PLV-Z4 Tweak Thread [Text View]

ROne

10-18-05, 04:59 AM

Last night I set up 3 picture presets based on the most accurate (not the most contrast) picture.

Using Pure Cinema, Creative Cinema and Natural, all with Auto Iris on. Manual Iris set to -63.

I watched the most god-awful film (Constantine) to test for black detail and stuff.

There was no outright winner - Pure Cinema seems to the give the best shadow detail (gamma looks to be good), Creative Cinema very similar maybe a bit brighter. Natural similar to Pure.

The CRs of all three came in between 1050:1 and 1200:1 depending on where I'd got the contrast.

ANSI contrast is good, black level only average.

I still could see the operation of the iris in these modes but it is much less objectionable than the Powerful, Dynamic and Vivid mode. But I could still see it. I am incredibly sensitive to this Iris though (I am used to watching for exposure movement in my job using camera equipment).

Overall I'm still not enamoured by the Z4, and I still maintain a well calibrated Z3 is not far behind and would go as far as saying black level is a little better.

I feel I am running out of things to tweak and the HDMI input is still nagging me, certain sharpness setting influence certain colour combinations in different ways, so for instance -3 maybe good for desktop but then not so good for a black background and white text. Not a huge problem, but completely unnecessary considering the Z3s pure HDMI input.

One tiny but ultimately useless tweak (because of the trade-off) is to increase gamma (That is boost the intensity ramp) and use the Powerful modes for greatest contrast, this seems to trick the iris into thinking the floor is brighter than it is so it reacts a lot less but is still visible. And you end up with bumpy gamma! So not that usefull really.

If I could find a way to get the Z3 back without losing money - I would.

Anybody else found anything useful yet?

ROne

10-18-05, 05:03 AM

Is the z4 for sale yet?

How much do you want to pay for mine :D

Smarty-pants

10-18-05, 08:52 AM

Well ROne, your new findings have me perplexed indeed. The Z4 seems to be not so much of an improvement over the Z3 as everyone has thought. I would put my sights back on to the Z3 possibly, but the predicament I have now is that I want to do CIH without a lens, and the Z3 doesn't have enough zoom for that. What to do, what to do.

ROne

10-18-05, 09:06 AM

. What to do, what to do.

The z4 is a good machine, especially if you come to it the first time, also it's early in its career so maybe there is more we can do.

However faced with having a z3 for cheap or z4 full price, I would go Z3 cheap. If you can't get a Z3 then obviously a 4 will do the job a little bit better but not by a wide margin.

madpoet

10-18-05, 09:46 AM

The problem with a Z3 for cheap (for me) is that it doesn't do the proper scaling for CH use. I'd have to get an external scaler, which isn't the end of the world but eats up everything I saved by getting the Z3 ;). I'm in patience mode right now (hard, I admit) between the Z4 and AE900, just waiting to see what the fallout will be. I really like the Z4, but it's sounding like there are some real problems.

scotty144

10-18-05, 10:44 AM

Smarty-pants

10-18-05, 12:15 PM

If you check out Cine4home's review they were able to get over 4000:1 filtered.-scotty144

@65k?

scotty144

10-18-05, 02:10 PM

I believe so. It can go as high as 7000:1 but the colors are off.

Smarty-pants

10-18-05, 02:14 PM

Couldn't the colors be adjusted in the service menu then?

scotty144

10-18-05, 02:23 PM

They can only be adjusted so far, and then one must use filter(s) to make up for the deficiency of the bulb.

dusk

10-18-05, 03:20 PM

ROne,
Forgive me if you mentioned this earlier or over on the Z4 thread but what is your viewing environment; screen size, wall color, ambient light etc.? If you post tweaks and have a Z4 please list specs about your viewing room. Thanks

dusk

Kadath

10-18-05, 09:17 PM

However faced with having a z3 for cheap or z4 full price, I would go Z3 cheap.

This is just the situation I am in. I have a third option tho of course, and thats the Panasonic 900. I've read good and bad things about all 3 of course, and sorting them out and whether either of the two new boxes is woth a $700 premium over the well loved Z3 is worth it is a real bear, especially for a first time PJ buyer, and I've got to get my Greywolf up and windows blacked out to boot.

Have you considered trying the Panny ROne?

Sam

ROne

10-19-05, 04:08 AM

The Service mode entry for the Z4 is same as the Z3.

Press MENU+INPUT then whilst the S is on screen press UP+DOWN.

Though i've yet to find a manual ...

Use with caution and write things down!

ROne

10-19-05, 04:15 AM

Don't forget that this is very early on in the tweaking phase. I believe ROne is comparing a unfiltered Z4 to a filtered Z3. If you check out Cine4home's review they were able to get over 4000:1 filtered. I am sure more time and tweaking will produce better results.

That's true I don't think I've been clear enough about the Z4s capability.

You can get 4000:1 - 7000:1 (filtered and unfiltered from the Z4) no problem - that is if you are happy with one of the MORE dynamic modes that allow the Iris more freedom to hunt in the picture. This is my objection. If you are happy with the IRIS closing right down in certain scenes (sometimes the wrong scenes) then you can get these numbers.

Let me draw up a list: (BOTH UNFILTERED)

Least Iris Movement, least contrast best color balance and decent gamma.

PURE CINEMA
CREATIVE CINEMA
NATURAL
LIVING (though gamma is iffy here)

CR (between 1000:1 and 1300:1)

Most Iris Movement, most contrast, work on color balance needed, dicky gamma.

DYNAMIC
POWERFUL
VIVID

CR (between 4500:1 and 6895:1)

Irrespective of whether you filter or not, you're still going to get Iris movement in the higher power settings.

The Z4 looks to have good ANSI contrast so makes up for outright ON/OFF contrast in my opinion.

I have yet to move on to filtered calibration as it's nice to see what It can do without filters first.

dusk

10-19-05, 01:20 PM

Sorry to nitpick but it'll also bump this thread. Put screen diag too.

dusk

10-19-05, 01:38 PM

Also ROne, did you try another source for the Z4 like a straight DVD player? ATI has too many trademarked "Picture Enhancement" tags to go with their cards that may be tricking the Z4. I don't trust HTPC's to leave anything untouched by default especially when jumping from video driver to video driver as upgrades become available.

All these things below are attached to the 9600Se.
SMARTSHADER™ provides the programmable shader abilities for visual realism
SMOOTHVISION™ generates the sharp and clear images by built-in anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering
FULLSTREAM™ removes blocky artifacts from streaming Internet video
VIDEOSHADER™ integrates shader features to provide unprecedented support for digital and high definition video.

ROne

10-19-05, 04:26 PM

ROne

10-19-05, 06:00 PM

Wow, it was easier to tweak the Z4 close to D65! Dead easy to get 6500 at 100ire, the bulb doesn't seem lacking in red there, if anything it's lacking green at the top.

Bottom is different to Z3 also, Z3 leaked blue - Z4 leaks green!

Took about 30mins.

Contrast Ratio 1200:1

Preset: Creative Cinema

B: -14
C: +5
Sat: -3 to -5 (set with AVIA etc)
Tint: 0
Color temp: Low1
R: +9
G: 0
B: -1
Sharpness: -6 (compromise)
Lamp: Low (A1,A2 adds 100-200 CRs)
Gamma: 0
Lens Iris: -35 (set for preferred light output)

Lamp Iris: AUTO
Auto Black Stretch: off
Contrast Enhancement: off
Transient: Off

Gain R: +13
Gain G: +11
Gain B: -2
Offset: R -5
Offset: G -5
Offset: B 0
Gamma R,G,B 0,0,0

HDMI: L2 for pc levels using VMR, re-calibrate brightness for L1 (video levels and overlay output)

Desktop seems a bit yellow but all seems good across IRE steps, there is room for improvement but not a whole lot. There is a small error of (+/-200k around 40-60 ire.)

shelly

10-19-05, 09:34 PM

ROne

10-20-05, 01:48 AM

Well, when we did the Z3, Jeremy Anderson has been happy with my settings over his component connection, so I imagine they may work out.

I might actually try a component source if I get chance and report back.

shelly

10-20-05, 02:08 PM

madpoet

10-20-05, 02:25 PM

Well, broke down and put my order in ;)

Monkey_Man

10-20-05, 05:33 PM

That is excellent Madpoet!!!! Looking forward to hearing your review. We both have had the same PJs over time and same panamorph lens (except epson 500). RIght now I'm on the power buy list for the sony Ruby. Not sure on the final price but I'm sure I will chicken out. Looking at the Z4, had too bad of look with panasonic 300 & 500 to consider the 900. I personally hate the smooth screen paired with the Panamorph on panasonic.

vfrjim

10-20-05, 11:04 PM

subscribed

madpoet

10-21-05, 09:00 AM

Heh, I WISH I could afford the Ruby MM. No such luck though. I guess it's not released here in the States for another week +, so we'll see when it gets here. Bought from a forum sponsor by the way.

ROne

10-21-05, 01:11 PM

Okay, messed around with this for a while, have a close solution.

90% of the EE applied on the Z4 around text etc is because of the Transient Enhancement in the advanced menu.

This defaults to setting L1 when you dial in the preset, which provides a huge jump in EE, no matter how you set the sharpness.

Ofcourse every time you set a preset initially this is on by default!

Turn if off set sharpness to -6 and things are a lot better. Not absolutely 110% perfect but down to a level that is tiny and I would deem not effecting the picture.

The last miniscule bit must be a bit of processing but it really is dead and buried now as far as I'm concerned.

ROne

10-25-05, 03:29 AM

Spent way too many hours on this thing last night ...

Everything seems a compromise, you get a better black level - you see the iris moving, you get better contrast - your gamma is odd.

I was starting to get really annoyed last night as I began to play with the LIVING setting once again and I discoverd a couple of things.

1) The bulb has dimmed quite a lot now.

2) Reading D65 onto the spyder produced odd results that were too yellow - maybe an effect of the DI.

Cutting a long story short, I've come up with a nice round of settings based on LIVING.

The only prerequisite seems to be with the Z4 to get a good black level and reasonable contrast you must take the manual Iris down somewhere to -50 or so and the picture is quite dim when used in conjunction with the AUTO lamp iris, but if you have the manual Iris higher say -25 the picture is just too washed out.

D65 LIVING updated Settings 26/10/05

Unfiltered

Contrast Ratio ? not measured

Preset: LIVING

B: -4
C: +5
Sat: -2 to 0 (set with AVIA etc)
Tint: 0
Color temp: Low1
R: +7 (down from +9)
G: 0
B: -1
Sharpness: -6
Lamp: Low (A1,A2 adds 100-200 CRs)
Gamma: 0
Lens Iris: -50 to -40 (you will need a dark room)

Lamp Iris: AUTO
Auto Black Stretch: off
Contrast Enhancement: off
Transient: Off (DOUBLE CHECK, MAIN CAUSE OF EE!)

Gain R: +4
Gain G: +2
Gain B: -5
Offset: R -15
Offset: G -15
Offset: B -5
Gamma R,G,B 0,0,0

HDMI: L2 for pc levels using VMR, re-calibrate brightness for L1 (video levels and overlay output)

+ves Sharp in-frame contrast, black level good, Iris not so troublesome

-ves Quite a dim picture, Gamma a little odd, a bit noisy, colour balance still a bit wrong somewhere ... but getting there.

LIVING v CREATIVE CINEMA, well living produces much better in-frame contrast and a brighter peak white. CC definately has a less harsh gamma and rolls off nicer into shadows. The Iris dances about less in Living, but again you can still see it move occasionally.

The above settings are looking good, if a bit orangy-red but they are definately improved offer my initial CC settings.

There are that many things to tweak I keep messing up something so it's a bit two steps forward one step back.

madpoet

10-25-05, 09:04 AM

Thanks for blazing the trail ROne. I expect my Z4 hopefully early next week, and look forward to joining you ;)

dusk

10-25-05, 09:11 AM

Thanks for the info ROne. Your continued effort is much appreciated by us. Hopefully we'll be able to chime in and maybe help you out a bit when we all get our Z4's. You've made a great start though.

shelly

10-25-05, 10:30 AM

ROne

10-25-05, 11:17 AM

ROne,

Thaks for your hard work trying to ge the bes picture from the Z4.

I realize that you are trying to get the best contrast and deepest blacks.

Did you use the Color Management screen at all to adjust the color abnormalities (too yellow) you report?

Shelly

It's looking like too much contrast really shifts the color balance.

I am messing with it it now, though color management is perhaps not the tool of choice just yet ...

utility

10-31-05, 08:45 AM

rone, you got any new settings for us?

ROne

10-31-05, 08:55 AM

Yes, I will put them up tonight.

Monkey_Man

10-31-05, 09:11 AM

ROne sorry if I missed this but what type screen are you running?

Smarty-pants

10-31-05, 08:49 PM

Yes, I will put them up tonight.

SWEET...!

slateef

10-31-05, 08:55 PM

rone, i would like to hear your opinon of how the z4 compares with the z3... what do you think? is it a huge difference? worth the upgrade or not?

ROne

11-01-05, 02:51 AM

Unfiltered

Contrast Ratio 1350:1

Preset: LIVING

B: -3
C: +6
Sat: +2
Tint: 0

Set your own of the above unless you are on HDMI then they should be close if you have same hardware as myself.

I am pegging SAT back again, set as per AVIA i just don't like it, because I think it changes due to lamp and iris configurations.

