So I finally got around to putting in DVE and doing a brightness and contrast adjustment. I set brightness so the very left third bar just blends into the backround and everything looks great. Contrast also looks great to me, but I could raise it all the way to 30 and it was BARELY blooming. It seemed I could raise it anywhere from about 0-30 and still be technically correct so why is this? I settled on about 8 as it seems by eye to be the best setting for my long throw/room/setup, etc.... and it seems to give a bit more wanted punch at this setting in my setup. I am just curious why I dont get big blooming even at +30?

it was BARELY blooming.

You'll never get any blooming at all with a digital display. Only CRTs will bloom.

You need to maximize the white level to just below the point of clipping or colorshifting.

You'll never get any blooming at all with a digital display. Only CRTs will bloom.

You need to maximize the white level to just below the point of clipping or colorshifting.

Thanks. So how do you do this exactly?

Where the highest white stripe in the contrast pattern goes away or you could say crushes out. Back it up till it re-appears, keep an eye on the graysteps pattern to see color shifting.

HD-DVE has a good cross steps contrast pattern, with Avia's needle pulse with steps you watch the graysteps on top. With digitals we should be using the all black and all white patterns in Avia'a Grayscales and Levels area.

Toe, I sympathize! Brightness (black level) is pretty easy to set, but Contrast (white level) much less so. I heard many people say that one turns Constrast up until one sees a pink discoloration appears (which is usually before the point where the white bars blend into one another) and then turn it down until the coloration just disappears.

The way I've found to work well for setting Contrast is to look at some screen that has very bright figures--e.g., the white uniforms in a baseball game in full sunlight on cable hdtv--and turn Contrast up until you loose definition in the white figures, e.g., the folds and structure in the white uniforms, and then back it down until the definition reappears. For my RS1, with a Dalite HP screen, in low lamp power my setting for Brightness and Constrast are both -5, with Middle Temp and Gamma = B. (For my Sammy 1200 BR player I use Constrast = -5, Brightness = +1.)

Toe, I sympathize! Brightness (black level) is pretty easy to set, but Contrast (white level) much less so. I heard many people say that one turns Constrast up until one sees a pink discoloration appears (which is usually before the point where the white bars blend into one another) and then turn it down until the coloration just disappears.

The way I've found to work well for setting Contrast is to look at some screen that has very bright figures--e.g., the white uniforms in a baseball game in full sunlight on cable hdtv--and turn Contrast up until you loose definition in the white figures, e.g., the folds and structure in the white uniforms, and then back it down until the definition reappears. For my RS1, with a Dalite HP screen, in low lamp power my setting for Brightness and Constrast are both -5, with Middle Temp and Gamma = B. (For my Sammy 1200 BR player I use Constrast = -5, Brightness = +1.)

Glad you can sympathize Millerwill :) Definately a bit more tricky than setting brightness which was easy. The DVE bars dont dissapear even at 30. I found some bright material and tried as you have said and this worked much better. I was definately loosing a bit of detail in bright white scenes where I had it, so I bumped it down about 4 clicks and the detail came back while still maintaining srong white level.