PLV-Z4 Tweak Thread - Page 2

Okay, messed around with this for a while, have a close solution.

90% of the EE applied on the Z4 around text etc is because of the Transient Enhancement in the advanced menu.

This defaults to setting L1 when you dial in the preset, which provides a huge jump in EE, no matter how you set the sharpness.

Ofcourse every time you set a preset initially this is on by default!

Turn if off set sharpness to -6 and things are a lot better. Not absolutely 110% perfect but down to a level that is tiny and I would deem not effecting the picture.

The last miniscule bit must be a bit of processing but it really is dead and buried now as far as I'm concerned.

Spent way too many hours on this thing last night ...

Everything seems a compromise, you get a better black level - you see the iris moving, you get better contrast - your gamma is odd.

I was starting to get really annoyed last night as I began to play with the LIVING setting once again and I discoverd a couple of things.

1) The bulb has dimmed quite a lot now.

2) Reading D65 onto the spyder produced odd results that were too yellow - maybe an effect of the DI.

Cutting a long story short, I've come up with a nice round of settings based on LIVING.

The only prerequisite seems to be with the Z4 to get a good black level and reasonable contrast you must take the manual Iris down somewhere to -50 or so and the picture is quite dim when used in conjunction with the AUTO lamp iris, but if you have the manual Iris higher say -25 the picture is just too washed out.

D65 LIVING updated Settings 26/10/05

Unfiltered

Contrast Ratio ? not measured

Preset: LIVING

B: -4
C: +5
Sat: -2 to 0 (set with AVIA etc)
Tint: 0
Color temp: Low1
R: +7 (down from +9)
G: 0
B: -1
Sharpness: -6
Lamp: Low (A1,A2 adds 100-200 CRs)
Gamma: 0
Lens Iris: -50 to -40 (you will need a dark room)

Lamp Iris: AUTO
Auto Black Stretch: off
Contrast Enhancement: off
Transient: Off (DOUBLE CHECK, MAIN CAUSE OF EE!)

Gain R: +4
Gain G: +2
Gain B: -5
Offset: R -15
Offset: G -15
Offset: B -5
Gamma R,G,B 0,0,0

HDMI: L2 for pc levels using VMR, re-calibrate brightness for L1 (video levels and overlay output)

+ves Sharp in-frame contrast, black level good, Iris not so troublesome

-ves Quite a dim picture, Gamma a little odd, a bit noisy, colour balance still a bit wrong somewhere ... but getting there.


LIVING v CREATIVE CINEMA, well living produces much better in-frame contrast and a brighter peak white. CC definately has a less harsh gamma and rolls off nicer into shadows. The Iris dances about less in Living, but again you can still see it move occasionally.

The above settings are looking good, if a bit orangy-red but they are definately improved offer my initial CC settings.

There are that many things to tweak I keep messing up something so it's a bit two steps forward one step back.

It's looking like too much contrast really shifts the color balance.

I am messing with it it now, though color management is perhaps not the tool of choice just yet ...

Yes, I will put them up tonight.

Unfiltered

Contrast Ratio 1350:1

Preset: LIVING

B: -3
C: +6
Sat: +2
Tint: 0

Set your own of the above unless you are on HDMI then they should be close if you have same hardware as myself.

I am pegging SAT back again, set as per AVIA i just don't like it, because I think it changes due to lamp and iris configurations.

Color temp: Low1
R: +10
G: -1
B: -8
Sharpness: -6
Lamp: A1 (for bright image, doesn't effect black level)
Gamma: -1
Lens Iris: -40 (you will need dark room)

Lamp Iris: AUTO
Auto Black Stretch: off
Contrast Enhancement: off
Transient: Off (DOUBLE CHECK, MAIN CAUSE OF EE!)

Gain R: +2
Gain G: +3
Gain B: -5
Offset: R -15
Offset: G -13
Offset: B -6
Gamma R,G,BA 0,0,0

HDMI: L2 for pc levels using VMR, re-calibrate brightness for L1 (video levels and overlay output)

+ves Everything above IRE 40 now D65 without lumps and bumps. Gamma tracking spot on 2.23

-ves still a bit noisy, colour balance gives weird readings below IRE 40, looking into this ...

