Owners ONLY thread - >>>KDS-A2000's<<< - Settings/Tweaks - Page 9

thanks man

I'm surprised by this.
I'm running my SD channels through Input 1 and the HD channels through Input 6. I set each of the inputs to the settings that looked the best. If I watch an SD channel through the HDMI Input 6 you can see too much noise and small artifacts. It's hard to watch. That's why I set Input 1 to have softer settings that blends the noise in and clears up those artifacts at the expense of losing the sharp details and since SD has no sharp details, you don't really lose anything.

SD on my set with my settings usually looks more than acceptable. Often, it looks almost as good as a DVD.

For SD, I use Comcast with the internal tuner whenever I can (which covers almost any SD program I would care about,) and Dishnetwork (Vip211; HDMI) otherwise. I do have a component connection from the Vip211 also active, with different SD-optimized settings (noise filtering set to high, etc,) but find I don't seem to need to use it.

anyone know how to reduce the overscan on channels like espn?

Call up ESPN and tell then to get their sh!t together?

I don't know. Have you checked how much overscan you TV has? Is it about right or way out of adjustment?

wait.. you can save settings for each input?

You not only can, you must.

At first I didn't like the CNET settings, I thought that the resulting image looked dull and less colorful than other settings that I've tried. However, it is now starting to grow on me and I think that it looks more realistic. Has anyone else noticed that blacks are not very black with the CNET settings? I can adjust it by turning the brightness down or using the black corrector. I'm just curious if others have noticed this and what they are doing about it.

Thanks.

Tweak Request...

I have a KDS-60A2000 and a Toshiba HD-A1 connected via HDMI (input 7). I was wondering if anybody had a set of tweaks/settings for this combo yet? I dont have any HD-DVD's yet (waiting on the mail man/ups/fedex) but watched Scarface and Finding Nemo (regular dvd) and it looked pretty good set to custom, the "enhancers" switched to off and bringing down a few of the other settings. Almost to what my TV tuner is set for.

Thanks.
Jon

I thought the same thing. I used the THX Optimizer Menu and reset my brightness to 54. Those 2 clicks definitely helped.

Has anyone used the A2000 with a scaler or video processor? Is it worth the money? Don

You should contrast and compare against my settings. And you may need to adjust the brightness level for different lighting conditions. My settings are optimized for either daytime viewing (iris=Auto1) or nightime viewing with lots of lights on in the room (iris=Auto2.) I set the brightness to 59. However, with only a single light on, the brightness should be set to 58, and to 57 or even 56 in a totally dark room.

Check out Eliab's comments on post 67 of the Samsung hls6187 vs Sony a2000 thread. He points toward keeping your settings optimal and changing the conditions to match the settings rather than vice versa.

And if your only goal is the absolute best PQ, I'd agree. But sometimes you have multiple goals, and when they conflict, you may need to make compromizes.

I really don't like watching TV in the dark. Strongly don't like it.

[quote=sourcery]And if your only goal is the absolute best PQ, I'd agree. But sometimes you have multiple goals, and when they conflict, you may need to make compromizes.

I really don't like watching TV in the dark. Strongly don't like it.[/Q

Definitely one of the strong points of Sony's SXRD series is the many user menu adjustments. We do have so many options at our fingertips that most other TV's do not. And in the end we all get to enjoy great picture quality as a result. I'm watching the PGA and I feel like this TV saved me the cost of a plane and tournament ticket. Because I could swear that I am there with the golfers.

Is anyone is actively seeking the CNET service menu tweak? With all of you hard core videophiles I would have to think that if a tweak exists and isn't openly posted that one of you would be all over it to the benefit of we newbies! :-)

Anthony

Ok, so I actually watched TV tonight with only one dim light on, positioned way off to the side of the TV (so that it's outside my field of view while looking at the TV.) That's still not according to Eliab's recommendations, but it's a lot closer thereto than what I usually do.

I may do that more often, but only when I'm watching something that really matters, as opposed to just "browsing."

But the key point that needs to be made is that I found my brightness setting needs to be lowered from 59 to 50 in this situation, and not just to 58, as I mistakenly said above.