Color temp: Low1
R: +10
G: -1
B: -8
Sharpness: -6
Lamp: A1 (for bright image, doesn't effect black level)
Gamma: -1
Lens Iris: -40 (you will need dark room)

Lamp Iris: AUTO
Auto Black Stretch: off
Contrast Enhancement: off
Transient: Off (DOUBLE CHECK, MAIN CAUSE OF EE!)

Gain R: +2
Gain G: +3
Gain B: -5
Offset: R -15
Offset: G -13
Offset: B -6
Gamma R,G,BA 0,0,0

HDMI: L2 for pc levels using VMR, re-calibrate brightness for L1 (video levels and overlay output)

+ves Everything above IRE 40 now D65 without lumps and bumps. Gamma tracking spot on 2.23

-ves still a bit noisy, colour balance gives weird readings below IRE 40, looking into this ...

Very happy with these settings, spent ages with the smart and spyder trying to iron out those odd readings.

There is still some weirdness from IRE40 and below, I get two different readings from the x on the colorimeter, it appears to be fluctuating. Maybe this is the effect of the auto-iris?

EXTRA TIP: if you're got NO ambient light then you can afford to bang that iris right down to the -50s, and put that adaptive lamp mode on and will give you a superb depth: without light control though the low iris mode will appear way too dark. That's why I settled at -40 as a good compromise.

dvdr

11-01-05, 03:44 AM

Hi ROne

interesting settings there, I will try them out as soon as it's dark outside (right now, it's about 10 am....)

I discovered some interesting settings on the web - would you mind testing them against YOUR settings and give me your impression, how they work with your equipment?

I copied them from the following website:
http://www.avbuzz.com/audio-video/200510/ckl-sanyo-z4/index.htm

Settings based on Creative Cinema Mode

Brightness +3
Contrast -3
Color +4
Tint 0
Gamma +1 (he set it to +1 to have a bit more detail in the shadows)
Color temp. Mid
Red 0
Green 0
Blue 0
Gain R -5
Gain G -9
Gain B +3
Offset R -15
Offset G +15
Offset B -2
Gamma R +5
Gamma G -5
Gamma B -3
Lamp Iris Auto
Auto black Stretch, Contrast enhacement and Transient improvement all off

So, would you mind trying out these settings and report back? I will do so with your settings and compare them in my system (Oppo 971H, 2.40m wide motorized 1.2 gain screen)

Joerg

utility

11-01-05, 05:43 AM

thank you very much rone.
these settings look interesting.

like dvdr i'll check them out this evening.

dvdr

11-01-05, 05:56 AM

Hi ROne
could not wait until tonight - closed the shutters....

I tried both your Creative- and Living-based settings (Living is "lebendig" in the German menue and not the very last entry in the menue, "lebhaft", which could be something like "vivid", right?)

With my Oppo 971h the Living settings are way off towards heavy sunburn in faces, I loose a lot of detail in dark scenes (in LOTR, the heavily black clouded skies in the background are loosing all detail, just a black "soup" - as we say in Germany). Your creative-based settings are better in that regard, but flesh-tones are more into the red-ish as well.
Seems to be, that with your HTPC/Video-card you do really need extremely different values than I with my DVD-player over HDMI....
So: if you try out my values, you should end up with some sort of blue-ish/green-ish tint, wouldn't you?

Thanks for posting those findings anyway, it's always great to have people with measuring equipment take the time and try to share their findings!!!!!

Joerg

ROne

11-01-05, 07:33 AM

I'd already tried the settings from avbuzz and they were way off for me.

The creative settings are slightly more tolerable to set-up and forgiving.

The living settings to create a very dark black, but the gamma is present an correct in terms of shadow detail.

Also bear in mind, my HDMI is set-up for L2, you may be on L1 for video output from HDMI - this definately shifts colour balance with the different contrast setting and would explain your crushed black.

dvdr

11-01-05, 08:03 AM

ROne

I'll experiment a bit further and try the L2 setting.

Again: thanks for providing all the information! I'm not critisizing, just reporting back :) After all, we all have different gear to feed the Z4....

Joerg

ROne

11-01-05, 01:58 PM

DVDr, somebody has the same problem with the reds over on AVforums UK.

Here is my post:

I should imagine you should be on L1 (video levels) and you calibrate your own B+C and see what happens, I've got a feeling that my L2(pc levels) are different to the L1 set-up you should have.

If the contrast is driven to hard it will skew color balance towards green therefore a compensation is made to increase red, if the contrast was served up on L2 when it should be L1 for you 720p DVD players then this could cause incorrect colour balance.

For the record my settings are for HDMI Radeon 9600 HTPC using VMR 9 set on HDMI L2.

It's the contrasts different positioning relative to the input that is the problem.

As contrast goes up - red needs to be boosted, so if your contrast is not as high as mine then red will be over boosted.

ROne

11-01-05, 06:20 PM

Loupy31

11-01-05, 06:47 PM

Hi Guys,
My dvd player is the Denon 3800, its best out puts are component, what sort of picture quality should I expect to see from the Z4, I have a light controlled room and my wife and I are only interested in watching movies and HD TV.

Regards Peter

maxse

11-01-05, 07:41 PM

ROne. Are you saying you can actually se the iris chagning with the picture on the screen? This doesnt seem to be an issue with the Z3. Am I missunderstanding something?

ROne

11-02-05, 02:06 AM

ROne. Are you saying you can actually se the iris chagning with the picture on the screen? This doesnt seem to be an issue with the Z3. Am I missunderstanding something?

The Z3 only has a manual iris.

The Z4 has this and an auto control lamp iris - which can confusingly be made manual as well (though it doesn't close down as much when in manual)

The manual iris serves a purpose though - that is to reduce or increase the overall light output. The auto lamp iris (on the Z4) dynamically changes between scenes, and yes on some presets you can see it move.

utility

11-02-05, 04:43 AM

I am not completely happy with saturation, I have lowered it again to which makes it out of target with AVIA but I think it looks better. I suspect there is some variable at play with the different lamp modes that can effect it.

I have set it a +2 till I can find out why it's okay in the charts but a bit hot in movies.

I've quickly gone through the presets again and still staying with living, the others just don't have the same depth.

when i tried your settings with the high SAT the picture was also way too hot for me.
didn't you also had tint at +4 first?
because everything also looked too yellowish for me with these settings.

the only movie that looked kind of good for me with these settings was finding nemo :)

i'll try your revised living settings this evening.

btw: i have the same oppo player as dvdr does, but i also checked with my HTPC giving me the same results in terms of color.

ROne

11-02-05, 04:56 AM

Yes - the tint controls and colour were as per AVIA, and they were too much.

What DVD software are you using? Overlay or VMR?

It does look like that even at D65 (and with my latest settings it's extremely close 40IRE and above) there is some weirdness acting out. I've not a clue what ...

ROne

11-02-05, 08:54 AM

It was nothing to do with the colour balance - its the colour decoder which i naturally assumed to be perfect through HDMI, and after testing all inputs its the same across the board. Too much red and green saturation, not enough blue.

The best and most satisfactory way to cure this is to use the colour management feature of the advanced menu.

Basically this allows you to remap how the colour is distributed.

All you need to do is load up a good screen with a close-up face on it that looks too orange-red, a nice clear outdoor shot. Select the colour management tool from the menu, the screen will freeze - then a target will appear - pick an area of the flesh tone depress the okay button you will then get a further menu which allows you to adjust the colour of that particular tone. I would suggest you lower the colour level a couple of notches and you will sea the skin tone come back to a natural level.

Have a mess with it - don't forget to store it within your preset. It also allows you to AB it. It works great!

You can then set overall saturation as you require.

This looks to be a problem with all presets on all inputs.

Jay Mitchosky

11-02-05, 09:57 AM

shelly

11-02-05, 10:38 AM

It was nothing to do with the colour balance - its the colour decoder which i naturally assumed to be perfect through HDMI, and after testing all inputs its the same across the board. Too much red and green saturation, not enough blue.

The best and most satisfactory way to cure this is to use the colour management feature of the advanced menu.

Basically this allows you to remap how the colour is distributed.

All you need to do is load up a good screen with a close-up face on it that looks too orange-red, a nice clear outdoor shot. Select the colour management tool from the menu, the screen will freeze - then a target will appear - pick an area of the flesh tone depress the okay button you will then get a further menu which allows you to adjust the colour of that particular tone. I would suggest you lower the colour level a couple of notches and you will sea the skin tone come back to a natural level.

Have a mess with it - don't forget to store it within your preset. It also allows you to AB it. It works great!

You can then set overall saturation as you require.

Thanks for the info, ROne.

I have been asking about the color management system all around, even emailing some reviewers, but nobody seems to have touched it, nor knew anyting about it.

Reading the manual, it seemed like the perfect fail-safe in case other color adjustments did not get you where you wanted to go.

Is the Sanyo Z4 the first projector to have a color management system in addition to the usual rgb and gamma adjustments? Did the Z3 have his feature?

Shelly

ROne

11-02-05, 11:28 AM

Shelly - I do remember you asking about it but i thought I would not need to mess with the saturation - again the Z3 didn't need any messing in this area with HDMI.

It wasn't on the Z3.

Where Jeremy had to fix the red push with an attenuator on the Z3 via component, and then later the service menu you can now do it in menu.

I could so with some clues how to use it properly though - so far I used the colour decoder check to check for imbalance in the saturation of the primaries.

But I found best to eyeball flesh tones, it's relatively easy to bring flesh tones in - though for my money they shouldn't be out under HDMI.

Troytn

11-02-05, 10:56 PM

Is there a PDF version of the Z4 manual available anywhere? It's not showing up yet at the Sanyo website (should be soon as they have all other projectors' manuals there and the Z4 now appears in the products section).

Here is the only place it has been found. Not even on Sanyos website yet.

http://www.audiogeneral.com/Sanyo/PLV-Z4_OM.pdf

Jay Mitchosky

11-02-05, 11:27 PM

Thanks!

harmil2

11-03-05, 04:02 AM

Has anyone done any tweaking using component inputs?

falcon642

11-03-05, 05:04 AM

I've been reading the tweak thread for the Z4, but all the work being done over there is for DVD players. So I thought I'd start a thread on how to tweak the Z4 for the Xbox, and later on for the Xbox 360.

maxse

11-03-05, 03:26 PM

Thanks ROne for clearing that up. So is it better to manually set it or have it done automatically? I have a completly controlled light situatio although no Z4 yet. Im waiting for more people to get them so I Can read some reviews... Also how dcoes it look with MCE? Thats what Im going to be eventually using. Are you able to read letters like for example with the my movies plug in where it lists the movies and a description, etc... Thanks

utility

11-04-05, 05:43 AM

acegamer

11-04-05, 07:44 AM

That's pretty neat. I'll have to play around with that feature some this weekend.

shelly

11-04-05, 10:41 AM

yesterday i tried the color management tool for the first time.
this is a real killer feature.
if you have some reference you'd like to color "calibrate" the Z4 to this feature makes it damn easy.

i have my sony crt tv sitting below my beamer screen. now i don't know how good its picture quality is objectively. but i am really used to it and like it very much.

so what i did is to feed the TV and Z4 with the same material.
i used the living preset as i like its compromise between contrast and DI mode the most.

the first thing i didn't like in this preset was the blue.
so i put in finding nemo and use the color management tool to change dory's blue to match the blue on my tv. then i went on with another blue tone, a red and a yellow tone. later i changed the flesh tones and one green tone using batman begins.

in the end i managed to have the Z4 project an image which looked almost identical to the one my CRT TV produces.

i say it again, as i have no calibration equipment i cannot check how far i am off any norms (color distribution, gamma, etc.) now.

but if you have a reference device which picture you really like you can easily use the color mangement the "calibrate" your Z4 to match this device!

Thanks for adding more info about the color management system.

Did you save the changes in the Living mode, or can you save them to a separate User mode, thus keeping Living at default?

Did it actually change any of the "numbers" in the r,g,b gain and bias controls, which is where most of the calibration has been doen so far by forum members? I'm not sure how you would check this if you did not write down those numbers before using the CM system.

But could you go into another picture mode besides Living, and check out the gain and bias numbers in the advanced setup menu, and then use the CM system to change and save some colors, and recheck if any of the values have been changed?

It seems to me that the color management system could be used to tweak the colors in every picture mode, possibly, to take advantage of higher contrast, lumens et al that some have over the others. Very unp[rofessional, I know, but the ral world results are what count.

Thanks.

Shelly

ROne

11-04-05, 11:00 AM

shelly

11-04-05, 11:30 AM

There is some confusion here Shelly.

The Gain & Offset are for adjusting the colour balance - the colour of white/grey.

The colour management is effecting the colour decoder imbalances or rather in the case of HDMI the colour distribution in connection with the saturation.

As far as I can tell the colour management would have no effect on contrast at all.

Thank you for the clarification, ROne.

I do remember using the gain and offset to work on my black and white picture balance, but did use it in this regard to eliminate a yellow push.

So we can have color behavior influenced by both the gray scale as well as the color decoder. But getting the gray scale tracking to D65 gets the black and white right on, and from there, the color decoder takes over. Is this correct?

Anyway, it is reassuring to know that color imbalances can be corrected without the proper equipment, although this is by eyeball rather than by measurement.

Shelly

ROne

11-04-05, 11:50 AM

Thank you for the clarification, ROne.

So we can have color behavior influenced by both the gray scale as well as the color decoder. But getting the gray scale tracking to D65 gets the black and white right on, and from there, the color decoder takes over. Is this correct?

Shelly

That's true - though I'm not sure that the colour decoder should be so wrong over HDMI - my guess is that the LIVING preset makes it "out".

