AVS › AVS Forum › Gaming & Content Streaming › Home Theater Gaming › Xbox Area › PC Mode on TV's? For Gaming?
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

PC Mode on TV's? For Gaming?

post #1 of 40
1/10/12 at 7:15pm
Thread Starter 
I have a samy Plasma 59d550. Someone mentioned that PC mode made their picture quality better for gaming.

What exactly does PC mode do? I dont see it effecting picture quality or else you would solely use that mode for everything.

And on plasmas input lag is already quite low, so whats the benefit of PC mode and does it increase PQ in gaming?
Reply
Reply

AVS Top Picks

post #2 of 40
1/10/12 at 9:55pm
I have the 51d550. PC will give you Full RGB with no extra processing or scaling I believe. Games are native RGB. TV, DVD's and Blu Rays are YCbCr so pc mode shouldn't be needed there at all. If you set up your xbox to display expanded reference levels, games for RGB color space, and set your TV to hdmi black level normal you will get full RGB. However I don't like the the default color you get in pc mode and there is no way to change it. Most of the settings are greyed out which is fine because you don't need most of them anyway, but for me the color is just way to intense. I just keep mine out of PC mode with the xbox set to expanded reference levels, source for the color space and the TV set to HDMI black level normal. That will give you the right levels for Full RGB but with the tv being out of PC mode I think it has to do an extra step of processing but its worth it to me so I can calibrate the colors to my liking.

Hope this helps. Anyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about anything, but I believe this is how this TV operates.
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 40
1/11/12 at 1:07pm
Thread Starter 
Ya i dont like my options grayed out. I also didnt think it looked any better at all.

Ill have to test it more but hdmi low looked better then normal. What does the hdmi level technically do
Reply
Reply
post #4 of 40
1/11/12 at 6:51pm
HDMI black level normal is for full rgb. HDMI black level low is for limited RGB. IF you set your xbox to standard reference levels use HDMI black level low. If you set it your xbox for expanded reference levels use HDMI black normal. Also make sure your Xbox is set to source or automatic.

If your TV is calibrated decently that is how you should set it up. If your xbox is set for expanded and you use HDMI black level low it will crush blacks.
Reply
Reply
post #5 of 40
1/11/12 at 7:28pm
Thread Starter 
hmm thanks. This guy on here in the TV thread was saying NEVER do normal if you can do low. guess he didnt know what he meant. or wasnt talking about gaming but he said anytime.
Reply
Reply
post #6 of 40
1/11/12 at 10:35pm
That's weird. I don't know why he would say that. If anything I have read that low is kind of buggy. The only time I use low is when I watch netflix or some other video app because of the new dashboard bug that messes up the reference levels. If they ever fix this glitch or bug or whatever you wanna call it, you can leave it at normal all the time.
Reply
Reply
post #7 of 40
3/5/12 at 2:53am
Are you talking about what I said to you ? Lol. If you are I suggest you read it again, I said do hdmi black level normal and expanded on 360, or low and standard but never do normal and standard or low and expanded cos you said you had expanded on the 360 and hdmi black level on low and I said that would be crushing your blacks. Which it would be.
Reply
Reply
post #8 of 40
3/5/12 at 9:31am
I got my PN64D550 two weeks ago. I have nothing to add to this thread aside from "my god this dispay is beautiful!" I hope you guys like yours as much as I like mine.
Reply
Reply
post #9 of 40
12/26/12 at 3:37pm
I was told that PC mode greys out Color option because if the signal is RGB, it doesn't need any decoding. If that is true, does that mean Color doesn't need calibrating?

Also, video games are sRGB. what happens there to the TV? I get the wrong Color?

Oh and Lance I thought the same thing about the PC Mode at first, being quite intense and all. I'm just thinking it's the 4:4:4 smile.gif
Reply
Reply
post #10 of 40
12/26/12 at 7:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Burton View Post

I was told that PC mode greys out Color option because if the signal is RGB, it doesn't need any decoding. If that is true, does that mean Color doesn't need calibrating?
Also, video games are sRGB. what happens there to the TV? I get the wrong Color?
Oh and Lance I thought the same thing about the PC Mode at first, being quite intense and all. I'm just thinking it's the 4:4:4 smile.gif

I'm still not sure why you can't adjust color in PC mode. It really is too intense and bright for me. I can't have it calibrated the proper way it should look. Or at least the way I want it to look, so I don't use it.
Reply
Reply
post #11 of 40
12/28/12 at 11:17pm
I don't think I'm contributing to the discussion in any way, but here are my two...

