THE SONY SERVICE CODES - Articles, Comments, Discoveries - Page 89

Thank you, I will give it shot shortly.

OK, that worked! Now my issue is this:

When I'm tuned to an HD station like CBS (11.1 1080i), and have PRO mode set, the menu flickers. If I set the TV to Movie, standard, or vivid the flickering goes away and the menu is correct.

Thanks

I don't know about the flicker, my TV never did that. I suggest download the manual and check the settings.

Maybe someone can give me a hand with this one. I have the XBR970 hooked up via HDMI to a PS3 for Bluray, component for HD-DVD (HDA2), and component Directv HD. I watch a lot of black and white films and have noticed during darker scenes some vertical lines have a green color. Lowering the sharpness control to its minimum nearly eliminates the color but softens the picture beyond my liking.
Adjusting convergence settings in the service mode has no effect. I normally watch Bluray and HDDVD sharpness set at 50.

Helow. I am Vagu, from Brazil. Nice to meet you, guys of the forum. Sorry, my english is not very good.
I have a Sony brazilian model TV, 4:3, called here as KV-34XBR800. I think it´s knowed as KV-32XBR800 in USA.
Three days ago, I, ignorant, reseted the VM data of my tv with 7 + 9 + Enter in the service menu, and I "destroyed" my tv.
Here, in Brazil, this model is already out of production, and there is no chance for me to find a service manual of my tv here.

I will be frankly with you, guys: I am very sad.

I used my XBR to watch tv, Ps1, Ps2, Xbox, Saturn, Dreamcast, Gamecube, Wii, VCR and DVD. It was a very important part of my life.
Im not a boy, i am a medical radiologist of 34 years old. And I missed.
If you want to help a stupid doctor, from a far country, with any hint or help... I will be very thank to all of you.

Thanks very much.

Hi Vagu. Welcome to the forums.

You might find that reading this post and the replies http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...postcount=2460 helps you get your set to a usable state again but you might want to wait to see what others think first, as I'm by no means an expert.

I actually have a question but you may find it useful.

I'm thinking of buying a service manual for my XBR800 and the only place I've found so far is www.manualuniverse.com, which has a downloadable PDF of it for $17.99. I was just wondering if this is a good price and where/how much a hard copy would be?

When I enter the service mode on my 34XBR960 the service text is very blurry and shaky. Otherwise the TV works pretty well... no other signals show this effect.

The effect is so bad I can't read the letters and numbers..

I really hope someone here has some advice.

The text looks like it has a really bad analog signal generating it. It looks really distorted, shaky, and wavy.

PLEASE HELP

If anyone wants the service manual for the DA-4 chassis, it can be downloaded for free from: http://www.eserviceinfo.com/index.ph...tron+kv-a2523e

I just bought a kv 34 420 for $340. Geometry is great! But I seem to be having some trouble with gray scale. If I calibrate brightness on DVE or using a thx dvd my black levels are good but I get no shadow detail. Often just a shadowy blob where there should be detail. I guess Im refering to the gamma of the set. How do I calibrate good gamma without having bad black levels? I bumped up the gamm setting in service menu from 0 to 1, and dropped brightness a little. I think that helped a bit. Thanks in advance for any help.

are you sure you doing the brightness test patterns right? your supposed to lower brightness untill the blacker than black bar just blends into the black background..any more and you will crush shadow detail. GAMM should help but i find it way too bright if it's at anything above 0, it's best to leave that alone since it makes the whites way too bright and causes a similar effect of turning your contrast too high.

some settings to focus on in the service menu is SBRT and UBOF. SBRT is a global setting that is basically the main brightness control for all the inputs. UBOF is a brightness offset setting used to balance the black levels for each input.

Thats the problem, proper calibration of brightness using a brightness test pattern results in a good looking picture but blacks get crushed. Using a grayscale pattern and calibrating to that will result in an image thats to bright and of course causing loss of good blacks, although shadow detail is resolved. I can't figure out how to properly juggle them. I set gamm back to 0 for now. What is the difference between sbrt and brightness, because I can't seem to notice a difference.

I've attached a good gray scale chart I've been using. When I calibrate to this, shadow detail is great, but the traditional brightness chart shows that it is too bright with gray where black should be. So does your tv make out the "ribbons" in the center bar AND show like it should on a brightness test pattern with the dark bars disappearing into the background? Because I can only have 1 or the other.

yeah i can see the ribbons barely.onr tip i can give you is to leave BRIGHTNESS at it's default setting and adjust with SBRT untill the BTB bar just blends into the background..then check that other pattern and see if you can barely see the ribbons.

if you want you can try my settings which are perfect for black level..i have SBRT set at 25.