I think the other presets are more accuarate in this regard but don't contrast up as well.

I'm also not sure if HDMI would need a colour decoder per se, as the colour is already decoded in digital form by the gfx card (unlike S-video) - so maybe the Z4 is adding influence - the equivelent of analogue RED push.

scotty144

11-04-05, 12:33 PM

ROne,

Have you given any thought to tweaking with a filter in the Vivid mode yet? CKL's review seemed to hint that the best contrast and black values could be had by tweaking that mode?

shelly

11-04-05, 05:28 PM

How exactly are changes made to a preset such as Living, Vivid et al?

If you are in Vivid, and make some changes to any of its values, does this automatically change within Vivid or are you taken to User 1 preset, for example?

And in the same vein, how do you copy all the Vivid settings into User 1 so that you can make changes to them within User 1 while keeping Vivid at its default values? I have read that you have to be in Vivid (or Living et al) to get those values into User 1, that you cannot just copy them manually.

Shelly

dvdr

11-04-05, 05:39 PM

Shelly
Presets are stored and cannot be changed, so whatever you do with any settings, you cannot mistakedly alter a preset.
What you can do: choose a preset and take that as a base for your own settings. You can change all values that the preset consists of (except the "speed" of the automated iris) to your liking and then choose, in what "bank" (=user presets) you want to store it. There are 4 user presets. What I don't know is, whether these 4 presets are "overall" presets for ALL inputs or whether you can store 4 presets for EACH of the inputs (HMDI, component etc.).

Joerg

shelly

11-04-05, 06:11 PM

Thank you Joerg. That's what I thought, but wasn't sure how the transition of settings was made. "Chosing the bank" is what I needed to know.

You raise an interesting point, though, as to whether each input can have its own settings stored in the same User #.

Shelly

DrA

11-04-05, 09:30 PM

I think we need service manual.

I went to service menu messed with hdmi, creative cinema numbers(group, no, data) and now it all shows 0s. Should I restore them to original numbers? I think group # was 3 :confused: If yes please post the numbers. Firmware is 1.0, Anyone know how to do service changes like VB? mine is 99% VB free and after bad vb experience with Panasonic 700 I am very happy. :) Watching HD ESPN college game now connected to d*tv dvr HR 10-250 using hdmi and no Vb on green background.

Thanks for all tweak efforts.
DrA

ROne

11-05-05, 10:10 AM

ROne,

Have you given any thought to tweaking with a filter in the Vivid mode yet? CKL's review seemed to hint that the best contrast and black values could be had by tweaking that mode?

The iris movement in vivid mode is too much for me to even bother.

I did run a quick check again yesterday and the iris really closes right down on a dark scene, too much and too slow.

LVS

11-05-05, 10:58 AM

Is the IRIS issue something that could be addressed in firmware, or is this typically a hardware issue? Is Sanyo known for updating firmware for their projectors?

dusk

11-05-05, 11:17 AM

I think iris speed itself is a hardware issue. The 900's iris is admittedly the better speed performer. However as we have seen in several reviews it doesn't necessarily lead to better across the board contrast and black level performance. The goal with the Z4 iris is to find the balance of when the iris should be active and when it shouldn't be where it minimizes noticeable movements in brightness while still providing that depth in the image that sets the Z4 apart.

acegamer

11-08-05, 08:12 AM

ROne

11-08-05, 09:32 AM

When trying to adjust black level using the AVIA disk through my HDMI port, I never see the moving grey bars. I see them when adjusting it for my component input though. I tried both the L1 and L2 settings and neither one show them. Anyone else experience this? It makes me wonder if I'm actually not seeing some details that I normally would while watching a dark scene in a move if I can't see those grey bars on AVIA.

Acegamer - do you have a gamma setting on your DVD player - could this be worth a play to see if they are compressed?

I generally tend to use black bars only for AVIA black level setting which may be too strong for some set-ups.

ROne

11-08-05, 09:39 AM

D65 LIVING Settings 08/11/05 with Iris+Colour management notes.

Unfiltered

Contrast Ratio 1350:1

Preset: LIVING

B: -3 (I set this on AVIA on just black bars without 50% grey, this may be too low for some)
C: +6
Sat: +2 *(See colour management)
Tint: 0

Set your own of the above unless you are on HDMI then they should be close if you have same hardware as myself.

Color temp: Low1
R: +10
G: -1
B: -8
Sharpness: -6

Lamp: A1 (for bright image, doesn't effect black level)
Gamma: -1
Lens Iris: -40 (you will need dark room)
Lamp Iris: AUTO

**See notes below about iris settings.

Auto Black Stretch: off
Contrast Enhancement: off
Transient: Off (DOUBLE CHECK, MAIN CAUSE OF EE!)

Gain R: +2
Gain G: +3
Gain B: -5
Offset: R -15
Offset: G -13
Offset: B -6
Gamma R,G,B 0,0,0

HDMI: L2 for pc levels using VMR, re-calibrate brightness for L1 (video levels and overlay output)

_________________________________________________

On top of all of this you will need to adjust the colour using colour management feature as the saturation may be too orange.

*COLOUR MANAGEMENT ADJUSTMENT: All you need to do is load up a good screen with a close-up face on it that looks too orange-red, a nice clear outdoor shot. Select the colour management tool from the menu, the screen will freeze - then a target will appear - pick an area of the flesh tone depress the okay button you will then get a further menu which allows you to adjust the colour of that particular tone. I would suggest you change the colour level a couple of notches and you will see the skin tone come back to a natural level.

Have a mess with it - don't forget to store it within your preset. It also allows you to AB it. It works great!

You can then set overall saturation as you require.

You can also use this tool to fix colour decoder imbalances.

_________________________________________________

**Manual Iris, Lamp Iris and Lamp modes:

You will find that you need to experiment with these settings to get the best combination of black level and light output with regard to your room characteristics and you personal preference.

For instance in a dark film with no ambient light level its best to close the manual iris right down to -63 and turn on the adaptive lamp mode A1. This gives the best contrast and best black level. The downside is a bit more fan noise in bright scenes.

A good compromise though is to set the lamp mode to LOW and select a manual iris of about -40 to -30, this way you will get a reasonable black level and contrast without the fan noise.

Be aware if you open the iris up too much black will turn to a blue/green fog, this is panel leakage and should be avoided.

In some cases it will look like the black level is too LOW (I kid you not!) when using the lowest settings if you have anything but a dark room, in this case have play with the iris settings until you are happy. Maybe a tweak of gamma between (-1 and +1) will help also.

_________________________________________________

+ves Everything above IRE 40 now D65 without lumps and bumps. Gamma tracking spot on 2.23

-ves still a bit noisy, colour balance gives weird readings below IRE 40, looking into this ...

shelly

11-08-05, 03:59 PM

ROne,

If I use the remote Lens Iris button to open it up more for daytime viewing (while in User 1 calibrated to your settings), will this become the new default for User 1 the next time I power up, or will the Z4 default to the User 1 settings initially programmed?

Also, do you know the lumens output of your tweaked Living settings? (I know that you have told us the cpntrast ratio.)

Your time spent calibrating the Z4 is shooting it to the top of my list.

Thanks.

Shelly

dusk

11-08-05, 04:08 PM

Agreed, as mentioned on the main Z4 thread, your settings are what everyone should start with and then tweak to their own taste/environments.

ROne

11-09-05, 03:35 AM

ROne,

If I use the remote Lens Iris button to open it up more for daytime viewing (while in User 1 calibrated to your settings), will this become the new default for User 1 the next time I power up, or will the Z4 default to the User 1 settings initially programmed?

Shelly

The settings are only stored if you store them, not if you adjust them.

rotelryu

11-09-05, 04:40 AM

Hi ROne,

Great job on the tweaking. I hope the AE900 gets the same treatment from someone with the same dedication. I found some interesting info on cine4home's site.

http://www.cine4home.de/Tuning/Z4/Z4Tuning.htm

ROne

11-09-05, 04:56 AM

Thats useful thanks - I managed to glean most of the information correctly I think.

6800:1 full auto settings in one of the more dynamic modes with filter @ D65

1450:1 without auto Iris and filtered @ D65, not sure which setting though probably one of the more powerful settings.

They do mention you can see the iris moving on the more pwerful setting.

I've not yet explored a filter at all.

I'm getting 1350:1 @ D65 with auto on and transparency of iris movement using the living, so we may be able to trade up to 1450:1 without iris ... Hmm might be worth a shot.

Not sure what lamp modes they employ.

utility

11-09-05, 06:55 AM

6800:1 full auto settings in one of the more dynamic modes with filter @ D65

1450:1 without auto Iris and filtered @ D65, not sure which setting though probably one of the more powerful settings.

They do mention you can see the iris moving on the more pwerful setting.

just adding my 2 cents.

first yes they seem to use the "Dynamic" preset as a base for their tunings.
they did not mention it in their tuning article, but i compared their color diagram with their standard Z4 review and its identical to the diagram of the "Dynamic" preset in their review.

imho the auto iris is completely unacceptable in dynamic mode.
i bought my Z4 also calibrated with a filter in dynamic mode.

after some fiddling around and a call with my dealer i decided to remove the filter and use the living preset (after reading your tweak thread) as a base for my personal settings.

the auto iris in living mode does not fully close in dark scenes. so you get not so good blacks.
on the other hand bright spots in darks scenes don't look so dimmed and you don't get annoyed by recognizing the iris movement.

my dealer used a standard red filter (dont know the exact type) for its tuning.
i found that i lost too much brightness using the filter, even in dynamic mode.
using living mode without a filter gives me much more punch. even the rather dim cinema presets look way brighter without a filter than Dynamic and the other bright presets with filter.

dvdr

11-09-05, 07:28 AM

Hi ROne

interesting news from a thread over in the DVD-Player-section (Oppo DV971H Faroudja DCDi , page 156: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=482239&page=156 )

Let me quote the findings from member "GSB" there and ask you, whether you think, that is applicable for us Z4-owners? If I set the HDMI-input to L2 (that is PC RGB levels, isn't it?) and calibrate my Oppo-DVD-player as mentioned in that thread, and then choose YOUR settings for the Z4, do you think, that is the setting to go for, will it produce the desired results?

Here are the findings from the Oppo-thread:

This whole Studio/PC RGB thing has been intriguing me. I have a Samsung 4674W DLP TV, which will accept PC RGB (0-255) on the DVI input. But the display can simply be recalibrated to accept Studio RGB (16-235).

Technically, Studio RGB is the correct signal to feed into your display from a DVD player like the OPPO (and we are confident that OPPO will fix the defaults in the next firmware release). However, if your display is susceptible to the Faroudja macroblock-enhance bug, there is very good reason to experiment with the OPPO's brightness and contrast settings, particularly if your display accepts PC RGB. (Of course, you would have to tweak the brightness and contrast on your display each time you make a change).

DLP technology happens to be one of those display types that is very susceptible to the macroblock-enhance problem. So I began to think about why that may be. Part of the problem, is that, like other digital TV's, mine uses a digitized (stair-stepped) 8-bit gamma curve. Down in the critical lower portion of the curve (where macroblocking is most severe), only a few steps are being used to represent the transition from black to dark grey. This makes a smooth digital grayscale ramp look slightly banded. To make things worse, the 3 primary colors do not track this gamma curve perfectly, so inevitably, the gray ramp looks ever-so-slightly colorful as the banding appears in different places for each of the 3 colors.

To compound this problem, DLP technology uses pulse-width-modulation (PWM) on the mirrors. Additionally, the mirror response rate is too slow to correctly represent the darkest shades, so a randomized dithering technique is used in nearby pixels to create the illusion of dark shades (from a distance).

I noticed one day, that when I calibrated my TV to PC RGB, it produced a much smoother grayscale ramp than when I calibrated it to Studio RGB (maybe because the 0-16 and 236-255 codes are being thrown away and wasted by the input stage). Since a digital display like mine does not rely on blacker-than-black or whiter-than-white to display an image correctly, there would be no adverse effects if it was fed with PC RGB. So I tried adjusting the OPPO's brightness and contrast to produce a 0-255 PC RGB output. I don't know exactly what those setting should be, but I got close with brightness at -8 and contrast at about +6. I noticed an improvement immediately. I tried a few in-between settings, and found that brightness at -6 produced the smoothest possible grayscale ramp on my DLP (of course, I recalibrated the TV to each new setting I tried).

At that stage, I popped in some of my DVD's that trigger the Faroudja macroblock enhancement bug (like the opening scene, and chapter 11, of "Monsters Inc.") I could still see the feint macroblocking that is visible with any non-Faroudja player, but the macroblock enhancement was GONE - completely!

Setting the new Noise Reduction feature to "Low", almost supressed that last bit of feint macroblocking too. I will be testing and evaluating more DVD's as soon as I can.

Then, you may be interested, that the german website www.cine4home.de just released an interesting article about calibrating the Z4 to the best performance. They succeded well with "on-board"-calibration, but only reached best results, when adding a color-filter in front of the lens and then calibrating the unit:

http://www.cine4home.de/Tuning/Z4/Z4Tuning.htm

a rough google-translation is here:

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cine4home.de%2FTuning%2FZ4%2FZ4 Tuning.htm&langpair=de%7Cen&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools

Joerg

ROne

11-09-05, 07:34 AM

ROne

11-11-05, 04:19 AM

So do we try a filter on the Powerful settings or not? Without auto lamp iris?

What do you think the lamp iris should be put on OPEN or CLOSE - with a CC30R I'm initially thinking OPEN.

dvdr

11-11-05, 04:56 AM

Joerg, I read the Cine4home thread and gave my comments above. My only question is can the Z4 be calibrated like the Z3 using no auto iris and filters - maybe and in due course I will have a go.