PC mode uses zero processing, so anybody who has a problem with excessive lag, bad response times, general ghosting or color bleeding/trails, should go with PC mode.

However, I feel the colors look kinda bland and washed out, and 1080p just makes the colors come to life. Also you'd notice less jaggies at the TV's max resolution - in my case, that's 1080p.

Upscaled always looks better than native I believe. A lot of hardcore Xbox gamers will disagree with me here. But I don't mind the processing or lag or whatever. I don't feel it at all.

My LCD TV's a 40" Bravia. 8 ms response time as advertised in the catalogue/brochure. 60 Hz.
Reply
Reply
post #12 of 40
12/29/12 at 5:08am
Quote:
Originally Posted by techfreak191 View Post

I don't think I'm contributing to the discussion in any way, but here are my two...
PC mode uses zero processing, so anybody who has a problem with excessive lag, bad response times, general ghosting or color bleeding/trails, should go with PC mode.
However, I feel the colors look kinda bland and washed out, and 1080p just makes the colors come to life. Also you'd notice less jaggies at the TV's max resolution - in my case, that's 1080p.
Upscaled always looks better than native I believe. A lot of hardcore Xbox gamers will disagree with me here. But I don't mind the processing or lag or whatever. I don't feel it at all.
My LCD TV's a 40" Bravia. 8 ms response time as advertised in the catalogue/brochure. 60 Hz.

Response time (if I remember) is different to input lag. In PC mode, my plasma has a 16ms input lag.
Reply
Reply
post #13 of 40
12/29/12 at 1:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by techfreak191 View Post

I don't think I'm contributing to the discussion in any way, but here are my two...
PC mode uses zero processing, so anybody who has a problem with excessive lag, bad response times, general ghosting or color bleeding/trails, should go with PC mode.
However, I feel the colors look kinda bland and washed out, and 1080p just makes the colors come to life. Also you'd notice less jaggies at the TV's max resolution - in my case, that's 1080p.
Upscaled always looks better than native I believe. A lot of hardcore Xbox gamers will disagree with me here. But I don't mind the processing or lag or whatever. I don't feel it at all.
My LCD TV's a 40" Bravia. 8 ms response time as advertised in the catalogue/brochure. 60 Hz.

Upscaled will never look "better" than native, but it shouldn't look any worse either if the scaler is decent. Native is exactly what the source is supposed to look like. That being said if you have a 1080p tv your xbox games are being upscaled one way or another. Either by the xbox or the tv depending on your display resolution settings. You probably wont be able to tell a difference either way though. I just set my xbox to 1080p and let it do its thing.
Reply
Reply
post #14 of 40
12/29/12 at 6:08pm
By my amateur calculation, I think it's best to let a player do any upscaling, leaving the TVs hands free to do it's thing if you get my meaning smile.gif

And for me, by my eagle eye, for my TV upscaling the Xbox 360s beats it..........well from my eyes at least.
Reply
Reply
post #15 of 40
12/29/12 at 9:22pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Burton View Post

By my amateur calculation, I think it's best to let a player do any upscaling, leaving the TVs hands free to do it's thing if you get my meaning smile.gif
And for me, by my eagle eye, for my TV upscaling the Xbox 360s beats it..........well from my eyes at least.

And that's all that matters...
Reply
Reply
post #16 of 40
1/3/13 at 7:13am
Quote:
Originally Posted by OARevolution View Post

Upscaled will never look "better" than native, but it shouldn't look any worse either if the scaler is decent. Native is exactly what the source is supposed to look like. That being said if you have a 1080p tv your xbox games are being upscaled one way or another. Either by the xbox or the tv depending on your display resolution settings. You probably wont be able to tell a difference either way though. I just set my xbox to 1080p and let it do its thing.

I would quite frankly disagree. Upscaled 1080p noticeably looks better on my TV, at no additional cost to visuals or performance.
Reply
Reply
post #17 of 40
1/3/13 at 11:23am
Quote:
Originally Posted by techfreak191 View Post

I would quite frankly disagree. Upscaled 1080p noticeably looks better on my TV, at no additional cost to visuals or performance.
when he says "native" I think he means 1:1 pixel mapping. No upscaling can match that.
Reply
Reply
post #18 of 40
1/4/13 at 6:03pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Burton View Post

when he says "native" I think he means 1:1 pixel mapping. No upscaling can match that.

