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PLV-Z4 Tweak Thread - Page 3

post #61 of 1081
11/3/05 at 1:02am
Has anyone done any tweaking using component inputs?
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post #62 of 1081
11/3/05 at 2:04am
I've been reading the tweak thread for the Z4, but all the work being done over there is for DVD players. So I thought I'd start a thread on how to tweak the Z4 for the Xbox, and later on for the Xbox 360.
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post #63 of 1081
11/3/05 at 12:26pm
Thanks ROne for clearing that up. So is it better to manually set it or have it done automatically? I have a completly controlled light situatio although no Z4 yet. Im waiting for more people to get them so I Can read some reviews... Also how dcoes it look with MCE? Thats what Im going to be eventually using. Are you able to read letters like for example with the my movies plug in where it lists the movies and a description, etc... Thanks
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post #64 of 1081
11/4/05 at 2:43am
yesterday i tried the color management tool for the first time.
this is a real killer feature.
if you have some reference you'd like to color "calibrate" the Z4 to this feature makes it damn easy.

i have my sony crt tv sitting below my beamer screen. now i don't know how good its picture quality is objectively. but i am really used to it and like it very much.

so what i did is to feed the TV and Z4 with the same material.
i used the living preset as i like its compromise between contrast and DI mode the most.

the first thing i didn't like in this preset was the blue.
so i put in finding nemo and use the color management tool to change dory's blue to match the blue on my tv. then i went on with another blue tone, a red and a yellow tone. later i changed the flesh tones and one green tone using batman begins.

in the end i managed to have the Z4 project an image which looked almost identical to the one my CRT TV produces.

i say it again, as i have no calibration equipment i cannot check how far i am off any norms (color distribution, gamma, etc.) now.

but if you have a reference device which picture you really like you can easily use the color mangement the "calibrate" your Z4 to match this device!
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post #65 of 1081
11/4/05 at 4:44am
That's pretty neat. I'll have to play around with that feature some this weekend.
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post #66 of 1081
11/4/05 at 7:41am
Quote:
Originally Posted by utility View Post

yesterday i tried the color management tool for the first time.
this is a real killer feature.
if you have some reference you'd like to color "calibrate" the Z4 to this feature makes it damn easy.

i have my sony crt tv sitting below my beamer screen. now i don't know how good its picture quality is objectively. but i am really used to it and like it very much.

so what i did is to feed the TV and Z4 with the same material.
i used the living preset as i like its compromise between contrast and DI mode the most.

the first thing i didn't like in this preset was the blue.
so i put in finding nemo and use the color management tool to change dory's blue to match the blue on my tv. then i went on with another blue tone, a red and a yellow tone. later i changed the flesh tones and one green tone using batman begins.

in the end i managed to have the Z4 project an image which looked almost identical to the one my CRT TV produces.

i say it again, as i have no calibration equipment i cannot check how far i am off any norms (color distribution, gamma, etc.) now.

but if you have a reference device which picture you really like you can easily use the color mangement the "calibrate" your Z4 to match this device!

Thanks for adding more info about the color management system.

Did you save the changes in the Living mode, or can you save them to a separate User mode, thus keeping Living at default?

Did it actually change any of the "numbers" in the r,g,b gain and bias controls, which is where most of the calibration has been doen so far by forum members? I'm not sure how you would check this if you did not write down those numbers before using the CM system.

But could you go into another picture mode besides Living, and check out the gain and bias numbers in the advanced setup menu, and then use the CM system to change and save some colors, and recheck if any of the values have been changed?

It seems to me that the color management system could be used to tweak the colors in every picture mode, possibly, to take advantage of higher contrast, lumens et al that some have over the others. Very unp[rofessional, I know, but the ral world results are what count.

Thanks.

Shelly
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post #67 of 1081
11/4/05 at 8:00am
Thread Starter 
There is some confusion here Shelly.

The Gain & Offset are for adjusting the colour balance - the colour of white/grey.

The colour management is effecting the colour decoder imbalances or rather in the case of HDMI the colour distribution in connection with the saturation.

As far as I can tell the colour management would have no effect on contrast at all.
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post #68 of 1081
11/4/05 at 8:30am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ROne View Post

There is some confusion here Shelly.

