Owners Tweaks & Settings Sony KDSR-50/60XBR1

Glad to see it! I will be getting my 60" in tomorrow and running Avia DVD. I will share my results. Might have to be after football

BTW is there a more resent version with any updates??? The copy I have is like 3 years old.

I can't take credit for below, but it belongs in this tread...Folks lets PLEASE keep this thread for tweaks/tips only....thanks..


Let me make a few suggestions on how to go about setting up your SXRD.
Since the TV sets these days are Digital there is a strong tendency for different sets of the same model to perform very much alike if they use the same settings. So these suggested settings should work on any of the new SXRD sets. Sorry, but there are 22 of these adjustments we need to set up.
Before you begin you must setup your room lighting the way you intend to use your set. This is critcal to the correct setup of the brightness and iris controls that follow.


A. First thing to do before any settings are dialed in is to choose Vivid, Standard or Pro. Each choice sets everything up in a different way.
Chose Pro.
This will turn off the vertical enhancment that is present in Standard and you will notice a distinct drop in picture brightness. For now go along with me to see how you like these settings.
Also, you should use pro because it alone provides a number of special adjustment options not available to you in the other 2 modes.

Note; The following settings will be stored for each input connector. For example, this means that you will need to enter a complete set of the following settings for DVD inputs using the Component connections, do it all again if you use DVD using a HDMI input connector, and all over again when you use the a HDTV tuner at the 2nd HDMI input etc.

B. In the Pro mode the most likely good starting points for the various settings follows: These settings can be verified and then, if needed ,modified by using as a test source your DVD player and Avia, Video essentials, or Digital Video Essentials test disks.
I suggest the settings be done in the following order if you use one of the test disks.

1. Iris: try 2 This setting will reduce the picture brightness in the brightest and most importantly the darkest areas of the image. This is the control that will help get rid of the poor black level performance that has been a problem with LCD displays. (You will have to experiment with this control after all the other settings are completed). Your objective is (with an image containing some light areas and mostly very dark areas) to achieve as deep a black level as you can without compressing or losing dark detail.

2. Picture: Try the setting Sony shows with a Dot on each horizontal scale. If you use a test disk -follow the settings that work for the disk. In general I have found Sony's dot choices are pretty close to optimum if you are in the pro Mode.
This setting may appear to be very high (to the far right on the picture scale, but this will work well. If you later find there is some white crush try lowering the setting 1-2 clicks. You need this setting to be high for the picture to have some useable brightness. If you find the final setup brightness is too low you will need to change the mode in step 1 to standard.

3. Brightness: Try the Dot, or a few clicks to the left of the Dot, This setting should be verifiable if you use one of the DVD test disks. If you use a test disk -follow the settings that work for the disk.

4. Color: Try the Dot. If you use a test disk -follow the settings that work for the disk.

5. Hue: Try the Dot If you use a test disk -follow the settings that work for the disk.

6. Sharpness: Try the Dot or a setting near the middle of the scale.
Note that there will be 5 different sharpness type adjustments available to you in the Pro mode. So adjustment of these 5 controls will be a challenge. However that said, the availability of these 5 adjustments are one of the nice thing about the Sony SXRD sets that puts them at the top. More about his later. Again you must be in the Pro mode to access most of these controls.

7. Color temperature: Try Warm ( or if it looks more like gray to you try Neutral). You are shooting for a 6500 Degrees Kelvin gray scale and this may be the closest setting. Don't go up the scale any higher than Neutral or your picture will end up way too blue and color reproduction will be ruined. There is an Advanced adjustment available in the Pro mode that can be used to try to dial in a good 6500 degree gray scale, but for now just chose Warm (or Neutral).

8. Noise reduction: Try Off. Generally you should not use noise reduction, especially on HD sources. Some poorly transferred DVD movies might benefit from some noise reduction and for these you can experiment. For reference quality disks like "The 5th Element" or "Digital Video Essentials", turn it off.

9. Direct Mode: Off

10. Game mode: Off unless involved with games--I have to pass on setup for this type of use.

11. Advanced: Chose Advanced. Here is where the payoff for choosing Pro comes in.
The adjustments below are all found under the Advanced mode.

12. DRC mode: Chose CineMotion. This mode will apply a reverse the 3-2 pulldown required for all films ... this means Movies and all TV shows produced on film.
In this mode, if the source changes from film to Video (i.e. live camera feeds like HDNet sports, Monday Night football on ABC, The Tonight show on NBC, and David letterman on CBS) the Set will automatically drop the use of the reverse 3-2 pull down and process the image as a Video source. Note that if you leave this control in Mode 1 or 2 all Film shows will have interlace type artifacts. (You can test this by looking at the problems or lack of problems at the beginning of the DVD - The Fifth Element -as the boy walks up the ramp.)

13. DRC Palette: If available, chose Custom 3 and set the moving dot with the 2 controls provided over the Sony Dot. To reduce any possible motion smear introduced by the Clarity control you can reduce that level to 0 (to the left side of the box). Raising or lowering the Reality control (up and down inside the box) will impact the visibility of interlace artifacts that accompany 1080i and 480i video images.

