Grand Wega V Tweeks - Page 3

Thanks for all the advice, I know that the Xbox is not a good DVD player but at the time its all I have. Im just going to hold out until I get my Xbox360 and see how that works, since its a progressive scan player.

Okay, so this is probably another stupid question on my part, but here goes...

The red push on my 50a10 does bother me, but I'm a n00b. From what I've been able to gather there are very few ISF calibrators in my area (Philadelphia). I've read the red push fix instructions, and see that a lot of people have had success with it, and the instructions seem pretty easy to follow.

My concern is this, I've also seen comments saying that opening the service menu will void my warranty. I would really like to run the red-push fix, however in two months if the TV dies (for the sake of argument let say for a totally different reason) I don't want to be caught without a warrantee because I opened the service menu to fix the red-push.

Am I being paranoid? Am I wrong that this would void my warrantee?

Any help would be highly appreciated.

If you have a recent Microsoft dashboard (don't recall revision numbers, but you can just update through Live), then you can enable progressive scan for the dashboard with a simple button combination. Hold down both triggers and click down both thumbsticks; if you have a dashboard that supports it, you'll enable progressive scan. Only bad thing is MS screwed up with its ID1 information and it won't send the 4:3 or 16:9 information to the TV. It does the same thing for games in 480p; if you keep it at 480i, the signal is passed fine. One of those stupid annoyances.

LCDs look better if there is some ambient light in the room. See my 42A10 picture settings in my signature to give you starting point for various sources. Some people like a brighter screen, but brighter screens with a lot of contrast on a RPTV are more ideal in a brighter room. In a dark room, too much contrast can cause eye fatigue if you view the TV for more than just a few minutes. So, try to strike a good balance depending on your lighting conditions. Use a CUSTOM picture mode for night and say a STANDARD picture mode, with more contrast, for daytime viewing if the room is bright.

I can't comment on the XBOX since I don't own one.

First question here is about the red push. If the tv produces to much red would changing the hue settings to say G1 or G2 help, or does that just add too much green to to the rest of the colors?


Second question is does anyone have a good setting for video games? Ive tweaked the standard settings a bit and that seems ok, just wondering what others have done.

Good point about the dash fix, I know several people whose TVs will not show the dash without doing the kung-fu grip trick you mention above. This however does not change the DVD player to output 480p. Also, MS didn't totally screw up the 16:9/4:3 thing. Play a Xbox hi-def game like Soul Caliber II and it will output in 720p 16:9. Additionally DVDs that are 16:9 will output from the Xbox as 16:9 correctly. Most Xbox games do not support the Hi-def output 16:9 mode though so the Xbox simply squashes the picture and then has your tv stretch it out.

I have it on good authority that Xbox 360 will provide much improved DVD output and it is publically published that all games will have to support 720p 16:9.

Yes, 720p and 1080i games (the few that there are) send the correct the 16:9 signal; however, they are, by definintion, 16:9. Games that support 16:9 but are only 480i/p (anamorphic widescreen) don't send the 16:9 signal. Examples of this are Madden, Far Cry Instincts, Halo 2, etc. If you do not turn on 480p, a 480i signal with the 16:9 flag will be sent.

As for the DVD player outputting a progressive signal, it does so fine for me. However, I don't recall if I simply did the button combination or hex edited it for progressive scan. In any case, it outputs a 480p signal with the ID1 flag lacking (or just not setting it to 16:9). Of course you need a modded Xbox for this, but you should have done that for XBMC ages ago.

The hexedit mentioned above for the MS dash is:
C7 46 28 20 00 00 00
to
C7 46 28 00 00 00 00

You lost me on this one. What's it all about?

XBMC

The problem with that is you don't know what you don't know until it is too late.

XBMC is Xbox Media Center. Basically, it lets you play music, videos, and view pictures on the Xbox. Read up on it at http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/ and http://www.xbox-scene.com. You have to have a modded Xbox for this.

soul calibur 2 720p is pointless, it outputs a 4:3 image windowed in 16x9 at 720p, but 480p is true 16x9, no clue why the programmers did this.

entering the service menu does not void the warrenty, that is bull. i think it's actually against the law for them to do that. they sell service manuals with the service menu codes in them to anyone.

i don't even think there is anyway for them to tell if you entered it or not.

The processing involved in creating a 720p image is much greater than 480p. For SC2, the picture should be identical, if not better, between 480p and 720p. Vertical letterboxing instead of producing an anamorphic image could be advantageous? Anyways, that's an old game. NBA Live 2006 looks awesome in 720p (and I'm not even a basketball fan)

i always thought they did this cause it was a memory issue with xbox, still, stupid to settle for stretch mode at 720p when 480p will be true 16x9.

but NBA 2K5 is a beautiful game in 720p 16x9 as well, and i don't see why it would use any less memory than SC2 would.

Well it looks like Im going to have to buy a DVD player, and scrap the Xbox as my player.

I dont know if anyone else has had this happen but this has been about the third or fourth time. When I eject a movie from the Xbox it will power cycle my TV.

Now the quick power on power off greatly angers me because I know it cant be good for the life span of the projection lamp.

Any insight on this subject would greatly help, thank you.

Never had that happen. Are the Xbox and TV on the same power source?

Both the TV and the xbox are plugged into the same surge protector, I will move the Xbox to another outlet and see what happens.