As for the HDMI - I think try both and see what happens! I only have HTPC with VMR so I only go for 0-255 range. I suppose in theory it should be the same results if you try either setting (that is HDMI set in both modes on the source and display) when using a DVD player.

If you go for PC levels then I would guess that would be similar to my set-up.
Hi ROne
should have read the updates of the thread before posting the link... ;)
Yesterday, I had the time to do some further experimenting with your settings and the Oppo 971H.
I started with your living settings (actually, since my display is set to german, I mistook living with vivid mode - so I switched to english and discovered my mistake. German translation of menue items is misleading here...). Then I switched HDMI input to L2 and got some nice result.
Differenciation in dark areas was still a bit problematic for my setup, though, so I raised Gamma to +1 and did some additional manual tweaking with that great color management option: I choose a flesh tone, a red carpet, a blue sky and some off-white and adjusted them to my liking. It was interesting to see, how much of the other parts of the picture changed, when adjusting one of these colors....
STAR WARS III then looked impressive and very "deep".

Still, I think, that "measuring" this output with professional equipment would give results, that are way off a perfect setting, since I was "messing around" so much with color, hue and gamma in the color management. :eek:
But anyway: I enjoyed watching SWIII - it just looked impressive, deep, dark and very bright in the appropriate scenes. Especially the brightness was great, that was lacking so much in the cinema-presets. When they show those bright-white control rooms in SWIII, they were really really bright without loosing detail. That's, what I was missing in comparison to DLPs until now....

Thanks again for posting your findings, and I'll continue to experiment with them. I'll see, how the latest settings I adjusted, will go with LOTR and some "normal" movies, where they do not create "artificial" color-balances to create some expressive worlds, but rather try to go for a natural color-balance.

Any tipps for movies, that are edited the "natural" way?

Joerg

Most likely tomorrow, I will have the chance to compare an out-of-the box Z4 with a cine4home-modified one at my dealer (modification with a color-filter and colorfacts-setup like described on their website). Looking forward to that experience. Maybe, I also will be able to test your settings against that...

ROne

11-11-05, 06:39 AM

Hi ROne
Any tipps for movies, that are edited the "natural" way?

Joerg

Most likely tomorrow, I will have the chance to compare an out-of-the box Z4 with a cine4home-modified one at my dealer (modification with a color-filter and colorfacts-setup like described on their website). Looking forward to that experience. Maybe, I also will be able to test your settings against that...

That sounds really interesting.

I will have to think about "natural" movies ...

dvdr

11-12-05, 04:47 AM

Hi ROne and all you other Tweakers

just one question, regarding the auto-iris:

If cine4home.de is right, then the auto-iris has three different modes, that the user cannot influence. The modes are inherent with the presets and apply different iris-speeds, iris-"delays" (a new scene has to play x seconds, before the iris moves) and iris-"thresholds" (iris does not work/works only below/above a certain brightness).
So, for tweaking, it would be most interesting, in which of the presets, the auto-iris behaves in what manner - and furthermore, in which preset its movement is not too distracting.
In the Creative cinema preset, I did not notice any auto-iris at all, is there any?
In Living, it did not seem too obvious to me, but sometimes, I noticed it slightly
In Vivid, I could not stand it...

That all depends of the movie, though. If you have one of those fast-cut ones like StarWars or an action movie, you might not notice the iris, since before it comes in, they already have cut to the next shot with different brightness.
In one of those "artsy" movies with long shots, it should be much more distracting.

So:
Which preset gives what auto-iris behaviour?
What effects did you notice?
Which was best/worst for you personally?

This is interesting in terms of tweaking as well, since ROne has based his settings on the Living-preset, cine4home (if I look at their measuring charts) has most likely based their tweak on Vivid....

Joerg

utility

11-12-05, 06:53 AM

This is interesting in terms of tweaking as well, since ROne has based his settings on the Living-preset, cine4home (if I look at their measuring charts) has most likely based their tweak on Vivid....

Joerg

i think cine4home base their tuning on the Dynamic preset. if you compare the color chart in their tuning article with the charts in their standard review of the Z4 they match the Dynamic preset.

anyway for me the iris mode in creative cinema and living seem to be identical. in dark scenes i see the iris close down (but only a bit) for both presets.

Vivid, Dynamic are also unbearable for me as you can see the iris moving for about 1 second, plus dark scenes really look awful with the lamp iris closed down. any bright spot in a dark scene just looks too dimmed and washed out, but that second downpoint is pretty much the same on all projectors using that auto-iris trick i guess.

ROne

11-13-05, 02:36 AM

Couple of points: I think though what cinE4home are suggesting in there latest article is that if you use the powerful/vivid/dynamic without iris but with filter - like the z3, you can increase contrast in the usual way.

I had a quick go last night and I didn't find it to be much improved over living with auto-iris.

Though you can of course get a better black this way.

Creative cinema was at my first attempt down on contrast by 100:1 over living, though this could have been due to my initial inexperience with the Z4.

dvdr

11-13-05, 12:03 PM

Hi

Just re-read their article. Utility is right, they seem to have based their tweak on the dynamik preset. They wrote, that after measurement with colorfacts, the software suggested a "red-orange" filter.
After applying that filter PLUS calibrating the many options the Z4 offers, they achieved a contrast of 6800:1. If you don't like the way, the auto-iris works and shut it OFF, you can end up with a contrast of 1450:1 with the filter present.
That is the same contrast, that you can achieve WITHOUT a filter, but in calibrated mode, WITH Auto-Iris ON.

Conclusion: If you hate Auto-Iris, according to cine4home, there seems to be no way to achieve good contrast (1450:1) but to go with a filter and correct calibration (For comparison: a cine4home-tweaked Z3 reaches 1460:1 with a filter, 900:1 without it).
If you are looking for best contrast (6800:1), then there is no other way than WITH filter, WITH Auto-Iris and WITH calibration based on the dynamik preset.
Additionally, as ROne mentioned - and cine4home state in their test, the color-filter provides "black" blacks instead of "greyish-smeared" blacks.

Note: I am just quoting, and cannot judge/compare ROnes great findings with the findings of cine4home, having not seen the latter tuning yet myself (and still fiddling around to adjust ROnes settings to the output-signal, my Oppo provides, which seems to much differ from his PC's video-card).

But hopefully this week, my dealer (who is one of cine4home authorized dealers) will have a tweaked unit in his studio and I can compare it side by side to an out-of-the-box unit and my ROne-based and a bit altered tweak in my personal Z4. I'll report back, promised!

Joerg

Smarty-pants

11-13-05, 12:15 PM

"But hopefully this week, my dealer (who is one of cine4home authorized dealers) will have a tweaked unit in his studio and I can compare it side by side to an out-of-the-box unit and my ROne-based and a bit altered tweak in my personal Z4. I'll report back, promised!"-Joerg

Thanks for your research thus far, looking forward to your report:)

Dweezilz

11-13-05, 05:24 PM

Sorry to break the tweaking of the Z4 dicussion, but I was wondering about the results and those of us who have no taken the plunge yet. I'm a bit nervous now to spend the extra money on the Z4. I can get a Z3 for about $1000 used (assuming the dealer still has it) or even $1400 new. At this point, am I better off still getting the Z4 or are we finding that the Z3 is as good or better in some cases? I am very new to the projector scene & I saw that ROne said he wishes he could trade back to his Z3. I just want the clearest, brightest, sharpest & most colorful picture I can get without doing hours of tweaking. Some, but not hours. I can live with following a setup if we find one that is optimal & tweaking to that. I just can't spend the time tweaking myself.

What do you guys think is the best route to take? Spend the extra $700-$1000 on the Z4 or get the Z3 & save money? I really want the best of the 2 for now & the future.

shelly

11-13-05, 05:37 PM

.... I saw that ROne said he wishes he could trade back to his Z3. .....

I regard ROne as the Z$ guru at this time as he has worked harder than anyone tweaking it and generously reporting his findings to us.Thus I have read his every post.

I cannot recall him saying that he wished he could trade back to the Z3. Where did you find this?

Shelly

Dweezilz

11-13-05, 05:47 PM

I regard ROne as the Z$ guru at this time as he has worked harder than anyone tweaking it and generously reporting his findings to us.Thus I have read his every post.

I cannot recall him saying that he wished he could trade back to the Z3. Where did you find this?

Shelly

I understand what you are saying (as to why you read all his posts...me too), yet it just kinda comes off like you are saying I don't feel the same about ROne. I just don't want anyone to infer that I don't feel 100% the same about ROne as you obviously. Just wanted to clear that up. Sorry in advance if that's not what you intended. Anyway, here it is:

If I could find a way to get the Z3 back without losing money - I would.

shelly

11-13-05, 06:17 PM

I understand what you are saying (as to why you read all his posts...me too), yet it just kinda comes off like you are saying I don't feel the same about ROne. I just don't want anyone to infer that I don't feel 100% the same about ROne as you obviously. Just wanted to clear that up. Sorry in advance if that's not what you intended. Anyway, here it is:

Sorry. Not my intent at all.

I have since found his quote in post #6 of this thread. There has been much tweaking and reported satisfaction since then. But only ROne could say for sure what he believes now. Perhaps he now prefers the Pan 900. :)

Shelly

Smarty-pants

11-13-05, 06:59 PM

"Perhaps he now prefers the Pan 900."-shelly

That would be referred to as a "low blow" :)

Dweezilz

11-13-05, 07:37 PM

Sorry. Not my intent at all.

I have since found his quote in post #6 of this thread. There has been much tweaking and reported satisfaction since then. But only ROne could say for sure what he believes now. Perhaps he now prefers the Pan 900. :)

Shelly

Yep, not a problem. Yeah, maybe I'll get the Pan 900. :rolleyes: I really was just making an inquirey before I buy to get the definative answer at this point from ROne. I recalled he said that previously about the Z3 and while he has posted some saticfactory results since, he hasn't exaclty retracted that statement or said anything glowing to indicate that he feels the Z4 is now tweaked to the point where it's much better. I'm sure I'll get the Z4 in the next month, but I want to be sure since it's going to cost me more (theater budget is ultra tight as it is, yet don't want to skimp on the most important part).

-Todd

acegamer

11-13-05, 08:07 PM

Just wanted to report back that I resolved my black level setting problem that I had. I upgraded the firmware on my Oppo and that fixed it. The baseline black level was not correct on the Oppo before the firmware upgrade. Dark movies look twice as good now that I can actually see detail in the dark scenes. Imagine that! I am absolutely thrilled with the picture quality now. I don't feel like I've given up a thing in DVD picture quality in comparison to my 4805 anymore. My movies look just as good as they did before on the 4805 and HDTV looks even better. I am totally satisfied with the upgrade and know that I will be even more so once the 360 arrives next week.

ROne

11-14-05, 03:22 AM

Guys - to clear up the Z4 or Z3 - many people keep asking me this ...

First of all - do not base your purchasing decisions on my opinion. I don't want to be responsible for your expectations - you should discover that yourself.

I also post on a british AVforum where I did state my initial feelings were I wanted my Z3 back - this was based on a basic calibration. I didn't think the Z4 was enough better than the Z3.

Contrast figures bear this out in terms of useable D65 contrast, both machines are about the same 1400:1. That coupled with what i believe to be better ANSI contrast and Not a hint of VB on the Z4 makes it a better projector.

However - FOR ME - there is not enough difference between the projectors for the money - simple as that.

My bottom line is - if you can get a z3 and want to save some money, do it. If you want the latest and the best and you don't mind spending the extra money get a Z4.

They are not worlds apart when tweaked.

It comes down to cash.

I could happily live with the Z4 or the Z3, but as I have now put the money into the Z4 and would lose money swapping around again (and the hope we might get more out of it) I will be keeping my Z4.

There may be a slight chance I will get my old Z3 back to play with and I can do an A/B comparison to see what I think when together - but don't hold your breath.

Does this clear it up?

Hope so - then let's move on.

ROne

11-14-05, 03:31 AM

dvdr

11-14-05, 05:39 AM

Dweezilz

11-14-05, 06:16 AM

Guys - to clear up the Z4 or Z3 - many people keep asking me this ...

First of all - do not base your purchasing decisions on my opinion. I don't want to be responsible for you expectation - you should discover that yourself.

I also post on a british AVforum where I did state my initial feelings were I wanted my Z3 back - this was based on a basic calibration. I didn't think the Z4 was enough better than the Z3.

Contrast figures bear this out in terms of useable D65 contrast, both machines are about the same 1400:1. That coupled with what i believe to be better ANSI contrast and Not a hint of VB on the Z4 makes it a better projector.

However - FOR ME - there is not enough difference between the projectors for the money - simple as that.

My bottom line is - if you can get a z3 and want to save some money, do it. If you want the latest and the best and you don't mind spending the extra money get a Z4.

They are not worlds apart when tweaked.

It comes down to cash.

I could happily live with the Z4 or the Z3, but as I have now put the money into the Z4 and would lose money swapping around again (and the hope we might get more out of it) I will be keeping my Z4.

There may be a slight chance I will get my old Z3 back to play with and I can do an A/B comparison to see what I think when together - but don't hold your breath.

Does this clear it up?

Hope so - then let's move on.

