THE SONY SERVICE CODES - Articles, Comments, Discoveries - Page 3

Sorry to say, I think that requires magnets or an adjustment of the deflection yoke. Look at an all-gray or all-white screen (not too bright). Is there a slightly cool patch to the left of center and a warm patch to the right of center, or the reverse (not at the edge)? That would argue further for the deflection-yoke misalignment -- a very small adjustment.

I am suspicious that the order in which things are adjusted on the final factory-checkout line determines a lot. In stores, I see consistent convergence and curving problems with the upper-right corners on various XS and XBR sets from this generation. The yoke and tube are inherently symmetrical; so why upper (and lower) right? I had a dark patch in the upper-left corner, but that was fixed easily with the service-mode LANDING parameter called "UL." I finally did best by setting all corner adjustments to the middle (127) and starting over, going around to all four corners until everything balanced. If they are allowed only one pass at this, they may over compensate on an earlier adjustment and be stuck when it comes to the last one. Just speculating . . .

The curving of horizontal lines has no fix in service mode that I can see, and I've really looked. I have a bit of this problem, too, and I am having a good "magnet guy" come out next Wed to try his magic. I'll report the results. (My service-labor warranty is about to run out!)

(1) The whole point is to know what these settings do, and then to adjust them to suit yourself. Note that SYSM = 1 has a "minimum" effect with Sharpness set to about 10-15, not at the far left (0). As you go left of that, there is a softening effect. I simply don't like it, but you may prefer what it does to SD material. I think it's way too coarse for good DVDs. My taste.

(2-3) The edge effects applied by SYSM = 1 or 2 are derived from the luminance signal, but then they would be too late to act as an unsharp mask, where you want to sharpen both sides of a sudden transition in brightness. That would require seeing into the future! I believe the original luminance is *delayed* a bit, and the non-delayed luminance derivative is added to it. The effect is the the whole picture has to slide a little bit later in time -- i.e. to the right.

(2a) It's just that the memory stick is very clean and predictable, where anything fed from a DVD player is subject to all sorts of manipulation before it leaves the player. All you have to do is read comparative reviews of DVD players to see that their video bandwidth varies all over creation!

(4) Good! Here is where you can be quite creative with picture enhancements, and I'll be interested to hear what you arrive at. I imagine some of those parameters have effects visible on instruments, but I'm at a loss to see the effects, even with a tack-sharp test pattern.

It seems to me there are four classes of picture quality, and that one has to devise settings for each: 1080 and 720 HD, DVD-source ED (480I X 720 digital), ordinary high-quality SD, and yucky SD. You might even add a little extra edge boost to 720, since it is resampled and 1080 is not; this appears to be what Sony does in its MID5 table. Of course, much of 1080i broadcast is really DVD-quality, but you're stuck coming up with one MID5 column for both. That's where the sharpness control comes in -- down for real HD, up for ho-hum "HD."

I don't think there are any compensations in this set that are "just right" for blurry SD or tired VCR tapes. Every adjustment offered seems to assume a fairly high-quality picture in the first place. I don't agonize over it. I make a choice of Sharpness settiing and get on with it.

According to the service manual specifically for the HS420 series, Section 4.3.5, there are several *dynamic* convergence adjustments in SM, and they show pictures of the problems that are solved by tweaking them (page 24).

That means only horizontal misalignment of the colors; vertical has to be handled by magnets. The SM codes are all in D-CONV, #0-12, YBWU-CADJ.

I haven't had any motivation yet to adjust any of these. You mean to say you can change these values, and they have *no* effect?

I'm disappointed to hear this. I think you should be able to get static convergence corrected under warranty. To this end I simply contacted a reputable Sony-authorized service center, told him what I wanted, mentioning 1/4" of misconvergence in the upper-right of the HD raster and a slight putiry problem, and he made an appointment for next Wed morning. I was not deflected to contacting Sony (who has every interest in trying to get out of this service).

