2004 Mitsubishi CRT Tweaks/Q&A thread

[Marc Alexander]

WIP
I'll start this off with a few links, will add more when I get more time.

SM codes
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...hreadid=221163

SVM
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...0&pagenumber=1

[shaneotool]

Thanks Marc - I think this is a good idea.

Is there a link with the basic navigation controls in the service menu - like how exit without saving and how to save your settings?

[Marc Alexander]

OVERSCAN
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...hreadid=312716

Originally posted by Marc Alexander
OVERSCAN

MENU-0357
Scroll modes - AUDIO
Scroll items - VIDEO
Save - ENTER
Cancel - Cancel
Exit - Menu

MODE - Def Jungle
Horizontal Width - HWID
Vertical Height - VHGT

MENU-0359 for geometry SM

Misc - 6
Coarse - 5
Fine - 4

Color (RGB) - AUDIO
Item Scroll - VIDEO
Cancel- CANCEL
Save and Exit - MENU

[iqwertyi]

Thanks Marc.

Very Very useful info.

[iqwertyi]

So, I've started to do basic calibration on my brother's 55813. I used AVIA and DVE to setup Color, Hue, Contrast and Brightness.

I have adjusted these settings the best I could using these discs and I'm pretty happy with the color and hue. Skin tone looks great and colors look right to me.

But I seem to see a lot of grainyness specially on dark images. I used the Lobby scene on the Matrix and the back of Neo's jacket didn't look right. "Grainy" is the only word I can think of to describe it. If I remember correctly, I have Brightness at 32 and Contrast at 31 (31 being half-point).

I won't have a chance to go see the set till about this weekend again and would like to hear some suggestions/pointers on how I may resolve this.

Thanks

[Kipp Jones]

Nice thread Marc.

[Marc Alexander]

Originally posted by iqwertyi
But I seem to see a lot of grainyness specially on dark images. I used the Lobby scene on the Matrix and the back of Neo's jacket didn't look right. "Grainy" is the only word I can think of to describe it. If I remember correctly, I have Brightness at 32 and Contrast at 31 (31 being half-point).

Make sure brightness is set properly with DVE (its patterns are better because it includes pluge).

Calibrate SHARPNESS and turn SVM off. View sharpness patterns to see if off is really off in the 813.

[AnthonyB]

No matter how much you tweak your Mitsubishi set using this stuff, I would STRONGLY suggest a greyscale adjustment done by an ISF professional. If you can pay $1500-4000 for your TV then you can afford another $400 investment into a professional ISF calibration. I personally suggest Gregg Loewen (www.lionav.com) it will make a HUGE difference in the PQ and the enjoyment you get from your set.

[iqwertyi]

I'll try to recalibrate with DVE and I did have the SVM off. But I never checked with te sharpness pattern. I'll try that this weekend.

Another thing my brother just called me about. Everything I've mentioned so far is what I had noticed when calibrating his set over the weekend. Last night he was watching Finding Nemo with progressive scan player, and noticed a glow around all the fish. I asked him to check the settings and it looked like they went back to default (brightness was all the way up). Now, was there something I was suppose to do (like hit "save") or something to keep the settings. I didn't notice any info on this on the manual.

As for the ISF, I'd do it if it was mine. And I'm trying to convince him to get it calibrated professionally.

Thanks again for all the advice.

[Kipp Jones]

Originally posted by iqwertyi
I asked him to check the settings and it looked like they went back to default (brightness was all the way up). Now, was there something I was suppose to do (like hit "save") or something to keep the settings. I didn't notice any info on this on the manual.

Make sure you adjust the values in the menu settings and not directly from the input. You need to go in the menu and select the input. Then adjust the A/V setting to the memory. Otherwise they will go back to default as you described if adjusted from the input.