Thanks ROne!! That helps me a great deal. It wasn't so much confusion as to what you had said (I knew what you said here as I've read all your posts), but just how you really felt on that subject since doing 3 - 4 weeks worth of Z4 tweaking. With all the wonderful information you give us, I honestly think it is very important information to give your updated opinion and really isn't a break from the topic as much as a logical update. You actually made the comments about wanting the Z3 back in this forum as well so it's very helpful to me & I hope others to get this updated view point. We appreciate all the info you give us a great deal.

I know I won't base things 100% on what your results were, but understand that in the city I live in, I have absolutely no possibility of comparing the two in person...none. There are no Sanyo dealers within 4 hours of my house and because of that, I must make my purchase 'blind' and must rely on reviews & end user opinion. I'd love nothing more than see the two side by side tweaked out on my own, but since that's not happening, your findings weigh heavily on my choice along with other reviews.

I still think I'll get the Z4, but this puts it in perspective & gives me something to think about. I agree, let's move on & see what the Z4 can do going forward.

Thanks again for all that you do here.

dvdr

11-14-05, 06:57 AM

Dweezilz - and others, who ask for comparison Z3/Z4

I had the Z3 at home for a few days, before I got my Z4 (my dealer was so kind to offer me a cine4home calibrated Z3 to make waiting for the Z4 a bit easier).
Since I gave the Z3 back, when my Z4 arrived, I never could compare them face to face, so take my comments with a grain of salt.

What I remember vividly, though, was, that I could see pixel-structure of the Z3 on my screen (2.40 m wide, seating distance approx. 4 meters). I could see it especially during long pans and on moving objects (don't know why, but it was clearly better visible for whatever reason). That effect is completely gone with the Z4. Even if for example cine4home claims, that the bigger fillfactor of the new D5 panels in the Z4 is not a visible improvement, I'd like to object. My personal feeling is, that the new panels do in fact add to the performance, make the picture a bit brighter, clearer and pixel-structure less visible.

Vertical banding has not been an issue with 3 units I saw in performance - you might draw the conclusion, that Sanyo has a good grip on production quality control compared to competitors, who showed absolutely different production quality.

Out of the box, I had the impression, that the Z4 had a great calibration in "Kino Hell" (which is the first cinema preset, I think, in the english menue, it is creative cinema). For everyday use and for the "non-tweaker", you sure will get good results with that setting. The Auto-Iris behaviour is great there, I did hardly ever notice it.

As for the fan-noise, I have the strange feeling, that the Z4 is a tiny bit noisier. But: grain of salt - I never had the two units sitting next to each other at home. I was so surprised by the silence of the Z3, that maybe, I am just being too sensitive about the Z4 now. Or: the vent of the Z4 is directed more towards my seating position (I sit only 50 cm away from that vent!!!) Or: the frequency-spectrum of the noise falls into an area, where I am a bit more sensitive to... But: the unit IS silent, very silent compared to other products on the market.

The automatic shutter door is a good feature, as well.

Whether you want to invest more $ in the Z4 over a used or cheap new Z3 - hard to answer. For me, personally: yes. Especially because of the described pixel-structure-effects I saw, the great menue and the possibility to tweak the unit a tad more than the Z3.

I hope, I could give you a bit more information for your decision.

Regards
joerg

ROne

11-14-05, 07:45 AM

Thanks again for all that you do here.

Happy to help - I guess I just don't want to be blamed for a mis-purchase, but I suppose in your situation - any information is better than nothing!

Jay Mitchosky

11-14-05, 09:51 AM

I had a quick go last night and I didn't find [a filter] to be much improved over living with auto-iris.
Which filter were you using?

applegbt

11-14-05, 12:52 PM

However - FOR ME - there is not enough difference between the projectors for the money - simple as that.

My bottom line is - if you can get a z3 and want to save some money, do it. If you want the latest and the best and you don't mind spending the extra money get a Z4.

They are not worlds apart when tweaked.

ROne is correct, you cannot base your decision on any one person's opinion. Decide what features are most important to you, there are enough differences between the various projectors that the decision is usually made for you. For me, the longer throw of the Z4 was a must...the Z3 throw was way to short for me. For you, if picture quality is the only deciding factor, the z3 may be the better choice if you were able to find one.

Since the Z4 has turned out to be pretty much my only option in this price category, i'm just happy as hell that we have ROne to help us get the most out of our projector.

Dick Kalagher

11-14-05, 01:12 PM

I was under the impression (probably mistaken) that the user defined inputs could be different for each input source. I set up Rone's settings and saved them to a user input using component inputs. Today, I got a HR10-250 with a working HDMI port and went to set up these settings again using HDMI. But my user input from component was already the same on HDMI.

Dweezilz

11-14-05, 01:13 PM

ROne is correct, you cannot base your decision on any one person's opinion. Decide what features are most important to you, there are enough differences between the various projectors that the decision is usually made for you. For me, the longer throw of the Z4 was a must...the Z3 throw was way to short for me. For you, if picture quality is the only deciding factor, the z3 may be the better choice if you were able to find one.

Since the Z4 has turned out to be pretty much my only option in this price category, i'm just happy as hell that we have ROne to help us get the most out of our projector.

Hey, no doubt about it. If it was a features issue, I'd agree. Figure out what features are needed for you & go with the projector the best suites your needs. That said, for me, it's not about features...it's about the bottom line PQ. Since I can't compare with actual Z3's & Z4's in my house, that is why I need to rely almost completely on reviews & word of mouth which is what I'm doing. I think I've already come to the conclusion that for out of the box goodness, the Z4 is the one for me & will be worth the extra cash in the long run. I'm guessing that the tweaks will only get better & the PQ seems to be at the very least a bit better than the Z3 even now without filter or much tweaking. Plus, as my wife told me yestereday...get the Z4 because if you get the Z3 now & in 6 months you want the Z4, you aren't getting it. HA! I guess my choice has been made easier.

ROne

11-14-05, 02:14 PM

Which filter were you using?

I tried a CC30R.

Jay Mitchosky

11-14-05, 03:05 PM

I tried a CC30R.
No interference with lens door then? That's good to hear.

dvdr

11-14-05, 05:56 PM

Hi

I have been playing around tonight with both ROne's settings and those on avbuzz.com to make them fit to my Oppo 971H. I'd like to share them here and am looking forward to any feedback you'd like to give.
My Oppo 971H with the latest firmware is set to brightness -7 and contrast +3. This, combined with Sanyos HDMI-setting "L2" seems to give better results than Oppos brightnes set to -3 and contrast to 0 and Sanyo's HDMI input set to "L1". Maybe, the key really is the difference between PC RGB and Studio RGB.

First of all, ROne's Oppo-modified settings
Based on Living-preset
HDMI L2
brightness 0
Contrast +6
Note: try +10 in conjunction with contrast +1 for better distinction between blacks, I found this setting by adjusting BTB and WTW with the Peter Finzel PAL-testdisc. With that setting, you loose quite some of the impressive deepness and blackness of ROne's settings, but add more detail in dark parts of the picture
Color +3
Tint +3
Color temp. user
Red +10
Green -1
Blue -8
Sharpness 0 (set it to your liking up to -6, which sets Edge Enhancment to Zero)
Lamp control A1 (if you don't need super-impressive brightness levels, you can try the lowest power save lamp mode)
Gamma +1
Lens iris -30
Lamp iris Auto
Auto black Strech Off
Contrast enhancement Off
Transient improvement L1 (or off)

Gain R +2
Gain G +3
Gain B -5
Offset R -15
Offset G -13
Offset B -6
Gamma R, G, B = 0

Then I did some additional color management with Star Wars III:

1.) Last scene, where they hand over the baby: chose the baby's face, adjusted the skintone
2.) After the big opening battle, Skywalker arrives at a big town and enters a big hall to meet Padme for the first time. In the beginning of the scene, there is a red carpet in the background of the group. Choose that, make it a bit more red and stand out
3.) Beginning of same scene, when the ship comes in (or another daylight sky scene): made the blue sky a bit more dark-blue
4.) Padme and Anakin are sitting in a room during daytime on a big sofa and discussing things - right behind Padme is an off-white column. Made that a bit lighter and contrastier.
5.) Somewhere around that scene, she was sitting next to a brown-ish cushion. I chose that and adjusted it, looking at the effects of that adjustment to the overall picture, skintones, sky and clouds in the back especially. That made some additional refinement.

I ended up with a picture, that was impressively black and in daytime scenes very bright and brilliant. The downside was, that I loose some detail in blacks. As I described above, you might correct that with different values of brightness and contrast

------------------------ Next setting --------------------------------

Based on Creative Cinema
HDMI L2
brightness +2
Contrast +5
Color +4
Tint +3
Color temp. Mid
Red 0
Green 0
Blue 0
Sharpness 0 (set it to your liking up to -6)
Lamp control A2
Gamma +1
Lens iris -50
Lamp iris Auto
Auto black Strech Off
Contrast enhancement Off
Transient improvement L1 (or off)
No Color management so far

Gain R -5
Gain G -9
Gain B +3
Offset R -15
Offset G +15
Offset B -2
Gamma R +5
Gamma G -5
Gamma B -3

This setting is not as impressive as ROne's, I end up with a picture, that compared to ROne's setting seems to bit a bit dimmer, but also a bit more balanced, both regarding color and grayscale. If I say more balanced, then this is a strictly visual impression, based on my personal preferences and in no way founded in any measurement - my taste may be way off a perfect measurement...

An important note for PAL users regarding the OPPO: even with the current firmware, the Oppo forgets your brightness and contrast settings everytime you stop/resume a PAL DVD or insert a new PAL DVD. You have to readjust BOTH brightness and contrast by selecting it, adjust a step down and then a step up to the value....

Looking forward to your comments

Joerg

ROne

11-15-05, 03:16 AM

Nice work Joerg - creative cinema certainly is a bit more balanced by the way of colour decoding - it doesn't quite need the hefty use of the colour management tool.

I think in living the colour is boosted quite badly hence the use of colour management tool to bring it into line.

You are also correct in calling the creative cinema preset a bit dimmer, it was about 10% less contrast than living but requires less work to get it to D65.

ROne.

utility

11-15-05, 04:38 AM

Hi
...
Joerg
great work dvdr. as i also have the oppo (bbk) player i'm looking forward to try your settings on my Z4. thank you for your tip about the oppo forgetting its settings with PAL DVDs, too.
i actually haven't even noticed this yet :o

rivmin

11-15-05, 09:58 AM

utility

11-15-05, 11:56 AM

I've recieved my Z4 today, and I'm not able to get the fan speed down, even if I use low lamp mode.
This is much louder than my old Z2.

What setting have I missed - it must be possible to get the fan speed down.
I read something about this issue yesterday - but now I cannot find the article anymore....damn.

Someone, please tell me what settings will lower the fan speed - thanks.

the lamp mode should be only setting affecting the fan speed.
if your Z4 is louder than your Z2 in low lamp mode then i guess it is faulty.
the Z2 should be way louder than the Z4 (i also had a Z2 before)

rivmin

11-15-05, 05:53 PM

the lamp mode should be only setting affecting the fan speed.
if your Z4 is louder than your Z2 in low lamp mode then i guess it is faulty.
the Z2 should be way louder than the Z4 (i also had a Z2 before)

Well - I just did a factory reset, and the fan went right down to where I would have expected it to be - quite quit :)

The PJ is ceiling mounted, so the first thing I did was to change the 'Mounting' in the menu from 'Off' to 'Cieling' - then the fan instantly raised RPM's to the high level again.
If I then set it back to Off, the fan will spin down.
Only in the Off setting the fan will spin down.

Is this normal ? - could someone please verify, thanks .....

acegamer

11-15-05, 06:56 PM

rivmin

11-15-05, 07:11 PM

Yep, you are right, when setting the mounting option to off my fan spins way down and becomes really close to silent! I was really curious about why some people were saying that they could barely hear the fan whereas I could clearly hear mine although it wasn't terribly loud. This is really annoying, because now I know how silent it should be. I am going to write Sanyo about this and see what they say. I really hope there is an easy way to get around this issue.

I'm in exact the same position as you ... damn :)
This is a software bug, right ?
Thanks for the verification, and hopefully Sanyo will supply us with a nice and easy solution - please come back when you have some news :)

acegamer

11-15-05, 07:24 PM

Smarty-pants

11-15-05, 10:06 PM

rivmin

11-16-05, 03:15 AM

Jupe

11-16-05, 01:10 PM

Hey, okay I just talked with a Sanyo rep and he explained to me what is going on:

What they have done is built sensors into the projector that detect heat so that the fan will change speed based on temperature. Since heat rises and it will always be hotter at the ceiling than what is at the floor they have engineered the fan to run at a higher baseline level whenever the projector is ceiling mounted. He said that they did this to safeguard the projector from slowly overheating. Unfortunately this means that there is no way for us to get the fan noise down to its lowest levels when in the ceiling mounted position.

I'm really bummed to know that, but I guess it's better for it to be that way than for the projector to overheat and have major problems. Oh well, guess I'll just have to keep that surround sound volume up. :cool:

Yeah sure. :rolleyes:

Thanks for your help to clear this out.

Well - the fan speed is controlled by temperature, so now I will have to construct a reverse mounting.....shelf-like..

In eco mode save temperature levels are:
TempA 27 - 35 (outer temp around the intake) could be for example 25-28
TempB 53 (temp wherefrom fan speeds start rising, error temp is >58)
TempC 46 (temp wherefrom fan speeds start rising, error temp is >51)
Never allow tempB and C over those values.

Go to the service menu and there group 102. Then put Item no 0 value 0 = Normal, 1 = Ceiling, change it to 1 for have influence to Ceiling mount. Then:

Item 50 (eco mode fan 1 minimum speed) value 1680 -> changeto -> 1245
Item 52 (eco mode fan 3 minimum speed) value 2340 -> changeto -> 1605

And please dont touch any other item values, absolutely not maximum speed values!

