The Official Sony Bravia KDL-Z5100 Calibration / Settings Thread. Post yours! - Page 7

I'd like to add my thanks to everyone here for the information. Especially thanks to dsskid - I'm using your settings with some slight adjustments and they look great. For my room I had to up the backlight and brightness ever so slightly, but the net result is awesome. The settings I'd tweaked previously by myself were good, but these have a real depth and clarity to them that I wasn't able to achieve.

My pleasure. Enjoy.

Best,
-John

John (or anyone else that may help),
I just got a 52Z5100 setup today and now playing with the settings. I can get into the Display Area settings but only find Normal, -1, and -2, but no Full Pixel.

Under Display Area, I've got:
Wide Mode = Full
Auto Wide = On
4:3 Default = Normal
Auto Display Area = Off
Display Area = -1 (default setting)
Screen Position = unavailable
Vertical Size = unavailable

What must I change to be able to find "Full Pixel"? I downloaded the latest 153 software update and still couldn't get an option for it.

Thanks,
John

P.S. Also using John's picture settings. MUCH better than defaults. Only issue I seemed to have was some yellowing of very select faces... notably on Kansas St.'s coach Frank Martin. May have to fiddle a smidge with something there, but all else is fantastic. Any EASY way to try to limit the yellowish faces without messing much with the settings since everything else looks good? Also set-up our 1st Blu-ray player and just... wow!!!

Full Pixel is only available when the display is receiving a full 1080i/p signal. At any other input resolution, Full Pixel doesn't apply because it wouldn't be a 1:1 pixel mapping (i.e., a 1280x720 pixel input signal doesn't map directly to 1920x1080 -- it must be scaled to fill the screen). For non-1080 signals, the Normal setting scales the image to fill the screen with no extra overscan.

Dave, got the S&M disc this evening and the picture look so much better. The settings I ended up with were a bit different from has been posted. I ended up with:

Picture: 33
Brightness: 51
Color: 47
Sharpness: 3

I set all my white balance settings back to 0 for now as I'm happy with what I have so for.

Thanks to you and John for the guidance.

Wow, is that 33 for the picture setting correct?
That seems very low.
How did you end up at that setting?

I was surprised with that picture setting as as well. I think I got this setting from one of the PLUGE tests. I was getting a lot of stepping on the gradients and the picture level I used took care of it. I will probably try again tonight as my eyes were a bit tired last night. I do have to say that although the resulting picture is significantly darker, I no longer the awful splotches I had been seeing on people's faces. The gradient is so smooth now.

Interesting... what BD player are you using to play the S&M disc?
Is it possible that there are some picture settings that should be turned off in the player that would effect the "picture" setting of your Z5100?
I'm not trying to be combative, just trying to understand how you could get such a low number.

I'm just about locked into my HD channel settings after 4 weeks of intensive HD channel hopping on the 40"Z. Using a little bit of everyone's numbers with emphasis on Disskid's, I'm going to call this good until I get my first BlueRay disk "2012" and start dialing in my BlueRay settings. My source is a DirecTV HD receiver with a Metabridge HDMI cable. No problems or issues experienced with this set. It just works...

HDMI 1: DirecTV Receiver:
Picture Mode --- Custom
Scene --- Auto
Screen Aspect--- Full ("Full Pixel")
Backlight --- 4 (3 on some stations at night)
Picture --- 88
Brightness --- 53 (works pretty good with gamma @ -1)
Color --- 45
Hue --- 0
Color Temp --- warm 2 (warm 1 a tad 2 blue w/5100k light in room)
Sharpness --- 6
NR --- Off
MPEG NR --- Off
Motionflow --- Standard (with Lakers BB looks xlnt)
CineMotion --- Auto 1 (going back n forth with Auto 1&2)

Advanced Section
Black Corrector ... Off
ACE ... Off
Gamma ... -1 (I see a bit more detail than at 0)
Auto light limiter ... Off
Clear white ... Off

White Balance
Red Gain --- -5
Green Gain --- 0
Blue Gain --- -1
Red Bias --- 0
Green Bias --- 2
Blue Bias --- 2

My living room has almost a neutral beige wall color and 5100k lighting so this works really good for my situation...Thanks to all.

Postal Dave

I know it all totally depends on your particular room and room brightness and all that...
But when I started out using my 46Z5100, I had it in a dimmer mode, with backlight around 2 or 3.
Then I started gradually turning it up to 4 and 5 and thought that the brighter picture looked better because it wasn't uncomfortable to watch.
However, over the past week I've knocked back down to 1 for nighttime, and 2 for daytime, and I think I like the dimmer setting much better.
It looks more natural. I was also debating on the dif between the warm1 and warm2 settings, but warm2 definitely is more natural looking, and closer to the 6500K target that is usually considered ideal.
Watching scenes with outdoor settings helped me come to those conclusions.
To each their own, but just wanted to share those thoughts.

EDIT: I'm also using the CLEAR WHITE setting on high now. I think it works well, especially if the picture setting and backlight are adjusted a bit dimmer than normal.

Dave,
Warm gets you closest to 6500K, and every step from there introduces blue to the grayscale and increases temp.
Best,
-John

Dave,

My BD player is a Sony BDP-S370. I haven't messed with the settings on it so I will take a look and see what is on and off. Thanks for the tip.

Lee

How applicable are the settings for Bravia Z-series on a V-series?

I have a V5100 46" and am trying the various settings you guys are posting I am just curious what the thought is about cross-pollinating settings to eliminate the dreaded red bias of the V5100.

I do have the most recent firmware, but still don't find the color to be as accurate as my old Syntax-Olevia 42" (LG LCD panel).