Raising sbrt and lowering brightness or doing the reverse get the same results. I have discovered that my xbox 360 requires different calibration depending on whether its outputting dvd or hd games. A quick change of brightness depending on what its doing fixes my major issues, but there still is not as much shadow detail as I think there should be in both games and dvds.

so wait it's your 360 that is causing the black crush ?uh..i understand now,yeah you may have to fiddle with UBOF for that input. i used to own a 360 myself and it's pretty dark by default. At least it seems that way when viewing the 360 through component connections are dareker on my SONY 34HS420 tv. However with my PS3 using HDMI i don't seem to have any darkness issues. in fact the blacks are perfect when viewing through HDMI.

maybe it's the connections and component is darker than HDMI?

Hi,

Newbie here, forgive possible dumb or repeated questions. Tried search, and scanning through the pages of the thread, with no luck. But must admit I didn't read all 70+pages!

I'm trying to make a few tweaks to my 40XBR800. Especially on DVDs, which I play up-converted to 720p through the DVI input (From Oppo 981 player). Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

First I want to reduce overscan. I've used MID1 controls (MDVS, MDVP, MDHS, MDHP). Those work but seem to effect all inputs equally, forcing me to live with a compromise -- what gives me 100% of the DVD picture is too much adjustment for the other inputs. Is there any way to just adjust input 7 (DVI?). Is there some better way to make overscan adjustments in general?

Also, when I reduce the picture so there's almost no overscan, I get a little area of bright green discoloration on the extreme left edge of the picture towards the top when there's a rich/bright color (like orange) in that area. I can eliminate it - once again - by compromising and leaving a little more overscan, but wondered if there any adjustments to solve that that worth trying.

Last, I'd like to sharpen the picture a little in the 720p through DVI mode. I took SYSM from 3 to 2 and that really helped. (I tried taking it to 1, but it gave film DVDs an odd, almost artificially grainy look). Any other adjustments I can try to sharpen that input/image?

Thanks!!!

These are the instructions for my XBR970, and hopefully the commands are similar for the 800.

First, adjust H Raster Center. This is a universal adjustment that should be done before the resolution specific ones.
1.Go to 2170D 2 group and set HPOS and HSIZ to 31 each, or at least until you can see the sides of the raster. Then set HCEN (or HCNT).
2.Go to MID1 and reduce overscan and center. Resize to edge of raster. This is another universal adjustment group.
3.Back to 2170D-2 and set raster back out to screen edges.
4.Go to MID2 and set your scan sizes and centering. This group is resolution and input specific, so you'll have to do it for each available resolution with each group of inputs (see you TV back for groupings).

That worked for me, though someone else probably has a better solution.

hey.. just wanted to see how you made out ??

Right now I dont have another component imput to test if its my xbox causing black detail problems, I need to borrow some cables from a friend. I do think it is the tv however
Right now Im working on tweaking geometry somewhat. Also tweaking color. I've read its best to turn off certain rgb guns instead of using filters to calibrate color. How exactley do I go about doing that?

for adjusting the rgb guns to certain colors it's RGBS in the service menu. the color decoder settings are RYR-GYB..RYR-RYB are for the reds, and GYR-GYB are for the greens.

for kicks i tried adjusting The GAMM settings to see if that would help for you but found it's waaay too bright and caused blooming galore.they are better left at 0 IMO.

if you need any help or tips let me know..i used to be in your shoes once,now it seems i'm the guy giving advice.

I figured out the color guns and settings myself, got them perfect according to digital video essentials, all the bars are the same color when said color gun is on.
Even with my gamm settings up (I think set to 3 on the 3 main gamma settings) I can't get blooming. No matter what I do I can't get blooming. Strange I guess... Maybe its the reason my gamma is off, because I can't get to the extreme I have nothing to compare it to to make it "normal"? I'll keep tweaking it to see what I can get.

Now Im noticing my whites have a some red in them (stupid perfectionist me...) Is there a pattern or something to get whites true? The use of clouds for calibration in the original post is far too subjective for me.

Im improving the set more and more bit by bit. Thanks for your help, not too many people interested in crts anymore.

I can't really help you with greyscale since you need equipment to do it properly. i left mine alone myself since if i tried doing it by eye i would probably screw it up. you really need test equipment to do it properly.

As for your GAMM settings well it depends, try different material and see how it affects it..i just couldn't stand it since it's way overly bright.

fixing the color decoder is fairly easy though.. i ended up with 14-14-6-4. not exactly sure where to set color, i have it in the middle for the moment.

Thanks, Doveman. My tv is alive again!!!!!!!!!