Exactly
Reply
Reply
post #19 of 40
1/6/13 at 10:29pm
OK, did a little experiement last night:

Set the screen to the optimal resolution setting, which outputs 1360 X 768. Set reference levels to expanded. Looked great, but I could see the jaggies a little more. For some odd reason, when using this PC resolution, the color saturation seems bland, and I have to turn up the saturation to about 65. Also, the reds don't look completely red, they have a pinkish hue.

Then set the screen to 720p, standard reference levels. Colors immediately looked better, more accurate. But I do feel the blacks and grey look deeper with the PC resolution and ref levels set to expanded.

Finally, went back to 1080p, standard ref levels. Noticeably sharper picture, because all the pixels are so tightly packed together. Less jaggies, smaller and sharper text, lines etc.

Note: only 720p and 1080p has the option to switch between 1:1 and normal pixel mapping. I always go with 1:1. In PC mode resolutions, all additional settings and enhancements are greyed out.

Observations:

1080p without a doubt, looks the best. 1080p and 720p exhibit better color overall, as opposed to 1366 X 768. The latter, however, exhibits slightly better blacks and greys, but only slightly. Also, both the non-1080p resolutions seem to display better motion resolution, so you get more crispiness and detail during movement. But only by a small margin.

I play with all enhancements off, 1:1 pixel mapping. It's a 40" screen, in all honestly 1080p really does look the best. At no additional cost I might add. No input lag, no motion lag, no anomalies.. nothing.

Just go with the native resolution of your TV, in which case, it's usually the highest resolution your TV supports. Don't worry about upscaling, as the X360's scaler chip (ANA), is one of the best there is.

Cheers biggrin.gif
Reply
Reply
post #20 of 40
1/7/13 at 2:15am
Quote:
Originally Posted by techfreak191 View Post

OK, did a little experiement last night:
Set the screen to the optimal resolution setting, which outputs 1360 X 768. Set reference levels to expanded. Looked great, but I could see the jaggies a little more. For some odd reason, when using this PC resolution, the color saturation seems bland, and I have to turn up the saturation to about 65. Also, the reds don't look completely red, they have a pinkish hue.
Then set the screen to 720p, standard reference levels. Colors immediately looked better, more accurate. But I do feel the blacks and grey look deeper with the PC resolution and ref levels set to expanded.
Finally, went back to 1080p, standard ref levels. Noticeably sharper picture, because all the pixels are so tightly packed together. Less jaggies, smaller and sharper text, lines etc.
Note: only 720p and 1080p has the option to switch between 1:1 and normal pixel mapping. I always go with 1:1. In PC mode resolutions, all additional settings and enhancements are greyed out.
Observations:
1080p without a doubt, looks the best. 1080p and 720p exhibit better color overall, as opposed to 1366 X 768. The latter, however, exhibits slightly better blacks and greys, but only slightly. Also, both the non-1080p resolutions seem to display better motion resolution, so you get more crispiness and detail during movement. But only by a small margin.
I play with all enhancements off, 1:1 pixel mapping. It's a 40" screen, in all honestly 1080p really does look the best. At no additional cost I might add. No input lag, no motion lag, no anomalies.. nothing.
Just go with the native resolution of your TV, in which case, it's usually the highest resolution your TV supports. Don't worry about upscaling, as the X360's scaler chip (ANA), is one of the best there is.
Cheers biggrin.gif
I don't get it. What would resolution have anything to do with Color differences?
Reply
Reply
post #21 of 40
1/7/13 at 9:59am
Shouldn't have any at all.
Reply
Reply
post #22 of 40
1/7/13 at 7:36pm
Techfreak191, what is your TV's native resolution? I see you said the Xbox selected 1360 x 768. I know you were just experimenting but unless that is your tv's native resolution there is no scenario where you should choose that setting.

If that is the native resolution of your display, and you have your xbox set to display 1080p, that means your games are being upscaled from 720p, then downscaled to 1360 x 768 by your TV. So then you have the image being scaled twice.

Also your native resolution of your tv is NOT the highest resolution that it supports. Most 720p tv's support 1080p but aren't really outputting that resolution, they are merely downscaling back to 720p.