14. Bit smoother: Off

15. Advanced Iris: I have had little experience with iris equipped sets. But this control appears to control the dynamic changes to the Iris depending on the image that is being displayed. I do not know the best setting to try but I would guess you want this at least turned on at one of the 3 levels provided. Others on this forum may be able to share their settings with us.

16. Color Corrector: Try Off. Use on if you prefer the way it looks.

17. DTE: Ideally this should be off, but to provide a reasonably sharp picture I suggest you start with a setting of low. This control adds detail to the picture. By detail I mean clothing texture, Facial and hair detail. Detail does not mean edge enhancement--which if overused produces outlines around the edges of, for example, legs, picket fences, tree trunks and the tops of a distant mountain range (unfortunately some detail enhancement accompanies the detail increase when using this control).

18. Clear White: Off

19. Detail Enhancer: Ideally this should be off, but to provide a reasonably sharp picture with DVD's I suggest you start with a setting of low. This control provides differnt levels of edge enhancement--which if overused produces outlines around , for example, the edges of legs, picket fences, tree trunks and the tops of a distant mountain range.
Very little edge enhancement should be used for High definition images. That said if the picture looks too unsharp to you add a little detail enhancement and/or DTE texture enhancement as described in #16 above. The goal with movies is to achieve a natural smooth film look. This means we do not want the typical over-enhanced standard NTSC TV look.

20. Black Corrector: Off

21. Gamma Corrector: Off

22. White balance: For now leave these controls alone. They adjust the gray scale and the ability to do this is a big plus with the Sony XBR and Qualia sets. Another time.



So that's it. A lot of settings to play with. I hope these inputs will be helpfull as a starting point.
Enjoy.

Hi...I posted the following in another thread and have some answers that thought would be best shared in this thread:

1. I got my PC hooked up to this thing and wonder what is the best screen resolution and frequency that I should be setting? My hook-up is via DVI-HDMI.

Spoke to some knowledgable folks around town about this one and they all pretty much said 800x600, but I'm actually running it at 1024x768 really well. However, here is the gotcha (confirmed with tier 2 support at Sony)...if you use DVI-HDMI follow the recommended resolution/frequency settings on page 100 of the manual. All settings I tried still produced a fuzzy picture and when switching to full screen mode, the screen goes left of center. So the recommendation is to simply use a DVI-PC Monitor converter/cable to the TV's PC Input. With this type of hook-up I can't get an edge to edge picture, but this TV was apparently not designed to be a PC monitor and now the full screen mode is centered.

If anyone finds something different, then please post?

2. Was told setting the picture to vivid in the past would cause burn-in. Will that be true for this set? What picture type would be recommended: vivid, standard, pro?

Also confirmed by tier 2 support at Sony that setting it to vivid will NOT produce any type of burn-in. I'm going to follow the above recommendation in just a few...thanks for everyone/anyone that helped contribute.

3. There is certainly a noticable grainy picture for a source that is not HD. Is this normal? If not, what would be recommended to fix this?

Found this to still be true for some standard channels, but not all mainly because the screen stretching is causing this.

4. Which sound type is recommended for 5.1?

Realized setting the Dolby Virtual does really well.

Hope this helps someone.

Good luck.

-Arv

KTTV Images

I agree with most of the choices of settings. Especially for DVD viewing where the picture quality has a better consistant standard. I actually last night used the special feature in SpyderTV with DVE and adjust my greyscale closer to 6500 using the x,y information. I am running it again tonight using Avia this time just to make sure and will post them soon. Actually SpyderTV doesn't differ too much from the settings I made using DVE.

dr_jason.

Avia has some know errors in the stepped grayscale pattern. This can be gotten around by disconnecting the component cable that carries the color signal (fogot which).

It's the red one I think...

And if you use HDMI?

I initially used Avia to check the greyscale or grayscale but it made the ramping scale in DVE look more green on the darker areas. So I used DVE and it looks real good. I just didn't understand why there would be a difference so I wanted to look at the Avia more closely tonight.

Just got my 60 set up this morning. I have comcast cable with a 2 tuner HD DVR. I would be interested to see if anybody has some recommended settings for the cable box output. I have it set to output 1080i (vs. 720P), and SD in 480P. I'm wondering if I should lower that to 480i (less processing???)

dr_jason

If you do want to use HDMI, then don't use Avia. Use DVE.

I assume you have the Motorola DCT6412. Does it have a DVI out? If so, I have the same one. I did some experimenting and 1080i definitely looks the best when going DVI -> HDMI. I have not tried the component out. There is a newer "phase 3" version of the 6412 which has HDMI and SATA ports on the back and USB 2.x on the front. I'm assuming that 1080i is still the best way to go with this box as well, but one should definitely test it out to make sure.

I'm glad to see this thread started, ssince the other threads for the SXRDs went off into sometimes nonsensical tangents. Are these setting suggestions we are starting to see a reasonable substitute to "Professional" calibration? I've read the arguments that if you are going to spend thousands on a TV $400-$500 is "reasonable" to get the most out of it with a certified ISF technician to calibrate it. That's all fine until you consider it is "reasonable" to spend at least a few hundred dollars on power protection, another few hundred to a couple thousand for a stand to complement it, etc.
So back to the original question, are these tweaks a good substitute instead of paying hundreds to make the TV "look right" by a pro?

