THE SONY SERVICE CODES - Articles, Comments, Discoveries - Page 34

Update on my settings:

Ken what a coincidence!! i ended up with similar results: RYR-14, RYB-14, GYR-6, GYB-4.

But i learned something Ken, that even though at my first go around i got RYR-11,RYB-14, GYR-4, GYB-3 for progressive scan it was ok, then as soon as i went to interlaced mode and watched tv cable the color was off. Seems theres a difference in interlaced and progressive mode huh?

So i recalibrated and did it it interlaced mode instead and now all is swell and it's a good compromise of interlaced and progressive using RYR-14, RYB-14, GYR-6, GYB-4.

Thanks for your help! It seems we all have pretty much the same exact settings which lead me to beleive that is the sweet spot for these settings

it's funny is'nt it!!

It seems those settings of RYR-GYB 14-14-6-4 seem to be perfect for everything HD resolutions and 480i/p took me a while but i'm glad we both found the sweet spot!!

As for the olympics yeah it's very impressive so far!! A tip on VM in the service menu with VM-VML turn these all to 0 and the PQ will look much sharper with them off. A good example of what to look at is the channel ticker in the corner of the screen when you flip through certain channels you see the channel logo. Well concentrate on that and tell me how razor sharp it looks with VM-VML at 0.

I noticed it a while back, what a remarkable improvement in clarity, give it a try!

Matt~

Just 2 quick questions. First, is there an overscan pattern I can download? It's kind of a pain to scroll through 34 pages. I'd need 2 of them. 1 for 640x480 and 1920x1080. And second, I was told if you set Y-DC to 0 it would improve black levels. Is there any truth to this. I don't have the set yet so I can't check myself. This is for the HS models. Thanks in advance.

Y-DC should already be at 0 from the factory you should'nt have to change it.

As for overscan patterns DVE has them not too familiar with AVIA since i only own DVE i'm used to that calibration disc so can't help you there.

I don't have a DVD player that upscales to 1080i so I wouldn't be able to adjust that res with my DVE. I stream pictures from my PC to my TV through my Xbox 360. I was hoping I could find overscan patterns to download to my PC. And would those 14-14-6-4 values be worth changing. Everytime I go into my service menu I get nervous even though nothing has happened yet.

Yes those values for the color matrix system are deffinately worth changing especially since these sony sets are known to give a huge amount of red push out of the box.

AH HAH !!! My wife was beginning to think I was OCD (sorry, no offense to anyone, we are all a little ocd at times), so I took a day a while back to configure one imput for all of my devices, now we watch as a happy couple again.

Update here Ken. I decided to dump 480p and tweak 480i thru component, pic is outstanding to say the least. Cinemotion plus the mide tweaks produces a wonderful, sharp, full of depth pic that I think I was missing using 480p. This gives me the leyway to tweak 1080i now with my older 2151 chip, and that is now much more pleasurable to watch. Cheers !

I been reading every bodies post and everything seems fine with my tv. I have the 34xbr910, but i have one problem it seems like i have a bluish tint. Can anybody give me any advice on what could be wrong? Thanks for any help

Hi, Napoleon D. I'm new to the group, but I found your post personally affirming. Having just bought a SONY 420 (30" HD Direct View TV), I had the honour of having Michael Chen in Calgary calibrate it for me. He turned off all the VM settings in 2140P-3, and the SYSM settings for 108I were left at 3 (no effect, it seems, as I could not get the picture to sharpen by using the slider).

No doubt this gave me the most natural edges to the picture, but I found that faces were very difficult to look at - too smooth! I began to doubt the focus of the tube. He was kind enough to instruct me on how to reenable the VM values, which gave me back a sharpness I had come to expect from HD, but as you pointed out there a certain "blockiness" appeared in large areas of flesh tones. Using the VM on "low" or "medium" gives me a comfortable image, but I would like to have the best of both worlds.

I'll try using the SYSM settings to see if I can get a razor sharp image with no blocking on VM low. Thanks for the suggestion!

/Stephen Hayward
Calgary (new member).

By the way, I heartily recommend Michael Chen for anyone in the Calgary area (he also does junkets to other cities). Very personable, very competent, and quite dedicated to establishing a pure image.

Ken, you are applying WBSW-0 (warm) and DCOL-0 (cool) to reflect these numbers for the offsets, for those just joining us?

Sorry for my wording, should have asked if you have disabled WBSW and DCOL to reach those values.

Absolultely, it's the approach I take on this. I figure the offsets to 31 as a "middle of the slider" approach, ticking one way or the other in increments. However, I have found DCOL only to work with "cool". Put up a 80-100 ire screen and progressively step up DCOL to 3. You'll notice the screen progressively turning blue, can't figure out why that would even be attractive. But then, heck, I truly don't what it does either.

