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How do I disable scan lines on a Sony KV-27FS120

post #1 of 15
1/28/13 at 8:19pm
Thread Starter 
I need to know how to turn off the scan lines on this KV-27FS120, if it possible. I can access the service menu, although I don't know what many of the options are. When I have my Sega Saturn connected the scan lines are very noticeable, on widescreen not as bad although they are still noticeable. Does anyone know where I could find descriptions of all of the service menu options?
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post #2 of 15
1/28/13 at 8:45pm
Not sure what you are talking about.. the CRT make the image with scan line.. to turn off the scan line, turn off the TV.
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post #3 of 15
1/28/13 at 9:27pm
Thread Starter 
I realize CRT has scan lines, although I thought with the over 100 service menu options, maybe somehow they could be turned off. When I connect a DVD player using RCA the same connection as my Sega Saturn, I don't notice the scan lines unless I'm very close to the TV. Perhaps something like, flat panel super sharp tv's the scan lines become very noticeable? When playing the Sega Saturn in widescreen format on the same TV, the scanlines are less noticeable. I had a Magnavox before, same size, and never noticed such scan lines. It was not flat panel, and had a blurrier image.
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post #4 of 15
1/29/13 at 10:14am
If it's what I'm thinking of I've seen CRTs show those when adjusting the Screen knob too far one way on the HV transformer (rear of TV, sometimes have to remove cover for access); sometimes the knob has a different name but it's the one that's NOT the focus knob. May be service menu fine-tunable too.

Anyhow, see if it improves by adjusting the contrast and/or the brightness.
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post #5 of 15
1/29/13 at 11:16am
Quote:
Originally Posted by bellotto View Post

When I connect a DVD player using RCA the same connection as my Sega Saturn, I don't notice the scan lines unless I'm very close to the TV. Perhaps something like, flat panel super sharp tv's the scan lines become very noticeable?
When playing the Sega Saturn in widescreen format on the same TV, the scanlines are less noticeable.

Sounds like an input device configuration issue..
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post #6 of 15
1/30/13 at 10:39am
I made an account just to post this: the lines you're seeing are the TV and Sega Saturn doing exactly what they're supposed to do. Old consoles (32/64 bit generation and earlier) output video at 240P instead of 480i. This manifests on a CRT screen as the game image with horizontal black lines, because the screen is only getting information for half of the scanlines. It's more noticeable with bigger screens, but that is most definitely normal operation that you're describing.
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post #7 of 15
1/30/13 at 11:32am
Interesting. My Panny CRT has a video menu mode called "Game Mode," would that help in this situation? (i.e. maybe this Sony has something similar).
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post #8 of 15
1/30/13 at 5:14pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Floydage View Post

Interesting. My Panny CRT has a video menu mode called "Game Mode," would that help in this situation? (i.e. maybe this Sony has something similar).

I doubt it (it'd have to have some sort of line doubler in it, to fill in the blank space left by the unused scanlines), but I really don't know what game mode would even be on a standard def CRT. Game Mode is common on LCD TVs, where it's typically a mode with most or all of the processing (frame interpolation, etc.) turned off, in order to cut down on input lag. That's not usually an issue with CRTs, so I'm not sure what it's supposed to do on your unit.
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post #9 of 15
1/30/13 at 5:50pm
Your sony tv has a 16:9 widescreen enhanced mode which was also known as "vertical compression". When you watch a widescreen DVD the tv has the ability to stop scanning lines where the upper and low black bars would be and compress scanning lines down to just the picture area which gives a much sharper picture and makes the scan lines smaller and harder to see. It was a cool feature that came out just as CRT TVs were on the way out.
Secondly, you not should to use the RCA jacks and connectors to the TV with your video player. Use the Svideo, rgb, or hdmi jacks depending on what was available when the DVD player and tv were manufactured.
Lastly, there seems to be some confusion on lines of resolution and scanning lines.
nTSC was/ is a 525 horizontal line system every 1/30 of a second. There is 262.5 odd lines(frame)every 1/60 th of a second then 262.5 even horizontal lines( frame)the next 1/60 th. these two frames make up a 525 horizontal line (field )every 1/30 of a second.this is called interlacing or the small "i" you may have seen before.
Progressive means all the lines appear at the same time. Ex. 480p, 720p, 1080p(blu ray)
Once all the flagging is done, etc. those 525 lines become about 480.
These horizontal lines are the vertical resolution.

