I thought I would post some of my calibration results for my 1352LC and in a effort for some help, ask any of you that happen to own this PJ if you had any advice for the horrible greyscale tracking I am getting

usually most folks that are DIY types will calibrate their 20 and 80 IRE windows for a flat 6500K, this works great in many cases, but in mine, no good

yesterday I worked for a solid 6 hours on my greyscale and this is the best tracking I could get:

http://www.custom-ht.com/photos/1352greyscale.jpg
http://www.custom-ht.com/photos/1352rgb.jpg

If I pull in the bottom and top ends to a perfect 6500k, starting at 70IRE all the way down to 30IRE I hit peaks of 9500K at 50IRE, the picture above is the best compromise I can get and it is not good

I was wondering if any of the pros had any advice on this, the NEC has a multitude of kelvin controls, I have worked forever and can't get anywhere

for those interested, here is the Color of my 1352:

http://www.custom-ht.com/photos/1352color.jpg

thanks guys

-Gary

-Gary

a couple of things to 1st try..
Im not familiar so much in the CRT world but here is a couple of advices.

1st - try to set your PRIMARY colors 1st before your greyscale (you may or may not have this available for parameters ) - lets assume so that you do
2nd - run your greyscale - its probably better to use 30IRE and 80 or 90 IRE for the others side..(you havent mentioned which device you used - let alone what mode you are using - My initial reminders is that you should use LCD mode for all except CRT for Plasman and TUBE sets)
3rd..Now adjust your secondaries since greyscale moves those - once again you may not have tint controls for individual colors (magenta, cyan, yellow)lets assume that you do
4th. Rerun a greyscale test and readjust it, readjust your tint
Its more important to get Red and Green over Blue, but its even more important to get the Hue (tint).
5th. Make sure that when your adjusting the primary and secondaries that you try to get them all to cross D65 point..If you are not able to get them hit their reference marks, you will NOT have a perfect greyscale and you will need to sacrifice some.

Remember to readjust contrast and brightness as you go, btw, the greyscale report is useless, just use the RGB histogram , if you get those all in line, you will get to D65 (a versionof 6500K )

lastly, its better to get the middle and lowend right and sacrifice on the HIGH end of the greyscale..

Im a newb but Ive asked alot of questions and hopefully I have helped some..Also with CRTs, its important to get the G2 correct on them - if not you will have probs with your greyscale

Ooops..one last thing...Sometimes if you look at a color and lets say for example GREEN is way too high, so let me reduce GREEN, try using another color and see if it reduces green, especially with CRT you probably dont want to do too much with GREEN since Green made up of mostly Luminance (light output)..

People - feel free to correct me along the way..

thanks Rich, appreciate the feedback, I am going to hit it more later tonight :)

one thing I can't figure is WTF is up with my magenta, I could tell by eye that it never looked right, but it is waaaay off :(

my setup is HCFR with the Display LT device, I am very impressed with it :)

-Gary

The primeries (RGB) of 1352 was measured by Guy and were very close.
richlo-There is no such thing as setting primeries or secondary in CRT. They all are fixed dictated by C-element.
The blue hump in 40 ire is a typical uncalibrated blue gain in XG that Guy had it too but got it fixed.
You color space triangle is elevated (shifted) in one direction for all color! Make sure what you are using is doing its job correctly.

I am not an expert and hope someone who knows this stuff well would comment.

Typically you get the blue hump in mid range cause your blue gain is hot.
Lowering that will knock the top end as well. That why you will need to activate the the blue defocus. It will nor work well without it.
Another point, if your magneta is shifted towrd blue don't think it might have to do with elevated blue in your scale in the midrange? Just a thought.

damn, I just totally forgot about that, I have the blue defocus turned off so that I get that extra pinch of sharpness I crave, I got so used to it that I don't think I could stand turning it back on

thanks for reminding me Caspian

my magenta is too red, lacking blue, but like you said everything(other than magenta) is shifted exactly so it looks pretty good IMHO

I wish I had a scaler here that I could tweak all this stuff to perfection with :(

-Gary

Magenta is shifted toward red indeed.
Everything is shifted towrd red and green. Must something is doing it.
The nec's defocus is very conservative and I never see it with the grid at the screen.
Another way is to turn it off and over focus the blue via the pot to your liking.

