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PixelProtector Blu ray review - Page 2

post #31 of 89
6/5/11 at 10:46am
Quote:
Originally Posted by p5browne View Post

Yes, when you get a super deal on them, and they only cost a smidgen more than the usual cables I buy - and yes, despite all the groans, we did see a difference! Another serious Forum Monster doubter, tried the deal as well, and he swtiched, saying he definitely saw a difference! Would we pay the asking price for the same cables? He said hell yes, I said hell No! There, now you have a difference of opinion.

HDMI cables?
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post #32 of 89
6/5/11 at 11:05am
Not to jump in on the conversation, but I can attest to the increased quality from component (which is, admittedly, becoming increasingly irrelevant) and coaxial cables from Monster. I've mentioned to others about the cleaner picture (decreasing video noise) when switching from your standard coax cable to Monster as well as a nicer overall picture (with slightly more accurate color detail) when I switched from Acoustic Research component cables to Monster (which was a complete surprise because I had switched for a different reason...long story). I got beat up pretty good for defending Monster, of course. Their pricing can be ridiculous, but...y'know...ebay.

HDMI may be a whole other animal however. It probably matters little which you buy, except when it comes to price and durability.
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post #33 of 89
6/5/11 at 11:12am
Quote:
Originally Posted by p5browne View Post

Yes, when you get a super deal on them, and they only cost a smidgen more than the usual cables I buy - and yes, despite all the groans, we did see a difference! Another serious Forum Monster doubter, tried the deal as well, and he swtiched, saying he definitely saw a difference! Would we pay the asking price for the same cables? He said hell yes, I said hell No! There, now you have a difference of opinion.

There is NO difference between HDMI cables when it comes to image quality... NONE. At all. Zero. There are no MEASURABLE differences and there are no VISIBLE differences. I have 34 years of experience in developing and supporting all types of imaging systems and have extensive training in image quality analysis. I'm also a professional calibrator and product reviewer. And my contacts in the video industry have led to some interesting revelations. I've even had a company rep tell me their $800 HDMI cable doesn't have any different image quality than their least expensive HDMI cable (though when playing music from CD or lossless/uncompressed digital music files the $800 cable does sound better than typical HDMI cables, especially inexpensive ones).

For a digital video cable to make ANY difference in video image quality, the cable would HAVE TO CHANGE BITS from 0s to 1s or 1s to 0s. Cables are measured at some point in their development to insure data integrity from input to output. That means the 1s that come in one end, exit the other end as 1s and the same thing for 0s. If the input 1s and 0s are the same as the output 1s and 0s, it is impossible for the digital images to look different. Timing is a total NON-ISSUE for digital video. This is because a buffer in the TV holds an entire frame with all the digital bits together... they are "stopped" (essentially) for 1/60th of a second (nominally) before ever being displayed. So larger and smaller timing gaps between bits during transmission are 100% eliminated by the display buffer. In addition, the video images we see are not in continuous motion. We view a series of still images that our brains convert to moving images. The HDMI cable has zero influence on this.

Your SAYING one HDMI cable produces better images than another is MEANINGLESS in the face of the facts. Measurements and careful professional analysis of images (including taking macro-photographs of images directly from panel or projection screens) PROVE that a "free" or $5 or $50 or $500 HDMI cable produce exactly the same images from the same source. Measurements are possible using test patterns from the screen, as well as measuring input and output signals from various cables and comparing them.

There is no room for speculation on this. There are only 3 states for digital images that a cable can influence... perfect, compromised (usually comes when a cable is too long and the loss of signal is too great for images to be perfect, "sparklies" exist in the image, random pixels that are too bright or too dark or the wrong color), no image at all. "Perfect" images happen when the incoming data and the outgoing data (from the cable) are the same. This happens about 99.99% of the time regardless of how the HDMI cable is made or how much it costs. The "sparklie" problem typically happens when the cable is so long there is a loss of signal strength and the data coming out of the cable is difficult to decode because 1 bit may be "off". The "no image" problem happens if the cable is made even longer and the signal loss is so great that nothing that can be decoded comes out the other end of the cable. There is NOTHING between these 3 possible outcomes that can be influenced by the cable.

This is the AV Science forum and you're going to get this sort of reaction from those who have investigated this topic in far more detail than you can investigate it in your system with no instrumentation and without professional image analysis training/skills.