The Gain & Offset are for adjusting the colour balance - the colour of white/grey.

The colour management is effecting the colour decoder imbalances or rather in the case of HDMI the colour distribution in connection with the saturation.

As far as I can tell the colour management would have no effect on contrast at all.

Thank you for the clarification, ROne.

I do remember using the gain and offset to work on my black and white picture balance, but did use it in this regard to eliminate a yellow push.

So we can have color behavior influenced by both the gray scale as well as the color decoder. But getting the gray scale tracking to D65 gets the black and white right on, and from there, the color decoder takes over. Is this correct?

Anyway, it is reassuring to know that color imbalances can be corrected without the proper equipment, although this is by eyeball rather than by measurement.

Shelly
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post #69 of 1081
11/4/05 at 8:50am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by shelly View Post

Thank you for the clarification, ROne.

So we can have color behavior influenced by both the gray scale as well as the color decoder. But getting the gray scale tracking to D65 gets the black and white right on, and from there, the color decoder takes over. Is this correct?

Shelly

That's true - though I'm not sure that the colour decoder should be so wrong over HDMI - my guess is that the LIVING preset makes it "out".

I think the other presets are more accuarate in this regard but don't contrast up as well.

I'm also not sure if HDMI would need a colour decoder per se, as the colour is already decoded in digital form by the gfx card (unlike S-video) - so maybe the Z4 is adding influence - the equivelent of analogue RED push.
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post #70 of 1081
11/4/05 at 9:33am
ROne,

Have you given any thought to tweaking with a filter in the Vivid mode yet? CKL's review seemed to hint that the best contrast and black values could be had by tweaking that mode?
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post #71 of 1081
11/4/05 at 2:28pm
How exactly are changes made to a preset such as Living, Vivid et al?

If you are in Vivid, and make some changes to any of its values, does this automatically change within Vivid or are you taken to User 1 preset, for example?

And in the same vein, how do you copy all the Vivid settings into User 1 so that you can make changes to them within User 1 while keeping Vivid at its default values? I have read that you have to be in Vivid (or Living et al) to get those values into User 1, that you cannot just copy them manually.

Shelly
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post #72 of 1081
11/4/05 at 2:39pm
Shelly
Presets are stored and cannot be changed, so whatever you do with any settings, you cannot mistakedly alter a preset.
What you can do: choose a preset and take that as a base for your own settings. You can change all values that the preset consists of (except the "speed" of the automated iris) to your liking and then choose, in what "bank" (=user presets) you want to store it. There are 4 user presets. What I don't know is, whether these 4 presets are "overall" presets for ALL inputs or whether you can store 4 presets for EACH of the inputs (HMDI, component etc.).

Joerg
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post #73 of 1081
11/4/05 at 3:11pm
Thank you Joerg. That's what I thought, but wasn't sure how the transition of settings was made. "Chosing the bank" is what I needed to know.

You raise an interesting point, though, as to whether each input can have its own settings stored in the same User #.

Shelly
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post #74 of 1081
11/4/05 at 6:30pm
I think we need service manual.

I went to service menu messed with hdmi, creative cinema numbers(group, no, data) and now it all shows 0s. Should I restore them to original numbers? I think group # was 3 If yes please post the numbers. Firmware is 1.0, Anyone know how to do service changes like VB? mine is 99% VB free and after bad vb experience with Panasonic 700 I am very happy. Watching HD ESPN college game now connected to d*tv dvr HR 10-250 using hdmi and no Vb on green background.

Thanks for all tweak efforts.
DrA
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post #75 of 1081
11/5/05 at 7:10am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by scotty144 View Post

ROne,

Have you given any thought to tweaking with a filter in the Vivid mode yet? CKL's review seemed to hint that the best contrast and black values could be had by tweaking that mode?

The iris movement in vivid mode is too much for me to even bother.

