me?
Thanks, Daman

Green in brightly lit areas adjust G gain; in shadowy areas adjust G offset. As long as you have your original values you can play with it and see what looks better to your eye. Read over our recent discussions on progression. Anything changed in ANT A will change all other inputs. If you change COMP 3 it will only change DVI.

Question for those that have had loud CW or fans. I have a HLN507W1. How do you now if it is louder then normal? I 'm just not sure if I'm being picky or if the fan is getting louder. I'm pretty sure it is the fan b/c you can still hear it after the TV shuts off for a few minutes. Now don't get me wrong, it is not extremely loud but it is audible for the seating position about 11' away. I have always been able to hear the fan on my DirecTiVo so maybe the 2 combined are just more noticeable. The reason I ask is b/c I had a LE replacement scheduled for the "smudges" issue but canceled it b/c the LE has nothing to do with the "smudges" Should I just reschedule and let them replace the LE to see if the fan noise lowers? Any chance at getting an updated DLP chip or a 7 segment CW with a LE replacement? I'm just worried about other problems that may occur if the LE is replaced (i.e. IR become visible like some have had happened).

I've never had the fan or CW bother me.

The only thing that I've started to worry about is extremly look warm up times.

Some times the set will turn on in 10 secs and other times it takes almost a minute, which is very bizzare. I hope it's not dying.

Originally posted by rolltide1017
Question for those that have had loud CW or fans. I have a HLN507W1. How do you now if it is louder then normal?

If your CW bearing fails, you will know it. It sounds like a dentist drill or a circular saw. It is a high pitched whine, so loud you have to turn the volume up to hear the program's audio. I had mine replaced a few weeks ago, and now the HLN5065WX is quiet. I have a DirecTV HD PVR and I don't hear it either. I guess the cabinet where it rests must block the fan noise.

I own a HLN617W and just recently started tweaking in the service menu. At first, I just wanted to tone down the greens. Now, I am driving myself nuts making adustments in attempt to get a natural and consistent picture. Just when I think I have it right, a scene comes along that makes my settings look like crap. I'm not sure if my picture or my perception is messed up.

I just want a nutural picture with no exaggerated greens or reds. If you have any suggestions for SM settings, please let me know. I have only made changes in the DNie and VPC3230 menus. I did try changing Gamma from 4 to 0, but couldn't decide which was better.

Thanks very much for any suggestions,

David

David,

What are you using as a reference? Are you using a calibration tool or just by eyeing it? Try using Avia or DVE for a calibration tool? Or if you have the money, you could have it calibrated professionally!

So I finally upgraded from a Moto 6208 to a 6412 DVR to use with my HLN507W1. Thought I'd switch to DVI to see if these 1" vertical letterbox black bars are still there, and they were. They were there when I hooked up DVI with the 6208, and with my Zenith 318 DVI connection. It's like it's underscanning? Happens on all DVI source material.

Component works fine (and possibly has better color) but for lots of reasons, I need to get up and running with DVI.

Tried searching, but nothing relevant is coming up...I could have sworn I read in the past that some had similar issues. Can anybody point me in the right direction?

Originally posted by howada
I did try changing Gamma from 4 to 0, but couldn't decide which was better.

Thanks very much for any suggestions,

David

I thought gamma 0 was too soft but 4 was to hard. So I use gamma 1 but every set is slightly different. It is a personal preference. I also use DVE as a guide . Depending on your version number you might find settings close if you do a search.

mikemorel, Is your DVI source on Wide (PC) by any chance?

Originally posted by bgall
mikemorel, Is your DVI source on Wide (PC) by any chance?
Good point - I will check. (Duh). Hopefully it's as simple as that.

I'm having another problem - the 6412 cable box/DVR won't synch at 720p over component. It synchs at 480p and 1080i fine. I get scrambled screen at 720p. I've been contemplating posting in the 6412/iGuide thread, but you seem to be on a roll...

