New HDMI Colour Space w/NXE

That is an awesome set of settings. Nice of them to take the ambiguity out of it!

Yes, that's exactly what they should have done in the past, particularly for HDMI. VGA would be nice to know explicitly what is being output too. I'll have to check it out when I get home and download it.

Hmm, I honestly wouldn't know which one to choose. All I know is my Samsung DLP has HDMI 1.3 which supports the broader color spectrum , xvYCC, I believe. which do I choose?

What one uses will vary by display , some displays will auto sync with whatever is sent out while others will only accept a particular format 'properly' . These new settings should allow for better images but might require multiple memory calibrations , one for gaming (RGB) and one for movies (YCbCr) . Then you have the fact that some displays want different levels for different resolutions , fun stuff .

- Jason

Great. Now it will be even more confusing! I have a Samsung lcd hdtv. Using hdmi and have it set up in pc mode. What new setting would be best? I might as well ask before it gets here.

KoRn ,

If you wish to leave the Samsung set for PC mode (0-255) for everything then you would use the third option listed above ...

RGB - Always display games and videos in RGB format .

However this will probably be expanding the 16-235 levels found in movies out to 0-255 and it might not look as it should , we'll have to wait and see just exactly what the new NXE is doing .

* It's sounding to me like the best option here is going to be that having multiple memories calibrated will yield the best results (one for games and one for movies) . But then even beyond that you could add in an additional one for YCbCr709 when watching HD-DVD's (for those that still do use the add-on) .

* For those that only game on their 360's the choice is easy ... RGB (as long as your display properly handles RGB via HDMI - most do) . Just be sure that you are calibrated to 0-255 , this is easy to do with a PC and the free colorfacts test patterns .

- Jason

Yes but there-in lies the rub , if your display is only calibrated for 0-255 or 16-235 then somewhere you are sacrificing the image of either games or movies . So even if the 360 is readjusting the levels for AUTO one would be either giving up the full RGB range for games or sacrificing BTB/WTW information for movies . I use 2 calibration memories for games and movies in order to get the best of both , it's just a simple button press on the remote once the calibration work is done .

Most people are calibrated for 16-235 because they used an sd calibration disc in the 360 to adjust the contrast/brightness but this is not what you want for native RGB games . I wonder how many people have never even seen the full 0-255 range with their 360 games . In other words I set the 360 for Expanded (0-255) , I have one memory that is 0-255 for games and another that is calibrated for 16-235 when watching video/movies (I currently use VGA) .

* Keep in mind all of this does not apply if you use Component video , this applies for HDMI (and VGA) , standard component is 16-235 .


- Jason

Wow! With all this new information I have no idea which one to choose.

The main point to avoid is forcing one type of signal when your TV or projector is expecting a different signal.

16-235 shouldn't be thought of as related to "SD" since it's really a standard video level signal. In fact as I understand it they adopted this partly because it left room for signals below black and above white w/o clipping.

Most people should be just fine with an auto setting if they are not sure their set supports because Color Decoding of the display will take a video signal and convert it to RGB anyway. Most peoples set should support the video signal.

RGB is nice to use if you know your set supports it although I doubt much real difference would be seen. Worth checking out though if your set supports it. Usually if a set supports RGB rather than Video level it makes it pretty clear in the menu and manual.

Certainly valid points Dahlsim but my comment was simply meaning that most people are probably calibrating using a standard def dvd using normal BTB & WTW patterns which are obviously 16-235 and therefore they are missing the full range when playing games . I would agree that most will probably be ok with Auto but again this is all display dependent and the best solution IMO is to have 2 different calibration memories ( at least if you are critical like me , I can see a difference ) .

- Jason

I seriously doubt that after the VGA fiasco, that Microsoft would be stupid enough to put out RGB at 16-235 levels. Video (YUV) originally encoded at 16-235 is automatically converted to 0-255 levels during conversion to RGB.

P.J.

We can only hope .

- Jason

These options and the reference levels are seperate. So after you select the reference levels, you then get to pick amoung these options. So if you pick expanded, you will get any of these options with expanded PC levels. If you choose standard, then you get all these options with video levels. You cannot for instance pick YCrCb with video levels and also have RGB with PC levels. Basically nothing has changed except we now have the option of whether to send our TVs RGB, YCrCb or both. Previously the 360 made the decision automatically.

The color space options are kind of odd. Why you would want to send the 601 color space to a TV expecting 709 is beyond me (720/1080 are always 709). I guess it could compensate for your TV using the wrong color space, but you'd have to be savvy enough to know your TV had that problem in the first place. The best option in a situation like that is to just send RGB and remove the color space from the equation.

The OP pretty much sums this up, or at least they covered off what the item description is for. I might give it a shot with Netflix. The only HD one I have found has been The Office Season 1 where I get the, "Presented in HD" logo. The rest are super soft SD streams which most are "Starz" flicks.

what the hell is nxe?

The New Xbox Experience, aka new dashboard, aka new console. I've even heard Next Xbox Experience.

AH , well then that changes things , thank you for the information !

- Jason

How do people have it already? I thought it came out 11/19.

If you install it early, you can't connect to XBL until the 19th. I installed it on on my second console that doesn't go online. Overall its pretty cool.

Agreed. I can get on XBL no problem. Didn't get it from Major, but did get it from MS.

If the reference levels setting is separate, does that mean you can set "expanded" (PC Levels) + YCbCr, which is totally incompatible screen known to man?

What we need is RGB at PC levels for computer games, and YCbCr at video levels for video, please, please, please, MS add an auto option to the reference levels that does just that!

whats the point of that? you arent playing any computer games or 360 games requiring pc video levels through your 360.

all you need is the auto setting, rgb for games, ycbcr for video... its there in the NXE

I never could figure out how to best set my current XBOX display settings.

I am using VGA @ 1920x1080 to my Vizio 47" LCD...the whole expanded, intermediate stuff never made sense to me. That and the fact I could never get a straight answer from Vizio tech on what exactly the VGA port on the Vizio is..0-255 or 16-235

I just picked what looked the best.

I only use my 360 for games so probably doesn't matter.

Hopefully the new selections will make more sense to me.

All xbox 360 games natively have 255 levels RGB, where 0 is black and 255 is white (same as PC). If the xbox 360 is outputting video levels then the 255 levels are compressed into 223 levels which reduces picture quality for games.