Any preferences on discs (Avia/DVE) being used in different Scenarios? i.e. Someone mentioned using DVE if using HDMI input.

Thanks for your thoughts and advice on these issues, I too want my set calibrated properly (in a cost effective manner) when I receive it.

Go with the discs (DVE or AVIA or Both) and spend the $400-$600 on something you can use (HD DVD/BluRay comes to mind).....

Anybody notice red push on these sets? Is there a setting in the SM called AXIS or some variant (used to fix red push)?

I did notice red push, I changed from "warm" to "neutral" and it took care of it. I haven't had the time to completely tweak, I'm sure there is a lot more you can do.

Everything starts with grayscale (the SXRD has only one) and it can't be calibrated properly without expensive test gear/meters. I had my previous HD set (a Mits RPTV) ISF'ed four years ago (around 4 months after I got it). My wife and I agreed that it was the best audio/video money we ever spent. Our SXRD arrives tomorrow and the Mits is moving to our daughter's home. But lots of people still say the Mits has the best HD picture they have ever seen.

Another advantage of the professional ISF is that Avia and DVE only work properly for the DVD input. The other inputs need to be setup for the specific component that is "feeding" them. The professional can measure everything and accurately set brightness, contrast, colors, gamma, sharpness, etc. for each of the inputs.

I agree that DVE is better for the HDMI inputs; however, I still prefer Avia for color, hue, and color decoder check.

All that being said, the SXRD should be much closer to a good grayscale out of the box than my old Mits. I plan to look at my grayscale (using DVE) and if it looks good I'll probably skip the ISF. Otherwise, getting only a grayscale from a professional should be no more than around $250. I'm probably going to try and setup the specific inputs myself this time because I feel that I know a lot more than four years ago. However, if I'm not satisfied, I'll get them done by the professional.

I think that I'll know much more after seeing the 60" SXRD in my home tomorrow. But if buying a CRT RP again, I would rather, for the same price, have a $1500 set that was given a full ISF than have a $3000 set that I wasn't allowed to ever ISF.

These gain and bias adjustment relate to grayscale, not color decoder. The object would be to display a stepped grayscale and make adjustments until the blocks are all the same color (or lack of color) of gray at differing brightness levels. Until you have good grayscale, its not really possible to get the other color related settings correct.

I am curious what "Color Corrector" in the Advanced Video option is about. The pdf reads "Select to make the color more vivid. Select from High, Low, and Off". This may be how Sony chooses to adjust their trademark red push. Someone with Avia might be able to find out for us.

It doesn't seem to want to download right. Its probably the same as the one I downloaded a few weeks ago that I was quoting from.

Are you maintaining that gains and bias are color decoder related?

Has anyone noticed a convergence issue with the 50"? I notice it when I use the convergence screen in Chapter 15 screen 3 of DVE if I remember correctly. What you will see if there is a mis alignment of the three guns would be that particular color is offset from the thin white lines. It seems to only be about 2-3 boxes from the right part of the screen, the rest is perfect. I can't see it from 10 or so feet away and really doesn't show up with normal viewing. I don't believe it can be adjusted. If that is so, I have to decide soon whether or not to get it exchanged/replaced/fixed.

As I understand the issue, they can't be adjusted. It is a misalignment of the three chips. Once "joined during manufacturing, then can no longer be aligned. I doubt than any of the sets are "perfect". I'm sure that the amount of the "imperfection" varies among sets. I presume that Sony has or will develop an "acceptable" level for variance; and if your set is outside that acceptable level they would replace it (i.e., like a given number of dead pixels is within tolerance). Your best bet if you are unhappy would be if your "seller" accepts the set back within 30 days. It doesn't sound like something that Sony would consider unacceptable.

But this is definitely a good issue; and it would be helpful if those with convergence screens on Avia or DVE test this issue and let other owners know the results.

Another quick comment on the convergence issue. If you do a search for convergence on the Qualia Thread, you will find lots of applicable replies. They discuss the difference between convergence (accuracy of joining of the chips) and chromatic aberration (lens issues). I believe that I remember seeing some pictures of the issue on specific sets.

Thanks for the advice. Looking at the sporadic search hits, the problem is better called Chromatic Aberration. It seems to be a potential on any of these sets, some better, some worse. It does not seem to be easily fixed with service menu settings nor just banging it around (like the old days). I could get it fixed/exchanged, but I may end up with it being worse. I may look thru more replies to get a better feel for it. I really don't see it watching regular TV, just test patterns. It just sticks in my head sometimes that this set isn't "perfect".

I believe so. By going through "pro" you can select R gama. I BELEIVE this is for RED and can help with any red issues you may have.

I have not tried this yet because have not seen any red push like have on my older Toshiba RPTV.

Well, looking at it closely tonight, it looks like the green is off by a little to the right and there is some CA on the left lower area but ever so slightly. This what it looks like in the upper right part of screen.