Sounds like a STB issue. But I find myself using 1080i on the STBs anyways and letting the TV do the converting because ti looks much better than if the STB did the conversion

Originally posted by mikemorel
I'm having another problem - the 6412 cable box/DVR won't synch at 720p over component. It synchs at 480p and 1080i fine. I get scrambled screen at 720p. I've been contemplating posting in the 6412/iGuide thread, but you seem to be on a roll... Every box I have used, 6200, 6208 and 6412 would not display on my HLN5065 using 720p. I just use 1080i and it works great. Funny, I was reading your previous post and thought, hmmm...sounds like PC Wide. Good luck.

Originally posted by tall1
Every box I have used, 6200, 6208 and 6412 would not display on my HLN5065 using 720p. I just use 1080i and it works great. Funny, I was reading your previous post and thought, hmmm...sounds like PC Wide. Good luck.

You would think it would default to video wide, and not PC Wide, so a goof like me wouldn't ask such a question. I thought PC Wide shrunk the display vertically so the bottom task bar is visible, and not horizontally. Anyway, I'll give it a shot. I'll post if it doesn't work. Thanks! (What did people do before these boards???)

Originally posted by mikemorel
... (What did people do before these boards???)
They read the manual ;)

Originally posted by Kir
They read the manual ;)

The manual doesn't tell you how to adjust your green out of the picture on COMP input. Since there's no tint adjustment that means going into the Service Menu

Originally posted by Sea Ray
The manual doesn't tell you how to adjust your green out of the picture on COMP input. Since there's no tint adjustment that means going into the Service Menu
The question was about PC Wide vs TV Wide. The manual explains it perfectly.

I have an HLN 56" model and I am under the impression that it comes with factory builtin discrete codes. Am I correct? How would I go about programming those into my MX-500?

I'm not sure about your remote but I think you'll find the discrete codes over at www.remote-central.com. They've managed to get most of them to work. IIRC, the screen size and antenna inputs don't work.

Originally posted by howada
I just want a nutural picture with no exaggerated greens or reds. If you have any suggestions for SM settings, please let me know. I have only made changes in the DNie and VPC3230 menus. I did try changing Gamma from 4 to 0, but couldn't decide which was better.

You should definitely set Gamma to 0. The results might appear too dark at first, but will actually be more accurate, and it will certainly help with any exaggerated colors. Just give yourself a while to get used to it.

I don't think I've read of an ISF calibrated HLN set that had gamma set to anything other than 0.

TThanks for the tip Vinny. based on your information I will go back and set Gamma to 0.

By the way, I was watching a movie tonight (Manchurian Candidate) and noticed some flickering on my screen. It was like someone was changing settings remotely, back and forth. The unit stopped after a few changes. After this, everything seemed much better. I no longer felt a need to get into the Service Menu and "fix" things. Could it be that something was simply stuck and finally broke loose in my set?

I do want to mention that my color wheel is making the dentist drill sounds on occasion. I have pretty much ignored it since my unit is no longer under warrantee. Everything is looking okay for now, but I wonder how stable this RP is and what recourse I have with Samsung. Any suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks,

David

Originally posted by howada
I do want to mention that my color wheel is making the dentist drill sounds on occasion. I have pretty much ignored it since my unit is no longer under warrantee. .....

I suggest you give Samsung a call about your color wheel bearing failure. They replaced the color wheel on my HLN5065WX which was 13 months old. Also, replaced main and digital boards.

Yup I have gamma zero and it is definitely the best. It does take some getting used to as vlapietra said, at first it looks dull and way to warm, but you'll appreciate it in the end.

Question? Every time I go into the SM to make some adjustments the color temp. switches back to normal and I have not figure out a way to change it back to warm 1 or 2 will in the SM. I never make any changes to the color in the SM b/c they would be thrown off when I switch back to the warm setting upon exiting the SM. Is there anyway to change to warm 1 or 2 will in the SM? I have an HLN507W1.


