THE SONY SERVICE CODES - Articles, Comments, Discoveries - Page 64

Bumping my issue.

Thanks for the additional info KenTech. I agree with you that it's not really worth worrying about the convergence issues in the corner, it's rarely noticeable and not worth trying voodoo magic with magnets to fix, IMO.


I also agree it's not worth really trying to fine tune the colors w/o the DVE DVD.... again I hadn't even planned on TOUCHING anything other than the geometry adjustments (only because I did have a video game disc that has a crosshatch test grid displayed when it first starts up). But after reading how EVERYONE had that 'red push' on their Sony sets and me noticing mine had the same thing, and then reading what you said: "The first try I got 13-15-5-4, and others have reported those settings, too. Big improvement! You could do a lot worse than simply trying those settings", I figured there'd be no harm in just trying those numbers even w/o DVE. Sure enough, the picture looked MUCH better to my eyes after the adjustment. I have no idea how close to 'perfect' it really is, but I'm happy with it.

Only problem is that after more extended viewing it now seems to have just a slight bit too much greenish tinge to yellows/oranges and very light beige/browns. But anyways... yeah definately not going to try to really tweak the colors, and I'm not even going to TOUCH the black levels/gamma etc., w/o the DVE disc. And don't worry I am taking all the warnings to heart, I'm not adjusting anything w/o first writing down the original value.

Now my next issue... I spent a little more time tinkering with convergence yesterday with the crosshatch pattern, and got it to where it looked PERFECT. Except for that one upper left corner, it really looked like the convergence was spot-on horizontally and vertically.

It wasn't. I started notcing as I was fiddling with menus on my DVD player and trying some video games, that with pure white text (with no black border, just plain white text, regardless if background was dark or light), towards the right side of the screen, there was some red 'spill over' to the right of the text. A very bright, almost orangish red. So I pulled the SM back up, and adjusted the CADJ setting a few notches, and the red 'spill over' went away. Only now, anything onscreen that is red colored has spillover! Not quite the same though... it's still red, but it's not the bright white-orangish red, it's a transparent red with maybe the slightest green tinge to it (like moving the tint slider towards the green). Like a red 'shadow'. It spills over in the same direction, to the right. I fiddled and fiddled but could NOT find a setting with CADJ that completely got rid of both kinds of spillover. So I settled on setting it 'right in the middle'.

The funnier thing is it's happening worse on one side... but only partially! What I mean is... okay if I adjust it so that the white text has the bright orange-red spillover, then THAT will only be noticeable on the right side of the screen. But if I adjust it so that there's the faint red "shadow" spillover but the whites are 'clean', then that will be noticeable on any red object anywhere on the screen.

So I tried adjusting CADJ to where there were no red 'shadows', but I had the spillover on the white text. Then I adjusted the D-Conv settings that only affect the right side and corners of the screen, to get rid of the white spillover... but same thing. I can not get rid of the one w/o increasing the other. So it seems like, at least on the right side of the screen (maybe 1/4's worth from the edge), I have to settle for some bad horizontal convergence in one form or another. Or do I? Is there something I'm missing?


EDIT: one thing I forgot about, before I adjusted the CADJ settings, when I had the bright red spillover to the right on white text on the right side of the screen, I also had dim blue spillover to the left of white text on the left side of the screen. After tweaking CADJ BOTH problems cleared up, but again... then I had the red shadow to the right of red objects...

Just thought I'd mention that now that I remembered.

Sets (like 30HS420) with Widezoom have the following settings in the SM,
that are specific to the 'Widezoom' screen mode:

2170-D1:
VLIN
VSCO
ZOOM
APSW
ASPT
SCRL
UVLN
LVLN

2170-D2:
HSIZ
HLIN
MPIN
PIN
PINO
UCP
LCP
PPHA

HSIZ being one, I assume there *is* a way to optomize this screen mode to proper overscan, etc.? Without affecting the other screen modes?

Does anyone have a tried-and-true process?

--
corlay

KenTech - thank you AGAIN for some great info and clarification... you probably just saved me quite a bit of time that would have been spent on hopelessly fiddling with adjustments when I got home from work tonite Okay so the red spillover can't really be fixed in the way I was thinking, except for to upgrade to better video cables (my 'reference' was a video game being played on an Xbox thru S-video cables).

