Due to the fact that there are currently numerous different threads on the Pioneer Elite 59avi, as well as several members who have indicated that it would make much more sense to have a single, consolidated thread to discuss all aspects of the 59avi to make searching easier, I have decided to start this thread.
I hope that all questions regarding settings, setup, and various issues or problems will be discussed in this thread, instead of having a new thread pop up every other day.
I think this thread should have been started quite a while ago, but it doesn't make sense to "not" do it for that reason either!
I will be editing this post semi-regularly to add relevant information for easy reference.
******************************************************
Firmware check for 59avi:
In Initial Settings->Options, while at this menu press DISPLAY in the remote, at the bottom of the screen you can see the firmware version. There has been 306, 406 and 506.
*****************************************************
Discrete Remote Control codes in MX700 format for 59avi:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...51#post4782551
For MX500: see http://www.remotecentral.com/cgi-bin...vd-dv59avi.zip
****************************************************
When making video adjustments the 59 avi's menu takes up almost the entire screen.Is there a way to make the size of the menu display smaller so you could see more of what you're displaying and trying to adjust?
It's in the manual but easy to miss. When looking at the full page of Video Adjust settings, simply scroll to the item you want to adjust and then hit Display on the remote. That will switch you to a one line display of just that item so that you can get immediate feedback of what changing it is doing to the image.
Up and down arrow in the one line display will switch which item is in the one line display just as if you were scrolling in the big list, and hitting Display on the remote will get you back to the big list. Changing the item will result in an immediate change to the movie image you are seeing in the background. Hitting Enter will make the current setting permanent and will exit Video Adjust.
Remember to hit Enter when you want to leave the Video Adjust display so as to make the changes permanent. If you exit in other fashions, theres a chance the prior setting(s) will get restored over your temporary changes. Frankly I haven't quite figured out Pioneer's logic behind that, so after making changes and exiting, I go back into Video Adjust to double check the changes really "stuck".
The Pioneer manual, in the trouble-shooting section, says that some changes made in Video Adjust will only take effect after the next time you Stop the current disc or open the disc tray, but so far I haven't spotted any such cases. If anyone finds such a case (changing a setting doesn't seem to change anything while the movie is playing but DOES change something if you then Stop the movie and then hit Play again) I'd be interested in hearing about it.
It also says you can lose changes you make if the power fails before the change actually takes effect. Just tossing this in for completeness, as its never been an issue for me.
--Bob
****************************************************
To skip forced trailers at the start of the DVD
In order to get past forced trailers and go directly to the beginning of the movie, simply hit the "stop" button twice in a row while the trailer is playing, then hit "play". The movie will start from the beginning. From that point you can also hit the "menu" button to go to the main DVD menu if desired.
****************************************************
Setting Black levels (and contrast)
See post# 348 by Bob Pariseau: Setting Black Levels
****************************************************
Settings to Avoid White and Black Crush
The player suffers from white crush over HDMI in the default setting. All white information over 235 gets discarded. I've been measuring the HDMI port data, and found one, and only one, setting where the player behaves like it should. That is, outputting reference HDMI-Video levels, no black crush, no white crush and no compression of the signal range.
In the Video Adjust menu:
White Level: All the way to the left (min setting)
Black Level: One notch down from center settings (towards min)
Black Setup: 7.5 IRE
HDMI Color Adjust: Enhanced
All other settings as default for the "HDMI Direct" preset.
Settings for HDMI output were tested for RGB only. Don't know how YCbCr is handled over HDMI.
Carl Sundbom
***************************************************
Additional HDMI settings:
I did some work tonight, and these are my findings.
Tools:
Firmware revision of DVD Player: 1.526
Test patterns: Avia Pro IRE window patterns (from 2.5 IRE to 108.5 IRE)
Video black defined as 7.5 IRE, nominal white as 100 IRE, peak white 108.5 IRE.
Represents DVD content luma values from 6 to 254.
Data analyzer: Lumagen VisionHDP scaler IRE readout feature
Standard vs. Enhanced "HDMI Color Adjust": The "Standard" mode prevents output of any values lower than 16 or higher than 235 over the HDMI port. Assuming we are trying to output what's on the DVD, the only way to make this happen in "Standard" mode is to compress the dynamic range from 1-254 to 16-235 by using the black/white level controls to cram the BtB and WtW content into the 16-235 range. Not recommended, since we will lose fidelity. You will be able to see BtB and WtW if you do this, but you will lose grayscale steps in the middle.
"Enhanced" mode will allow us to output any value from 1-254. Now we just need to map the video black to 16 and nominal white to 235 (still preserving the WtW content up to 254). Since my testing concluded that we need "Enhanced" HDMI Color Adjust to get us in the ballpark, let's look at the other settings.