I understand that $280 per input (yikes!) is okay with some, but jeez! many of these adjustments can be made by the owner to great perfection, and there is the issue of the near-religious orthodoxy of having a true "ISF" calibration. I have determined to my satisfaction that some of the ISF standards are not required to such precision (6500K for example; 6350K would be fine) and the tendency to calibrate a "brightness" level (meaning Picture) is complete nonsense. There is no correct "brightness" of white; what is required dependes on taste, the environment, and the particular TV's tendency to bloom at high brightnesses. These limits are easy to spot.

Education is everything and is obviously my overwhelming bias. But if a TV owner does not want to learn any of this stuff or develop the modicum of skill required to do it according to published help, spending money seems the only other way.

$280 per input? Some of the most critical adjustments are common to *all* inputs, and only a couple of tweaks are required to bring any particular input into line.

Sorry, but I can't hide my skepticism!

(1) I haven't a clue where you live, but Sony-authorized service is usually identified that way in the Yellow Pages. And then there's that possible referral from a Sony-TV dealer who looks like they might care about you.
(2) & (4) No, sorry, I wouldn't have said that. There are adjustments in service mode for most geometry corrections (all distortions of vertical lines, aspect-ratio, and overscan) and for dynamic convergence. If you have a problem with *horizontal* lines bowing as they approach the right picture edge, for example, or with vertical displacement of color (color fringing of horizontal lines), yes, *that* is magnet-ville. But that shouldn't stop you from calibrating even more important aspects of your TV, such as black level, color accuracy, white temperature, focus, gamma -- all those things that the ISF guy will slave over for $$. None requires perfection in convergence or geometry before meaningful adjustment can take place. For example, any problems I have with horizintal lines, purity (colored patches), and static convergence *are still there.*
(3) Please! It's easier than you think at present, and I certainly believe it's really the key to enjoyment.
(5) Well, it was for me, too. The "white-cloud" standard for white is *excellent* and is further proven in 2 months' use. (Article #03.)
(6) I was referring to ISF calibration. I wish there was another, less snobbish, choice. It may be that, in your city, there is a trained tech who can do what is needed, ISF or not, and charge a fair price. Thing is, then you remain dependent on somebody else's expertise. If you learn how to do some of these things for yourself, you can tinker for free forever after! I've tried to convey what I have learned, but the terse language of this engineer may not suit some folks, and I don't know what else I can do except document what worked for me, basing my claims on long-term engineering and digital-imaging expertise as a base. (And a certain fearlessness in these matters.)
(7) This is good! I really would go to some trouble to find a service center who will talk to you. Speak to its manager, as I did, and act a bit like you know what you need. Don't let anyone treat you like an idiot!

Well, *that* is interesting! Do you mean when you say "the overall convergence" that you followed the procedures for adjusting the hexapole and other magnets inside the cabinet? Or did you address only the settings in D-CONV in service mode?

I'm not surprised to hear that there is a connection between convergence and certain geometry parameters, since both are accomplished with magnets (including coils energized thru the adjustments in SM). When I previously diddled with computer monitors, I found purity (dark or off-color patches), convergence, and warping of the raster all could be affected by holding *one* magnet near the tube and variously aligning it. Everything I did involved compromise -- which was the "art" part of it.

Could you be a little more specific about what you did? And did *anything* you did affect color fringing of horizontal lines?

Just to make sure you guys have the "right stuff" for this, here (again?) are the relevant service-manual pages. Sorry I had to split it to avoid the 512K file-size limit.

[Addendum: These pages apply to all the XS955 sets, too.]

 

xbr960_conv_geom_p1-6.pdf 302.4365234375k . file

 

xbr960_conv_geom_p7-10.pdf 476.783203125k . file

Did a little fooling around with dynamic convergence this afternoon (the D-CONV settings). My set wasn't way off, but I did improve things a bit. Here's a few things I learned:

(1) The service manual discusses using D-CONV #13 CPY2 to copy your 480i or memory-stick convergence settings to HD 1080i. Surprise! There is no "CPY2," and the settings are now common to *all* of the scan modes as far as I can tell. #13 is HVCA, range 0-63, and mine is at 63. I haven't yet deduced what it does.