Furthermore, human vision is TOTALLY inadequate for evaluating images. Fooling the brain is not difficult. There are TONS of online optical illusions that show that our eye-brain interface is TOTALLY untrustworthy at evaluating images... black & white or color. You MUST use instrumentation to verify observations because your eye-brain-vision system is simply too easily fooled.
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post #34 of 89
6/5/11 at 11:38am
Quote:
Originally Posted by p5browne View Post

Pixel Protector's New Blu-ray, with completely redone Pixel washes, and now including calibration is a must have purchase for the good of your TV's PQ!
Had a background reddish tinge that just wouldn't go away, despite using the old Pixel Washes, tweaking and calibrating. Of course, the tinge threw off my calibrations. After using the Pixel Protector's new calibration feature, I've ended up with the best calibration ever from all the various calibration DVDs I've tried over the last several years. (inc WOW, S&M, AVS, etc.) After the initial calibration, it's off to letting the 3 washes run on my set for several hours, then back and do a final re-tweaking. At the end of the preliminary tweaking, I ended up with the best PQ, so far, that this set has seen! Should be even better after the re-tweaking. Strongly suggest getting this Blu-ray, and try for yourself!
Now I wasn't imagining the reddish tinge, and I'm not imagining the the Pure White screen I have now! I'm also not imagining the Best PQ this set has ever seen since I started tweaking it several years ago!
Will do the final re-tweaking tonight and see if the values have changed since the reddish twinge is now gone.

This is unsupportable baloney. There is NOTHING a disc can do to remove a calibration problem.

Let's say YOUR TV has a reddish tint to the background. And Jim's TV has a greenish tint to the background, and Steve's TV has a blue-ish tint to the background... but they are all the same brand and model. How would the disc know that your TV needed more green and blue or less red in the background and fix that problem with your TV while Jim's TV needs more red and blue or less green to fix his problem and Steve's TV needs more red and green or less blue to fix HIS problem? It's just freakin' impossible.

The TV doesn't KNOW it has too much red in the background (whatever that means), the disc doesn't KNOW the TV has too much red in the background. How can the problem be "fixed" by the disc? It CAN'T be fixed by the disc. The data the TV receives has to be changed for the images to change. The disc isn't going to change the data the TV receives. And the disc can't change how the TV responds to the data.

On top of all that... plasma is a digital display technology where the pixels can only be on or off... there is nothing in between. To make intermediate shades of color or gray, the pixels have to turn on and off multiple times during each frame. But you can't turn all the "20% gray" pixels on and off at the same times or the images are going to be a mess, you have to vary which pixels are on and off randomly so you don't see anything odd at your viewing seat. LCD technology takes a digital input signal and converts it to a stepped analog voltage that controls how transparent or how opaque each individual pixel is based on the bits received for that individual pixel and the look-up table inside the TV. If a green pixel has the digital value of 100, the TV goes to the lookup table to see what voltage level should be applied to that pixel. The lookup table voltage values are controlled by the TV's controls, not by video content.

So... how could two such disparate video technologies each have their respective images "improved" by ANY sort of disc that would apply any sequence of patterns?

I'm afraid, without measurements, your observations are meaningless. One of the ways human vision is fooled is by putting shades of white next to each other on the screen... for example. If you put a white that is much too blue next to a white that is "perfect" (d65), the "perfect" white will appear too yellow while the white that is too blue will look white. You can't stop this from happening. Even if you KNOW the part of the screen that looks white is really too blue, your eye-brain will still latch-on to that being an accurate white while the accurate white is made to look inaccurate. This is undeniable -- for humans with nominally "normal" vision this is ALWAYS what happens. And you can get other "tint" discrepancies also. You cannot trust your eyes and you MUST use instrumentation to confirm observations.

Panels also may not look the same when they have been on for 30 minutes vs being on for 1 day or longer. So your observation points must also be identically timed. If your initial observation was made when the TV had been on for 30 minutes after being off overnight, when you make the new observations (which had better have measurements being taken), the TV should also be on for 30 minutes after having been turned off overnight.

You can't just do a lot of random baloney and say there's a difference.

A lot of people have paid money for cow magnets, intake vortex generators, and all manner of other crap that claims to improve horsepower or mileage or both and not ONE of them has EVER improved the mileage/performance of any vehicle yet there are endless testimonials from the deluded.

If science is too hard to understand... try pseudo-science (like these pattern discs). No training or education required - everybody's an expert.
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post #35 of 89
6/5/11 at 3:28pm
Ouch. LOL
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post #36 of 89
6/6/11 at 7:48am
Wow technology has advanced fast since the advent of Bluray,
First (Pre Bluray) was manual calibration then recently theres Auto calibration
Now there's PixelProtector Bluray that Magically fixes most picture quality issues (the placebo effect)
all for $40 ...

It goes without saying: Listen to Doug & his 34+ years of experience & forget PixelProtector and Fancey 800 dollar HDMI cables..
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post #37 of 89
6/6/11 at 6:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by PlasmaPZ80U View Post

HDMI cables?