I MAY just reset all of the D-CONV settings back to factory and start over with the crosshatch pattern again, since I have a feeling I have 'tweaked' it badly since I was using the reference that I was, and that it probably really was perfect where I had had it.


KenTech - another question for you, what are your thoughts on the "THX Optimizer" which is a feature that is being included on a lot of DVD's these days. I noticed it first when I bought the DVD set of the original Star Wars trilogy (eps 4-6 I mean). I know it only covers the basics (color, tint, bright and contrast, and some basic geometry I think), but I was wondering if this would suit me well for just adjusting the color? It mentions on the THX website that you can either a) use a pair of their blue filter glasses or b) turn off the green and red guns on the set to make the color and tint adjustments, and I believe I CAN turn off the red and green guns on this XBR970 so I wouldn't even need to wait for a pair of the glasses to arrive in the mail.

Do you think the results would be good with this? I do want to get the DVE or Avia (leaning towards Avia since it SEEMS it would be more user friendly for a 'newbie' like me, BUT it's like 2-3x the price!), and will probably order one of them by the end of this weekend. But if I can use the THX optimizer to fix my color, tint, picture and bright, and my crosshatch for geometry and convergence, that's almost everything except grayscale and color temp taken care of.

I won't bother with the Optimizer though if you don't think the results would be 'true' or worth the trouble.


EDIT: correction, apparently the Optimizer feature does cover grayscale, convergence, and possibly even sharpness adjustments (newer versions, not sure if my Star Wars one has this).

Ken, I was adjusting the overscan on my KV-HS420, when I left the room briefly, and a guest (who knows better) had a mental lapse, AND TRIED TO CHANGE THE CHANNEL. Um sweetheart, there aren't any channels, just a DVD player.

It took three days of googling to find your forum, but you've saved me. Thank you.

I've got eyes good enough to identify the filmstock that was used, but not the competence to change anything other than geometry. Any thoughts on where I might start learning?

I am trying to get my overscan under 5 percent. However on the bottom, when I go below 5, the image gets distorted...

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Is there a way to straighten this out?

I just picked up the last XBR960 in Virginia at CC...unfortunately, an open box one.
This one has some fairly significant convergence issues, and also what appears to be a beam focus issue.
I'm new to the service menu and haven't gone in there yet. From reading here, it looks like the convergence issues might be fairly easy to address in the menu, but what about focus?
And what is the exact procedure for getting into and navigating the service menu? I guess most know the basics of that here, but it's all new to me. I'm very familiar with broadcast monitors and the theories of convergence and grayscale and all that, just not familiar with these Sony service menu adjustments.
thanks

[quote=RM23J8G]
And what is the exact procedure for getting into and navigating the service menu?

If you bounce back to page 1 of the forum you can find pdf's 'n zips for download. Grab em all. There's something good in every one.

Thanks....I just found them!
Great stuff here.....thanks Ken.

YOu can try the focus adjustments in the service menu, especially overall focus (I believe QDPC), but the adjustments can only do so much. I just recently got a new 960, and and really lucked out with the focus - it's really excellent even at the edges. Prior to this, I owned the 30XS955, and the focus was not as good even after significant adjustments. This suggests to me that the how the focus is calibrated at manufacturing may be the most critical, so I would call out a service tech if the SM adjustments don't yield significant improvment.

Hey all. Okay, went home last night and tried using the THX Optimizer feature that is on the Star Wars DVD set I have. While pretty basic, it does cover the most obvious/critical bases pretty well, IMO. With test patterns for color, tint, bright, contrast, sharpness, convergence, grayscale, and geometry, I was able to go in and fine tune what I had already done and get the picture even better.

I found that my convergence adjustments weren't nearly as good as I had originally thought, and REALLY got down and tweaked them to near-perfection this time, much better than I had them, and the red bleeding issue is almost 100% gone now.

At any rate, for anyone who has one of the movies that comes with the THX Optimizer feature, I feel it's definately a great way to do a 'quick' tune up with only a small handful of the service menu settings and the regular user settings, and my picture now is MUCH and EASILY NOTICEABLY better than it was 'out of the box'. A good 'free' tool to use for anyone who has one of these movies, though I do plan on still buying Avia at some point for final fine tuning to get the colors 'perfect'.