Then watch movie 1 h and go to the servive menu again, 1 h and repeat. Get followed values in group 102:

Good
TempA 26,73 or less
TempB 50,50 or less
TempC 40,11 or less

If TempB rise over 52 make following change:
Item 52 (eco mode fan 3 minimum speed) rise value up few hundreds step at a time until tempB fall to 49-50 and stays.

(If at any reason tempA are well over 27 maybe 28 even 29, you may want to make sure that projector have constantly more air for intake and panel cooling. Then you might want to do following:
Item 53 (eco mode fan 4 minimum speed) value 1815 -> changeto -> 1815 + (X-27) * 300
Where X = TempA when you have watch 2 hour. Nevertheless last doing is not absolutely necessary, because when tempA rise over 27 it already rise fan speeds and therefore you dont burn projector anyway.)

"And, hey - let's be careful out
there."

acegamer

11-16-05, 01:21 PM

Wow, I'd be very afraid of doing that. Wouldn't that violate the warranty?

dvdr

11-16-05, 02:04 PM

Hey Jupe

welcome on(the)board! You seem to be a great addition of knowledge :)
Couldn't you also post a change of settings for the servicemenue, that overwrites the "natural" preset with a perfectly calibrated D65-setting based on "Creative" picture mode?
I mean, I really thought about that, no joke!

That would be just amazing

joerg

rivmin

11-17-05, 04:39 AM

In eco mode save temperature levels are:
TempA 27 - 35 (outer temp around the intake) could be for example 25-28
TempB 53 (temp wherefrom fan speeds start rising, error temp is >58)
TempC 46 (temp wherefrom fan speeds start rising, error temp is >51)
Never allow tempB and C over those values.

Go to the service menu and there group 102. Then put Item no 0 value 0 = Normal, 1 = Ceiling, change it to 1 for have influence to Ceiling mount.

Super-tweak :)
This means that we can cieling-mount the unit and still get the low fan speed, right ?

Btw - does the unit have 3 fans with 1 sensor each, or are the 3 sensors just located different places and controlling 1 fan ?

utility

11-17-05, 06:55 AM

as we are talking about the service menu now.
i am not sure if anyone has posted it yet but you can download the Z4 service manual here (http://www.sanyo.co.uk/Web%20Publishing/www.SANYO.co.uk/Service%20Manuals/LCD%20Projectors/PLV-Z4.pdf)

acegamer

11-17-05, 08:09 AM

thanks for the service manual link! I couldn't resist the urge to check out those fan speed settings last night, but I didn't know how to change anything so I just left it alone. I'll check in the manual and see if I can understand how to move around in it. The fan speed is about twice as high in the ceiling mount mode so I would definately love to get it back down. I'm also considering building a different kind of ceiling mount that would allow me to set the projector right side up. The only downside is that it would be much bulkier looking than the mount that I have now. I could also go the shelf mount route, but I already have all of my cables and power outlet setup for the ceiling location.

utility

11-17-05, 10:12 AM

the problem with the service manual is, that it just lists all the settings without really describing them in detail.

ROne

11-17-05, 12:56 PM

I'm going to have a play in the service menu with the Manual CLOSED iris setting, see if I can lower it.

There's a whole bunch of auto IRIS settings, I'm going to see what can be tweaked.

ROne

11-17-05, 01:37 PM

Right, been messing with the LAMP IRIS closed setting - the default CLOSED is not very closed at all - so I've been into service menu and lowered the relative light level for the lamp iris.

So instead of AUTO lamp iris I'm now running on a lower CLOSED setting, it's looking very good - much better black level - when run in conjunction with a POWERFUL preset you are getting both top end and very good bottom end black level without the auto iris.

So far two problems with this - uniformity is worse the more you lower the LAMP iris and POWERFUL needs some careful balancing to get to D65.

Not had the guts yet to mess with the auto settings ...

Jupe

11-17-05, 06:18 PM

Super-tweak :)
This means that we can cieling-mount the unit and still get the low fan speed, right ?

Precisely.

Btw - does the unit have 3 fans with 1 sensor each, or are the 3 sensors just located different places and controlling 1 fan ?
Actually unit have 5 fans. Service manual (link above) cover all these details. Only you must select which fans can possible turn to lower level and of course with reasoning. (Not much sense turn minimum speed lower if for respond to thermostatic event it rise up anyway.)

Wow, I'd be very afraid of doing that. Wouldn't that violate the warranty?
Maybe. There are other reasons to make this rather with service manual than... look at this:

so now I will have to construct a reverse mounting.....shelf-like.

People invent. In a second grows up multiple ways to use projector in ceiling mount with "normal eco" silence and of course whats important "no violate the warranty". Plaze projector upside down and use HTPC or other thirds option to turn video for ceiling. Use magically stretching lensshift at other end like rivmin suggest making ugly rack etc. But those methods are worse, they dont pay regard temperatures at all.

F*** *** *** warranty if it means we have to pay half of all the good entertainment for it.
(* = is in finnish, you could never understand it, so translate is futile.)

In any case there is no need to trim other than minimum speed settings. These dont even count, if room temperature is high enough, because if temp. levels rise, fan speeds rise likewise. After all, there is no need to make change to maximum speeds. (At normal living situations.) With clever control you can make even better. Just a inaudible little greasing up a few selected fans, temperatures can be accurately direct what you best desire.

For example these are the values in group 102 after 3 hours watching, what a moment of home entertaining, I might add. Hope you have other observations for comparison:

Ceiling mode

TempA 25,87
TempB 49,25
TempC 39,31

Fan speeds 1-5
1245 2265 1695 1875 1875

Jay Mitchosky

11-17-05, 08:26 PM

So instead of AUTO lamp iris I'm now running on a lower CLOSED setting, it's looking very good - much better black level - when run in conjunction with a POWERFUL preset you are getting both top end and very good bottom end black level without the auto iris.
ROne, you're a stud. :)

acegamer

11-18-05, 07:33 PM

Well I did the fan adjustments in the service menu and it worked out well. The fan is much quieter now and I observed the following temperatures after 3 hours:

TempA - 26.31
TempB - 46.75
TempC - 35.60

Thanks for posting the settings! :)

dvdr

11-19-05, 10:44 AM

Hi

as promised, I report back: today, the cine4home-tuned Z4 arrived at my dealer's.
I had the chance to look at it for an hour with different material.
First, I have to make a disclaimer to eventual errors, that could have happened during the test.
We had two Z4s - one uncalibrated unit - I'll call it "Z4" here - (set to creative cinema / Kino hell), which was fed via YUV, the cine4home-one ("C4H") was fed from the same Denon DVD-Player via HDMI/DVI. So by covering up the lenses, we could "optically" switch between the both of them on the same screen. What could be of influence, though, are eventually different "Color responses" between YUV and HDMI/DVI. So this is no objective test in terms of perfectly similar conditions.
The room we tested in, is a cellar-room with no windows, walls are painted in a darker, reddish colour, ceiling is a dim white, floor is dark. Good conditions for black level, I guess...

Here are my observations:

First impression of the "C4H" was a wonderfully balanced picture. Skintones looked great on "Beggar Vance" and "LOTR II". Where on the Z4 Frodo looked a bit too "healthy" (without beeing sunburned or anything), C4H just seemed right on.
For my personal taste, the whole picture, even in daytime-scenes, was a bit too dim. I personally would have loved a bit of "spark" to the bright parts of the picture. Switching to Z4, I got that.
(Note: from my home, I know, that even the default "Creative cinema" lacks the "spark" compared for example to ROnes setting, so where does that put C4H at my home??? Can't tell, until I saw it here - again: strictly personal taste - my taste must be off perfect adjustment!!!)
Black level: looking at darker parts of a normal daytime picture, the C4H had a slight bit more differentiation than the Z4. Gimly's "coat" looked a bit more natural and detailed ( a BIT!!!), another scene with Aragorn standing on top of a hill in front of the sky, his dark back of the coat had a little bit more detail.
The black bars on top and bottom of the 21:9 picture were noticeably blacker with the C4H than the Z4. The Z4 had a more greyish, washed-out attidude towards real black.
Whites: one major difference is the quality of the white. Z4 has a white with a slight blueish tendency - I would say, it tends towards "my detergent washes whiter than white"+"add some blacklight-white-discotheque-zing", whereas the C4H white is a bit more "eggshell".
Sky: Z4 is more my kind of thing in sky, with LOTR the sky seemed not all too blue on the C4H
NOTE: since LOTR does use a distinct colour-scheme throughout the movie, please don't put too much weight upon the Sky-remark. I have not seen any "real sky"-DVD in that little test....

Observations with "Beggar Vance": C4H a bit dimmer, a tad more detail in dark clothing (jump to scene 10 and look at the people watching the players, especially the men in their dark suits). Greens not as saturated as with the Z4 - but I guess, the C4H is more "real" in that respect. Also, the Z4 tends to oversaturate brightnesses a bit and looses small amounts of detail, but again, gives the impression of a brighter picture.

We then put in the DVD "Robbie Williams at Royal Albert Hall". There, with the video-camera based material, the C4H had clear advantages: Skintones were just perfect, the Z4 showed more reddish faces, the whole picture looked fake with the Z4, whereas the C4H came across "live".

Then I adjusted the Z4 to the values, I copied from avbuzz (they are posted a few pages back in this thread). The picture of the Z4 got noticeably better with the Robbie-Williams-DVD, not as oversaturated and reddish, a slight correction with the colour-management on Robbie's skintone even improved it, but never was a match to C4H.
I made an interesting discovery in the scene, where Robbie sings the duet with that Saturday night live-host (or whoever that is, sorry, don't know him). In a closeup, Robbie looks to the right, you can see the right side of his face and the top of the wireless microphone. On the C4H, all is wonderfully balanced. On the avbuzz-Z4, the shadow thrown from his ear is dark-purple (C4H: darker skintone), the light's reflection on the black metal case of the mic is blueish (instead of blackish with the C4H).

Auto-Iris: since, as written in this thread, C4H seem to base their calibration on the dynamic setting, this involves some quite heavy iris-action (again: for my personal taste). A new scene stands unaltered for some seconds, then there is a slight "dimming", if the scene continues, then there is some sort of second step to even "heavier dimming". Both actions can clearly be seen - it looks, as if someone pulls the picture away from you and you feel drawn into...
If I could choose any preset with auto-iris-behaviour at all, then I'd go for creative cinema, which is not that heavy. Or - what we actually did toward the end - just shut auto-iris off and chose open iris.

Just a quick insert: ROnes tweak were not appicable for that test - it was way too yellowish and would have needed a recalibration of the DVD-player to match PC-RGB levels, so no comparison possible here - sorry ROne, some other time, promised!

PETER FINZEL Test disc:
Pluge - C4H needed a few seconds of adjustment, then you could see the two small rectangles slightly appear in the upper, bright section. Steps between the four shades looked very evenly distributed. Before the auto-iris came in, no small rectangles, but grey and BTB-bar clearly visible, black background was more greyish than after auto-iris came in

Greyscale: the black bar right next to the "double-big" black bar on the far left was not distinguishable. After auto-iris came in (or was it before - sorry, I don't remember exactly) three steps of the greyscale were undistinguishable from the very left "double-big" one.
Whites were all visible, all the time, no matter before or after auto-iris.

BTB - the moving +4%, +2%, -2%, -4% patterns: Before auto-iris +2% as clearly visible, after it came in only +4% was visible. (should be: -2% hardy hardly visible)
WTW - all patterns were visible all the time (should be +2% hardly hardly visible)

Colour test with blue filter: that was strange, since with the filter, the portions of the test-pattern, that needed to match, did not, they were darker/brigther than the other one. But that may be due to the DVD-player not being properly putting out the signal, or the blue filter not being perfect or, or or.... So: just an observation with no conclusion - I guess, I should trust C4H&Colorfacts more in that regard than a blue filter....

CONCLUSION

My personal feeling is, that especially in the lower regions of brightnesses, the C4H is much more colour accurate than any non-filtered setting I have seen so far.
The dimmer picture is a matter of personal taste. For me personally, I would love to have an extra step of REAL brightness (I guess, that we then need to talk about LUMEN, right?)
If you are looking for a crash-bang-boom-impress-me-hugely picture, then you should take the filter off. If you like it the more natural way, then I guess you are right with the C4H-tuning. Go with the filter for "artsy movies" and take the filter off and choose a "heavy" preset, if you watch Star Wars and want the picture to match your subwoofer ;)
Well, to be a bit more differenciated here: I also think, that LIVING with any of the presets / adjustments / calibrations is also letting you get used to it. Maybe, not having a comparision side by side always present, I would not miss the C4H-picture not being as bright as other calibrations but learn to value the real qualities of that tuning (quote from My Fair Lady: "I grew accustomed to her face" ;) ). It's like with my HiFi: for best and most accurate reproduction, I have tuned my system with interconnects, loudspeaker-cables, the loudspeakers are exactly positioned, my CD-player is tuned and tweaked, my turntable is.... etc., but sometimes, in my car, I switch on loudness just for the fun of it...

I hope, I could give you a bit of a first (personal) impression on the C4H tuned Z4. Please, again, take it with a grain of salt - it's a quickly done observation, with personal taste involved.