Very happy with these settings, spent ages with the smart and spyder trying to iron out those odd readings.

There is still some weirdness from IRE40 and below, I get two different readings from the x on the colorimeter, it appears to be fluctuating. Maybe this is the effect of the auto-iris?

EXTRA TIP: if you're got NO ambient light then you can afford to bang that iris right down to the -50s, and put that adaptive lamp mode on and will give you a superb depth: without light control though the low iris mode will appear way too dark. That's why I settled at -40 as a good compromise.

I'd already tried the settings from avbuzz and they were way off for me.

The creative settings are slightly more tolerable to set-up and forgiving.

The living settings to create a very dark black, but the gamma is present an correct in terms of shadow detail.

Also bear in mind, my HDMI is set-up for L2, you may be on L1 for video output from HDMI - this definately shifts colour balance with the different contrast setting and would explain your crushed black.

DVDr, somebody has the same problem with the reds over on AVforums UK.

Here is my post:

I should imagine you should be on L1 (video levels) and you calibrate your own B+C and see what happens, I've got a feeling that my L2(pc levels) are different to the L1 set-up you should have.

If the contrast is driven to hard it will skew color balance towards green therefore a compensation is made to increase red, if the contrast was served up on L2 when it should be L1 for you 720p DVD players then this could cause incorrect colour balance.

For the record my settings are for HDMI Radeon 9600 HTPC using VMR 9 set on HDMI L2.

It's the contrasts different positioning relative to the input that is the problem.

As contrast goes up - red needs to be boosted, so if your contrast is not as high as mine then red will be over boosted.

I am not completely happy with saturation, I have lowered it again to which makes it out of target with AVIA but I think it looks better. I suspect there is some variable at play with the different lamp modes that can effect it.

I have set it a +2 till I can find out why it's okay in the charts but a bit hot in movies.

I've quickly gone through the presets again and still staying with living, the others just don't have the same depth.

The Z3 only has a manual iris.

The Z4 has this and an auto control lamp iris - which can confusingly be made manual as well (though it doesn't close down as much when in manual)

The manual iris serves a purpose though - that is to reduce or increase the overall light output. The auto lamp iris (on the Z4) dynamically changes between scenes, and yes on some presets you can see it move.

Yes - the tint controls and colour were as per AVIA, and they were too much.

What DVD software are you using? Overlay or VMR?

It does look like that even at D65 (and with my latest settings it's extremely close 40IRE and above) there is some weirdness acting out. I've not a clue what ...

It was nothing to do with the colour balance - its the colour decoder which i naturally assumed to be perfect through HDMI, and after testing all inputs its the same across the board. Too much red and green saturation, not enough blue.

The best and most satisfactory way to cure this is to use the colour management feature of the advanced menu.

Basically this allows you to remap how the colour is distributed.

All you need to do is load up a good screen with a close-up face on it that looks too orange-red, a nice clear outdoor shot. Select the colour management tool from the menu, the screen will freeze - then a target will appear - pick an area of the flesh tone depress the okay button you will then get a further menu which allows you to adjust the colour of that particular tone. I would suggest you lower the colour level a couple of notches and you will sea the skin tone come back to a natural level.

Have a mess with it - don't forget to store it within your preset. It also allows you to AB it. It works great!

You can then set overall saturation as you require.

This looks to be a problem with all presets on all inputs.

Shelly - I do remember you asking about it but i thought I would not need to mess with the saturation - again the Z3 didn't need any messing in this area with HDMI.

It wasn't on the Z3.

Where Jeremy had to fix the red push with an attenuator on the Z3 via component, and then later the service menu you can now do it in menu.

I could so with some clues how to use it properly though - so far I used the colour decoder check to check for imbalance in the saturation of the primaries.

But I found best to eyeball flesh tones, it's relatively easy to bring flesh tones in - though for my money they shouldn't be out under HDMI.