Gary,

I have done many tests and never, ever saw any lack of sharpness with blue defocus. In fact, with the NEC you have to manually defocus virtually to the max allowable adjustment in order to get reasonable tracking. And afterwards, there is no lack of sharpness...I repeat...no lack of sharpness!!!

Ben

Gary,

I didn't read this whole thread so if this has already been said, my apologies.
Defofus the blue and reset the top and bottom and you will see the curve start to flatten out and as a side benefit you will get more light out.

Terry

I didn't read all the responses, but one look at the graph and the answer is obvious.

DEFOCUS BLUE.

There's A REASON WHY BLUE IS DEFOCUSED, and you just found out what it is ;)
Also, the built in blue defocus menu option may not be enough.

Sharpness freaks who run with a focused blue always changed their minds when a colourimeter get's involved..I remember going through all this with CJ as well..

BTW, has anyone got a cal file for the HCFR colourimeter for an XG LC or G70? What did you use Gary?

appreciate the tips guys, I have a nice 1:1 pixel pattern plainly visible on my blue tube so it will be tough for me to defocus that but I might go that way, last night I worked a bunch more and got things a little better, this is without any blue defocus

roughly:

20IRE 6400K
30IRE 7100K
40IRE 7230K
50IRE 7600K
60IRE 7150K
70IRE 6800K
80IRE 6550K
90IRE 6000K
100IRE 5700K

Mark I fought the HCFR software and the Display meter for a long time to give accurate measurements, I finally had to settle on the unit facing the 1352 at the screen with the diffusor on and the software set to LCD instead of CRT, when on CRT the setup was giving way too warm readings but were saying 6500k, I have read of this issue on a few forums, the LCD selection and the above setup gave perfect results, I wish I could take the screen reading though because Draper screens are said to be slightly on the colder side, around 500k or so, so I may want to shoot for 6000K pointing at the 1352

-Gary

But a 1:1 pixel pattern on blue is POINTLESS and just ruins your greyscale, colour uniformity, and total output. Defocus makes no difference to the sharpness of the image = try it and see.

Ok, so you don't have a cal file for the HCFR, which means your measurements are subjective anyway. Without a reference point, and pointing at the projector instead of the screen, the best you can do is relative measurements. Useful (especially for the price - which is why I bought one too), but not absolute.

80IRE 6550K
90IRE 6000K
100IRE 5700K
-Gary

Gary,

You are dropping to much on your high end so you won't have as bright or as contrasty (sp?) a picture. You are taking out some of your hump by setting 100ire to low. This will produce a yellow white.
When you defocus the blue a bit you will be able to get the ends at 6500 and reduce the hump.

Terry

Gary,

You are dropping to much on your high end so you won't have as bright or as contrasty (sp?) a picture. You are taking out some of your hump by setting 100ire to low. This will produce a yellow white.
When you defocus the blue a bit you will be able to get the ends at 6500 and reduce the hump.

Terry

I get the same thing when I try setting the colors with the bright bias and drive control - upper IRE is yellow and the middle is bluish. Hopefully I can get someone here to do a proper calibration though.

When you say defocus the blue, do you mean turn on the blue focus tracking or to make the blue slightly out of focus electronically?

tried the blue defocus, can't stand it at all, ruins my image sharpness, the blue tube in my 1352 is the sharpest I have ever seen, 100% equal to the green and red, I tried the defocus and it just won't do for me, appreciate the advice on that guys, I totally forgot about that

I checked my greyscale after the blue defocus and it cut the hump by about 60 to 75%

I have just worked somemore this evening, got things a little better, I am within around 1000K from top to bottom(peak at 7600k around 40 IRE) 90% of the tracking is within 750k, 70 thru 100 IRE within 500k, I am just going to leave it at that until I get a scaler with greyscale adjustments and gamma points

Caspian, after I tweaked a few things on my scaler and PJ I checked the color performance again, I am spot on for everything except overly saturated reds, something I have always said the NEC's have, at least IMHO they do

-Gary

Unless your eyes work completely differently to everyone elses, blue defocus does not affect visible image sharpness.