HDMI cables! Would the less expensive HDMI cables not be more susceptable to noise interference?
Well say what you want, I've tried every thing to rid my set of the slightly red tinge on an all white screen - from 25% in on the left to 25% in on the right. Tweaking, calibrating, and even the old Pixel Washes - this has been going on for almost a year! Now, after the New Pixel Washes, the Red tinge is Gone!
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post #38 of 89
6/6/11 at 10:18pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Doug Blackburn View Post

There is NO difference between HDMI cables when it comes to image quality... NONE. At all. Zero. There are no MEASURABLE differences and there are no VISIBLE differences. I have 34 years of experience in developing and supporting all types of imaging systems and have extensive training in image quality analysis. I'm also a professional calibrator and product reviewer. And my contacts in the video industry have led to some interesting revelations. I've even had a company rep tell me their $800 HDMI cable doesn't have any different image quality than their least expensive HDMI cable (though when playing music from CD or lossless/uncompressed digital music files the $800 cable does sound better than typical HDMI cables, especially inexpensive ones).

For a digital video cable to make ANY difference in video image quality, the cable would HAVE TO CHANGE BITS from 0s to 1s or 1s to 0s. Cables are measured at some point in their development to insure data integrity from input to output. That means the 1s that come in one end, exit the other end as 1s and the same thing for 0s. If the input 1s and 0s are the same as the output 1s and 0s, it is impossible for the digital images to look different. Timing is a total NON-ISSUE for digital video. This is because a buffer in the TV holds an entire frame with all the digital bits together... they are "stopped" (essentially) for 1/60th of a second (nominally) before ever being displayed. So larger and smaller timing gaps between bits during transmission are 100% eliminated by the display buffer. In addition, the video images we see are not in continuous motion. We view a series of still images that our brains convert to moving images. The HDMI cable has zero influence on this.

Your SAYING one HDMI cable produces better images than another is MEANINGLESS in the face of the facts. Measurements and careful professional analysis of images (including taking macro-photographs of images directly from panel or projection screens) PROVE that a "free" or $5 or $50 or $500 HDMI cable produce exactly the same images from the same source. Measurements are possible using test patterns from the screen, as well as measuring input and output signals from various cables and comparing them.

There is no room for speculation on this. There are only 3 states for digital images that a cable can influence... perfect, compromised (usually comes when a cable is too long and the loss of signal is too great for images to be perfect, "sparklies" exist in the image, random pixels that are too bright or too dark or the wrong color), no image at all. "Perfect" images happen when the incoming data and the outgoing data (from the cable) are the same. This happens about 99.99% of the time regardless of how the HDMI cable is made or how much it costs. The "sparklie" problem typically happens when the cable is so long there is a loss of signal strength and the data coming out of the cable is difficult to decode because 1 bit may be "off". The "no image" problem happens if the cable is made even longer and the signal loss is so great that nothing that can be decoded comes out the other end of the cable. There is NOTHING between these 3 possible outcomes that can be influenced by the cable.

This is the AV Science forum and you're going to get this sort of reaction from those who have investigated this topic in far more detail than you can investigate it in your system with no instrumentation and without professional image analysis training/skills.

Furthermore, human vision is TOTALLY inadequate for evaluating images. Fooling the brain is not difficult. There are TONS of online optical illusions that show that our eye-brain interface is TOTALLY untrustworthy at evaluating images... black & white or color. You MUST use instrumentation to verify observations because your eye-brain-vision system is simply too easily fooled.

You sound like one of the experts on 1080P, what was your opinion of this article http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/techn...roduction.html
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post #39 of 89
6/6/11 at 11:04pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by KONICA TECH View Post

You sound like one of the experts on 1080P, what was your opinion of this article http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/techn...roduction.html

That article, and I didn't read all of it, appears to be talking about the conversion of SD 4:2:0 YCC Encoded rec.601 data to HD 4:2:2 YCC rec.709 data.

This is a real and non-trival step in displaying SD content on an HD Display. It also has nothing to do with cables.
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post #40 of 89
6/7/11 at 4:51am
Quote:
Originally Posted by p5browne View Post

Now, after the New Pixel Washes, the Red tinge is Gone!

Clearly you think it's great stuff. Why didn't you at least try "before & after measurement results"? Even if your meter is not 100% accurate, it will have a certain amount of repeatability and generally would be expected to measure a change.
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post #41 of 89
6/7/11 at 10:28am
Quote:
Originally Posted by sotti View Post

That article, and I didn't read all of it, appears to be talking about the conversion of SD 4:2:0 YCC Encoded rec.601 data to HD 4:2:2 YCC rec.709 data.

This is a real and non-trival step in displaying SD content on an HD Display. It also has nothing to do with cables.