I did run a quick check again yesterday and the iris really closes right down on a dark scene, too much and too slow.
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post #76 of 1081
11/5/05 at 7:58am
Is the IRIS issue something that could be addressed in firmware, or is this typically a hardware issue? Is Sanyo known for updating firmware for their projectors?
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post #77 of 1081
11/5/05 at 8:17am
I think iris speed itself is a hardware issue. The 900's iris is admittedly the better speed performer. However as we have seen in several reviews it doesn't necessarily lead to better across the board contrast and black level performance. The goal with the Z4 iris is to find the balance of when the iris should be active and when it shouldn't be where it minimizes noticeable movements in brightness while still providing that depth in the image that sets the Z4 apart.
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post #78 of 1081
11/8/05 at 5:12am
When trying to adjust black level using the AVIA disk through my HDMI port, I never see the moving grey bars. I see them when adjusting it for my component input though. I tried both the L1 and L2 settings and neither one show them. Anyone else experience this? It makes me wonder if I'm actually not seeing some details that I normally would while watching a dark scene in a move if I can't see those grey bars on AVIA.
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post #79 of 1081
11/8/05 at 6:32am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by acegamer View Post

When trying to adjust black level using the AVIA disk through my HDMI port, I never see the moving grey bars. I see them when adjusting it for my component input though. I tried both the L1 and L2 settings and neither one show them. Anyone else experience this? It makes me wonder if I'm actually not seeing some details that I normally would while watching a dark scene in a move if I can't see those grey bars on AVIA.

Acegamer - do you have a gamma setting on your DVD player - could this be worth a play to see if they are compressed?

I generally tend to use black bars only for AVIA black level setting which may be too strong for some set-ups.
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post #80 of 1081
11/8/05 at 6:39am
Thread Starter 
D65 LIVING Settings 08/11/05 with Iris+Colour management notes.

Unfiltered

Contrast Ratio 1350:1

Preset: LIVING

B: -3 (I set this on AVIA on just black bars without 50% grey, this may be too low for some)
C: +6
Sat: +2 *(See colour management)
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.

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

**See notes below about iris settings.

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,B 0,0,0

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


_________________________________________________


On top of all of this you will need to adjust the colour using colour management feature as the saturation may be too orange.

*COLOUR MANAGEMENT ADJUSTMENT: 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 change the colour level a couple of notches and you will see 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.

You can also use this tool to fix colour decoder imbalances.

_________________________________________________

**Manual Iris, Lamp Iris and Lamp modes:

You will find that you need to experiment with these settings to get the best combination of black level and light output with regard to your room characteristics and you personal preference.

For instance in a dark film with no ambient light level its best to close the manual iris right down to -63 and turn on the adaptive lamp mode A1. This gives the best contrast and best black level. The downside is a bit more fan noise in bright scenes.

A good compromise though is to set the lamp mode to LOW and select a manual iris of about -40 to -30, this way you will get a reasonable black level and contrast without the fan noise.

Be aware if you open the iris up too much black will turn to a blue/green fog, this is panel leakage and should be avoided.

In some cases it will look like the black level is too LOW (I kid you not!) when using the lowest settings if you have anything but a dark room, in this case have play with the iris settings until you are happy. Maybe a tweak of gamma between (-1 and +1) will help also.

_________________________________________________

+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 ...
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post #81 of 1081
11/8/05 at 12:59pm
ROne,

If I use the remote Lens Iris button to open it up more for daytime viewing (while in User 1 calibrated to your settings), will this become the new default for User 1 the next time I power up, or will the Z4 default to the User 1 settings initially programmed?

Also, do you know the lumens output of your tweaked Living settings? (I know that you have told us the cpntrast ratio.)

Your time spent calibrating the Z4 is shooting it to the top of my list.

Thanks.

Shelly
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post #82 of 1081
11/8/05 at 1:08pm
Agreed, as mentioned on the main Z4 thread, your settings are what everyone should start with and then tweak to their own taste/environments.
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post #83 of 1081
11/9/05 at 12:35am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by shelly View Post

ROne,

If I use the remote Lens Iris button to open it up more for daytime viewing (while in User 1 calibrated to your settings), will this become the new default for User 1 the next time I power up, or will the Z4 default to the User 1 settings initially programmed?

Shelly

The settings are only stored if you store them, not if you adjust them.
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post #84 of 1081
11/9/05 at 1:40am
Hi ROne,

Great job on the tweaking. I hope the AE900 gets the same treatment from someone with the same dedication. I found some interesting info on cine4home's site.

http://www.cine4home.de/Tuning/Z4/Z4Tuning.htm
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post #85 of 1081
11/9/05 at 1:56am
Thread Starter 
Thats useful thanks - I managed to glean most of the information correctly I think.