Did you look at the seat or the screen?

Mark, I was viewing from my normal seat, it was a huge difference to me

with the click of the blue focus adjustment in the option menu the blue convergence grid glows slightly around red/green, my normal blue focus is amazing maybe it has ruined me, I spent just as much time on its adjustments magnets etc. as I do the others

-Gary

Don't look at crosshairs - look at video. It makes no difference to the apparent sharpness at all.

Just to reiterate Marks point, are you watching cross hatches and 1:1 pixel maps or video? Put on a movie, adjust your blue defocus then and see if you notice any change in sharpness.

Just to reiterate Marks point, are you watching cross hatches and 1:1 pixel maps or video? Put on a movie, adjust your blue defocus then and see if you notice any change in sharpness.

Gary i agree with Gino and mark. With grids you will definitely see the blue blooming out from under the grid but with video you will not see it at all. example watch 5th Element, the scene where he gets the message hes fired while eating lunch the text on that message will be just as sharp as with blue focused.

Athanasios

guys I checked video of course and decided against it before I even thought to look at the grids, it wasn't a quick rash decision at all

another thing I looked at was a 1:1 horizontal pattern, it was much less visible from my seat (13 feet) with the blue defocus and that won't do :p

if I can get ahold of a scaler with the adjustments one can have the best of both worlds :)

-Gary

if I can get ahold of a scaler with the adjustments one can have the best of both worlds :)

-Gary

No, you won't. You cannot make up for the lack of blue output by fiddling with the blue Gamma curve. It's reaching saturation, and increasing the drive level beyond that point will do nothing.

As I said before, THERE'S A REASON FOR BLUE DEFOCUS. :)

No, you won't. You cannot make up for the lack of blue output by fiddling with the blue Gamma curve. It's reaching saturation, and increasing the drive level beyond that point will do nothing.

As I said before, THERE'S A REASON FOR BLUE DEFOCUS. :)

Exactly right Mark !

Gary, you may be gettting a bit too greedy with the light output. Try lowering the CONTRAST setting, re-run your measurements, and compare the curves. The harder you push the output levels the more evident the blue hump will become.

If you have the ability to create a custom gamma curve in your video chain you can reduce the hump in the middle IRE's but you will still invariably run out of blue above 85IRE or so. Most people find that warmer peak whites are quite acceptable.

Happy tinkering :)

Russ

Yup, what everybody is saying. Blue hump is caused by the blue being overdriven.

Try an experiment, Gary: run your blue focus up & down with the contrast at 100. You will see a dramatic drop in light output as you run through the max-focus point. That's because the blue phosphors have saturated, and throwing more electrons at them (per unit area) doesn't make much more light. Defocus a little, and those electrons get spread out over a little larger area --> more light. Like Terry said, you're giving up some top-end "pop" if you run out of blue light at high IREs.

If you honest-to-God see the focus difference in actual video (I know you've got superhuman vision) and that's what you really enjoy, then watch it the way you enjoy it. But it WILL mess up your color balance, grayscale, and top-end pop.

Gary,
Sorry but as everyone is pointing out you MUST defocus B a bit.
Your picture will also have better punchier whites and the fL will increase from doing this.
There is nothing special about your PJ that allows you not to do this and XG's will not track correctly unless you do it.