Agreed. A player actively "manipulates" the data stored on the disc... players actually ADD color data that's not actually stored on the disc. This can (and should) be done consistently and accurately, but this definitely an area where there could be differences between players. 2 years and more ago... there were some differences in image quality between Blu-ray players. Not large differences, but detectable differences. The Oppo players and the PS3 were MEASURABLY the most accurate players available (video-wise). But every year, all Blu-ray players get closer and closer together in video image quality. Among new Blu-ray players I've seen in the last 9-12 months (all 3D compatible except the Arcam BD player), there are no visible or measurable (from the video display) differences between disc players.

Of course 1s and 0s traveling in the cable have nothing to do with this. There is an arguement that the signal in the cable is analog and is therefore subject to all the issues of analog signals like analog component video and analog audio (both of which ARE changed in detectable ways by the cables). And yes, the digital data is transmitted as a continuous analog signal... but it DOESN'T MATTER because that analog signal is structured in such a way that it can be spindled, folded, and mutilated and there are STILL only 3 possible outcomes at the destination...
1) 100% of the data is 100% perfect (because of the way the analog signal is structured)
2) The signal is so damaged that there are big "holes" in the data that cause signal loss because the damage to the signal is so severe the 1s and 0s can no longer be recovered from the signal
3) The "intermediate" problem - this happens only in very specific circumstances. The signal is damaged, but most of the signal is in-tact enough that the 1s and 0s are still perfectly decoded. But perhaps 1/2 of a percent (or even less) of the pixel data (1s and 0s) is damaged enough that they are not properly decoded and a 1 becomes a 0 or a 0 becomes a 1 in a completely random pattern. These "changed" (actually mis-read/mis-interpreted) bits then cause "sparklie" pixels where random pixels in the images are too bright, too dark, or an off-color. This is almost always what you see when there is signal loss in a long cable when the cable in question is so long that the data can't be read reliably, but there's not quite enough signal loss (usually due to impedance/resistance in the long cable) - add, maybe, 5 more feet to a long cable with this problem and you'll have complete signal loss and no picture at all.
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post #42 of 89
6/7/11 at 11:02am
Quote:
Originally Posted by p5browne View Post

HDMI cables! Would the less expensive HDMI cables not be more susceptable to noise interference?
Well say what you want, I've tried every thing to rid my set of the slightly red tinge on an all white screen - from 25% in on the left to 25% in on the right. Tweaking, calibrating, and even the old Pixel Washes - this has been going on for almost a year! Now, after the New Pixel Washes, the Red tinge is Gone!

"Interference" is a non-issue with digital audio/video cables. The signal carrying the digital data can only be interpreted 2 ways... 1 or 0. There are no other outcomes. The signal is structured in such a way that you either decode the 1s and 0s or you don't. The signal has to be pretty messed up to lose the ability to decode the 1s and 0s. There is also error correction built-in to the signal so questionable "bits" are "fixed" before they are ever played or displayed.

That doesn't mean a cheap cable and a well-designed expensive cable will produce the same results... but the differences in performance won't be what you expect from analog video and analog audio experience. A cheap HDMI cable with intentionally poor design might perform perfectly well as a 10-foot cable... producing the same images as the most expensive and technically perfect HDMI cable that could be produced. But at 15-feet, that cheap, poorly designed cable might mangle the analog signal carrying the digital data so much that the destination component can no longer retrieve the digital 1s and 0s and you get total loss of video. The "perfect" (and expensive) HDMI cable wouldn't produce different results at 10-feet, but the 15-foot "good" cable would still produce perfect images (while the cheap poorly designed cable produces no image at all). In fact, that "perfect" and expensive HDMI cable might still be producing perfect video images with a cable length of 60 feet... far longer than the cheap poorly designed cable.

The only question for the poorly designed cable might be... what happens if the cable is 12.5 feet long? That's when the signal carrying the 1s and 0s can be so compromised that the destination device is mis-reading 1s and 0s. Keep in mind that each pixel has 8 bits of red data, 8 bits of green data, and 8 bits of blue data. So a red pixel's data might look like this:

00111100 - that's digital 60, a very low (dark) amount of red.

If the signal carrying the 1s and 0s gets so screwed up that the destination component can't accurately decode the 1s and 0s, that 8-bit red pixel could easily become 10111100 -- which is 188, a very BRIGHT color of red. So that ONE red pixel would be made far too bright while the other red, green, and blue pixels around it are going to be accurate (if those other pixels were not accurate, the signal carrying the 1s and 0s would be so damaged that you'd end up with NO IMAGE... remember, the number of errors in the digital signal can only get so high before there's a complete failure to produce an image (analog is NOT like this... an analog signal can range from snow to a perfect image). The "sparklie" phase of a digital video signal can only happen within a very narrow range of signal damage... anything before the "sparklie" stage is a "perfect" image, and anything worse than the "sparklie" stage produces no image at all.