Just some info...

But as always, just go with whatever looks best in your own eyes...
Reply
Reply
post #23 of 40
1/8/13 at 1:03am
I may get this the wrong way around. But I think most 720p TVs are 1366x768 and the Xbox 360s resolution close to that is 1360x768, so you missing six lines of res?

Still, doesn't matter, at least there's is very little scaling going on.
Reply
Reply
post #24 of 40
1/12/13 at 5:20pm
ive acyually grown quite attached to the PC mode now for games. the color just seems right to me. maybe its a little too intense because because you need to calibrate the white balnce stuff ect.

im going to be looking for a projector soon and am just hoping that if i find one with a PC mode, that it has the same functionality as the Samsungs PC mode (take RGB directly from the source unalterd with no YCBCR decoding needed)

it could be only available with Samsung.
Reply
Reply
post #25 of 40
1/12/13 at 7:37pm
Tyler I have a Samsung as well. Do you have 10 point white balance on your display while in PC mode? I have mine calibrated out of PC mode and looks great but as previously stated I think the colors are just way too vivid and bright in PC mode.

I'm not at home to check if they let you calibrate the white balance in PC mode. If so do you have any calibrated settings that you can suggest I try?
Reply
Reply
post #26 of 40
1/13/13 at 7:10am
I don't have any settings to do with the 10p White balance sorry (if your referring to me smile.gif ) but I can tell you that whilst in PC mode, the 10p White balance isn't available, but the normal White balance is.
Reply
Reply
post #27 of 40
1/13/13 at 10:15am
Sorry man I was referring to you. I meant Tyrone not Tyler. My bad. Yeah I got home today and checked it out. As you confirmed 10p white balance is unavailable. Did you change your normal white balance settings to get better color accuracy?

The colors are still too intense and bright for me. I have went back and forth ad nauseum before trying to see which produces the better image to my liking. I always stick with regular mode over pc because of the lack of calibration control.

Also getting back to another subject from this thread. My girlfriend has a native 1366 x 768 lcd and I took my xbox over there and tried to output in 1360 x 768 and it did something like techfreak mentioned. The colors were very muted. I couldn't really tell if the clarity was different though. Im assuming it puts the TV into some kind of PC mode because I had the xbox set to standard reference levels to match my girlfriends tv but when I changed the resolution to output 768p, I had to go and change it expanded to match the black level.

I then tried the 1360 x 768 res on my native 1080p samsung at home, just to see how it would react. With that resolution selected it automatically puts my tv into pc mode. My colors looked just the same as always in pc mode, no matter what resolution I have selected.

So it must just be how certain displays handle pc mode differently.
Reply
Reply
post #28 of 40
1/13/13 at 11:22am
Yeah it is a PC resolution after all, and the TV must be smart enough to know this.

I think it's perfectly ok to want to use the other presets for gaming, but what I learnt from a member here named Scotti, I was told that the reason why most of the Color calibration controls are greyed out, is because if the signal is RGB(which all video games are) there is no need to do any Color decoding, which is what the Color controls do. If you don't enable PC mode, the signal goes through a kind of YCBCR process, leaving you to do the calibration, which you won't get far unless you have the right equipment.

I'd use game mode if you don't like it. The other modes input lag will probably be quite bad.
Reply
Reply
post #29 of 40
1/13/13 at 12:35pm
I've also read that if PC mode isnt enabled that rgb signals will go through some ycbcr processing. And I also read that rgb color options shouldn't need to be decoded. Maybe it was the same thread you are referring to. All I know is on my PC monitor the color doesn't have that bright itense look that my tv gives it. It looks spot on.

I also have all processing and image enhancments turned off so I don't think I'm getting extra input lag. I didn't have my TV professionally calibrated personally but I am using the calibration settings recommended in the display forum for my TV and the results are very good
Reply
Reply
post #30 of 40
1/13/13 at 2:37pm
I think the White balance properly setup will be correct. It's when you mentioned your monitor that it probably isn't 100% correct but very close.

But I also haven't had a professional calibration either. You'd probably need to get a calibrator in, or buy the equipment to set it.
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Xbox Area

AVS Top Picks

AVS › AVS Forum › Gaming & Content Streaming › Home Theater Gaming › Xbox Area › PC Mode on TV's? For Gaming?