However on a technical level I cant even see why ejecting a dvd would cause the tv to power cycle. I have the xbox dashboard set at the 480i, I didn't change it to 480p, not sure if that has anything to do with it.

Well when you pop out a DVD it power-cycles/resets the Xbox. I can't imagine the video signal causing the TV to restart. If you change signals to the TV with another source does it do the same thing? (switch your DVD player from 480i to 480p).

Ill try changing the dashboard from 480i to 480p, see if that stops the problem. But I completely agree that the change in video signal should not restart the TV, but it happens. This has only happened when taking out a DVD never happened with a game. I may have to give microsoft a call.

are you sure it actually power cycles the tv? I know with my A10 when the tv is switching resolutions it goes all black and stays that way for a second before coming back up. Could it just be doing that?

I know this sounds odd, but yes I am positive the TV is turning off and back on. I can hear the fan clicking back on and the power/stand by light begins to blink then the picture returns.

Try different video connections (type of connection, TV input), different audio connection (if you even have the audio passing into the TV), and hell, try another Xbox. Find out if it's the TV or the Xbox causing the issue. This is quite weird.

I agree. Process of elimination sounds like your best bet. Once you isolate what's causing the problem it will be easier to figure out a solution.

Thanks for the input, I have decided to just power off the TV before taking out the DVD. Like I said this has only happened three or four times, but I just dont want to risk anything. This will be a temp fix until I get my Xbox360.

Whatever works. 1.5 months

OK, so I just got a 42" A10 set, and, despite some 'screen door' concerns, am pretty darn happy with the set. Games look excellent, SDTV looks fine to me (it's not the TVs fault the SD signal is so compressy and poor); movies and different types of HD content (netowrk dramas, sports, DiscoveryHD stuff) look good to me, despite black level issues. I am still considering swapping it for the Samsung 46" 67-series DLP, but that's for another time. . .

However, the poppy reds have been driving me nuts, so I went ahead and adjusted the CH_AXIS1 value as suggested in the first (ammended) post of the thread to 0002 on all inputs/resolutions I could muster.

I noticed I had to make the changes for each resolution on each input, eg. for the Xbox I had to do it with a 720p game as well as a 480p game (thank goodness I still have MVP05! ), for the cable box (the SA 8300 HD DVR box through the HDMI) I had to do it for each 1080i and 720p, as well as 480i (don't know as I've seen a channel sending 480p). For the internal antenna, I had to do it for all three as well.

Anyhow, I have two questions: first, in the instructions to lower the CH_AXIS1 value (very well presented, BTW, thanks deconvolver) it states you push (6) to lower that setting. What do you push to INCREASE that setting? If I were to want to go back to the original setting, or try out some others once more feedback comes in here, how could I do it? Does that setting cycle through using (6) or does it get to an end point; if so, what to push to go in the other direction? I fear pressing buttons at random to find out, since this service menu business is so cryptic and so dangerous to make a mistake with.

Secondly, and this came to me as I was about half way through adjusting the various inputs, does anyone here really know what that setting is doing? What is "CTS?" What is CH_AXIS1, and what do those values mean? There are far more values than I had expected from reading the step-by-step. Some seem to work incrementally, but in groups. Also, the difference from 0008, say, and 0002 seems to be far less than the difference between 0004 and the others down in that 000x area.

Now that I've made the adjustments (very nervous moments for this first-time service menu tweaker), I must say I am very pleased with the results. The Georgia Tennessee game is now much more easy on the eyes! (Those reds on the GA coaches' jackets on the sideline are still pretty poppy, though I think it's a CBS thing since not all the cameras seem to be too poppy in the reds.) I do wish, however, that someone with better test patterns than I have (only a handful of THX DVDs, so the DVD input is the only one I had any kind of color bars for) or better yet, some diagnostic equpment as well, could give some definitive info on these CH_AXIS1 settings, of which there are so many. I am curious how deconvolver and/or npm came up with this fix and settled on the 0002 setting as opposed to any of the others.

I don't regret making this change, not at all, and of course am confident that I could return them to their factory settings (assuming I can figure out the answer to the first question), but I admit to having a slight twinge of concern that I have changed more than just the red-push.

BTW Thanks to all who have posted here with their settings. AVS is a tremendous resource, and the posters are the reason. So, thanks!

Thanks for the quick reply. Actually, you were surely very clear, and it was probably just I who missed that note about the (3) button. It stands to reason, as it is positioned right above the (6) button, but I wasn't about to trust reason when it comes to the service menu and the remote!

I'm curious what other settings in the CH_AXIS1 may have been looked at by others. I am very happy with the 0002 setting from all sources, and wasn't really prepared to go through a bunch of them very carefully. Sometimes I think things are a little magenta, but I tend to think that is the source, not the display.

Now if I could just train myself to not see the screen door effect and I will be set with this thing, poor blacks and all. From my limited experience with HDTVs, I really feel that this is a great value for a good-sized display, and I think I can live with the black levels as opposed to spending some 50+% more money for a plasma this size.

BTW my overall settings ended up pretty close to what seem to be the consensus here, with the auto-iris to Low, the gamma to Low, picture down in the 65-70 range, depending. However, I seem to like the 'Black Corrector' set to 1 for most content; I see most folks in here have that off. It seems to help overall contrast to my eyes. That's the setting I seem to mess with the most; on, then off, changing my mind. . . . Surely, you know how that is!

Thanks!