The reason for this is I recently had the LE replaced and the green tint seems worse with this one and I'm trying to reduce that and bring the blacks in line more. I'd love to see what changes some of you have made in the SM. Anyone feel free to PM them to me. Thanks.

Any time you go into the SM, the settings on all the inputs revert to Normal color temp and Dynamic picture mode. Meaning that all adjustments made while in the SM are seen through Normal color temp and Dynamic picture settings. That's why I try to set my Contrast (white level) and Brightness (black level) while in the SM, and leave them at 100 and 50, respectively, in the User Menu (Dynamic setting), and just bring Sharpness down to 0 and Color saturation down a bit.

Color offset/gain changes will still work, even if you change the color temp. Try backing off the green in the offset (low light level) and/or gain (high light level) a bit to work on the green push.

Couple more questions. What does the AUTOCOLOR setting actually do? I accidentally hit it with my old LE and noticed no difference or changes but I also did not notice this much green tint in my old LE vs since the new one was installed. Could the AUTOCOLOR do something to help correct the green push? Ever since the new LE was put in the green tint seems to have gotten worse. Every movie I have watch seems to have used a green filter when filming. I'm not sure if I have just picked movies that did do this or if it is the TV. Does The Terminal and King Arthur: Directors Cut have a green tint on anyone else's TV? What is a good live action movie to test color sat with?

Thanks
Chris

Green push/tint is an annoying, inherent problem in the LEs in Sammy DLPs. You see it in the display models in the stores too. Luckily the problem is easily fixed and after you do, you've got an awfully nice TV. So far as I know, the only way to treat this is to get into the SM and start adjusting the gains and offsets. It's a little intimidating at first but you do tend to get more comfortable with it.

Question for those that have had there set ISF calibrated. I'm considering getting my set calibrated with some tax refund money. I have never seen a professionally calibrated set and just wanted to know is it really a huge difference. I'm not rich (especially after buying this TV) and will most likely not be able to afford to have a ISF tech come out each year to make adjustments. I say that b/c I have heard that the settings drift over time and really only last about a year. Is it worth the money for one year of calibrated viewing or is the drift in settings minor and even 5 years from know will the TV look substantially better then it did out of the box? Will replacing the light bulb throw off your ISF settings? Also, how "red" is D65? I have my TV set to warm 1 b/c warm 2 is way too red and I hate that look. If D65 is closer to warm 2 then I don't think I'll like it b/c I hate the red tint but, if it is closer to warm 1 then I can live with that. Has anyone had there cabinet lined with Duvetyne and is it worth the extra cash? Does it make a huge difference in blacks or just minor? IR are not a problem with me, I only see a slight IR in the center of the screen during things like credits over a black screen, which I think is normal for RPTVs. I'm just trying to justify spending the money on this in my mind. I know that it will improve the performance of the TV but for how long. I can not afford to repeat it annually like some ISF tech recommend. I wish I could see a set that has been calibrated b/c I've never seen one and I don't know what I'm missing out on.

I've spent a lot of time calibrating this set with the OpticOne colorimeter and Accuple signal generator. Like most sets, the out-of-the-box color temp on my set (even with all the various settings) was no where near D65 and very uneven across the IRE values (brightness levels). My readings indicated that Standard setting and Normal color temp was closest (but not very) to D65.

Once calibrated, the set really does an amazing job with color resolution, meaning you can see the slightest differences in color which creates the appearance of greater resolution and a more 3-dimensional image. For example, on an uncalibrated set, a brick wall will generally appear as a uniform color. On a calibrated set, the subtle differences in each brick can easily be seen. Same goes for costumes. On an uncalibrated set, a costume appears as only a few colors; on a properly calibrated set, you notice that the costume has many subtle color details that you never noticed before (LOTR is an excellent example because they put so much detail in the costumes that just melds together on an uncalibrated set).

Blacks are better not because they are necessarily darker but because they are a true black. These sets have a real tendency to lean towards a blue or red tint on low light scenes. With a proper calibration, black will be black. This gives the picture more punch and the appearance of greater contrast.