(2) In D-CONV, the central convergence setting is #12, CADJ for "center adjust." I would do that one first using one of my fine-dot patterns. (See article #08.) The service manual shows what #0-11 do. 14-23 are the same as 2-11 and appear to be "sub-settings" in Sony's parlance, i.e. offsets. With a range of 0-63, 31 is treated as center = 0 offset, and all of mine are at 31, which is *not* what is shown in the service-data chart for my set. It appears therefore that the real setting for, say, RSAP = RSAP + SRSP; same for RUMB + SRUM, RLBW + SRLB, etc. The "S" settings are the "base" settings, and one tweaks 2-11 to fine-tune everything. I left all of the "S" settings alone. A note on the chart says they're "different for the 30XBR910." I guess I would concentrate only on #0-12.

(3) I revisited all of my LANDING settings from #0 thru 6. #6, TESW, turns off the corner compensation of #0-3, LT-RB, so you can choose settings for EWSP and ENSW that give a most-even color for the screen. Put up a white or gray full screen (my black crosshatch-on-gray will do), not too bright, stand back a ways, set TESW to 1, and set EWSP and ENSW for best evenness. Then turn TESW back to 0 and tweak LT-RB for best corners -- minimum color, minimum darkening. (Don't stare; move your eyes around.) I improved mine. Something a tech said to me reminded me that there *are* set-orientation adjustments, and EW and NS look like east-west and north-south to me. I ended up with different settings than I had before and a more-even screen.

(4) jmccorm: After I tweaked convergence and saved the settings, I screwed with the settings to see if vertical convergence was affected. No amount of radical twiddling of the D-CONV settings changed anything. Whatever *vertical* color misalignments I have were not affected. Maybe we are expecting too much! We'll see if the tech turns up his nose at it on Wed with "It's within Sony Specs.".

Mike, welcome to the worst aspect of interlaced video (the "i" in 1080i and 480i).

Alternate lines of an interlaced display are present only every 1/30 sec, i.e. any one scan line is drawn at 30Hz, and would be a very visible flicker -- except that every adjacent line is drawn 1/60th second later, and so the eye nicely integrates this interlaced set of alternatineg 30Hz fields into nice 60Hz frames, and flicker isn't perceived, especially with normal program material generated by cameras. ("Hz" = cycles per second.) The glow-persistence of the CRT's screen phosphors helps, too, although it's what can cause the "white trails" that follow moving bright objects against dark backgrounds. (Solution: Don't watch TV in such a dark room!)

Now if this display is fed a computer-generated horizontal line, one whose top and botton edges are pixel-accurate in definition, those edges will flicker, since the scan line defining them is flickering on and off at a 30Hz rate. STB and DVD menus and computers likely are your most common sources for this kind of graphic. You'll notice the TV itself generates graphics, too, but it's slightly blurred (antialiased) so there is minimal flicker.

If you switch to a progressive display of the same material, *all* scan lines are drawn at a 60Hz rate, all together, and there's nothing onscreen that can cause flicker in the first place.

On these Sony sets, 720p is resampled up to 1080i, and the resampling includes some antialiasing (smoothing) and other tricks that neatly minimize any flicker. Sony does really good resampling, as DRC demonstrates for SD material.

Broadcast material in 1080i (last night's CSI/Miami on CBS, for example -- gorgeous!) contains almost nothing that can cause flicker. You can get as close to the screen as you wish to revel in the image, and nothing looks amiss or jittery. In this sense 1080i is as good as it gets, and I can't help but wonder if (yet nonexistent) 1080-progressive would be an improvement on this. Perhaps for motion artifacts; but broadcast HD falls apart during motion because of the compression (macro-blocking), and edge-motion artifacts should be the least of your complaints!

Maybe it will be 1080p HD-DVD that will make the difference.

There are no service-menu settings that can reduce this effect, since it's an inherent interaction between the program material and an interlaced display. All you can do is choose program material that doesn't flicker, learn to ignore it, or display computer graphics in 480p exclusively.

I'm wondering about this myself.