Terry

This is a pitfall of CRT. Blue output runs out for proper d65 if not defocussed.
I am not sure if not defocusing will have any substantial impact on brightness but it makes a huge difference in white balance. Blue CRT is ony responsible for about 10% of the light out put total. Brightness is governed mostly by green which is about 70% of the total light output when d65 is done. Pushing the blue externally will cause premature burn as well so there is a price. I would use it either as is and live with the yellow/green top end and mid hump or would opt for defocus but not external boost cause it will not work in the top end but it can tame the hump..

tried the blue defocus, can't stand it at all, ruins my image sharpness, the blue tube in my 1352 is the sharpest I have ever seen, 100% equal to the green and red, I tried the defocus and it just won't do for me, appreciate the advice on that guys, I totally forgot about that


True.. XG has a sharp blue output and I can even seen the pic gets softer with dfocus but I don't mind. I am a grayscale, color and contrast guy and can be very happy if the rez is compromised a bit is the rest of the pq is up there. When I defocus the grid line becomes twice thicker. Hence has to affect the sharpness.
Most are seriously blue insensitive and some are not and can see it better.

Exactly right Mark !

Gary, you may be gettting a bit too greedy with the light output. Try lowering the CONTRAST setting, re-run your measurements, and compare the curves. The harder you push the output levels the more evident the blue hump will become.

If you have the ability to create a custom gamma curve in your video chain you can reduce the hump in the middle IRE's but you will still invariably run out of blue above 85IRE or so. Most people find that warmer peak whites are quite acceptable.

Happy tinkering :)

Russ

thanks Russ, I am at 45 out of 100 on the contrast setting after doing the full white balanced setup in the service menu

my peak whites are sitting at 5900K

appreciate all the tips guys, if I wanted to manually try some blue defocus, should it be over or under ? ;)

-Gary

Defocus in the direction that the dot gets larger, not in the direction that the dot creates a donut. Do this electronically.

CaspianM, if Gary is getting less than 6K on his 100ire, he will get quite a bit more top end if he adjusts to 6500.

Terry

Defocus in the direction that the dot gets larger, not in the direction that the dot creates a donut. Do this electronically.

CaspianM, if Gary is getting less than 6K on his 100ire, he will get quite a bit more top end if he adjusts to 6500.

Terry
I agree. Its the white factor:).

White is bright......lol

Terry

I am sure it will add some lumen beside the color to the top.
Surprizingly if the top end has too much red it looses that pop too even if the green and blue are spot on.

Having studied the relative pic quality with blue defocus and without...the pic is sooo much nicer with it, that I was willing to defocus it to the max!!! It was that massive defocus that took the pic quality of my NEC's to the next level!

And...I insist that you WILL NOT see a difference on normal video...there's just no way! Defocus red or green and sure, you'll see it.

The only way to know would be a double blind test...but the colors would look so much better with defocus on, that you'd recognize it immediately!

There is no way that you are gaining any benefit by not defocusing blue...no way!


Ben

Weellll, I wouldn't go that far. Defocus the blue a lot and you WILL see it. I saw it, and my vision is far from Gary's eagle-eye level. I generally compromise between max flat colortemps and reasonable amounts of fuzz from the blue.

It does seem that some people are much more sensitive to colors. I just can't imagine using an 8500 without color-filtered lenses, but lots of people do and are happy with it. Other people (probably including Gary) are less sensitive to colors than they are to sharpness. Do what works for you, just be aware what it's costing you (e.g. externally overdriving the blue resulting in early tube burn) so you're sure you really want what you're doing.

Isn't blue difficult to see in focus for people with normal vision? I know it is for me. Maybe Gary is green and red color blind. That would explain his sensitivity to it. ;) :D

Seriously, blue is de-focused on my G70 and I can't see it while viewing video.

In defense of Gary: Blue defocus is visible in some scenes - there just have to be bright letters in front of a dark background and voila - you will see some blue looking out on all four sides of the letters. How much depends on the eyes of the viewer and amount of defocus but there is no way this cannot be seen.

Art was also very sensitive to it IIRC and that was one of the reasons his G90's were not running brighter.