Unfortunately, changing the bulb will change the calibration, but it will still be much closer to D65 than an uncalibrated set. If your bulb has stablized (app 200 hours), the calibration should be pretty good (and better than uncalibrated) until you need to change the bulb.

Is it worth the money? You've spent a lot on your set. Once calibrated, I think you will find that it rivals an uncalibrated set that cost twice as much.

This set has amazing potential for detail and color resolution, but it needs to be calibrated to realize that potential.

If I lived close by I would calibrate your set for free. I've spent so much time on mine that I bet I could calibrate yours in an hour or two.

Thanks Kevin for you answers. If you do not mind I have 2 more. Did I understand you right, that changing the bulb does change the calibration a little but once the new bulb stabilized it will be pretty much back to the calibration. Also, would you still recommend calibration to someone (my wife and me) who watches most of there movies in the daytime and with lights on at night or would the set be too dark? Thanks again for the help. It is a lot of money and I'm just trying to be sure.

In theory, the new bulb, once stabilized, should have only a minor impact on the grayscale. This assumes that the new bulb is built to the same specifications as the original bulb. Again, the set will still be much closer to D65 then if left uncalibrated.

Like you, we bought the Samsung DLP for our family room because of light issues and especially because window reflections off the screen were much less than with other sets. My personal opinion is that this set actually looks better with some light in the room because it creates the perception of better black levels (if you’ve ever watched in a totally dark room, you will notice that at best the set only reaches a level of very dark gray and not totally black – which is pretty much normal for DLPs). Another plus is that the set is so bright that I find it very watchable even if the shades are open.

The only problem in a bright room is that one tends to jack up the contrast which cause primary red to drop off rather quickly at high brightness levels (starting about 70 IRE ) leaving you with greenish whites. High contrast also clips some of the brightest image information (my tests shows that Dynamic clips information down to about 92 IRE). In other words, to get a flat grayscale calibration at all IRE levels (10-100) and to see all picture information, contrast does need to be reduced (again, this is true with many TV sets). My guess is that if you can watch the Sammy now in the “Movie” mode (which has a substantially lower contrast level than “Dynamic” mode), that you will be happy with an ISF calibration – at least in regards to brightness levels. If it is not bright enough, you can always revert to “Dynamic” mode knowing that your grayscale will be good at least from 20-70 IRE, which is where the majority of color information is contained.

As an aside, my wife loves costume movies (The Perfect Husband, The Importance of Being Ernest, My Fair Lady, Hello Dolly, etc.). She is the one who pointed out to me how much better the costumes look after calibration and how much this has added to her enjoyment of movies. It never hurts to make the little women happy when spending money on electronics.

I should point out that Samsung has changed the specs for the bulb. My HLN4365 had the 3 blinking lights at about 1200 hours. Samsung has changed the specs and also the balast for. Where the bulb was originally a 100W P it is now a 120W J (with a new balast) The fact that the bublb went out was not the balast problem but a new change tha Samsung has made. It happened the week the repair guy came out to replace the lamp. I saw it noted on here as well. I notice the lamp appears slightly brighter and only minor changes in the SM were needed.

I just noticed that my samsung hln-507w1's top light flashes green every 20 seconds or so. After I call the tech out, is it possible that he'll just say it's not a problem, just ignore it. My pq seems to be the same as before the blinking began. But if something is about to "blow", I want to head off the problem.

The service manual says as follows:

"1. Check that the fan operates when LED for timer, standby or abnormal temperature blinks.

2. Check that the cover detection switch is inserted at CN310 on the digital board when LED for timer, standby or abnormal temperature blinks.

3. When LED for timer, standby or abnormal temperature blinks, check that the lamp cover is properly assembled and that the switch-pressing boss(inside) is not bent."

If you get a blinking top light and the bottom "TEMP" light is on, it means you have a fan failure and/or the set is overheating.