VHS had 240 lines of horizontal resolution. That's horizontal. Vertical lines across the screen
dVD has about 500 lines or so lines of horizontal resolution.
All DVDs are authored with 480i lines of vertical resolution 480p happens inside the player, it is not on the disc.
Sounds to me that your DVD player is sending out a 480i signal to your tv, which is compressing those lines vertically and making them smaller.
I don't know anything about video games but it sounds like an older system.
But definitely replace the RCA connectors with something that can pass more bandwidth and at the very least your DVDs will look even better.
Edited by b4z - 1/30/13 at 5:56pm
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post #10 of 15
1/30/13 at 5:52pm
I think I got the terms field and frame backwards but the rest should be correct. I was trying to rememer all this "old" technology without googling anything.
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post #11 of 15
1/31/13 at 4:23am
Quote:
Originally Posted by b4z View Post

Your sony tv has a 16:9 widescreen enhanced mode which was also known as "vertical compression". When you watch a widescreen DVD the tv has the ability to stop scanning lines where the upper and low black bars would be and compress scanning lines down to just the picture area which gives a much sharper picture and makes the scan lines smaller and harder to see. It was a cool feature that came out just as CRT TVs were on the way out.
Secondly, you not should to use the RCA jacks and connectors to the TV with your video player. Use the Svideo, rgb, or hdmi jacks depending on what was available when the DVD player and tv were manufactured.
Lastly, there seems to be some confusion on lines of resolution and scanning lines.
nTSC was/ is a 525 horizontal line system every 1/30 of a second. There is 262.5 odd lines(frame)every 1/60 th of a second then 262.5 even horizontal lines( frame)the next 1/60 th. these two frames make up a 525 horizontal line (field )every 1/30 of a second.this is called interlacing or the small "i" you may have seen before.
Progressive means all the lines appear at the same time. Ex. 480p, 720p, 1080p(blu ray)
Once all the flagging is done, etc. those 525 lines become about 480.
These horizontal lines are the vertical resolution.

VHS had 240 lines of horizontal resolution. That's horizontal. Vertical lines across the screen
dVD has about 500 lines or so lines of horizontal resolution.
All DVDs are authored with 480i lines of vertical resolution 480p happens inside the player, it is not on the disc.
Sounds to me that your DVD player is sending out a 480i signal to your tv, which is compressing those lines vertically and making them smaller.
I don't know anything about video games but it sounds like an older system.
But definitely replace the RCA connectors with something that can pass more bandwidth and at the very least your DVDs will look even better.

As far as I know, this is basically correct, except that you did get frame and fields backwards, as you noted in your other post. Just in case this was partially aimed at me, though (say you thought I was getting the 240 lines of VHS mixed up with more modern resolutions when mentioned 240P), here's a link where someone is talking about old consoles and 240P: http://www.retro-otaku.com/2011/06/is-your-tv-240p-compatible/ It's a blog post, but it's accurate. I just couldn't find a better source on short notice, unless a Wikipedia article that devotes all of a sentence specifically to videogames running at that resolution counts (it's the article on low definition TV.)

I don't know the full technical details of how it works, but my guess is it's a 480i image that only has one field per frame, with the second field being blank. It halves the vertical resolution, which makes it easier on the old systems (of which the Saturn most definitely is one) when rendering graphics. I know about this because, as the article notes, a lot of (especially older) HD TVs don't know what to do with a 240P signal sent over component cables, which happens basically every time you try to play a PS1 game on a PS2 hooked up with component cables.
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post #12 of 15
1/31/13 at 12:28pm
Owyn, the manual states "When playing special images such as three dimensional video disks on video disk players or game software on video game players, use GAME mode. Use TV mode for normal viewing." This Panny manual does more of a job of explaining how to select things than what they actually do in some topics. After further review it's actually "SCAN MODE (TV ... GAME)" within the Video menu. When I selected GAME while watching normal TV it gets grainy with what appears to be finely spaced horizontal lines; with my HD tuner on component input this selection was only active when I set the tuner to 480i output (I think the same thing on s-video and composite so I suspect some sort of NTSC setting).

There's also a GAME button on the remote that selects the game input, sets pic and sound for gaming, and starts some sort of timer system to encourage one to rest their eyes every 30 minutes.
Edited by Floydage - 1/31/13 at 12:40pm
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post #13 of 15
1/31/13 at 1:04pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by b4z View Post

Your sony tv has a 16:9 widescreen enhanced mode which was also known as "vertical compression". When you watch a widescreen DVD the tv has the ability to stop scanning lines where the upper and low black bars would be and compress scanning lines down to just the picture area which gives a much sharper picture and makes the scan lines smaller and harder to see. It was a cool feature that came out just as CRT TVs were on the way out.

Yeah my 20" version of that TV has it too. Somewhere I read that it effectively increases the resolution by a certain percent (maybe 30%?).

There's also a Velocity Modulation menu setting he could try playing with.
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post #14 of 15
1/31/13 at 1:34pm
@Floydage: Okay, I have no idea what that does, and Google isn't helping me. It's interesting, though -- I love learning weird stuff about this old tech, and that's a new one on me.
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post #15 of 15
1/31/13 at 3:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by OwynMerrilin View Post

@Floydage: Okay, I have no idea what that does, and Google isn't helping me. It's interesting, though -- I love learning weird stuff about this old tech, and that's a new one on me.

Me too and thanks for Googling. I tried "panasonic ct 34wx50 scan mode game" and saw vague references to sequential scan but nothing concrete. It also has progressive scan line doubling that improves NTSC video performance; yeah this ol' TV can surely make old stuff look good. I think the gamers luv 'em too except they're too heavy to move from place to place (I was just at my friend's place and his son kept coming and going with game consoles and such). biggrin.gif
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