A couple of weeks ago, I created in Photoshop the "perfect" color-calibration test screen (attached) for my MS slot, using the conventions of the Digital Video Essentials DVD: Blocks of the usual SMPTE colors at 75% brightness, surrounded by 75% gray. I had set up my V5 component input from the DVD player and DVE. I was surprised to learn that the memory-stick slot had slightly different rules! When I set up the four color-matrix parameters in 2170P-4, RYR thru GYB, I got different settings than I had gotten with the DVE DVD thru V5.

The two color-matrix settings in the user menu, "Default" and "Monitor," can be set up any way you wish. Those names are arbitrarily chosen by Sony. So I set up "Default" for the DVE calibration of V5 and "Monitor" for the MS test pattern.

Now, question is: Does either one apply perfectly to broadcast, especially ATSC-HD? The block diagram for these XS and XBR sets show clearly that the MS slot feeds thru the same pathway ("YUV") used by the ATSC tuner's HD output, component inputs, and HDMI receiver module, completely bypassing DSC.

So why the settings differences? Now that I have tried them both, it sems the differences are negligible and may be attributed to the DVD player's being slightly different from the MS input. (MS is a *very* direct input, a perfect way to insert test images into the TV for alignment.) I will place my bet that the MS pattern correctly calibrates color for the HD tuner, since color encoding there is digital and doesn't involve the messy NTSC color-extraction process of SD broadcast.

So that leaves the S-Video inputs and SD tuner as the unknowns. I could connect the DVD player thru S-video and repeat calibration to see what changes, but I can't mimic a perfect SD signal without additional test equipment. I guess I won't agonize about broadcast SD, since there is such color and black-level anarchy there anyway. I'll just adjust in the user menu to suit myself. But I want to know that the DVD player and broadcast HD are reasonably accurate, and I've probabnly accomplished that.

Bottom line: You can agonize over getting the TV perfect, but the program material still varies all over the place, even on HD broadcast. So you eventually run into limited returns for the effort. Maybe big-release DVDs are the most consistent.

 

Color_Calib_pattern.zip 40.4482421875k . file

Yeah, that's probably right. But if you use the same input class for both (say, component on V5 and V6), you are at least guaranteeling that the TV is calibrated closely enough. I believe the DVD player contributes very little to color distortion, and you'll have to take it on faith that the cable box is similarly neutral. Broadcast-HD *material* is not completely conststent in color balance, although I find the black level to be way better than SD/analog.


For color you don't have any controls in the DVD player, right? So that's not an issue. But black level is dependent on what is offered by the DVD player. My Toshiba SD-3950 has settings for Standard, Enhanced Black Level, Movie 1, Movie 2, and Animation. Each tweaks the black level and brightness-span. Since my player always passes both super-black (pluge) and super-white, I have picked the setting that most closely matches other inputs in black level. Then I used 2170P-3 #13/UBOF to adjust black level to match among the inputs: DVD (V5), VCRs (V1, V3), HD (tuner-720p and 1080i), and analog cable SD (tuner-480i). Note that the UBOF setting will be *different* between interlaced and progressive signals from the DVD player.

I would concentrate first on overall black level (2170P-1, SBRT), a color temp near 6500K (2170P-1, RDRV thru BCUT) and a neutral grayscale. (See my early articles in this thread.) Then calibrate color decoding with what the Avia disk offers (2170P-4, RYR thru GYB).

On top of this foundation, you can then fine-tune for matching black levels among the inputs/devices (2170P-3, UBOF) as well as color level and hue balancing, if needed (2170P-3, UHOF, UCOF). If you find that the blacks are color contaminated in one of your inputs (mine was 1080i HD broadcast = yellowish), you can adjust 2170P-1, CBOF and CROF for blue and red only. YOF is yet another place for black-level balancing, it seems, but I haven't used it.


Yep. You have it exactly right. "Getting" this is a requirement for intelligent image tweaking, as I described in Article #12.