Originally posted by cyberbri
Any time you go into the SM, the settings on all the inputs revert to Normal color temp and Dynamic picture mode. Meaning that all adjustments made while in the SM are seen through Normal color temp and Dynamic picture settings.
If you have the latest two-board fix to correct lip-sync issues, your inputs will now revert to "COOL 2" color temp and "Dynamic" picture mode after calibrating. "Cool 2" is the color temp that was calibrated, so you should leave it at that setting. Unfortunately, this means you can never go cooler from the User Menu... only warmer.

Every "fix" seems to screw up something else!

Gary

Is there a way in the SM to permanently change your sharpness to 0?? I think mine gets reset after i turn my tv off.

Thanks

My Sammy (51" HLN) has started making a *loud* whining noise. If I shut down the TV and turn it back on, it disappears, for a bit, but then comes back. I have not called tech support yet, but will do so in the morning. Any thoughts? Is this a normal failure mode? The TV is about 18 months old...

Parag

ParagPA,

It is probably the color wheel. You should call it in for service.

-Rob

Originally posted by cobravap
Is there a way in the SM to permanently change your sharpness to 0?? I think mine gets reset after i turn my tv off.

Thanks

It should be saved in your picture settings. I know that on my HLN, I have Custom, plus the other presets. If I try to change any of the settings on a picture preset, it automatically changes that to my Custom. But your settings should be saved there, per input (IIRC), so they return when you turn the set back on.

This is my first post though I'm a long time lurker.. I think you guys do an excellent job of providing much sought after info which is not readily available for folks like me... I have sammy HLN437W and I would like to get it professionally calibrated. I contacted a local store and the guy seems to be extremely busy. Do you guys know anyone closer to Burlington, NJ that does professional calibration. I'm looking for ISF certified guys. Any feedback you guys can provide would be very much appreciated. Keep up the good work. Though you may not hear from folks like us that often, there are a lot of them that gets benifited from forums like these.

Originally posted by HDReady
I'm looking for ISF certified guys. Any feedback you guys can provide would be very much appreciated. Keep up the good work. Though you may not hear from folks like us that often, there are a lot of them that gets benifited from forums like these.

Try here:

http://www.milori.com/community/calibrator/default.asp

When I first opened the SM for my HLN467W I wrote the setting on a piece of paper and put it with the manual. Later when I had a digital camera I took photos of all the settings and saved them to my computer.

Recently, after reading the comments about the Gamma settings improving the PQ, I changed my Gamma setting from the factory setting of "4" to "0". At that time I noticed my "wbdefset" setting was "OFF" but my saved paper indicated "ON". Then I looked at the digital photos and they indicated "OFF".

So, my question is, what should the factory setting be for "wbdefset" ?
A geewiz question would be , what effect does the setting have on set operation?

Thanks for any help.

According to the service manual, WBDEFSET is for "white balance setting" and the default is OFF.

It also states that WBDEFSET should only be set to ON when performing an EER-RESET to clear all items, and thereafter it needs to be ON to reset auto-color, image, and delay settings.

Sounds like OFF is the right setting.

PS -- I like the idea of taking a digital picture of SM settings. More than once I've written them down incorrectly, or worse couldn't read my own handwriting.

Kevin,

Thanks for the quick response. It's great to have people willing to help others.

Thanks again,

Wes

Zebras23.. Thanks for the info. I found a guy just 7 miles away from my home

HDReady,

Please let us know how you like your set post-calibration.

Thanks.

Hi guys - I've read through this thread and there's tons of great info...

My request is much more basic however :) - I have a HLN from Oct 2003. I'm using DVE over component (and DVI, but that's a different story for now) to balance out colors.

I can get blue to balance easily, and red to balance by turning down the color setting. However I absolutely cannot get the green to match.

Am I barking up the proverbial wrong tweaking tree?

Thanks in advance.

Edit:
ah hell, while I'm at it - is there any way to change to DVI connection colorspace?

Originally posted by HeaTransfer
However I absolutely cannot get the green to match.