The only issue I have left that is worth complaining about, and I'm hoping someone knows a fix for in the SM:

The bottom right corner of the screen has a gradually warmer color temperature. I got most of the screen to display, what seems to me to be a really pure white, but the bottom right corner still has a reddish tinge to it. I tried playing with a few settings in the color section of the SM and also with the Landing section, but found NOTHING that affected this.

I intend to slog my way through the whole forum from page one onwards but in the meantime, some keywords for searching would be a big help.

The only input my KV-34HS420 will ever get is widescreen DVD through the HDMI interface.

Changing HPOS confirms that I'm losing a significant amount of the picture at either end of the screen, and HSIZ only changes screen real estate, it doesn't give me any more of width available from the DVD output signal.

What should I be running searches for? Overscan and blanking were unproductive.

I don't know how relevant this will be or helpful if at all but I thought it worth mentioning. On my XBR 970 (widescreen HDTV), I noticed when I was using a test patter from the THX Optimizer (similiar to Avia etc.), with a rectangle frame to use for referencing how much overscan there was... If I adjusted HSIZ in full screen (16:9) mode, it actually changed the amount of the overscan and how much of the test pattern was being shown on the screen. But then I switched to 4:3 mode to do the same calibration, and I got the same results you are describing... instead of changing the area of the test pattern being displayed on the screen, HSIZ in this mode only affected the amount of the screen the 4:3 box took up. In other words, I COULD NOT adjust the amount of overscan or how much of the test pattern was actually being displayed while in 4:3 mode. I don't really use 4:3 much anymore so didn't look to see if maybe there was another section of settings with an alternate HSIZ or similiar that would correct this.

Well, it adds to the mystery. My problem is in 16:9 full screen, HDMI input, where your HSIZ works fine. Sale of XBR tubes had been discontinued in Canada at the time I bought the set.

Dunno about 4:3. I don't go there either. The set has some blanking issues, I can only hope they didn't lock the hardware lest they become apparent. Been digging through the forum with no luck so far. Anybody have any ideas?

(At least I've figured out how to configure response posts correctly

[quote=bast525]Does anyone know which setting, if any, can be used to fix this problem:

There is a slight uneven stretching of the image horizontally. I actually sat there with a measuring tape and measured a line of text on the left and right column (exact same text). I found that the text on the left hand side measured about 7", and the text on the right only 6.5". /QUOTE]
HCNT, right before HPOS and HSIZ changes position of the horizontal and alters the proportion of the two areas on either side. Try adjusting that a little to the left, then re-centering with HPOS.

I'm ready to bow to the expertise of the forum, but I didn't see a solution posted and it worked for me

Sorry, meant to say changes position of horizontal CENTER, The whole image shifts, but the adjustment is really for proportion between the two sides. Ten thumbs and blind today

I'm getting more familiar with the service menu now, and downloaded some of Ken's test signals onto cd to play in my dvd player.
They really don't look all that good through that process...lot's of artifacts... and I'd like to try the memory stick method. I got better looking test signals by recording them from an NTSC test signal generator into a dvd recorder for some reason.
I have zero experience with memory sticks, as I don't have anything that uses them. I see that there are several different varieties and sizes of them. What do I need?
Also, what sort of hardware/software interface do I need to load the test images into them from my computer?
This is pretty cool stuff....especially if I can get this 960 straightened out!
thanks

Why not use the internal test patterns..? Read #416, #420 and #428

Can anybody recommend service codes which might correct horizontal distortion in a 27" Wega flat-CRT? (27FS170)

The effect I see is that objects appear to bulge and ripple as they pass through the middle of the screen.

I've tinkered extensively with PAMP and UPIN/LPIN, but those don't seem to influence this region of the screen. It seems to be slight concavity along a vertical line in the middle of the screen, rather than a fisheye.

i.e.,
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Visually, what I see is objects squeeze as they pass horizontally through the middle of the screen and bulge as they leave. It creates an unpleasant ripple. Vertical movement does not exhibit this flaw at all.

I'd be extremely grateful to hear some informed opinions about this. It's driving me crazy.

Somebody suggested to me that it may be a horizontal linearity issue. Tweaking SLIN (stretch linearity) and/or HCNT (centering/linearity) was a suggested resolution, but this 27FS170 doesn't have those adjustments.