I think you are on the right track. I would go from the global to the specific, and the order in which I wrote the articles implies what order I considered important as I did this. I think gamma is *very* important, as much program material is dead-wrong in contrast in Pro mode. I highly recommend using two or three of the picture modes for your own purposes. For me, I have set Standard - Movie - Pro to be identical except for gamma, with GAMH thru GAML parameters of (respectively) 6 - 3 - 0 (and GAMS = 0). A setting of 3 is dead-on the TV standard of gamma = 2.2 and is what I use the most. But it's nice to have the others available as a simple button-press. Vivid is reserved for experimentation. I have no use for Sony's original settings!

I can't comment on the Avia targets, as I have only the DVE disk. But be sure to use the color-gun controls in 2170P-2 #1/RGBS instead of the hand-held color filters. If you want to start with decent settings, you might try settings of 14-15-7-5 for RYB thru GYB.

The current orthodoxy that "all VM is bad" is dead wrong! Certainly Sony's presets for VM are coarse and ugly, but that just reflects on Sony's lack of sophisticated judgement here, not on what VM potentially can do for image quality. I have increased its finesse and decreased the amount and choose now to use it all the time! It makes a subtle and attractive correction in a fine picture that sharpness enhancement doesn't quite match. See Article #12.

Clarification for Croc: In 2170P-3, VMLV is a temporary setting that is not saved. It always reflects the current ClearEdge VM setting, and if that's set to None, VMLV = 0. VMCR thru VMDL have no effect if ClearEdge VM is set to None. They are how you control the "look" of VM *if* it is applied. Note that some VM seems to be added by other settings that are not under user control, possibly 2170P-3, one or more of F1LV thru CTLV. I keep these set to "no effect", as I don't like what they do to the image.

Overall focus is a compromise between focusing bright objects and focusing dark objects, as the scanning dot "blooms" as it gets bright. I will be writing an improved article #07 soon about how to do this more precisely, including the internal focus control on the HV transformer. QPDC *adjusts* the overall dynamic focus of the screen, and its effect is mostly visible in the center. But other adjustments in the 2170P-4 "QP--" series affect the sides, top & bottom, and corners. Using anything but a 2-dinensional high-contrast pattern will mislead you into focusing wrongly -- don't use the raster lines as a criterion! One could argue that an HD broadcast of a sporting event and its long shots of the crowd might be the best pattern. If you diddle, write down the settings before changing them.

DF and DQF are left-right spot-shape balance controls and should maybe be left alone for now. My article will describe how to adjust them using Sony's official methods.

Croc, you misunderstand this. SHOF (which is never *completely* off) is the setup for the Sharpness slider in the user menu, along with SYSM. SYSM is by far the crudest sharpness enhancer, and you might try turning SYSM to 3 (off) and SHOF to 2 or 3 to see the effect. The two *together* seem too much for me, but I think the coarse SYSM is the culprit. In particluar, SYSM is fairly gross on fine detail when set to 1 (max effect). SYSM may have a role in attempting to resurrect really mushy SD video, but it is way overkill for good video.

Note that SHOF has *no* effect when Sharpness is set to 0, but SYSM = 1 or 2 has a minimum effect at aoubt 12-15, softening the image below that. SYSM = 1 can produce strange double edges at some settings. Yecch!

None of these *add* noise. If there is grain or noise in the original video, *any* sharpening will emphasize it along with the picture detail. At a reasonable viewing distance, the eye has no trouble ignoring the noise even if the picture detail has been optimized (sharpened) to taste. Some video has almost no noise at all, and these sharpening controls are then capable of overempahisizing edge detail to the point of nastiness before making noise a problem. Balance is the key.

Again, there are few hard-and-fast rules. Do what suits your eye at a *reasonable* viewing distance, and don't go up-close to the screen on SD material and complain about the noise! The purpose for adjustable sharpness controls is to compensate for sharpness losses in the video material, which varies all over creation, and you should "tune" it until your eyes are pleased as you sit and watch a program or DVD. Think of them as *equalizers.*

If you would please read the PDF of article #12, you will understand more about the image-tuning parameters in 2170P-3 and MID5.