Then keep in mind that there are 2+ million red pixels, 2+ million green pixels, and 2+ million blue pixels. For an HDMI cable to make the image BETTER, the cable would have to know WHICH BITS TO CHANGE AND WHICH BITS TO LEAVE ALONE... in other words, the cable (or "interference" would have to be "intelligent" which is impossible). And there are 8 bits for each of those 6+ million colored pixels - that's 48+ million bits every 1/60th of a second (nominally). And you don't transmit all the red pixels at the same time, then all the green pixels... they are all interleaved. The cable has no idea which 1s are for green pixels or which 0s are for blue pixels. The cable would have to alter the analog signal carrying the 1s and 0s in such a way that the receiving device would have to recognize a green 1 as a green 0 or a blue 0 as a blue 1 for the image to be changed. That's just not going to happen.
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post #43 of 89
6/9/11 at 6:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by sotti View Post
That article, and I didn't read all of it, appears to be talking about the conversion of SD 4:2:0 YCC Encoded rec.601 data to HD 4:2:2 YCC rec.709 data.

This is a real and non-trival step in displaying SD content on an HD Display. It also has nothing to do with cables.
What he's trying to say, oft times everyone believes something is right, all the tests in the world says it's right: but, sometimes, out of the Blue , something comes along that proves the exact opposite, or proves someone was right all along about a different way of looking at things! Remember Columbus - and the World is Flat Theory? Plus, if you go back through history, there's all kinds of things that ended up different then what was originally believed, or thought.
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post #44 of 89
6/9/11 at 8:52pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by p5browne View Post

What he's trying to say, oft times everyone believes something is right, all the tests in the world says it's right: but, sometimes, out of the Blue , something comes along that proves the exact opposite, or proves someone was right all along about a different way of looking at things! Remember Columbus - and the World is Flat Theory? Plus, if you go back through history, there's all kinds of things that ended up different then what was originally believed, or thought.

I don't think that's accurate at all.

What are we talking about cables?
In the article the output of the player is off, it has nothing to do with HDMI or the cables at all.

Everyone who understood video encoding knew about the issues right from the get go. It may be a revelation to some consumers, but it's far from new information.
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post #45 of 89
6/10/11 at 7:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Doug Blackburn View Post

And there are 8 bits for each of those 6+ million colored pixels - that's 48+ million bits every 1/60th of a second (nominally).

I'll make a semantics nitpick here. There aren't 6+ million colored pixels' in a 1920x1080 frame. There are only ~2 million uniquely addressable pixels' per frame. An addressable pixel is a RGB TRAID.

I often see marketing specs that claim: 16.7 million simultaneous colors! How can I have 16.7 million simultaneous colors with a display and encoding scheme that only has ~2 million RGB triads / frame? They should say a palette of 16.7 million colors- of which, only 2 million can be displayed at any instant in time.

Agreed on the 49.8 million bits / frame. 1920x1080x24.

Dave
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post #46 of 89
6/12/11 at 11:43am
I think it's pretty clear when I say that there are 6.2 million colored pixels in the panel, that I'm not referring to a single image pixel composed of 1 red, 1 green, and 1 blue pixel.
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post #47 of 89
6/12/11 at 2:29pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Doug Blackburn View Post

I think it's pretty clear when I say that there are 6.2 million colored pixels in the panel, that I'm not referring to a single image pixel composed of 1 red, 1 green, and 1 blue pixel.

aren't those usually called subpixels?
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post #48 of 89
6/13/11 at 9:55am
Pixels are context based. Sometimes you need to refer to individual colored pixels which is often the case when discussing the video hardware and data transmission, sometimes you need to refer to image resolution where you would be likely to be referring to 19s0x1080 pixels per frame. It all depends on your context which should be specified either by the topic being so obvious no further clarification is needed or by inserting something descriptive of what you are referring to.
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post #49 of 89
6/13/11 at 8:45pm
Most of the definitions for ‘pixel’ that I find reference addressability. The addressable pixel at 100,100 is for a triad.

The R,G,and B sub-components for that pixel would all have the same physically addressable location. X,Y 100,100.

I’m surprised that display marketroids don’t speak like you do and claim their HD display has 6.2 million colored pixels. I’m glad they don’t as it would be misleading IMO.

Dave
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post #50 of 89
6/14/11 at 3:37pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by dlarsen View Post

Most of the definitions for pixel' that I find reference addressability. The addressable pixel at 100,100 is for a triad.
The R,G,and B sub-components for that pixel would all have the same physically addressable location. X,Y 100,100.

P'shaw. Even if you've never heard of anti-aliasing or sub-sampling you can use Wikipedia.