Glad to have been of help, Vagu. May you enjoy your TV for a long time

Had a little panic situation yesterday which I was finally able to resolve.

Read in the service manual (under geometry) how to access the appropriate test patterns in the 960. I wanted to see if these might be better than using those stored on my DVR from the old INHD (was happy to see very slight adjustments were required for only one or two settings).

The problem? The pattern remained on the screen after exiting the service options. No special instructions in the service manual on how to exit from them, nor did Sony CS know how to do it (he just had me unplug the set for a minute). Returning the DTV/pattern to it's original "0" and entering "write" would only leave the original black screen; the pattern last used returned when turning the set back on. Would have to wait till this morning to call a special service number. Needless to say I was ready to kick myself for being so obsessive and afraid I was going to hear it from my better half for fooling around with something I shouldn't have.

Fortunately I found the remedy - remembered seeing a category for HDMI when skipping through the service settings. Found it and a sub-category (I forgot what) which enabled me to reset the input to the HDMI. Whew, will never go that route again (and surprised instructions on returning to the HDMI input were not written at the end of the geometric section of the service manual).

I know that at times I hit the 7 and 9 buttons but I either turned the set off or went to another service menu. Don't recall seeing "reset" but only "read" which tended to do nothing. After the problem was resolved, I did check my service settings (which all remained in-tact) and only had to re-adjust the user menu settings (also written down previously).

Funny thing. I keept the 960 unplugged for more almost ten minutes hoping it would do the trick. While that didn't work out, when the problem was resolved and the user settings re-set properly, I thought I saw a slightly better overall picture. Assumed this was wishful thinking on my part along with the relief that I finally got the picture back; but then I noticed pure white on the extreme top right hand corner of the 5% safety line of the overscan pattern whereas it was slightly blue before.

I know the 960 automaticly degauses when turned on. Could unplugging it for nearly ten minutes have done a better job and also provide the set with a "quick tune-up"?

Whatever, I learned my lesson and thanked my wife for not getting too upset and annoyed with me.

Thank you to WJonathan for your suggestion above- this seemed to work very well. I'm at about 2% overscan all around and that looks very good (down from the 8% or so when I started).

Hi all - another question -

In the very upper left hand corner of the picture on letterboxed/widescreen pictures only, I'm getting a small area of red just below the black border. (perhaps 1/4 inch thick, 3 or 4 inches long). It's there whatever the input (DVI, component) or source (tried various DVD players, cable, etc). Also, whatever the letterbox shape (1:66, 1:85, 2:35).

I tried adjusting the YBWU (Upper Ybow) control under D-CONV in the service mode, and while that lessened the red problem, it threw the rest of the picture in that area badly out of convergence. I tried (Left H Amp (offset)) and LUBW (Upper left bow), but neither seemed to have any effect at all on the problem.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

Im wondering if someone can point me in the right direction. I have recently fixed my overscan as much as possible on my 30XS955 by just changing this....
- 2170D1-
VPOS from 25 to 24
VSIZ from 32 to 29

-21702-
HCNT from 38 to 42
HSIZ from 31 to 25
at 1080i resolution

Now for the most part every thing is fine and livable, but sometimes when watching a movie thats 2.35:1 aspect ratio with the right condition I can see a brighter vertical lines on the left and right of the screen thats about 1/4" wide down the sides of the screen. This is mostly visable on the top and bottom black bars. Whats weird is they are not visable all the time, like an all black scene you cant see them but if there is the right mix of mostly black with some bright spots on the screen you can see them. I will try to post a picture tonight to show what I mean. I think this is why the display had overscan to start with, to hide these abnormalities. Any ideas?

"UPDATE"
Nevermind, I fixed it by making the HSIZ wider to 29 and adjusting the MIDE 2 settings to get the same effect but with a wider raster.

Yes, the factory settings for my 960 had the overscan just barely at 5% for the top and bottom and not even that from left to right. Could not see the entire portion of many station logos nor green side of either split screen picture, Corrected it with:

HPOS - 28
HSIZ - 43
SCRL - 28
VSIZ- 25

Didn't fool around with the raster. Everything now is centered and also about 2% - anything more and either one of the upper corners begins to curve in or grey bars begin to appear on the top or bottom. Also, by reducing the screen size the picture quality is less stretched and more sharper.

A further update, in case anyone out there can help me; I did some experimenting. Using RGBS I looked the individual color guns, and found that the red looked fine, but the blue bent down slightly in that corner. leaving a small area that should have been blue, black (the exact area where I'm having the problem). So I assume what I'm seeing isn't an excess of red, but an absence of blue. Does anyone have any ideas of how to correct this? Or is it time to call in a technician?

Thanks!