There is an interaction between the "Black Level" control and the "IRE Set up" control. You can achieve almost the same results by leaving "IRE Set up" at 0, and compensate by raising the "Black Level" control as you can be setting "IRE Set up" to 7.5. However, it's not perfect, and black will end up being a little off from its standard value (a little higher or lower than 16, depending on "Black Level" setting). Setting "IRE Set up" to 7.5 and lowering the black level one notch gets us to perfect video black (luma 16 over HDMI). This will also preserve most of the BtB content (80-90% in my estimation).
The "White Level" control in its default setting will re-sample all content over 235 to whatever the maximum value is. For "Standard", this will be 235, so everything over 235 will be output as 235. For "Enhanced" this will be 254, so everything over 235 will be output as 254. This will also "stretch" the rest of the grayscale, so all values will be too high. Lowering the "White Level" to it's leftmost position will preserve all the steps between 235 and 254. The "stretching" of the grayscale is also avoided to a large degree.
The settings I ended up with are the same as the ones I listed earlier. They are as close as I could get, but they're not perfect. There is still a slight "stretch". A value of 6 on the DVD would be output as 5 or 4, and a value of 251 on the DVD would be output as 254. There is clearly some re-sampling going on, no matter what settings are used. I doubt this will have any real effects watching a movie. An SDI mod may be the only way to get the 59-Avi to output a pristine "DVD perfect" signal, but from what I've seen so far, this is one heck of a player
A couple of more points of clarification.
1. The 'HDMI Color Adjust' defines the output range. Standard is 16-235 and Enhanced is 1-254. I think this control is a misguided attempt at implementing Video vs PC levels. "Standard" set video black at 16, and nominal white at 235, alright, but it compresses all BtB data into 16 and all WtW data into 235. Since the whole point of running Video instead of PC levels is to pass BtB and WtW, this is clearly a design flaw.
2. The black level control defines the value of black. This should be 16 over HDMI. It doesn't operate like a normal brightness control, which would move the entire video range up and down. Moving it up only compresses values in the midrange. Nominal white doesn't move when you increase black level.
3. The white level control should be renamed to "white crush control". All it does is define what values should be output with the maximum luma value. By default, it defines everything from 235 to 254 to be 254 (in Enhanced mode). Rasing the white level control pulls even more values in to be 254. It also "pulls" the rest of the range with it, increasing the difference between between the mid grays. So how much white crush do you want? Now you have a choice!
Carl Sundbom
I hope that all questions regarding settings, setup, and various issues or problems will be discussed in this thread, instead of having a new thread pop up every other day.
I think this thread should have been started quite a while ago, but it doesn't make sense to "not" do it for that reason either!
I will be editing this post semi-regularly to add relevant information for easy reference.
******************************************************
Firmware check for 59avi:
In Initial Settings->Options, while at this menu press DISPLAY in the remote, at the bottom of the screen you can see the firmware version. There has been 306, 406 and 506.
*****************************************************
Discrete Remote Control codes in MX700 format for 59avi:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...51#post4782551
For MX500: see http://www.remotecentral.com/cgi-bin...vd-dv59avi.zip
****************************************************
When making video adjustments the 59 avi's menu takes up almost the entire screen.Is there a way to make the size of the menu display smaller so you could see more of what you're displaying and trying to adjust?
It's in the manual but easy to miss. When looking at the full page of Video Adjust settings, simply scroll to the item you want to adjust and then hit Display on the remote. That will switch you to a one line display of just that item so that you can get immediate feedback of what changing it is doing to the image.
Up and down arrow in the one line display will switch which item is in the one line display just as if you were scrolling in the big list, and hitting Display on the remote will get you back to the big list. Changing the item will result in an immediate change to the movie image you are seeing in the background. Hitting Enter will make the current setting permanent and will exit Video Adjust.
Remember to hit Enter when you want to leave the Video Adjust display so as to make the changes permanent. If you exit in other fashions, theres a chance the prior setting(s) will get restored over your temporary changes. Frankly I haven't quite figured out Pioneer's logic behind that, so after making changes and exiting, I go back into Video Adjust to double check the changes really "stuck".
The Pioneer manual, in the trouble-shooting section, says that some changes made in Video Adjust will only take effect after the next time you Stop the current disc or open the disc tray, but so far I haven't spotted any such cases. If anyone finds such a case (changing a setting doesn't seem to change anything while the movie is playing but DOES change something if you then Stop the movie and then hit Play again) I'd be interested in hearing about it.
It also says you can lose changes you make if the power fails before the change actually takes effect. Just tossing this in for completeness, as its never been an issue for me.
