The "official" Hitachi 5xS715 thread - Page 2

Well, I got the 57s715 and it is going back. HD and SD TV looked wonderful but I did have some serious problems.

1. The screen does have too much glare for my tastes
2. DVDs look horrible. There is a lot of noise and edge halos. Everything looks "processed".

The dvd thing is the big problem for me as 90% of what I watch are dvds. I attribute it to the upconversion.

I have turned of all of the edge enhancement and picture enhancement options and calibrated using DVE. I also tried changing from 1080i to 540p and doing the upconversion in my PC dvd player. Still sucks.

THEN

It died the day I got it.

I am sending it back and investigating Toshiba. I had one before and was happy. I know it does 540p upconversion too so this time I am going to put it through the wringer at the store.

It seems possible that whatever "killed" your TV on day one may also have been responsible for the poor dvd play.

As I don't have this set, I am interested to see what others who do have to say.

I used my toshiba prog scan player via component, My HTPC via component and DVI (component via x-card)

I turned sharpness down to between 30 and 43 at times. Edge enhancement was always off. Don't get me wrong it is not as if something was wrong but not up to the quality I was used to. I was very impressed with SD and HD. The dvd image was just digital and not as filmlike as my old Toshi'. Lots of noise. It is possible that whatever killed the set caused the dvd issue but I doubt it. I also had it plugged into a beefy APC ups by itself yet the convergance grid was jumping and vibrating like crazy. The 51 and 57 at the store did the same thing.

I have a Hitachi 51S715 and have been viewing DVDs from my HTPC and they are very, very good.

I agree with the glare, though. It is the one big negative for me with this set.

I have had the 57s715 for almost a week now. DVD hooked up with progressive component gives me great PQ. I watched Alien last night and I had always thought of it as kind of a dark movie, however this time the dark scenes were filled with wonderful glistening bright highlights that made the experience awesome. My DirectTV ultimate TV picture for SD is pretty good for some channels but some channels stink. Very jaggy and I even saw some motion blur. MY connection for the SD is only an S cable so hopefully If I upgrade to a DirectTV HD receiver with component or HDMI then it will improve the SD signal.

It's been awhile since I've posted anything, but I did get my 57s715 this past Monday. But we also started moving that day, and I had no idea what I was in for. Between working a regular job, and moving I had no time to sit down and really check it out.

Tonight was the first time that I've had some time to really look at it, and I still can really only give you first impressions type of an opinion.

First of all it looks great right out of the box. I have it hooked up to DirecTV via a HDTivo. HD looks fantastic, and SD looks pretty good on most. I've only played a few DVD's, but these look great as well. At first I thought it looked soft, but I think I had something set wrong on my DVD player, and I had all the enhancements on. Not sure changing which one helped the most, but it looks better now.

The only thing I've really done is turn down the Contrast and turn enhancements off. I'm not a videophile, and this is my first HD set so I'm a complete newbie. I'm having it ISF calibrated in 11 days so I'll know more then.

I was concerned that I'd be distracted by the silver cabinet, but that's not a problem at all. I think the reason it isn't a problem is because there is a black strip all around the screen, and this seems to "frame" the picture so that all your attention is there and you never notice the silver until you turn it off.

Viewing angles are very good. While not as good as a GWIII it isn't that far behind.

I would say glare is a minimal problem. I have blinds in all of the windows in the room so even during the day it isn't a problem. At night it is better of course to not have the light on directly in the area where the TV is. But my kitchen is adjoining my family room, and I can have all the kitchen lights on I want and it's no problem.

Don't ask me about the whole scaling and upconversion thing because I have no idea. I just transmit everything from the HD Tivo in 1080i and be done with it.

Overall I'm very pleased, and keep in mind this is just out of the box. I went back to a CC after having it for a few days, and looking around at the LCd's, HLP's, etc., I was very glad I made the choice I did.

As I get more time to play with it, and especially after having it ISF calibrated I'll be posting more.

Walter

WalterC try to get atleast 100 hours on the set before haveing it ISF'ed.

How are you determining this?

It is generally wise to never touch the SCREEN pots. All adjustments to grayscale should be done in the service menu where you can write down your initial values. DRVs are for the upper IREs and CUTs are for the lower.

Unless you're pulling in HDTV OTA, and your antenna is on a rotor.

Am I correct in understanding that there is no way to manually add channels with this set? Barring that, can one select a channel directly via number?

Thanks,

Matt

How about SCREEN pots? One person said they are coarse DRVs for upper IREs in the other thread.
But I thought they are similar to CUTs for lower IREs. Someone else said it just affects all IREs. Could you confirm it? Thanks!

It sounds good, but unfornately is not the case. What test equipment are you using to determing D65000 balance?

The SCREEN pots are for setting black cutoff and are essentially the same as the CUTs in the SM. The CUTs and DRVs are interactive so you will see an effect over the entire IRE range.

You should avoid touching the screen POTS as they are so sensitive it is impossible to put it right back where it was, which is why you should use the service menu only.

Stereodude, your method is quite interesting and definitely scientific. Probably much better than just working by eye.

Like I said, the SREEN pots and CUTs are essentially the same (sets the cutoff voltage for each CRT). The problem is that the SCREEN pots, CUTs, and DRVs do affect the entire IRE range as you observed...they are simply centered at the LOW and HIGH end of the range. This means that you must go through several iterations to get a grayscale close to D6500 across the entire IRE range. Let's say you get 30 IRE at D6500 then move to 80 IRE and get that a D6500 by adjusting DRVs...when you go back to 30 IRE you will find that it probably is not where you left it. This is why a constantly updating test device is needed for calibrating grayscale (and it still can take hours). It may literally take you forever to get things right using your camera method.

If it is already warmed up, you don't have to wait for it to warm up if you simply powered it down and right back up to get into SM.

Anyone have a 57s715 in the ATL area that I might be able to take a look at? I would love to be able to determine if it is my set or if I am just seeing stuff that other people ignore.

Stereodude,

If the grayscale looks good in the low IRE range, then go back to your user brightness control and check it again.
Changing the CUTS affects the brightness.

It's good practice to write down any SM values for later reference if they're changed.

Good viewing.

The Screen pots are identical to CUTS. However, you should not randomly adjust these as it can cause damage.

Stereodude,

I don't understand the camera method. You took pictures of a grayscale and forced them to D65K. How do you know that was accurate? Are you trying to use the computer display as an optical comparator? How do you know the computer display is D65K?


Bill

I just realized the spreadsheet was done by someone else

As far as the camera, I would like to see some data. Sounds interesting, but there are a lot of factors involved that could affect the end results. Hell, if this works it would be a great benefit as the pods many are using with digital displays aren't fairing to well.

Bill