You need to crank down the green gain and maybe the green offset as well. Don't be surprised if green is 15 points lower than say red in the gain area. As you see others calibrated settings the green gain is always significantly lower than the R or B. The offset not quite as much.

Greetings - just had my Jan 2004 HLN567 serviced today for the lip-sync problem. Pretty much swapped out the entire set of guts on it - new light engine, color wheel, digital & analog boards. However, now I have a series of 3 1/2 inch dark gray circles appear over dark scenes. Especially noticeable when watching wide-screen movies with horiz black bars - a couple of the circles are along the top. It looks analogous to having dust on a digital slr sensor. Could this be dust? Is this user serviceable? BTW - he left me the old color wheel (not sure why it was replaced). Interesting device - smaller than I thought!

SD Diver

Hi guys - have been continuing tweaking of my DLP -

I absolutely cannot get the green bars in DVE to match, even when playing with gains and cuts. This is true of both component and HDMI. It seems that I either get a slight green or red push no matter how I tweak.

Furthermore, this (excellent) thread:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=318977&perpage=20&pagenumber=7

Seems to indicate that using the cuts/gains to compensate for the DLP's color decoder is incorrect - if this is so, what settings should I modify?

The color decoder is, for lack of a better word, 'broken'. That is why the bars won't match.

It can be mostly compensated for by an experienced calibrator, usually with the help of an optical comparator. But it is, what it is.
You should probably leave Green offset/gain alone and modify the Red and Blue offset/gain to eliminate the green push as best you can. You generally don't want to mess with the green numbers directly.

Thanks for the quick answer vinny - it is as I suspected. (by the way, the proper term you're looking for is "borked" :) ).

I'll have to keep that word in my back pocket for future reference. :)
Actually, the reason I qualified my 'broken' comment, is because it's been speculated that Samsung has done this on purpose. They know the initial draw of HD for most people is sports, what better than to juice up those green fields for more impact.

im reading about this firmware on this thread.i have the 467w.what can i do to make the pic better im very interested in this. i am new to ht though too.so i would need detailed iformation on what to do and get if someone could lead me in the right direction.

chazklf,

First, you should research picture settings, what each does, and how it affects the picture, etc. A couple of good places to start are:
www.displaycalibration.com - this is for calibrating a display hooked up to the computer, but reading the information can really help
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6463_7-5085739_1.html?tag=fs -- the first page has basic terms, but note that the settings (50%, etc.) they describe aren't necessarily going to work on your DLP. But the basic principles will work and may provide some improvements. The Intermediate page there lists calibration discs you can use to tune your TV and your DVD player's input.

I suggest sticking with User Menu adjustments and staying away from the Service Menu. You need to break your TV in for 100 hours anyway, but you really need to know what you're doing to try changing the Service Menu. If you have the money, you could also just hire a certified ISF calibrator to set your DLP up for you.


And without getting into the Service Menu, you can still work this way - Steaming Rat - going by eye:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=261309
This goes from what the CNet page talks about, but in much more depth.

HTH

ive had my tv since may 2004 ive made adjustment with avia disk.seeing the screen shots of the last article you pionted me towards looked incredible.i want my tv to look as life like as that.what do i need to to? also im looking into a dvd player arcam dv79 marantzdv9500 denon dvd3910

Your best bet is probably a better DVD player, either an upscaling model, or an HTPC (home theater computer) to upscale and sharpen to your tweaking heart's content - either one using DVI or at least component cables. Your picture will only be as good as the source material it's fed.

Other than that, as long as your set is properly calibrated (by yourself or a pro), that's about all you can do - besides upgrade your DVD player/connections. You can play around with your brightness/contrast and color settings as well. If you're ready to get into the service menu and get your brightness (black) and contrast (white) tuned in really well, read up and give it a shot. If you have a digital camera, it's easiest to take shots of the screen to record all the settings before making changes than it is to try and write everything down.