Joerg

P.S.:
To help you avoid searching, here are the avbuzz settings, that I used in this "test":

brightness +3
Contrast -3
Color +4
Tint +3
Color temp. Mid
Red 0
Green 0
Blue 0
Sharpness 0 (set it to your liking up to -6)
Lamp control A2
Gamma +1
Lens iris -50
Lamp iris Auto
Auto black Strech Off
Contrast enhancement Off
Transient improvement L1 (or off)

Gain R -5
Gain G -9
Gain B +3
Offset R -15
Offset G +15
Offset B -2
Gamma R +5
Gamma G -5
Gamma B -3

ROne

11-19-05, 11:06 AM

Some interesting observations there Joerg.

I'm going to do several things in the future (maybe over christmas).

1) Try my new CLOSED iris value settings with the POWERFUL or DYNAMIC presets without filter and see how close we can get to D65.

2) Do the same as above but with filter (although early findings demonstrate that light the dimming is a bit much - something you found with the C4H)

3) Have a better crack at D65 on creative cinema

4) Mess with the Auto Iris values in the service menu to see if we can eek out a little better use of the Lamp Iris.

Did you find out what filter they were using?

Jay Mitchosky

11-19-05, 07:17 PM

1) Try my new CLOSED iris value settings with the POWERFUL or DYNAMIC presets without filter and see how close we can get to D65.
ROne, what were your before and after closed iris values from the service menu?

ROne

11-20-05, 10:11 AM

ROne, what were your before and after closed iris values from the service menu?

I'm not really there yet - for public use at least.

But I think the default is 33 - I dropped it to 20.

Jay Mitchosky

11-21-05, 01:15 PM

I read an interesting article in Widescreen Review - tips for your HT install. One that caught my eye was directed at plasma sets but I'm wondering if it might also be relevant for new LCD projectors. The author (installer Terry Paulin) suggests running a full 100IRE whitefield for a period to universally burn off some of the plasma phosphors and make the panel more resistant to future burn-in. Makes good sense.

While burn-in is not an issue for LCD wouldn't an immediate prep of the panels and bulb smooth things out prior to initial calibration?

mrad

11-21-05, 01:58 PM

Sam Samuelian

11-21-05, 03:22 PM

I am thrilled with the new Sanyo Z4, but tweaked it a little differently from ROne. I prefer using the Dynamic setting and then going from there.

QUESTION: I cannot seem to access the advanced menu. I can click on the advanced menu wording and then have the option to turn it on or off, but no further menu appears at that point whether on or off. What to do?
Sam

ROne

11-21-05, 04:16 PM

Sam - once you have selected the Advanced Menu and turned it on - it is then accessible from the IMAGE ADJ menu page 1/2. It's a crap menu structure.

Welcome to the party :)

shelly

11-21-05, 06:04 PM

Jupe

11-22-05, 09:06 AM

I believe the Sanyo rep re: using a higher baseline for the fan when ceiling mounted. Without a ceiling fan, the air up at the ceiling CAN get considerably warmer than at "desktop" level.

There was a discussion about this in the AE700 thread a year ago, I believe. It does the same thing (higher fan speed when ceiling mounted).

Its make some sense when speaking to AE700 but similar desing is questionable with Z4. Fan speeds rise 'too much' only in ceiling mode not in ceiling position, not when projector is upside down, not even when projectors cover temperature is above 27 (after 27 Celcius fans rise only in normal way just some hundred rim per degree, what is enough for cooling inside.)

Notice that after those temps rise above certain limits, fan speeds rise too.
Limits are in ecomode:
Temp A 27
Temp B 53
Temp C 46

I mean, after all you can at anytime take Z4 and plaze it to highest place it in your bookshelf where projector is in much warmer position than at ceiling with 10" support without rising fanspeeds. Preceding is possible, because dimension of lensshifts is very exceptional. You can even place the projector exact to same spot upperside up when support have some kind of rack or fist under.

If one make minimum speed adjustment and look at that the real temperatures are under the boundary which btw. are written in to the service manual, he can be much more confident projector are not going to overheat.

It is more important to take care that temperatures stays steady. If after many hours values are (for example)...:

Temp A <27 C
Temp B <50 C
Temp C <40 C

...you have no need to rise minimum speeds, about we have very clear evidence already.

If however there is a acceptable reason for mimimun speed to rise in advance, there must exist the same reason in 'normal position' when roomtemperature is high enough.

ROne

11-23-05, 03:32 AM

Quick report - did some more messing with Creative Cinema to get D65 with the spider. I will put up the numbers when I'm happy.

It does appear that Creative Cinema may not need the colour management tweaks, but not 100% sure yet. CC is also pretty good out the box but does have some of the silly image settings on by default (transient etc) so be sure to turn them off. CC is definately down on contrast v LIVING not by a massive amount but enough to not force me to flock to it yet.

One thing I did learn was that in HDMI - PC LEVELS - L2 Nvidia VMR, the contrast always starts to colour shift around +8 or +9 if this is any help. You can squeeze the contrast to +9 for a bit of extra boost but you can't get D65 (at 90IRE pattern and above) at this point as it requires too much RED which then makes everything else out of whack (80IRE pattern and below) - so there is a genuine colour shift at +9 Contrast on the Z4 HDMI.

Real world I have set this to +7 which gives you a bit of headroom, and if you want the extra contrast at the expense of a bit of colour balance shift then go as high as +9 but be aware the picture is tracking well away from D65.

More to come ...

CKL

11-23-05, 01:15 PM

If Z4 can't provide enough lumen for filter tweaking, you better stay at Creative Cinema without filter. Without enough lumen, it can't display good color. I guess it is good to have filter tweaking if your screen is only 80inch diagonal or 100inch High Power.

mannyqg

11-24-05, 06:06 PM

Jay Mitchosky

11-24-05, 10:13 PM

Hi,

I just got my Z4 last night and started using it using my HTPC with the VGA connection as I am still waiting for my DVI/HDMI cable. I started the tweaks but for whatever reason I can't get to the advanced menu. Can anyone help me? Do I need to have a DVI/HDMI connection to activate the advanced menu bar? As of now the advanced menu bar is not highlighted at all. Thanks

Manny
I believe there is a setting somewhere in the user menus that determines if you are allowed to access the advanced settings, also in the user menu. :rolleyes: I think ROne mentioned this earlier in this or the official Z4 discussion thread.

ROne

11-25-05, 03:04 AM

Yep, you have to turn it on in the settings menu and access it from img adjustment menu.

shelly

11-25-05, 10:15 AM

I believe there is a setting somewhere in the user menus that determines if you are allowed to access the advanced settings, also in the user menu. :rolleyes: I think ROne mentioned this earlier in this or the official Z4 discussion thread.

It's in the Settings Menu on the same menu page as Image, Image Adj, Picture adj, Screen, Input, Setting and Information (1/3) (see page 35 of the manual.) The default setting for Advanced Menu is Off. Not sure why they would decide this.

I may not have the Z4 as yet but I am reading the manual. Isn't ocd great!

Shelly

mannyqg

11-25-05, 10:48 AM

Shelly,

Thanks you are right. You know it is just like buying a new car, just go drive away and just go back to read the manual when you can't turn on the windshield wipers or the headlights. :D

Manny :

mannyqg

11-26-05, 12:33 PM

Hi,

Many thanks for ROne and CKL for spending a lot of time doing the tweaks. I tried them last night ROne for user image 1, Avbuzz for user image 2. I use a Draper 2.5 gain fixed screen 60" x 96". Image 1 has more punch, looks more alive, but I have to adjust color (too much) from +6 to +3. Image 2 shows more detail specially on dark scenes but less punch than Image 1. In short I prefer Image 2, more details, and more natural flesh tones. Either way you have two settings you can use as a base and do your own adjustments to satisfy your personal preference. I used 2 movies, Fifth Element to judge color rendering and Phantom Menace III where there is a lot of dark scenes that looks good with Image 2 settings. My source is HTPC with a Radeon 9200 video card. to be replaced with a Nvidia 6600. All my movies are on my hard drive for convenience, easy filing and easy access.
As soon as my DVI/HTMI cables arrive, I will connect my Dish Sat for HDTV evaluation.

Manny

Jay Mitchosky

11-26-05, 12:56 PM

ROne

11-26-05, 01:52 PM

I have some creative cinema D65 settings for people to try who like the look of this preset.

Colour management IS NOT needed.

B:-10
C:+4
sat: +4
Tint: 0
R: +12
G: -1
B: -1
Sharpness -5
Lamp: Low
Gamma: 0
Lens iris: -44
Lamp iris: auto
Gain R: +13
Gain G: +11
Gain B: -5
Offset: R -15
Offset: G -11
Offset: B +3
Gamma R: 0
Gamma G: 0
Gamma B: -1
HDMI L2

Do be aware that these settings are for HDMI L2 - it tracks to D65 beautifully, and colour management is not needed to sort the colour out as with Living.

However the lamp iris is noticeable in this settings and I don't think the contrast is as good as living - though it tracks to D65 much better. Shadow detail is a touch better with Creative Cinema though.

I am working on some new Living values I hope to show soon ...

ROne

11-26-05, 01:58 PM

I can't recall if this has been asked before but what the hell. ROne, would you be able to test the component input against your recommended settings and comment on similarity of results and, if possible, what parameters would change?

yeah I did say I would and should do this!

trouble is my 575 pioneer is on loan to someone at the moment - I will see if I can get it back.

CoolCanuck

11-28-05, 01:31 PM

Thanks ROne! Any chance you could confirm if your new Creative Cinema values would work similarly for the Component input?

ROne

11-28-05, 01:36 PM

sorry i've not got my component player at the mo.

why not just plug them in and take a look...

CoolCanuck

11-28-05, 01:59 PM

Yes, I will be trying the values out on my component connection -- I'm just not sure to check how the tracking to D65 looks. Can I check this with AVIA or do I need a fancy schmancy colorimeter?

ROne

11-28-05, 02:29 PM

You can't but you can see if you like the settings perhaps.

When I get my dvd player back I will check them ...

bpomme

11-29-05, 06:50 AM

Hi AVS-Forum

first thanks to ROne and all the others who spend plenty of time to tweak the Z4.
There is one question for me, and I hope it can be explained.
ROne you wrote that you calibrated the colors pretty well to D65 but Grayscales looked a bit yellowisch. How can that be? I thougt, graytones at any IRE should look "neutral" when calibrated to D65.

Bernd

ROne

11-29-05, 06:55 AM

Firstly - which settings are you using?

Your contrast is likely to be too high - the Z4 clips red at the top end and thus ends up looking yellow.

Secondly, greyscale @ D65 is not neutral as such - it does exhibit a certain "warmth or coolness."

bpomme

11-29-05, 08:20 AM

I tried your last settings based on Creative Cinema and Living.
Brightness is set to -4 and Contrast to +5. I use HTPC with Radeon9600, NVIDIA-DVDfilters HDMI and Overlay.

Bernd

ROne

11-29-05, 11:28 AM

I tried your last settings based on Creative Cinema and Living.
Brightness is set to -4 and Contrast to +5. I use HTPC with Radeon9600, NVIDIA-DVDfilters HDMI and Overlay.

Bernd

Okay - a couple of things.

My settings are based around the VMR settings of the NVIDIA filters - I've not used or tested overlay as it is inferior. Using overlay will probably put the contrast a fair way out due to the distinction between PC Levels and Video Levels - with which VMR is set for PC-Levels with full BTB / WTW.

To make sure my settings also fit the Z4 you have to make sure the HDMI option is set to L2 - Pc levels.

Unless both of these settings are observed the contrast will mostly likely be distorting your greyscale.

Try it - let me know.

bpomme

11-30-05, 01:54 AM

Hi ROne,
thanks so far. Yesterday evening I tried some things.
HDMI-Level is set to L2.
With Overlay the colors are way too yellowish. Switching to VMR in the NVIDIA-Codecs make things a lot better. For my personal taste the picture is a lot on the warm side, but the heavy yellow touch is away.
Unfortunately VMR causes a bit unsharp, blurry picture. Overlay on the other hand is razorsharp. Don't know why there is a difference.

Now I have 2 further questions:
How can I get a little more "cooler" picture on VMR?
Is it possible to get rid of the Yellowtouch on Overlay?

Thanks
Bernd

ROne

11-30-05, 03:48 AM

Bernd - it takes a bit of getting used to - VMR. Overlay contains excessive sharpening which is not inherent in the picture - what you have got used to with OVERLAY is not actually any extra detail. Some people take this as VMR to look "soft".

As for picture on the warm side - well, again that is D65 or at least my calibrated version - if you don't like it then you need to add maybe some blue to it to give a perceived cooler picture.

Also bear in mind that the LIVING settings need an additional colour-management adjustment as saturation is heavily boosted - this maybe the warmth that you are seeing, if you go back through the thread you will see where I point this out.

CREATIVE CINEMA does not need the colour management adjustment.

Yes you can get rid of the "Yellowtouch!" on Overlay by calibrating the greyscale/contrast/brightness correctly but I've not supplied settings for this as I don't use Overlay for the reasons mentioned above.

I would suggest you stick with VMR a little longer as I think your visual acuity may come round the purer look.

LVS

12-01-05, 11:15 AM

This may be an elementary question concerning the Overscan setting on the Z4 so excuse my ignorance. The range is from 0-10 with 10 being the default which is maximum overscan.

Why would you want this at 10 .vs. 0 and then adjust the image with Zoom. It is evident with test patterns that you loose picture detail at the outside edges when you use overscan. Is it ever advantageous to overscan an image? TIA.