6800:1 full auto settings in one of the more dynamic modes with filter @ D65

1450:1 without auto Iris and filtered @ D65, not sure which setting though probably one of the more powerful settings.

They do mention you can see the iris moving on the more pwerful setting.

I've not yet explored a filter at all.

I'm getting 1350:1 @ D65 with auto on and transparency of iris movement using the living, so we may be able to trade up to 1450:1 without iris ... Hmm might be worth a shot.

Not sure what lamp modes they employ.
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post #86 of 1081
11/9/05 at 3:55am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ROne View Post

6800:1 full auto settings in one of the more dynamic modes with filter @ D65

1450:1 without auto Iris and filtered @ D65, not sure which setting though probably one of the more powerful settings.

They do mention you can see the iris moving on the more pwerful setting.

just adding my 2 cents.

first yes they seem to use the "Dynamic" preset as a base for their tunings.
they did not mention it in their tuning article, but i compared their color diagram with their standard Z4 review and its identical to the diagram of the "Dynamic" preset in their review.

imho the auto iris is completely unacceptable in dynamic mode.
i bought my Z4 also calibrated with a filter in dynamic mode.

after some fiddling around and a call with my dealer i decided to remove the filter and use the living preset (after reading your tweak thread) as a base for my personal settings.

the auto iris in living mode does not fully close in dark scenes. so you get not so good blacks.
on the other hand bright spots in darks scenes don't look so dimmed and you don't get annoyed by recognizing the iris movement.

my dealer used a standard red filter (dont know the exact type) for its tuning.
i found that i lost too much brightness using the filter, even in dynamic mode.
using living mode without a filter gives me much more punch. even the rather dim cinema presets look way brighter without a filter than Dynamic and the other bright presets with filter.
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post #87 of 1081
11/9/05 at 4:28am
Hi ROne

interesting news from a thread over in the DVD-Player-section (Oppo DV971H Faroudja DCDi , page 156: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...82239&page=156 )

Let me quote the findings from member "GSB" there and ask you, whether you think, that is applicable for us Z4-owners? If I set the HDMI-input to L2 (that is PC RGB levels, isn't it?) and calibrate my Oppo-DVD-player as mentioned in that thread, and then choose YOUR settings for the Z4, do you think, that is the setting to go for, will it produce the desired results?

Here are the findings from the Oppo-thread:

Quote:
This whole Studio/PC RGB thing has been intriguing me. I have a Samsung 4674W DLP TV, which will accept PC RGB (0-255) on the DVI input. But the display can simply be recalibrated to accept Studio RGB (16-235).

Technically, Studio RGB is the correct signal to feed into your display from a DVD player like the OPPO (and we are confident that OPPO will fix the defaults in the next firmware release). However, if your display is susceptible to the Faroudja macroblock-enhance bug, there is very good reason to experiment with the OPPO's brightness and contrast settings, particularly if your display accepts PC RGB. (Of course, you would have to tweak the brightness and contrast on your display each time you make a change).

DLP technology happens to be one of those display types that is very susceptible to the macroblock-enhance problem. So I began to think about why that may be. Part of the problem, is that, like other digital TV's, mine uses a digitized (stair-stepped) 8-bit gamma curve. Down in the critical lower portion of the curve (where macroblocking is most severe), only a few steps are being used to represent the transition from black to dark grey. This makes a smooth digital grayscale ramp look slightly banded. To make things worse, the 3 primary colors do not track this gamma curve perfectly, so inevitably, the gray ramp looks ever-so-slightly colorful as the banding appears in different places for each of the 3 colors.

To compound this problem, DLP technology uses pulse-width-modulation (PWM) on the mirrors. Additionally, the mirror response rate is too slow to correctly represent the darkest shades, so a randomized dithering technique is used in nearby pixels to create the illusion of dark shades (from a distance).

I noticed one day, that when I calibrated my TV to PC RGB, it produced a much smoother grayscale ramp than when I calibrated it to Studio RGB (maybe because the 0-16 and 236-255 codes are being thrown away and wasted by the input stage). Since a digital display like mine does not rely on blacker-than-black or whiter-than-white to display an image correctly, there would be no adverse effects if it was fed with PC RGB. So I tried adjusting the OPPO's brightness and contrast to produce a 0-255 PC RGB output. I don't know exactly what those setting should be, but I got close with brightness at -8 and contrast at about +6. I noticed an improvement immediately. I tried a few in-between settings, and found that brightness at -6 produced the smoothest possible grayscale ramp on my DLP (of course, I recalibrated the TV to each new setting I tried).