--Bob
****************************************************
To skip forced trailers at the start of the DVD
In order to get past forced trailers and go directly to the beginning of the movie, simply hit the "stop" button twice in a row while the trailer is playing, then hit "play". The movie will start from the beginning. From that point you can also hit the "menu" button to go to the main DVD menu if desired.
****************************************************
Setting Black levels (and contrast)
See post# 348 by Bob Pariseau: Setting Black Levels
****************************************************
Settings to Avoid White and Black Crush
The player suffers from white crush over HDMI in the default setting. All white information over 235 gets discarded. I've been measuring the HDMI port data, and found one, and only one, setting where the player behaves like it should. That is, outputting reference HDMI-Video levels, no black crush, no white crush and no compression of the signal range.
In the Video Adjust menu:
White Level: All the way to the left (min setting)
Black Level: One notch down from center settings (towards min)
Black Setup: 7.5 IRE
HDMI Color Adjust: Enhanced
All other settings as default for the "HDMI Direct" preset.
Settings for HDMI output were tested for RGB only. Don't know how YCbCr is handled over HDMI.
Carl Sundbom
***************************************************
Additional HDMI settings:
I did some work tonight, and these are my findings.
Tools:
Firmware revision of DVD Player: 1.526
Test patterns: Avia Pro IRE window patterns (from 2.5 IRE to 108.5 IRE)
Video black defined as 7.5 IRE, nominal white as 100 IRE, peak white 108.5 IRE.
Represents DVD content luma values from 6 to 254.
Data analyzer: Lumagen VisionHDP scaler IRE readout feature
Standard vs. Enhanced "HDMI Color Adjust": The "Standard" mode prevents output of any values lower than 16 or higher than 235 over the HDMI port. Assuming we are trying to output what's on the DVD, the only way to make this happen in "Standard" mode is to compress the dynamic range from 1-254 to 16-235 by using the black/white level controls to cram the BtB and WtW content into the 16-235 range. Not recommended, since we will lose fidelity. You will be able to see BtB and WtW if you do this, but you will lose grayscale steps in the middle.
"Enhanced" mode will allow us to output any value from 1-254. Now we just need to map the video black to 16 and nominal white to 235 (still preserving the WtW content up to 254). Since my testing concluded that we need "Enhanced" HDMI Color Adjust to get us in the ballpark, let's look at the other settings.
There is an interaction between the "Black Level" control and the "IRE Set up" control. You can achieve almost the same results by leaving "IRE Set up" at 0, and compensate by raising the "Black Level" control as you can be setting "IRE Set up" to 7.5. However, it's not perfect, and black will end up being a little off from its standard value (a little higher or lower than 16, depending on "Black Level" setting). Setting "IRE Set up" to 7.5 and lowering the black level one notch gets us to perfect video black (luma 16 over HDMI). This will also preserve most of the BtB content (80-90% in my estimation).
The "White Level" control in its default setting will re-sample all content over 235 to whatever the maximum value is. For "Standard", this will be 235, so everything over 235 will be output as 235. For "Enhanced" this will be 254, so everything over 235 will be output as 254. This will also "stretch" the rest of the grayscale, so all values will be too high. Lowering the "White Level" to it's leftmost position will preserve all the steps between 235 and 254. The "stretching" of the grayscale is also avoided to a large degree.
The settings I ended up with are the same as the ones I listed earlier. They are as close as I could get, but they're not perfect. There is still a slight "stretch". A value of 6 on the DVD would be output as 5 or 4, and a value of 251 on the DVD would be output as 254. There is clearly some re-sampling going on, no matter what settings are used. I doubt this will have any real effects watching a movie. An SDI mod may be the only way to get the 59-Avi to output a pristine "DVD perfect" signal, but from what I've seen so far, this is one heck of a player
A couple of more points of clarification.
1. The 'HDMI Color Adjust' defines the output range. Standard is 16-235 and Enhanced is 1-254. I think this control is a misguided attempt at implementing Video vs PC levels. "Standard" set video black at 16, and nominal white at 235, alright, but it compresses all BtB data into 16 and all WtW data into 235. Since the whole point of running Video instead of PC levels is to pass BtB and WtW, this is clearly a design flaw.
2. The black level control defines the value of black. This should be 16 over HDMI. It doesn't operate like a normal brightness control, which would move the entire video range up and down. Moving it up only compresses values in the midrange. Nominal white doesn't move when you increase black level.
3. The white level control should be renamed to "white crush control". All it does is define what values should be output with the maximum luma value. By default, it defines everything from 235 to 254 to be 254 (in Enhanced mode). Rasing the white level control pulls even more values in to be 254. It also "pulls" the rest of the range with it, increasing the difference between between the mid grays. So how much white crush do you want? Now you have a choice!
Carl Sundbom