Dick Kalagher

12-01-05, 01:57 PM

I set my overscan to 0, but I found that some channels have an annoying blinking line at the top. I think I settled on 3 as a good compromise.

dusk

12-01-05, 03:43 PM

I have found the lack of overscan on my LCD Flat panel to be a problem on ABC HD. With my motorola HD box almost all SD channels could use some overscan. I don't think there are any adjustments for that on the flat panel. Luckily with the Z4 we can make some changes if need be. If you're using a HTPC then it makes sense to set to 0. However if someone is watching HD right off a set top box then it may make sense to put it at 3 as in the previous post.

Jay Mitchosky

12-01-05, 06:31 PM

I had the opportunity to take a closer look at the Z4 and have a couple questions.

1) If one chooses to use a filter how is it attached to the lens? There does not seem to be any threads to accept a common camera filter.

2) Is there more power to the color management function than it seems at a cursory glance? Once you highlight a color you can choose from color level, color phase, and gamma. Each only have five increments so adjustment is very course. Presumably color level corresponds to saturation but what is phase? Gamma? The Panasonic 900 is pretty sweet in this regard as each of the eight color points are adjustable for saturation, tint, and brightness and it seems there are more increments available. Are the Z4's level/phase/gamma analagous to the 900?

User-sg

12-02-05, 11:47 PM

Hi,

I just purchased a Z4 and had it shipped from the US to Singapore - turned it on yesterday and all images have a red outline.

I am connected using a VGA cable.

Attached is a picture of a test screen - seems like a convergence issue - I am new to this so I am not really sure how to resolve it.

Altering settings dosent seem to solve this problem. Are there any setting adjustments needed or is there a fault with the projector?

Would really appreciate any assistance.

Cheers

ROne

12-03-05, 03:42 AM

User-sg, I've never seen anything that bad on a sanyo projector!

That's a fault - totally.

What does it look like with a video image on it?

ourdall

12-03-05, 08:05 AM

Hi,

I just purchased a Z4 and had it shipped from the US to Singapore - turned it on yesterday and all images have a red outline.

That is definitely a convergence issue.

I can be serviced without too much trouble, but you would need to know wich settings to alter in the service menu.

I know there is a service manual for the Z3 on the forums, but I don't know if the settings are the same than for the Z4.

User-sg

12-03-05, 08:43 AM

Hi ROne and ourdall,

Many thanks for you replies. The video pictures look just as bad. Even without any inputs the menu screen shows the red shading.

I will ask Audio General Inc. who I bought it from for the Service menu settings. Their service has been good so far so fingers crossed that they help me solve this one.

The Z4 is still not available in Singapore so not sure if Sanyo here can help me.

Will keep you posted on developments.

Cheers

User-sg

ROne

12-03-05, 01:30 PM

I've found a service menu tweak that stops how far the AUTO lamp-iris closes down in POWERFUL mode.

Group 105: Lamp Iris section

Item 4: Lamp Iris POINT C: +4 (default) 0-255 (range)

If you lower POINT C to 0 the IRIS doesn't shut down as much as when set to default (4). If you've move the number in the higher direction it shuts down even more.

Early tests look promising but the IRIS is still not completely transparent even in this setting.

The other fascinating discovery is how the service menu stores this.

It appears CREATIVE CINEMA through to LIVING are AUTO1 type iris, meaning if you make a change as describe above it applies to all the presets between these two.

And from DYNAMIC to VIVID are AUTO2 type iris, where the iris reacts differently to AUTO1 - hence the service menu tweak here applies separately for the two groups. Which would explain why the iris looks great in the first few presets.

So we can store two different iris settings. One for the dimmer presets and one for the brighter presets: so if you change Item 4 on the powerful and above presets it will apply to the DYNAMIC, POWERFUL and VIVID but won't change Item 4 for CC,PC,NATURAL & LIVING.

Maybe we can tweak the auto iris in the opposite direction for the decent modes - thus make the auto iris dim more?

sphinx99

12-03-05, 04:26 PM

Well, the Z4 arrived!

I played with it quite a bit last night, and with company over I got to give it a good workout using the white walls for a screen. Some observations,

- Versus the X1, this thing is a big step up. That was a concern up front. It's sharper, it's brighter, the colors are richer, the feature set make it far more convenient. The black level was the only thing I was a little nervous about, but within minutes of tweaking I came to realize that too is better than it is on the X1. In a nutshell, I don't think X1 owners would be disappointed at all.

- The Z4 is built very well. The Menu lets you adjust everything. It's easy to get lost in ths projector, given how many things there are that can be tweaked!

- The Oppo OPDV971H + Sanyo PLV-Z4 are an excellent combination. Source is important. Prior to the Oppo I spent a few hours with my Panasonic RP56 (component) and my work laptop (1280x800 over RGB video cable playing WinDVD4) and the results were not nearly as good.

More later... now I have to read this entire post :) In a nutshell, though, I'm happy with my choice!

Jay Mitchosky

12-03-05, 05:18 PM

I too had a chance to play with a Z4 this week - "roadshow" unit was at my dealer ready to be sent back to Sanyo so I was able to borrow it overnight. Projected it onto a makeshift paper screen from 18' back or so, just sitting on a table. The screen is there basically as a reference marker - my Da-Lite HCCV arrived this week and is pending installation. Overall I was quite pleased with this projector. Not having the time to run even a basic calibration with Avia I just used the default settings. Creative and Living seemed to be the best. Lights on with Powerful provided a surprisingly usable picture which will be great for things like Superbowl parties and such. I was using my trusty Toshiba SD-9000 DVD player which is interlaced only and here the weakness of the Z4's processing really comes through. Lots of line twitter and jaggies that marred what should have been a sharper, cleaner image. With scaling technology as it is today there is really no excuse for Sanyo to have dropped the ball in this area. I don't care one way or another as I'll also be using an iScan HD+ which will handle all scaling chores.

One thing that was less than satisfying in the basic presets (with the caveat of a lousy projection surface and no formal calibration) were the black levels. Looking forward to seeing the true capability of this projector after some more TLC. My dealer has secured one for me and I'll have it this week. Chief currently does not have a Z4 bracket for their RPA series mounts (claim Sanyo has not yet provided them a unit for measurement) and Sanyo confirms that the mounting configuration is different then the Z1-Z3 series. So for the time being I'll use a Chief universal mount and swap for the proper bracket when available (allows for lower profile mount).

Some other observations:

1) SDE was definitely evident, but it wasn't as dramatic as I expected. At my seating distance of just over 11' on an 87" wide 16:9 screen I had to really pay attention to see any "veil" over the image - properly calibrated this will be even less of an issue. From my second row which is about 18' back there is no image breakup as would be expected. Of note is that I had some Da-Lite and Stewart screen samples on hand (HCCV, Grayhawk, and Firehawk respectively). Interestingly the Grayhawk's darker surface actually exacerbated the screen door effect, making the grid even more evident. For those deciding on screen materials you may want to keep this in mind if you're leaning towards the uber-dark surface variety.

2) Less then wowed with the color calibration options as noted above - interested in hearing discussion on this.

3) Fan was very quiet as advertised. DVD transport was louder.

4) Auto lens door kicks ass - I just hope it's not going to be a future mechanical issue.

5) Lens shifting is a snap. Projector centered and focused in seconds. Lock is nice and secure. There's a bit of play in both the vertical and horizontal dials before the mechanics kick which helps when you lock it in place. For shits and giggles I held the projector against the ceiling where it will be mounted and pinned the vertical shift for maximum offset. Screen is 20" from the top edge of the screen, or about 17 1/2" from screen to center of lens housing. There was ample room to go even below this point and I could detect no image bowing as a result.

capitano

12-07-05, 04:31 AM

Thank you Rone for your wonderful work.
Just a simple question: Do u use 1280*720p at 50Hz or 60Hz with your HTPC?

ROne

12-07-05, 06:09 AM

60hz - I have no issues with Judder with either PAL or NTSC based disc content.

capitano

12-07-05, 06:19 AM

60hz - I have no issues with Judder with either PAL or NTSC based disc content.
Is it not better to use for PAL 50hz (2*fps)?
have you noted 60hz is better than 50hz for PAL DVDs?

ROne

12-07-05, 08:08 AM

Is it not better to use for PAL 50hz (2*fps)?
have you noted 60hz is better than 50hz for PAL DVDs?

That's debatable - on my set up there is no difference - so 720p60 makes sense as a standard rez for everything.

With TT I've never been convinced that mating displays to freq's of the frame rate multiple always gives the best results. There was huge debate about this at some point ... but I know what I've seen here.

dusk

12-07-05, 10:51 AM

Hey ROne,

How are those Service Menu Iris tweaks coming? Do you have any more insight or recommendations on the settings? I will be finishing up my install this weekend and would love to hear what your latest digging has uncovered.

ROne

12-07-05, 11:27 AM

Yeah - I can give you service menu tweaks to improve the Iris within the more aggresive settings - this comprises of slowing the iris's response down (so that it has more time to average out over scenes) and increasing the threshold of fully closed iris.

That said - it's so difficult to get a decent D65 in POWERFUL that it all becomes a bit of a on/off contrast chase - which ultimately looks not a huge amount better than the LIVING settings - as the ANSI contrast is still the same or close.

ROne

12-07-05, 11:36 AM

Here you go: I got the service manual PDF courtesy of someone on here and made the following changes (which you must make in the POWERFUL, VIVID or DYNAMIC - as it applies to all three).

GROUP 105 on the service menu (LAMP IRIS)

Item 4: Lamp Iris POINT C: +4 (default) 0-255 (range)

reduce to 0: this effectively lifts the AUTO LAMP IRIS's CLOSED limit.

Item 10: LAMP IRIS ave time range: +4 (default) 0-8 (range)

8 being the slowest, 0 being the fastest - decrease of iris-reaction speed setting slowing it down so that it is more gradual in scenes and much less noticeable

I set it on 8, though you can experiment with these numbers as they are real-time settings, do be aware though that the on-screen menu influences iris while you are adjusting.

Normal service menu warnings apply.

JPinTO

12-07-05, 03:19 PM

Thanks ROne for providing us your tweaks. Definite improvement over the Sanyo supplied settings. Your settings with a brand new bulb give a plasma like punch to the image. Fantastic! :-)

daosteen

12-07-05, 06:36 PM

Hi all -

I recently purchased this projector and am very happy with it so far (I previously had a Sony VPL-HS2 for a few years). I've never messed around with the image much on my televisions (especially color), but I've been trying to learn about this the last few days by reading this forum and other sites, and I just ordered the AVIA DVD. I currently have the projector plugged into my 3 year old Toshiba progressive scan DVD player using component video. I've tried ROne's settings (with eyeball adjustments to brightness, contrast, and saturation), and that looks very good. Scenes with a lot of brown look too orange to me, and I unsuccessfully tried using the color managment tool to fix this.

I've tried fiddling with some of the color controls, but for many I'm not confident that I understand what the adjustment means. I don't expect to arrive at the best picture by messing around in this fashion, but I'd still like to understand the interpretation of these controls.

1) What property of the color are you changing with the RGB individual adjustments? Is it saturation (I'm assuming the Saturation control adjusts the three colors uniformly)?

2) Are the RGB offset and gain functions analagous to brightness and contrast functions, except for the individual colors? So, the offset adjusts the baseline dark end of the color and the gain determines the high end?

3) In the Color Management menu, is "Level" the same as saturation and "Phase" the same as hue?

Sorry if those are dumb questions - I'm still trying to digest the vocabulary and concepts surrounding color. If it's not possible to easily answer those questions, if someone could direct me to a resource that would explain these well, I would be very appreciative.

Thanks to all the people who share their thoughts here - this site is a very valuable resource, though there is an enormous volume of data to sift through.

Jay Mitchosky

12-07-05, 11:29 PM

3) In the Color Management menu, is "Level" the same as saturation and "Phase" the same as hue?
I'm wondering the very same thing. Asked that earlier and am still hoping for some clarification.

ROne

12-08-05, 02:29 AM

Hi all -

I've tried fiddling with some of the color controls, but for many I'm not confident that I understand what the adjustment means. I don't expect to arrive at the best picture by messing around in this fashion, but I'd still like to understand the interpretation of these controls.

1) What property of the color are you changing with the RGB individual adjustments? Is it saturation (I'm assuming the Saturation control adjusts the three colors uniformly)?

2) Are the RGB offset and gain functions analagous to brightness and contrast functions, except for the individual colors? So, the offset adjusts the baseline dark end of the color and the gain determines the high end?

3) In the Color Management menu, is "Level" the same as saturation and "Phase" the same as hue?

Sorry if those are dumb questions - I'm still trying to digest the vocabulary and concepts surrounding color. If it's not possible to easily answer those questions, if someone could direct me to a resource that would explain these well, I would be very appreciative.

Thanks to all the people who share their thoughts here - this site is a very valuable resource, though there is an enormous volume of data to sift through.

Firstly - how are you sourcing your Z4?

My D65 settings are based around a specific set up, there is a chance that if one element differes then adjusting the brightness or contrast to suit will shift the greyscale range and white will become too yellow or too red near the top end.

1) The RGB individual adjustmenst effect the color of White not saturation.

2) Offset = brightness of individual RGB approx 40% IRE based chart

Gain= contrast of individual RGB approx 70% IRE based chart

There is interaction between the two.

I am struggling to explain the colour management settings accurately as Sanyos documentation is very poor.

But I read Level as the intensity of the colour, phase I would imagine is HUE.

With colour management you may have to find several scenes to make adjustments that you are happy with.

Bear in mind that I've only needed to make colour management adjustments to LIVING - not CREATIVE CiNEMA.

Hope this helps.