At that stage, I popped in some of my DVD's that trigger the Faroudja macroblock enhancement bug (like the opening scene, and chapter 11, of "Monsters Inc.") I could still see the feint macroblocking that is visible with any non-Faroudja player, but the macroblock enhancement was GONE - completely!

Setting the new Noise Reduction feature to "Low", almost supressed that last bit of feint macroblocking too. I will be testing and evaluating more DVD's as soon as I can.

Then, you may be interested, that the german website www.cine4home.de just released an interesting article about calibrating the Z4 to the best performance. They succeded well with "on-board"-calibration, but only reached best results, when adding a color-filter in front of the lens and then calibrating the unit:

http://www.cine4home.de/Tuning/Z4/Z4Tuning.htm

a rough google-translation is here:

http://translate.google.com/translat...language_tools



Joerg
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post #88 of 1081
11/9/05 at 4:34am
Thread Starter 
Joerg, I read the Cine4home thread and gave my comments above. My only question is can the Z4 be calibrated like the Z3 using no auto iris and filters - maybe and in due course I will have a go.

As for the HDMI - I think try both and see what happens! I only have HTPC with VMR so I only go for 0-255 range. I suppose in theory it should be the same results if you try either setting (that is HDMI set in both modes on the source and display) when using a DVD player.

If you go for PC levels then I would guess that would be similar to my set-up.
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post #89 of 1081
11/11/05 at 1:19am
Thread Starter 
So do we try a filter on the Powerful settings or not? Without auto lamp iris?

What do you think the lamp iris should be put on OPEN or CLOSE - with a CC30R I'm initially thinking OPEN.
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post #90 of 1081
11/11/05 at 1:56am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ROne View Post

Joerg, I read the Cine4home thread and gave my comments above. My only question is can the Z4 be calibrated like the Z3 using no auto iris and filters - maybe and in due course I will have a go.

As for the HDMI - I think try both and see what happens! I only have HTPC with VMR so I only go for 0-255 range. I suppose in theory it should be the same results if you try either setting (that is HDMI set in both modes on the source and display) when using a DVD player.

If you go for PC levels then I would guess that would be similar to my set-up.

Hi ROne
should have read the updates of the thread before posting the link...
Yesterday, I had the time to do some further experimenting with your settings and the Oppo 971H.
I started with your living settings (actually, since my display is set to german, I mistook living with vivid mode - so I switched to english and discovered my mistake. German translation of menue items is misleading here...). Then I switched HDMI input to L2 and got some nice result.
Differenciation in dark areas was still a bit problematic for my setup, though, so I raised Gamma to +1 and did some additional manual tweaking with that great color management option: I choose a flesh tone, a red carpet, a blue sky and some off-white and adjusted them to my liking. It was interesting to see, how much of the other parts of the picture changed, when adjusting one of these colors....
STAR WARS III then looked impressive and very "deep".

Still, I think, that "measuring" this output with professional equipment would give results, that are way off a perfect setting, since I was "messing around" so much with color, hue and gamma in the color management.
But anyway: I enjoyed watching SWIII - it just looked impressive, deep, dark and very bright in the appropriate scenes. Especially the brightness was great, that was lacking so much in the cinema-presets. When they show those bright-white control rooms in SWIII, they were really really bright without loosing detail. That's, what I was missing in comparison to DLPs until now....

Thanks again for posting your findings, and I'll continue to experiment with them. I'll see, how the latest settings I adjusted, will go with LOTR and some "normal" movies, where they do not create "artificial" color-balances to create some expressive worlds, but rather try to go for a natural color-balance.

Any tipps for movies, that are edited the "natural" way?

Joerg

Most likely tomorrow, I will have the chance to compare an out-of-the box Z4 with a cine4home-modified one at my dealer (modification with a color-filter and colorfacts-setup like described on their website). Looking forward to that experience. Maybe, I also will be able to test your settings against that...
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