Quote:


Many display and image-acquisition systems are, for various reasons, not capable of displaying or sensing the different color channels at the same site. Therefore, the pixel grid is divided into single-color regions that contribute to the displayed or sensed color when viewed at a distance. In some displays, such as LCD, LED, and plasma displays, these single-color regions are separately addressable elements, which have come to be known as subpixels. For example, LCDs typically divide each pixel horizontally into three subpixels. When the square pixel is divided into three subpixels, each subpixel is necessarily rectangular. In the display industry terminology, subpixels are often referred to as pixels, as they are the basic addressable elements in a viewpoint of hardware, and they call pixel circuits rather than subpixel circuits.
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post #51 of 89
6/14/11 at 3:47pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by KONICA TECH View Post

You sound like one of the experts on 1080P, what was your opinion of this article http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/techn...roduction.html

Quote:
Originally Posted by sotti View Post

That article, and I didn't read all of it, appears to be talking about the conversion of SD 4:2:0 YCC Encoded rec.601 data to HD 4:2:2 YCC rec.709 data.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Doug Blackburn View Post

Among new Blu-ray players I've seen in the last 9-12 months (all 3D compatible except the Arcam BD player), there are no visible or measurable (from the video display) differences between disc players.

You two should actually read the article. It's very simple -- their new methodology is to use an HDMI analyzer to measure what's coming out of the HDMI port or ports. The BDP-93 has a problem with HDMI-2 and the Sony BDP-570 is actually visibly broken.

Of course it has nothing to do with cables or magic DVDs.
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post #52 of 89
7/10/11 at 3:00pm
Pixel Protector Washes aren't required for LCDs!
One of the big arguments of Image Retention is that it only happens with Plasma Screens! Here is an extract from my LG 55LHX LED/LCD Service Manual.

[quote]
Caution: If the still image is displayed more than 20 minutes
(Especially digital pattern, cross hatch pattern), an afterimage
may occur in the black level area of the screen. [quote]

I will continue to use the new Blu-ray Pixel Washes because I've ended up with Deeper and Fuller Colours after calibration (Not with the Blu-ray Pixel Protector calibration patterns, but using a combination of Pixel Protector Ver 2 Brightness and FIRST Colour Bar Patterns and S&M Contrast and Sharpness Patterns), do the Washes, then do a final fine tuning of the original settings.
This has ended up with my 2 LG 55LHXs and 1 LG 55LH90 having excellent PQs!
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post #53 of 89
7/15/11 at 1:23am
Quote:
Originally Posted by p5browne View Post

What he's trying to say, oft times everyone believes something is right, all the tests in the world says it's right: but, sometimes, out of the Blue , something comes along that proves the exact opposite, or proves someone was right all along about a different way of looking at things! Remember Columbus - and the World is Flat Theory? Plus, if you go back through history, there's all kinds of things that ended up different then what was originally believed, or thought.

How many failed and died in Atlantic before Columbus? They didn't have maps back then. Columbus was the first to succeed (actually the vikings). After that, we have maps. How many now die getting across Atlantic?

So lets get back to modern days. You are claiming there's Atlantis(=the famous Red tint) in the middle of Atlantic. When we are asking to show that on the map(=get those damn proof and measure it), you are simply ignoring us, because you cannot show that on the map. How probable is that the person who cannot read/draw a map is the person to discover Atlantis? After a while, you come back and again start ranting about the Atlantis in the middle of the ocean.

So don't dare to compare yourself to Columbus. He drew a map.
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post #54 of 89
11/11/12 at 10:39am
Pixel Protector Revisited:
Ran into a problem while calibrating my LG Service Menu White Balances.
One of the Cool, Medium and Warm RGB Gains values is supposed to be 192. The other 2 values calibrated at or below the 192 to meet spec. The problem was, to meet LGs spec, Warm Red was ending up above 200! Ran several calibrations during the next several months, and Warm Red always ended up above the 192 figure. (On my LG 55LHXs, found Green at 192 is the ideal for Cool, Medium and Warm.)
On a whim, ran the 3 Pixel Protector Washes overnight, then re-calibrated the next day. Something must have been cleared up by the Washes. Now Warm Red calibrates below the 192. Have also found my Red tinge is now gone!
Say what you want, myself and several others that we put onto the Pixel Protector Washes, have found PQ improvements, and in my case, rectified a White Balance Calibration problem I was having. So any time in the future, if Red starts going above 192 again, I will run the Pixel Washes.
Re the Pixel Protector, Brightness, Contrast and Colour calibrations - I pass - the AVS HD 709 is far superior and more accurate.
On a side note for those that have the Disney WOW Blu-ray, it includes a Flicker program that is kind of like the Pixel Protector Washes, but not as good.
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post #55 of 89
11/12/12 at 6:20pm
You can't say "PixelProtector" did a damn thing for your TV. RUNNING your TV for however long it ran did make a difference in what you measured. But you proved NOTHING about whether PixelProtector had anything to do with it... at all. You did ZERO controls... like running the TV with bright full-screen images for an equivalent amount of time (like bright cheery animation with highly saturated colors and bright whites). You did not use the TVs own internal "wipe" feature (if it had one). You cannot say PixelProtector helped in any way, because you have no other data that shows other alternatives to be equally effective or completely ineffective. Heck, you don't even know if turning your TV off and letting it sit (and cool) before continuing produced the same result.

