Samsung HDMI Black Level

Hey Guys,

I've had my PN59D550 for a while now and I love the picture (especially after fixing the brightness pops!). But I was wondering about the 'HDMI Black Level' setting. To watch movies I use my PS3 as a BluRay player or I put video files onto my Playbook and connect it through HDMI to the TV. Lately I've been watching the Harry Potter movies through my Playbook and I've noticed with the HDMI Black Level setting set to 'Low' I lose a ton of shadow detail and with HDMI Black Level setting set to 'Normal' the picture is completely washed out and blacks become grey. Also, when playing certain games through the PS3 it asks me to adjust the brightness through an on-screen slider bar - with certain games I can't even set it where it needs to be if the HDMI Black Level setting is set to Low (won't go bright enough) but again if i switch it to 'Normal' everything looks washed out.

Can someone please help me keep my blacks dark without losing shadow detail?

Thanks!

Hey,

I've been doing some reading and you're definitely right - low is 16-235 and normal is 0-255. From what I understand, 16-235 is YCbCr and 0-255 is RGB. I also read that games should be RGB and movies should be YCbCr. I can force the PS3 to output RGB or YCbCr but this was set to 'Auto' before - and essentially should automatically output RGB (TV set to 'Normal') for games and output YCbCr (TV set to 'Low') for video. This didn't seem like it was happening as when playing games everything looks very washed out with the TV set to 'Normal' and the blacks get crushed when the TV is set to 'Low'. I'll mess with the settings some more tomorrow I guess.

Now, how would I set the TV for watching movies from my Playbook? I tried to find out if the HDMI out from the Playbook is sending 16-235 or 0-255 but I can't find that info anywhere (or a setting to switch it) and neither 'Normal' or 'Low' on the TV looks right.

I'll also definitely be downloading some calibration discs over the weekend.

Are you sure? What I read here:

http://www.audioholics.com/tweaks/ca...vels-xvycc-rgb

Says that 0-255 is RGB and 16-135 is YCbCr.

So what you're saying is that if I am given the option between Low and Normal on the TV then the signal is 16-235 (YCbCr) and therefore should be set to Low. And that if the option is greyed out the signal is 0-255 (RGB)? When would the 'Normal' option ever be used?

If I am getting crushed blacks I can at least turn it to Normal to get my shadow detail back and then lower the TV brightness to try and get some black level back, but if the TV is set to Low I can't do much about the crushed blacks.

What does everyone else set this to?