[dan212]

Originally posted by AnthonyB
No matter how much you tweak your Mitsubishi set using this stuff, I would STRONGLY suggest a greyscale adjustment done by an ISF professional. If you can pay $1500-4000 for your TV then you can afford another $400 investment into a professional ISF calibration. I personally suggest Gregg Loewen (www.lionav.com) it will make a HUGE difference in the PQ and the enjoyment you get from your set.

check your PMs

[Marc Alexander]

Originally posted by iqwertyi
Last night he was watching Finding Nemo with progressive scan player, and noticed a glow around all the fish

It's the disc

[Marc Alexander]

Originally posted by AnthonyB
No matter how much you tweak your Mitsubishi set using this stuff, I would STRONGLY suggest a greyscale adjustment done by an ISF professional. If you can pay $1500-4000 for your TV then you can afford another $400 investment into a professional ISF calibration. I personally suggest Gregg Loewen (www.lionav.com) it will make a HUGE difference in the PQ and the enjoyment you get from your set.

I SECOND

[iqwertyi]

Thanks Kipp,
I'll do make sure I go that route the next time I set the unit.
I'll check Nemo again once we do this. We did play Nemo on my set and there was a slight glow, but he tells me that his was way more pronounced.

[taz291819]

Great thread, just purchased a 48413 this past weekend and it gets delivered Friday. I already had DVE but heard Avia was better, so ordered it also. Will be coming back to this thread on Friday. Thanks again.

By the way, should I use DVE for some calibrations and Avia for others, or will Avia just do? A couple of posts above stated the DVE included pluge for setting up brightness, so I just wanted to make sure.

[iqwertyi]

Got a chance to recalibrate my brother's 55813 with Avia and DVE. After calibrating Contrast and Brightness the best I could with the two disc's, I played Nemo again. Still very distinct glow on all the fish (especially noticable with the shark scene).

With AVIA and DVE, contrast was set to 30 and Brightness to 31. While playing Nemo, I dropped the brightness until the glow's were no longer visible. The final brightness value was 17. This totally changed the picture. It looks great now. Popped in Matrix lobby scene and Neo's jacket looks much much better now.

Now, here's what I don't understand, when I placed AVIA back on, the setting I have is way below the optimal level. But it looks good. For now, I'm keeping the setting since if I set to to AVIA's level, it just looks bad.

Anyone else have experienced this?

[shaneotool]

That's weird, I did just the opposite, I dropped contrast down to around 17 and left brightness at 31. I guess as long as it looks good thats all that matters.

[Charles R]

I have used AVIA plenty of times with my front projector (along with CRT sets) and it always worked very nicely. For some reason (might be my lack of experience with RPTVs) I had no luck with my 55413. I ended up setting everything up pretty much by eye with Contrast 16, Brightness 30, Color 22, and Color Temp Low.

[iqwertyi]

I was trying to do the reverse (lower contrast and higher brightness), but the picture didn't look the same. I'm going to play with these settings once more and see if I can drop the contrast instead.

[taz291819]

Thanks Marc, looking forward to it.

[iqwertyi]

The contrast did not show any color tint. I must say, the contrast is the hardest for me to properly set.

Using the Denon DVD-900

[Marc Alexander]

What DVD players are you guys using? You must make sure that you have it set for 0 IRE (darker) black cutoff vs. 7.5 IRE (lighter). Also, disable black enhancement on the Mits.

I use DVE to set contrast and brightness.

I use AVIA to set sharpness, color, tint, and color decoding. DVE can be used, but AVIA has better patterns (especially color decoder check). AVIA also has Y/C delay check pattern.

Use DVE gray scale patterns to evaluate your grayscale. You should not be able to detect any color tint when viewing them by eye. If you do, it is way off (you can't accurately evaluate without test equipment). If your grayscale is way off, a perfected color decoder won't give you a pleasing picture (and you should consider pro-calibration).

I will post a quick guide for adjusting color/tint/color decoding once I look at the manual for the x13 series.

[Marc Alexander]

ADJUSTING COLOR/TINT/COLOR DECODING

Make sure AUTO COLOR CORRECTION is OFF in Color Balance menu and make sure perfect color sliders are centered (you will come back here "after" adjusting color/tint in user menu).