I'm planning to check out the 24FS120 at a store to see if it has the same problem. If I can't find a Wega model free of this defect, I'll have to go for some inferior brand (cry). Curved tube TVs have lots of distortion around the edges, but at least it's not right in the middle of the picture!

I'm surprised not to see more people complaining about this. I've seen the effect in every Sony TV I've looked at so far (32FS170, 27FS170, 34XBR970).

I thought I was going nuts or just too picky, but it's SO obvious every time the screen pans sideways. My old 20" fishbowl tv wasn't exactly the height of geometric correctness, but at least the distortion was at the edges rather than the center of the screen like this.

By the way, I found XBMC's picture viewer to be pretty good for displaying test patterns. It's a homebrew multimedia application that runs on a (mod-chipped) xbox game console. It's convenient because you can browse images over the network. You can also zoom/pan around on them which is useful for detecting some anomalies that are hard to see in a static image (such as the problem I've been complaining about).

This is EXACTLY what is going on with my XBR970 as well! This is the problem I was trying to explain in the last paragraph of my post #1891, you described it a bit better than I, though . It seems to affect a larger portion of my screen though, almost 1/4 of the screen is noticeably 'pinched' in the center. I WAS able to use a combination of HCNT and SLIN to improve it a little, and also to fix the 'off center' nature of the stretching that I described a few posts back as well (one side stretched noticably more than the other). Now the screen is equally stretched to either side.

This concave center problem is VERY annoying though, as far as how anything moving horizontally across the screen bulges when at the sides and then squeeeezes as it passes thru the center. It makes it impossible to get a perfectly round circle when using the circle/grid test pattern. I have tried every setting in the SM that has any effect on geometry and have not found one that was able to fix this issue.

I was just about to call a Sony service place today and see if they'd send someone out to fix it, but hearing how many others are having the same problem, I wonder if it CAN be fixed. Hopefully someone here can figure out a setting or combination of settings that can fix this.


On another note, I picked up Avia on Friday and went thru all my settings again. I was already VERRRRY close or spot on with most of them. The THX Optimizer does cover many of the same bases and will get you like 80-90% of the results that Avia will as far as the picture adjustment goes (especially if you get the proper blue filter or glasses from THX, which I hadn't had when I used it hence why Avia did help me zero in on a few of the color adjustments). Avia does have a lot more advanced stuff that seems great but also seems like a lot of people wouldn't ever use it. I would suggest that anyone who has a DVD with the Optimizer on it already do a run thru with that and see if the results are satisfying enough before going out and plunking down $50 for Avia. All that said, I am glad that I bought it and even though the store I bought it from has an open return policy I will hold onto it anyways, as it has a lot of useful info on there that did make it worth the purchase price for me.

About the contrast adjustment on Avia though... I found that as some other people have commented, the test for adjusting contrast is kind of vague and I"m not sure the setting I arrived at is the 'optimal' setting. Even at the highest setting the white square never bloomed (seems newer TV's don't tend to do this). I just turned it down to where I thought the white area still looked white and not gray but w/o a reference I feel like I'm just 'guessing' even if I am close.


KenTech - did a service guy ever pay you a visit? Did you get any results?



EDIT: question, is there an agreed upon 'ideal' amount of overscan to shoot for? Seems the Avia DVD favors 5% overscan since many of it's geometry correction patterns have corner and side markers all placed at 5%. So that's where I adjusted to... just wondering what everyone else does.

bast525:

Contrast setting with Avia. The screen has some grey boxes toped by white on the upper half and a white section on the lower half. There is a line on either side to help you as well (needle pulse pattern).

For these sets, raise the Picture control until the lines on either side start to bend, they should be straight. Any Picture setting with bent lines is too high, back off until the lines are straight up and down. Your set may allow Picture to go all the way up without bending the lines, mine did not.

Now get right up in front of your set and look closely at the top portion of the screen. You are looking at the area between scan lines on the gray boxes. The size of the area between scan lines on the white box should be no smaller than the size of the area between scan lines of the grey boxes below it. This is not a ruler kind of measurement, but your eye will be good enough. If the Picture level is too high, the area between scan lines of the top two boxes will be reduced and possibly be missing.

The setting you come up with will probably be a whole lot lower than Sony's defaults and may take some getting used to. But the upside is that your display will be able to show you all of the signal without distortion.

I will leave the other questions to those better informed members of the forum.

Good luck