The brightness should be the easiest to set. All you do is get a good test pattern or two, turn it up and down until you find the point where noise starts to appear in the black areas. You should be able to get it to where the noise just disappears from the pure black, so that the 5% and 10% grey, etc. are very dark but still distinguishable from pure black. Contrast (white) should work the same way, so you find the point where noise starts to appear in the pure white area. This might be a little harder to see than black/brightness, though. But if you have good brightness/contrast levels, that will make sure the whole spectrum of dark to light is appearing as dark or as light as it should, making sure you have as much light on the screen as there is supposed to be. If your brightness is up to high, your darks and your saturation will be washed out. If your contrast is down too low, you will lose your bright whites and the overall picture will go grey and be muted.

Color balance is harder. But if you leave it at default in the service menu and say for example, set the Color Temp in the User Menu to Warm 1, it should give you decent results. If you feel like adjusting the colors on your own, be sure you write down or take a digital picture of your settings first.

Just be aware that when you enter your service menu, the TV will revert to Dynamic Picture Mode. That's why I calibrated there, and left Dynamic's settings as-is, except I turned Sharpness to 0 and Color down to 40, leaving Contrast at 100 and Brightness at 50. My actual DLP looks better than those screenshots, although I'm comparing my actual image to the tiny pictures he took of his set and which I view through another monitor.


(FWIW, personally I think some of those screenshots are over-sharpened. It could be the display, or it could be just the pics. He has said that some of the shots in his gallery were taken before he made his final adjustments, so there is a lot of pronounced edges and rining (look at the Shrek pics for a good example). Granted, some of them look really nice, like the Hulk pics. But when you over-sharpen, you create noise along all the edges and it makes more noise. If you're going to sharpen the picture, the point is to sharpen without creating noise or ringing or making artifacts worse. That's why an HTPC with Zoom Player and ffdshow is a tweaker's dream. :) )

HTH

your sofa is awsome where ya get it? what do need to do with my computer to set it up? also could i try your numbers?

We got our couch/love seat/chair set at Homelife Furnishings in San Jose (or Santa Clara). There are a ton of little furniture stores around here.

And to hook your computer up to your DLP, all you need is a computer with a video card that can output DVI (preferably), VGA (should do this no matter what), or something that you can convert to component cables with an adapter. If you want to run the computer to upscale and sharpen DVDs, it's best to have at least a P4 2.4GHz machine to be able to get results that are worth it.

As for my numbers for my Service Menu, I don't remember what they are. I know I have green down a bit from the red and blue. But contrast/brightness are different for each input. I have my HTPC (DVI) setting with certain values, tested with display patterns. And I have my cable input at different settings, going by eye for brightness/contrast (with green down a bit).


HTH

chazklf,

Get you set ISF calibrated. I did and it made all the difference in the world. No more neon green, better shadow detail and no more white crushing. AVIA will only get you so far.

Hammy408

I've got a 16 month old HLN5065W with the color wheel noise.
Has anyone tried to replace the wheel assembly on their own?

Rick

Originally posted by RSRLegends
I've got a 16 month old HLN5065W with the color wheel noise.
Has anyone tried to replace the wheel assembly on their own?

Rick

Call Samsung. They will cover the color wheel replacement. My HLN5065W's color wheel went north out of warranty, and Samsung replaced it and the main and AV boards. If you decide to repair the cw, search this forum for repair manual link and instructions.

Originally posted by allenn
Call Samsung. They will cover the color wheel replacement. My HLN5065W's color wheel went north out of warranty, and Samsung replaced it and the main and AV boards.

i bought my hln617w in 5/03. my color wheel has always been somewhat noisy, but recently it became intolerable. i've also had the lip sync problem, but i ignored it because it was only happening on analog signals. since i watch digital almost exclusively, it wasn't an issue for me.

i called samsung today about the color wheel, & i also mentioned the lip sync problem. they hooked me up w/ a service shop & extended my warranty to allow for the service free of charge. i was happy. thanks, samsung!

should i look out for any common problems if they end up replacing most of the internals of the tv? i'll report back on the results of the service call.