Regarding Gary's setup I would still shoot for around 6200 at the top end - that should flatten out the blue hump quite a bit and allow for more reasonable tracking.

Not trying to hijack Gary's thread - but do NECs have some sort of defocus button/switch/setting toggle? or only the XG like Gary's? I'm still running my 980 Ultra (PG9x) - so defocus - I'm supposed to manually not focus the blue as tightly as the other colors?

Again, only barging in because all of a sudden there are a lot of people discussing something here that it sounds like I should know about. Thanks (and I'm out of here, Gary)

Jon,

there is a blue defocus switch on the deflection board next to the focus pots.

Oliver

Jon,

there is a blue defocus switch on the deflection board next to the focus pots.

Oliver

Thanks - will go looking tonite. One of the downsides to owning crts - often (if not usually) they come without manuals. Thanks for the help.

Good luck Jon - this will even out your greyscale quite a bit :)

What? I thought the defocus switch was in the menu? Adjust -> option -> blue focus tracking ON/OFF.

PG it's a switch (Jon has a PG Xtra/Runco 980), XG it's in the Menu.

Ahhh... thanks for the clarification :).

Hey,
with the display lt you guys talk about getting a reading off the screen, how do you do that?, at the moment I use the filter and point the display2 at the crt NEC 1351 projector.
How do you get a reading off the screen with out getting in the way of the light beams?

Thanks

Umm, you put the sensor where you sit (?).

It is easier with a ceiling mount.

I position my Gretag MacBeth Eye-One Beamer about one foot in front of my normal head level ( when viewing ) and point it at the centre of the screen. ColorFacts takes care of the programming side of things.

Cheers :)

Russ

I use the unit on a tripod pointing at the screen about 6 inches to 1 foot back from the screen

-Gary

I guess I must have the same kind of preference that Gary has too because I like mine with tight blue focus also. I do pay for it on the high end but for me it is worth the trade.

Sounds like this is the minority opinion though.

Bob. I am in 100% full agreement, a much sharper tigher blue image is a nice addition and a 6000k 100IRE top end is fine with me as a side effect, 500k degrees is not that big a deal to me

-Gary

Gary did you measure the top lumen?

Human eyes focus poorly on blue. Having yellow whites isn't worth the nearly zero improvement.

Human eyes focus poorly on blue. Having yellow whites isn't worth the nearly zero improvement.

I do not have yellow whites at all and I can see blue just as good as other colors, it is not zero improvement to me

what I had to do was add some blue to the top end which in turn made the middle hump more out of tune, I think my worst point is 50IRE at around 7700k, not the end of the world, for my extra detail it is just fine and dandy

Caspian, not sure on my lumens, my room is so small 12x12 that the XG is plenty bright enough at 45 contrast on my 83x34.5 screen

-Gary

Cool got the Display2 to work off the screen and better results,

Also on the NEC is blue defocused when blue tracking in the menu is on or off?.

I am now using Curt palmes g2 nec guide, what does a AVIA Crossed Vertical Gray Ramp test pattern look like, can I make this test pattern on my HTPC?.

thanks, sorry about the noob questions..

I do not have yellow whites at all and I can see blue just as good as other colors, it is not zero improvement to me
-Gary

Gary,
Yes you do have yellowish whites when you are less than 6K for 100ire, and cool mids. You just don't have any reference to 6500 white so your whites look to be acceptable to you. If you change it you will see the difference immediately.

Terry

Don't ask Terry what you should do. You might not get the answer that you wanted to. ;)

I'm not sure of your goal with this thread Gary. You ask for help, get good advice, then ignore it and argue about it.

Why do CRT PJs have a blue defocus function? To F up the picture?

I guess I'm just lucky. The G70 doesn't take a sharpness hit when using blue defocus. Sharp as a tack AND perfect colors. I guess it's just another validation of "Sony Supremacy". ;)

Don't ask Terry what you should do. You might not get the answer that you wanted to. ;)

I'm not sure of your goal with this thread Gary. You ask for help, get good advice, then ignore it and argue about it.