This is the problem we have with anectodal "evidence" that turns out not to be evidence of anything. You took homeopathic headache medication once and your headache went away. Coincidence or evidence? You have no idea if your headache would have gone away in the same period of time if you'd done nothing. Or you could have had a shot of Jack Daniels or stood on your head, or stuck a Q-tip in your ear... if your headache went away, would one of those then be a headache remedy? How do 2 aspirin diluted so much the concentration is less than 1 part per million fix a headache? The same way PixelProtector "fixes" a plasma TV's measurements.

BTW... I've seen plasma TVs measure differently at different times of the day... because that's the way they work. Not because I ran PixelProtector. Heck, I can get slightly different measurements just re-measuring a plasma TV at 1 hour intervals and comparing results. Plasmas will drift in and out constantly after a "perfect" calibration.
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post #56 of 89
11/13/12 at 6:24pm
#1 - My TV is never calibrated until it has been running with a Standard HD signal off our ExpressVU OASIS channel for 4 hours. Everything is also reset to Zeroes prior to the warm up.
#2 - The Warm Red has been escalating for the last several months. I DON'T have a Plasma TV where heat is constantly aging the electronics! As my LCD/LED set ages, Blue, that was a previous problem, is now having a Red problem, and no matter what calibration procedures I tried, could only get the LG White Balance spec by having Red elevated to above 200. It was only on a whim, since I hadn't used the Pixel Protector Washes in awhile, I thought I'd give it a try. Ran the Washes all night: 6 Hours First Wash, 2 Hours Second Wash, and the Third White Wash for an Hour. Set was left off for the day. Turned back on that night, went through the my standard calibration routine. Warm Red setting was now at 186 to meet the LG spec!
#3 - It's great to stand on your soap box and say `It isn't so.' But unless you've actually tried the product, don't run down those who have tried it and found it worked for them!

I bet you refuse to use the Darbee as well? Works great on my set!
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post #57 of 89
11/13/12 at 7:36pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Doug Blackburn View Post

You can't say "PixelProtector" did a damn thing for your TV. RUNNING your TV for however long it ran did make a difference in what you measured. But you proved NOTHING about whether PixelProtector had anything to do with it... at all. You did ZERO controls... like running the TV with bright full-screen images for an equivalent amount of time (like bright cheery animation with highly saturated colors and bright whites). You did not use the TVs own internal "wipe" feature (if it had one). You cannot say PixelProtector helped in any way, because you have no other data that shows other alternatives to be equally effective or completely ineffective. Heck, you don't even know if turning your TV off and letting it sit (and cool) before continuing produced the same result.
This is the problem we have with anectodal "evidence" that turns out not to be evidence of anything. You took homeopathic headache medication once and your headache went away. Coincidence or evidence? You have no idea if your headache would have gone away in the same period of time if you'd done nothing. Or you could have had a shot of Jack Daniels or stood on your head, or stuck a Q-tip in your ear... if your headache went away, would one of those then be a headache remedy? How do 2 aspirin diluted so much the concentration is less than 1 part per million fix a headache? The same way PixelProtector "fixes" a plasma TV's measurements.
BTW... I've seen plasma TVs measure differently at different times of the day... because that's the way they work. Not because I ran PixelProtector. Heck, I can get slightly different measurements just re-measuring a plasma TV at 1 hour intervals and comparing results. Plasmas will drift in and out constantly after a "perfect" calibration.

I just have to add that seeing is believing!!! Everything is just as p5browne said it was as I just saw with my own eyes when I visited his home

a month ago. So my eyes must be tricked also. Some people have closed minds and no matter what you say or do to prove differant, they remain stubborn. I also own a 55LHX and the Pixel Protector which fixed my RED screen or the circuit driving it, I don't know or care, but I now have a pure white screen and great picture. I am tired of trying to convince others of my findings or experience. Now we add the Darbee Darblet into the mix and just seeing what that does to the HDMI signal confirms the idea that cables can vary even a digital signal. Good luck to all the non-believers

.


Edited by KONICA TECH - 11/13/12 at 8:28pm
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post #58 of 89
11/14/12 at 10:56am
The problem is, neither of you understand the scientific method. When I was around 13 or 14 I had a wart on my hand. My grandmother cut a raw potato in half, and rubbed one of the halves (the cut part) on the wart, then buried the potato in the back yard. In 10 days or so, the wart disappeared. We went and looked at the potato buried in the yard and it had disintegrated into mush in the ground. So rubbing a wart with a potato made the wart go away. That means this is something REAL, right? Wrong. It was COINCIDENCE... nothing more. People in blind drug tests get better FREQUENTLY when taking a placebo... an identical-looking pill with nothing but sugar or some other harmless non-drug substance. Does that make the placebo an effective treatment? No.