For now, neutral seems right on, with warm just a tick higher in red and 2 ticks lower in blue (from the value of 31) I want it warm, but not Mars in the summer. For experimentation purposes, I lowered my warm drv offsets to 26-25-23 for nighttime viewing, seems to help the poor eyes. Cool has been hijacked for b/w movies with DCOL set to 0, perhaps a little too sepia for normal viewing, but I certainly like the effect.

Anyone know what values to fix overscan for my 30XS955? Thats all I want to fix right now and Im gonna save up for an ISF calibration

I'd be surprised if anyone could do that...

Unless I'm mistaken, working overscan requires a test pattern from say Avia or DVE while working in the SM. Since each set is unique, this is one area I bet can't work by just sharing values.

Am I wrong?

Sorry, I meant values as what codes to look for in the SM, but I found them already, thanks.

My mistake - I completely misread your post.

Glad you found what you were looking for.

Can anyone help why I do not have the (VDHP horizontal position), 1 (VDHS horizontal size), 2 (VDVE vertical position) and 3 (VDVS vertical size) in MID3 of my service menu? I just got my 30XS955 yesterday and would like to fix the overscan but those values are not there in MID3



Also, is it fine to fix overscan with a DVD running at 480p? Reason I ask is because I have a Xbox 360 which Ill use the DVD in, so when its playing itll be running at 480p right? So when I go back to 1080i after I fix the overscan it will stay corrected when I change to 1080i?

How good did you guys get your geometry? I got about less than 2.5% on all sides except the bottom..heres a picture...

Also, to adjust the top layer for those who do not have those 4 options in MID3, it is in MID4 as DHHP, DHHS, DHVP, DHVS

how is this?





Also, why is it that in 1080i, my overscan is fine, but in 480p, I have like 5% overscan on the right side?

Interesting, because the 30XS955 is shown as "part of the family" on the cover of the service manual that includes 34XBR960 among others.

My chart from the service manual doesn't even show MID4, nor has any PDF or XLS sheet I've seen posted here. Fascinating. My XBR960 goes from MID3 right to MID5. No MID4.

Anyway, if for some reason they're in MID4 on your set and labeled with a D instead of a V, ok... we've learned something.

The important thing is that you found the controls that appear to be relevant on your set. I would say, from your picture, that you still haven't gotten it right at the bottom edge as you yourself have observed. No question in my mind the other three edges look superb, at around 1-1.25% overscan. Excellent. But that bottom edge is clearly not correct.

For purposes of testing, if you slide the image and/or raster up (so that the top edge goes offscreen), can you see any portion of what's below the bottom 2.5% overscan gradient mark? Can you see the corner arrow points? You should determine whether it's vertical size of the image or vertical size of the raster that's the problem.

In other words, if sliding the picture up reveals the missing bottom portion as currently adjusted so that you know it's there but still below the bottom edge of the screen, then you still haven't zeroed in on the right settings. But whichever service menu item regarding vertical size made that currently missing bottom data suddenly appear, that's the one that still needs delicate balancing with respect to the other vertical size/position controls.

But three of your four edges look fabulous.

One comment... is the left edge non-vertical? Looks to me like it is rotated slightly counter-clockwise (i.e. pointing slightly to the northwest) so that the upper-left and lower-left corners are not right angles. Also the vertical lines on the left side of the screen look slightly curved, bowing a bit to the right as you approach the top edge of the screen.

In contrast, the right side vertical lines, right edge, and right-upper and right-lower corners look much better.

oops, big mistake, I meant MID2, not MID4


I have not dealt with any bowing and tilt issues, just overscan...


I tried getting the bottom of the picture to show up, but like the lower 1-3% is really messed up and is skewed to the left a lot.

MID2 is for adjusting image size/placement for 480i sources. MID3 is for 480p/720p/1080i sources.

I'm really not familiar at all with the 30XS955 (though it purports to be in the same service menu firmware family), so I don't know why MID3 would not be present in your service menu.

Unless... are you trying to adjust while sourced from S-video or composite video input (i.s. INPUT1-INPUT3 on the XBR960)? 480i source for your test pattern? Or are you using one of your 480p/720p/1080i inputs (INPUT4-INPUT7 on the XBR960) for doing the adjustments?

If you're using 480i, maybe that's why MID2 is showing up and not MID3. If so, use one of your component video inputs and see if you get MID3 presented.

No I am using 1080i and MID2 worked for adjusting the top layer

Btw, does anyone know why there is a big difference in overscan, its almost perfect in 1080i, but when I go to 480p on my xbox360 there is quite a bit of overscan on the right side.

Very strange. All documentation suggests MID2 is for 480i, not 1080i. Furthermore you should have MID3 in your service menu, which you don't.

I'm at a loss to explain since I only have experience with the XBR960.

But however you've gotten it done, it seems odd that you can get everything adjusted for three out of four edges but not the fourth. Very strange.

What happens... do you just tweak the presumably relevant service menu item to its maximum/minimum and still can't pull the bottom edge of the image up to where you'd like it? It just won't go up any further?