Hi everyone-
I'm almost at wits end... I had some friends over to watch a BRD last night and it was unwatchable to my eyes. Why? I'm not passing any BTB information at all. Blacks were so crushed that I had a hard time paying attention to the movie. It was truly horrible. After everyone left I threw Avia into the PS3 and the problem was obvious...I'm passing this information at all.

I stayed up to close to midnight last night attempting to change settings on the PS3, Lumagen, 3806, RS1 and simply couldn't get the information to pass. What's annoying is that I've had the PS3 passing these settings before...but for some reason they are now missing. I've tried playing with PC/Video on the Lumagen, HDMI level to Standard/Enhanced on the RS1, and pretty much every combination of settings on the PS3...
I haven't tried extensive diagnostics, which is on the docket for tonight (basically beginning to remove things from the video chain and seeing where the problem is).
I'm obviously missing something (my thought is in the Lumagen). If anyone can provide some insights that'd be great.

Here are some details:
I've installed 1.8 on the PS3
I've installed the new firmware on the 3806
My RS1 was from the second batch so I think it has the latest firmware, but I don't know.
I'm feeding 1080i60 to the Lumagen. I can only get the PS3 to output 444RGB.
It is running into a 3806 and then onto the Lumagen.

Thanks!

Have you tried a direct video connection to your display 1 by 1 to eliminate the problem?
I would take everything apart and try by eliminating the avr first , then the lumagen , also I would try swapping cables since 1 bad cable can cause a ton of headaches..

Take a look at "Tech Tip 5- Adjusting Color Settings" on the Lumagen website. This was posted primarily to support customers who own the JVC RS1 projector. This technical tip goes through a basic calibration which should be helpful.

http://www.lumagen.com/testindex.php?module=manuals

Best regards,
Randy Freeman

Thanks Randy-
From my thread over in the >3500 forum it sounds like the consensus is that somewhere in the chain the RGB levels are off.

I'm going to start from the RS1 and Lumagen and work backwards.

I just made a small update to "Tech Tip 5 - Adjusting Color Settings" and posted a new copy to the Lumagen website. I added a paragraph which adds a calibration step to adjust the black and contrast controls on the Lumagen. This is to adjust for differences between different video sources. Now the Tech Tip better documents how to do a quick calibration of the four basic controls; black, contrast, color and hue.

Best regards,
Randy Freeman

Adding to Randy's post...

We have checked the input to output levels on the Lumagen. If both the input and output are set to video levels, the levels on the output precisely match the levels on the input (with Lumagen default settings), and blacker-than-black plus whiter-than-white are passed properly.

If the output is PC level then, of course, these level get clamped as expected.

You should also check the gamma on the projector. As this is more likely than missing blacker-than-black or whiter-than-white to make the image overly dark looking in the dark region of the image.

It is very reasonable to calibrate a projector without blacker-than-black or whiter-than-white and have very nice black detail. In fact the video source is not supposed to (although some source material does) venture outside the black to white region. So, I don't really think getting blacker-than-black plus whiter-than-white into the picture is the issue. Rather I think your gamma and black levels need to be adjusted.

I haven't personally seen the RS1 yet, but it is possible it is not able to do the job with dark detail you are expecting. I hear great things about the projector though, so this may or may not be something to consider a possibility.

Jim-
Thanks for the comments-
The problem I had was more serious than just a calibration of blacks issue I think.
I was getting no response from adjusting contrast and brightness on the test patterns, both from discs and from the lumagen, they were just black. As soon as I got the right combination of levels all of a sudden all of the things in the test pattern started showing up.

I ended up getting success with the PS3 with the following combination...
RS1=Standard
Lumagen Out = Video
Lumagen In = Video
PS3 = RGB Full

Whatever settings I had before didn't even allow me to see anything in the black -
I'm still working on getting things working with the HD-A1...it appears that these settings didn't work?!?

Randy-
Since getting the levels in agreement appears to be important, might it be possible to include directions on setting the LEVEL's properly?
Is it always just guess work? It seems that everyone has different definitions for what is what in the RGB color space...

Question for you, is your PS3 switching between RGB Limited and RGB Full like the rest of the 1.8 revision PS3's? If so, I think the new 1.81 firmware rumored about is going to help out. My understanding is that BTB and WTW are not being passed since the RGB setting is flipping back to Limited under certain circumstances.

-Splints

I've been thinking about posting a Lumagen Tech Tip on How to do a Full Calibration. I want to include lots of illustrations and explanations. I guess that I better start doing some writing.

Best regards,
Randy Freeman

Question for you, is your PS3 switching between RGB Limited and RGB Full like the rest of the 1.8 revision PS3's? If so, I think the new 1.81 firmware rumored about is going to help out. My understanding is that BTB and WTW are not being passed since the RGB setting is flipping back to Limited under certain circumstances.

-Splints

It's interesting that you mention that. I've actually been on the phone with PS3 tech support (fairly high up actually) talking about some of these issues.
I am getting BTB and WTW passing from the PS3 now - or at least I was on Wednesday evening when I tackled figuring this problem out...but I've certainly witness my PS3 bouncing between settings regardless of what is selected for RGB. On top of that, even when told to pass YCrCb for BRD's, it simply won't anymore. Many have reported only getting RGB from their units. There were times prior to 1.8 that the PS3 would randomly give me YCbCr, and times that it wouldn't. After the firmware upgrade it won't give me YCbCr ever.
There are most certainly bugs with the video output formats (and I'm sure other things).
I was lucky to get a call back from a fairly high level Sony person in San Fran. He had researched the projector, receiver, Lumagen, etc - I was actually quite impressed. Anyway, he concurred that there were several bugs in the chain. Hopefully they are working on it...