Once again, you are reporting anecdotal evidence, not proof that something works. There were no "controls" and you cannot repeat the experiment following the same sorts of rituals without the Pixel disc. Your anecdotal "evidence" is also predicated on your own hope that the thing you are using (a disc you paid money for) will fix the problem you have... the same HOPE that people taking placebos have when they get better without actually taking anything that would affect what's afflicting them.

There is nothing in LCD technology that could be improved by running patterns... plasma actually has some issues that could be improved by a disc like that (though, they could be improved by just viewing full-screen video content for some period of time). LCD imagers with many 10s of thousands of hours of use have absolutely no residual "issues" that require any sort of pattern or "magic disc" to restore them to "like new" performance since they are still performing, essentially, like new. Running Patterns won't change the backlight properties either.

Running your display for 4 hours before calibration is a waste of time and energy... your viewing should only be done after the TV has been on for 4 hours if that's how long you waited before calibration. If you want to watch a movie and your normal routine is to turn the TV on, get everything setup and start watching the movie after a few trailers have played... you really need to be calibrating your TV after it has been on for 15 minutes or so, not 4 hours.

Pixel fixing discs are in the same category as magnets that claim to improve fuel economy, "vortex" generators in vehicle intake systems that claim to improve performance and mpg, creams that claim to enlarge various body parts, and potatos removing warts.
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post #59 of 89
11/14/12 at 5:47pm
Hmm, why do I do the Warm up before Calibrating?
Could it be that over the years I've calibrated my sets, I found, starting too soon, by the time I got to the end of the First round of calibration, the values had all shifted due to electonics, panels and LED value changes. But, wait a few hours, the changes have become minimal, with less changes having to be done starting the Second round.
How did I come up with the 4 hours (On one of my sets it's actually 3.5 hours), when the experts say no more than 30 to 45 minutes is more then adequate? Why I took 1/2 hour readings from Cold start until my reading values matched the calibrated values from the night before. Have repeated this several times over the last few years. Now I don't really wait the full 4 hours, because I figure by the time I have set the Backlight, Contrast, Brightness, Colour and Tint, plus re-calibrate the White Balances (Which don't change as much after a couple hours warmup.), the set is ready to go.
The nice thing about turning on a movie from cold start is, great to look at the beginning, and gets gradually better as time passes.
How do you explain my always having to set my Warm Red to over 200 to meet spec over a course of months, then, after the Pixel Washes, I'm now setting the Warm Red to 186? This is more than a Couple of Clicks! Something got cleared up with the washes.
Konica Tech thought it was a bunch of baloney at first, until he tried it. Now he's a believer. Why does LG in it's Service Manual Warn about leaving any of the Test Patterns on too long?
Sorry, seen it, done it and now believe in it. My belief, but obviously not yours, but you're not here tending to my 6 sets I have on about the house, plus still calibrating my older models I sold off.
(Oh yes, the newer Blu-ray Version of the Washes does a better job, than the Washes on the older DVD version.)
Edited by p5browne - 11/15/12 at 10:05am
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post #60 of 89
11/15/12 at 11:05am
LEDs "change" after a few hours? Really? I've gone back after a YEAR and found LED illuminated projectors and panel displays measure exactly the same as the last time they were measured. And I don't MEASURE any changes after 5 minutes or so (CCFLs... yes, they do change a bit but are stable by 30 minutes).

Yeah, we clearly disagree. I've never seen a ghost, yeti, bigfoot, alien, vampire, werewolf, fairy, leprechaun, troll, or chupacabra either. Just for the record, I'm QUITE on-board with how cables, power conditioning, footers, and even some odd tweaks affect analog and digital music playback and analog video, but there are zero differences from any of those things when it comes to digital video and only vanishingly small differences for digital movie sound from all those things. I'm not a "universal deny-er" of any and all tweaks... even ones that don't make sense. But when the tech and the tweak are at SERIOUS odds with each other, the tech is the winner.

There are 3 layers of LCDs in a panel display. What could POSSIBLY cause the red layer of LCDs (and not the green or blue layer (the layers each have a color filter controlling the color... the LCDs themselves are all 100% "black & white" light valves that simply let through more or less light). So how would only ONE layer of the 3 layers somehow get less transparent than the others (excess red) or how could the green and blue layers somehow block more light than the red layer (less green and blue would also make red dominant)? The 3 layers were all subject to the same video content... presumably. One of the 3 identical layers just somehow "goes rogue"? I've worked with LCD imaging systems for 20+ years and have never seen it happen (digital cinema or home theater).
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