Why do CRT PJs have a blue defocus function? To F up the picture?

I guess I'm just lucky. The G70 doesn't take a sharpness hit when using blue defocus. Sharp as a tack AND perfect colors. I guess it's just another validation of "Sony Supremacy". ;)

My Marquee looks just as good defocused i Just checked it out. Went intot he service menu and focused it. looked at the pic colors got changed and looked crappy plus it wasnt as bright anymore. defocused it back too hwere my calibrator had it and still looked as sharp but much brighter and better colors. gary just defocus it!


Athanasios

Don't ask Terry what you should do. You might not get the answer that you wanted to. ;)

I'm not sure of your goal with this thread Gary. You ask for help, get good advice, then ignore it and argue about it.

Why do CRT PJs have a blue defocus function? To F up the picture?

I guess I'm just lucky. The G70 doesn't take a sharpness hit when using blue defocus. Sharp as a tack AND perfect colors. I guess it's just another validation of "Sony Supremacy". ;)

it's actually rather simple to understand Phil, it slipped my mind as to why this was happening thus the thread, after being reminded of this and attempting it I decided against the blue defocus because it ruined the level of image sharpness I am used to, thats the big and little of it

I appreciate everyones help, Terry etc., I tried their advice and it didn't work out for me, since posting this thread I have worked things out to a wonderful compromise on my end, I am within 500k of 6500k at 7 out of 10 IRE points, I am at exactly 6500k at 20, 80, 90 IRE levels

I just can't stand the blue defocus at all, so I must compromise, when I get my hands on a scaler with greyscale points I will be all set ;) I do realize my blue tube will be worked much harder with such a setup but I am running such a low contrast that I am not that worried, and in the end tubes are tubes, they are for my enjoyment if for only 5000 hours ;)

-Gary

How much defocus did you use?

The NEC switch is a predefined amount (turn off, focus blue, turn on), but not necessarily the right amount for all situations.

And, as I said before, if you are using a HCFR without a Cal file for your specific projector, you have no idea what values you are measuring - you have relative measurements, which given an identical setup, can be used to compare things. But you cannot quote "6000k for 50IRE",etc, as you just don't know. Picking a different Cal file from the list that comes with the HCFR software will give you different results.

I hope to get Russ to help me generate a Cal file for the XG LC by comparing my HCFR with his Colorfacts. (It should be good for a G70 too).

I hope to get Russ to help me generate a Cal file for the XG LC by comparing my HCFR with his Colorfacts. (It should be good for a G70 too).

Mark,

If you do can you also post it?

Mark & Benny, I believe the Display LT has a pretty wide field of view. The Spyder2 is nearly 180deg. If so, then you want to have it as close to the screen as possible without seeing its shadow. Otherwise a lot of what you're measuring is the dark wall around the screen.

Mark,

If you do can you also post it?

Of course, this goes without saying. Part of the point of making a calibration file is to provide it for everyone. :)

Mark & Benny, I believe the Display LT has a pretty wide field of view. The Spyder2 is nearly 180deg. If so, then you want to have it as close to the screen as possible without seeing its shadow. Otherwise a lot of what you're measuring is the dark wall around the screen.


Yes, it depends on your sensor. Russ's Colorfacts has a narrow field - it's pretty high end.

With my DIY HCFR, I will probably try it just like Gary suggested, 150-300mm from the screen, pointing at the screen (just out of casting a shadow).

zoyd over on the calibration forum suggested a "hood" for the Spyder2 (half a toilet-paper roll, painted black inside) to narrow the S2's field of vision. That way you can get it close to the screen without it seeing its shadow.

Gotta go with the rest of the guys here. Back when I knew little about CRT my installer asked if I was happy with the picture and I stated that white's "glowed" too much. He made an adjustment and I could immediately see the sharper picture. I had my room painted red at the time and I always assumed that the red/yellow tinge to the picture was as a result of that.