Adjust color and tint with DVE or AVIA (blue bars) using the BLUE filter.

/For advanced users

Spoiler  

The color filters are imperfect, you can check your work and fine tune by going into the geometry SM (MENU-0359) and displaying BLUE only (1 2 and 3 select each color gun seperately). You cannot make any adjustments in this mode so you will have to repeat a couple iterations backing out and adjusting to achieve perfection.

Once color and tint are calibrated, you access the color decoder back in PerfectColor in the Color Balance menu. Here you will adjust using the red and green filters (advanced users check your work and fine tune in SM). It is easiest to use the AVIA RED and GREEN BAR patterns respectively. But the standard DVE patterns can also be used (avia labels the proper reference points for you).

Use magenta, red, and yellow sliders to adjust for RED
Use green and cyan to adjust for GREEN

These can be interactive so recheck BLUE, RED, and GREEN using filters or SM and reiterrate as needed until you are satisfied.

You can verify your work using the color decoder check pattern.

Good luck

[Marc Alexander]

Originally posted by iqwertyi
The contrast did not show any color tint. I must say, the contrast is the hardest for me to properly set.

Using the Denon DVD-900

What are you trying to do? You shouldn't be looking for color tint when adjusting contrast.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news...but the Denon 900 is a pretty poor DVD player. It has some extreme high frequency rolloff which yield a very softened picture. I recommend ebaying it and getting another player (Denon 910 and 1200 are improved but still not great).

[shaneotool]

I'm not sure I'm acurately adjusting my color on my 65413 with the Avia disk. On the disk's color and tint adjustment screen, the flashing boxes that you use to adjust color are at the very edge of the screen. This seems to create a problem because the left edge of my TV is slightly shaded blue and the right edge is slightly shaded yellow. I'm thinking my adjustments would turn out differently if the boxes were in the center of the screen. I end up with tint - 27, color - 34. Any ideas about this?

[Marc Alexander]

Originally posted by shaneotool
This seems to create a problem because the left edge of my TV is slightly shaded blue and the right edge is slightly shaded yellow.

???

Can you post a picture of your convergence grid?

If you are concerned about the edges. Put the TV into gray sidebar mode for your adjustments.

---edit - corrected spelling

[Sevenfeet]

Marc, thanks for this thread. It is certainly useful. My 55813 has noticeable overscan which I'd like to do away with as much as possible. I'll try looking to the SM menus for some of the rest of the things you've mentioned. I calibrated my set with DVE but I'll go back with Avia on some of the things you recommended.

BTW, the Tweeter in Nashville would like your contact info, if you're interested. They would like to be able to refer someone to an ISF-certified tech when customers ask (and they do ask). PM me if you want more details.

[Marc Alexander]

If we keep the ?s and tweaks here...it will be easier for other folks to find the info in the future.

[cagey]

Marc, I see you use both DVE and Avia. As one who's new to this, and the owner of a 55813 (which I think looks darn good now, but I will obsess until I'm sure), which disk would you recommend as the first to use? Sounds like Avia, but will it do the contrast and brightness as well?

I do have a nice HTS, too, so will want to check its calibration as well at some point. I read that Avia doesn't do DD 5.1 or DTS, and doesn't do the sub LFE specifically, but I don't know if those are really issues (I'm no audiophile or videophile, just want to get mine the best I can for our ears and eyes).

Thanks for starting this thread!

.. oh, yeah, in one of the posts above here, it recommends turn Film Mode off unless the pic was created in Film mode. How does ascertain that? Thanks again.

[Marc Alexander]

AVIA has patterns for contrast and brigtness as well (I just like DVEs patterns better).

AVIA does do DD 5.1 and has probably the best sub LFE tones. AVIA doesn't do DTS or 6.1 which DVE does.

Originally posted by cagey
.. oh, yeah, in one of the posts above here, it recommends turn Film Mode off unless the pic was created in Film mode. How does ascertain that? Thanks again.

The easiest rule of thumb is use FILM for movies, VIDEO for everything else. If you are using HD or progressive DVD, this setting has no effect.