One doesn't relate to the other. Different panels, different Bravia engines. V5100 series has accurate red, & blue primaries, green is off, Primaries are accurate, but no too far off. Neither series has color management. You can try some of the settings posted on the V5100 thread, or buy a calibration disc and calibrate it, or hire a calibrator. Any of those options will be better than using Z5100 settings on your V5100

-John

FINALLY found the problem of why I couldn't get the Full Pixel option. The 1yr old hit the "Format" button on the front of the HD DVR to use 720p mode rather than 1080i. That's why I couldn't get the "Full Pixel" option in "Display Area" settings!!! BTW, I should be using 1080i rather than 720p right? If only to get the Full Pixel setting, rather than using 720p and scaling???

For SD, I'm using the default -1 Display Area since on very select stations/commercials I get a 'static' line at the very top if I use Normal. The -1 doesn't lose much area and rids me of that seldomly appearing annoyance of the line at the top.

Stoney,

That white flickering line that sometimes appears at the top of the screen is normal, and has been there for years. CRT tube displays, as they age, their picture would shrink, so manufacturers would deliberately set the TV with overscan to compensate for this (Kinda like Panasonic is claiming to do with their black levels). Since the TVs had overscan built in, the broadcasters now had available space in their feed to send information "junk" for whatever purposes that that information is for.

Since digital displays don't have the shrinkage inherent with aging tubes, and afford us dot-by-dot pixel mapping, this "junk" is in now visible in the form of a flickering white line at the top of the screen, that is seen occasionally with 4:3 content.

Personally, I hate overscan, as it cuts down on picture sharpness, and the occasional line at the top of the tv never bothered me. But if you find it more enjoyable not seeing the line, then you are absolutely right, the setting adjustment that you used will eliminate it.

Enjoy.

-John

IIRC, the flickering line is actually the closed captioning data that's being sent as part of the signal. When they needed to add the CC information, they figured they could use a part of the screen that would be masked by overscanning. This worked fine until sets started being made that could display the full image with no overscan. Thankfully the encoding of CC like this is a relic of the NTSC days, which is why you generally only see it on 4:3 material.

John,
I know you use "Full Pixel" for 1080i/p viewing. I'm assuming you use "Normal" for all lesser resolutions to eliminate overscan?

Yes, I use full - for 1080, and everything else to normal, which defaults 720P to full, and 4:3 for 480.

Don't know if all the Z5100 owners know about the reference book. They don't give it to you with your TV, and I know Will mentioned it quite a few pages back, but I figured I'd post it here for those who may have missed it.

Very handy tool.

http://esupport.sony.com/referencebo...ted/index.html

-John

Anyone notice a shift in their settings after about 300 hours?

Tinkered with calibration again last night at adjusted the picture and brightness to 52 with sharpness of 4.

Hey John,
I have not, however I would think it would be very difficult to detect such a slow drift. Or are you saying that at 300 hours there is a sudden shift?
Chris

Ho Chris,
It seems my grayscale is off (by eye). I have it running through a Sony HT-SS360 HTiB. Perhaps that has something to do with it. I'll set up my meter this weekend and check it out.
Best,
-John

The past week or so, the settings haven't looked right to me. Not sure if there was some sort of drift, or the display is finally broken in, so I re-calibrated.

Since I am using the A/V receiver as a switcher, I'm using the same display input for both Blu ray & Cable

NEW SETTINGS
Re-calibrated 3-30-10. Haven't attached new CalMAN report yet

Picture Mode .........................Custom
Scene ..................................Auto
Screen Aspect .......................Full, with "Full Pixel"
Backlight ..............................3
Picture .................................87
Brightness ............................50
Color ...................................40
Hue .....................................G1
Color Temperature .................Warm 2
Sharpness ............................6
Noise Reduction ....................Off
MPEG Noise Reduction ............Off
MotionFlow ..........................Off (Blu ray), Standard (Cable)
CineMotion ...........................Off (Blu ray), Auto 2 (Cable)

ADVANCED SECTION

Black Corrector .....................Off
ACE ....................................Off
Gamma ................................0
Auto Light Limiter ..................Off
Clear White ..........................Off

WHITE BALANCE

Red Gain .............................-9
Green Gain ............................-5
Blue Gain ..............................-1
Red Bias................................-2
Green Bias ............................1
Blue Bias ..............................-1

^^^Some interesting changes John.
Hue changed to G1 and Red Gain to -9 seem to be the most significant changes.
Do you find in your experience that most displays will go through this type of change after a break-in period?

I've found this occurring with plasma (My own), but to be honest most calibrations I do are after the first few hundred hours. Strange, just wondering this happened to others. I know that I had been experimenting with gamma at 1, maybe that altered the display enough that when I sent it back to my original settings, they were thrown off?

Well, regardless, I recalibrated.

Not really. I've just sat back on your original settings with a slight mod on brightness, gamma, sharpness... I'm really enjoying the picture. I've had the set on for about 4-5 hours in the evenings for the last 30 days so that's only 150 hours (+or -). Been letting the old eyes tell me what to adjust and what to leave alone so my settings have been very workable for my environment. If I do make adjustments I do it after the set has been on for, oh I'd say 90 minutes. No shift here...yet.

Why the shift in Bias and Gain? Compensation for an overall gamma shift to/from? ISF Calibration would probably drive me nuts
Regards,
Postal Dave

It improved my gamma. I went back and forth with hue between 0 and G1.

i tried your new settings on my TV the past few days. i recently changed the hue back to 0 because my blue had a greenish tinge, and skin tones looked a little thin and not as natural anymore. the hue at 0 looks much better on my TV.