Only later when I found out more about CRT's through sites such as this one did I realise that the installer had sharpened up the blue focus and wrecked my greyscale. Performing the operation in reverse was a revelation as far as colour output was concerned. Everything jumped off the screen. Was it as sharp? No. Was it better? Hell yes.

Hi,

As I asked before which way do you set the Blue tracking in the Options Meny, all posts I read says turn Blue Tracking off, then focus pot for sharpist picture, then turn it back on for correct defocus , right??

this would indicate the blue focus tracking off is full focus, you set it as sharp as you can then turn the blue focusing tracking back on for correct defocus

BUT .... The User manual says, Blue Tracking - off = Correct amount of defocus, Blue tracking - on = No Defocus.

does it matter which way or is every one getting it wrong? or is the user manual wrong..(doubt it though)

Cheers

Ryan

The manual is wrong.

Well, after reading this thread I decided to play with blue defocus a bit and I think I like what I see. I had the blue defocus on through the menus all along. However, I played around with applying more defocus through electronic adjustment. I moved up and down the scale and noticed the difference in light output. This really pushed the brightness of my picture up a good bit without having to increase brightness in the menus. I do notice the blue bleeding off of white text a bit but as others here have said, I would rather benefit from the improved punch and color than have really sharp movie credits. I also discovered "AKB" in the menus for the first time and it's been "OFF" all of this time so not really sure what if anything I have been missing. I tried running the projector with AKB on for a while and it does seem to balance the overall picture a bit more but of course the horizontal line at the top of the screen is a bit distracting.

I also discovered "AKB" in the menus for the first time and it's been "OFF" all of this time so not really sure what if anything I have been missing. I tried running the projector with AKB on for a while and it does seem to balance the overall picture a bit more but of course the horizontal line at the top of the screen is a bit distracting.


Your not even supposed to leave AKB on (NEC PJs only).

You should only enable it briefly from time to time.

Your not even supposed to leave AKB on (NEC PJs only).

You should only enable it briefly from time to time.

Okay, so it was set correctly before in the "OFF" position. I will be sure and leave it that way. The projector looks great after about warming up for a few minutes anyway.

Kai is right the AKB is better set to off.

Here is a nice standard procedure for brief AKB activation in order to get a better greyscale during operation:

After the movie has ended and before turning off the projector do the following:

activate the window white test pattern
press the Kelvin button

this activates the AKB and gives it some bright and dark parts in the picture which is beneficial.

After that leave the test pattern and the Kelvin adjustments via the end button and the AKB is off again - now you can power off the projector.

This should only be done when the projector is properly warmed up as with a cold projector it will usually lead to elevated black levels and sometimes other nasty things.

Oliver

it's actually rather simple to understand Phil, it slipped my mind as to why this was happening thus the thread, after being reminded of this and attempting it I decided against the blue defocus because it ruined the level of image sharpness I am used to, thats the big and little of it

I appreciate everyones help, Terry etc., I tried their advice and it didn't work out for me, since posting this thread I have worked things out to a wonderful compromise on my end, I am within 500k of 6500k at 7 out of 10 IRE points, I am at exactly 6500k at 20, 80, 90 IRE levels

I just can't stand the blue defocus at all, so I must compromise, when I get my hands on a scaler with greyscale points I will be all set ;) I do realize my blue tube will be worked much harder with such a setup but I am running such a low contrast that I am not that worried, and in the end tubes are tubes, they are for my enjoyment if for only 5000 hours ;)

-Gary

From the previous posts in this forum you prefer the sharper blue vs defocused blue. In this case (or even if you did defocus the blue) an HDP Lumagen scaler can definitely help you tame the mid-ire blue hump to achieve a D6500 gray scale with plus or munis 200 ire for "most" of the curve or probably better. You can also use the scalers 11 point gamma adjustment (assit with fade to blacks and adjust gamma curve to say 2.5). Lumangen is a great company. I bought a used one and have determined it to be one of the best bang for buck investments in my HT system.