I must be doing something wrong, the aboce sequence does nothing for me. Are you indicating that the power needs to be turned off first? HELP!!!

Those steps to get you to the service menu DO work. I had to do it twice though. Maybe I paused too much between key presses. Again though, now that we can ACCESS the service menu, which setting needs to be tweaked to solve the 1080i HDMI signal issue. Sony? CNET? My fellow forum users? Anyone?

Anthony

With the tv on, the power should be turned off first. I have always started with the tv on and then followed the sequence.

It seems simple enough. If the first step is POWER OFF, the only way to achieve that is for the TV to be ON in the first place, yes?

Anthony

Finally got into the service menu, guess I was just going too fast. Thanks for feedback.

Let me clarify the power-on/power-off understanding of the A2000 (and Sony Rear projection HDTVs in general).

- Let me start off by mentioning a term. "Power cycling" is when the bulb is turned off and later turned on. You want to limit power cycling to prolong the life of your bulb. Turning a bulb back on after the cooling cycle has started (but before the bulb is cool) is the worst form of power cycling. In general, when you turn your HDTV off, you should leave it off for awhile (not sure how long I usually wait at least .5 hours) before you turn it back on.

- When you first turn the power off, you aren't really turning it off. You are submitting a request for the TV to power down that will actually begin a few seconds later (even though the screen goes blank immediately). If you hit power again within a few seconds, the TV will snap back on WITHOUT your bulb having power cycled (the bulb never actually shuts down and starts the final cooling process). Let's call this time period between when you turn the power off to when the bulb really shuts down the "shutdown window".

- The way I access the service menu is I have the TV on, I turn it off, I enter <5> fast, and then I turn it back on while the TV is still in the "shutdown window". To get the TV out of service mode, I quickly turn it off and then back on again. Both of these methods (if done fast enough) can get you into and out of the service menu without power cycling your bulb.

These aren't necessarily the only methods of doing this, they are just the methods I use. Please let me know if my logic is flawed in any way. I hope this helps.

Makes perfect sense Bill. Thanks for the explanation. Say, since you seem well versed in these things, is my persistence looking for the service menu fix a waste of time? After all if it WAS something worth following up on you'd think someone other than a newbie (me) would be trying to hunt it down.

Thanks for the info.

Anthony

I'm not actively seeking it. I'm just waiting for someone to post the LPF details. Eventually the info will get out. I'm not qualified to mess around in that area.

Thanks Bill, that helps to better understand what the TV is doing. I'm still on the backside of the learning curve on this wonderful machine, and can't wait to get it totally tweaked for max performance.

BTW, does anyone have experience, and/or a solid opinion on whether it's best left to the ISF Tech's, or can we owners really achieve the same results. Hope I'm not being too redundant. Just don't want to mess anything up.

Thanks

A good portion of what isf calibrators do requires properly calibrated equipment (typical investment is $5,000 to $10,000 and higher).

Sony displays in the last few years have lots of sub menus in the service menu. Many of the parameters there are disconnected (have no effect). Also, Sony is no longer including their SM settings in their Service Manuals. IF a user gets into the Service Menu he/she should follow the age old advice: WRITE DOWN INITIAL SETTINGS before making changes.

When (and IF) the info on LPF becomes available, the consumer should limit what they do in the SM to that.

Thanks, Dave! From your description, I see you're a calibrator. So then, Does the LPF really have that much of an impact in dramatically improving the picture? If so, I too am anxious for this important information. Just curious though, I have a July 2006 unit, and CNET's site seems to indicate it's more problematic with the June 06, or earlier units. How would I be able to tell if mine needs to be tweaked?

That's tough to answer. 1
You can use a PC to display a 1080 test pattern
2 Go into the Service Menu and check the settings (we don't have that info yet) or maybe
3 Try a test pattern from a DVD test disc like Avia or DVE.

I recorded the test patterns from HDNET (tue morning at 550am) and their patterns looked very small and my set was not able to fully seperated the lines. I tried the test patterns on the DVE disc and the fine lines where all clear. It can all be a moot point though. Just tune into a HD channel, tweak your settings and so forth and see if the image is razor sharp or not.