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

647K views 3K replies 552 participants last post by  jimkell 
#1 ·
Please read the following.


This Thread is meant only for owners of the KDS-(XX)A2000 to discuss quirks and tweaks of the set. If you have ordered this set, and it has been charged to your credit card, then you are a owner. If you are "almost ready to pull the trigger" then you are NOT a owner and should post elsewhere.


This thread should not be used by NON-OWNERS looking for "pre-sales" information such as "measure the "X" for me" or "how is the remote" or "what price did you get".

By non-owners NOT posting here, we will be able to build a lot of concise, useful information for both owners and non-owners to use.


For non-owners, please visit the "official owners thread" for this series. If you must ask a question here, PM the person you wish to speak with.


If everyone can respect this, I really hope we can build a thread very useful to read through, and this thread will not be extraneously long-winded.


Owners: If you see people abusing the thread, please PM them to kindly delete their post, let's not have 5 owner posts yelling at someone to stop making bad posts. If you do post publicly, try to delete it later.


Once you get your set and speakers set up, show off your view with PICS!

If you were directed here because you were a non-owner who posted, please be kind and delete your post. If a owner also posted complaining about it, the owner should delete/clean their post also. Nobody wants to read quibbling in this kind of thread. Thanks to everyone for helping out, really
 
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#2 ·
Ok, I hope no one views the first post as hostile, just trying to build something positive here.


Suggestions to modify my suggested "rules" are welcome.

FAQ

Q: How do I alter the service menu (at own risk, no joke, you can ruin set)(Can't stress this enough, you can screw yourself up)A:

Use the following remote sequence to gain access to the service menu:



Be very careful. Write the default settings down before changing anything!!!!


Once there, the following keys will control the settings:

The 1 & 4 key will move up and down the individual option choices

The 2 & 5 will "tab" you between sections

The 3 & 6 will make the changes to each option

The jump key will switch you between the different menu systems


As you make changes to values with the 3 and 6 keys, you still haven't committed them permanently to the set. If you wish to revert back to what the previous settings were, hit:


0 then Enter: (to revert to previous settings) (READ) couple seconds, screen may go black.


Alternatively to keep changes:


Mute then Enter: (TO save setting permanently) (Write)


(thx Googer)


Q: My picture is Tilted and not "level" with the bezel/enclosure

User "WGW" contributed an excellent post with instructions and pitures. Link is below. I will add to his his post that the picture will not move until the center screw is tightened all the way.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&post8290925


Q: I heard about this "LPF" issue that messes with 1080i and reduces resolution or sharpness, how can I fix it?

The following is a post submitted by Googer(thx again googer). Use at own risk.



In the service menu, get to the "WEM SERVICE" menu (should be a pair of Jump's after first getting into it). Then, navigate using 2 to the "108 sharp xspp_ccp.spf" menu. Then, use 1 to navigate up to "014 YFLR". On the HDMI input I was using (input 6), the default setting for this was 5. Setting it to 6 or 7 (using 3 on the remote) did the trick. Don't forget to write it with mute + enter when you're done. Note that you likely need to set this per input and possibly per resolution but I would warn you that different values look as though they might mean different things depending on the resolution / input - for example, on 480i on the same input, the default was 0 (which looked fine already) and setting it to 7 would cause the image to get really screwed up. So, YMMV but at least you all know which basic area (and which setting) in the SM you should be playing with. Good luck!


if you can't find this, it's probably because you aren't using the "jump key", a number of people have been making this mistake.

Q: My convergence is wrong. I see green (or magenta, or blue, etc.) to one side.


Once in the service menu, find the below setting. There is one each for R, G, anf B. This is the vertical setting. There are also the Horizontal setting in the same list of settings.


It's easiest to configure this is you have a static crosshatch pattern (1080i/p recommended)


PANEL

1 TG

26 VSFT_R 2 (default 1) (this is for R = red)
 
#3 ·
I'm not going to post anything about getting the colors and such right as I'm still messing around with that, but I did manage to make a big difference in the SD image quality.


The settings that I think are pertinent:

Picture mode - custom

Sharpness - 25

Noise reduction - High

DRC mode - High Density


Now I suspect having the noise reduction on so high may have removed some of the amazing sharpness on the HD channels, but I honestly can't tell. The HD channels still look great. (EDIT: I can tell, but if you never saw the increased sharpness you wouldn't miss it) I was hoping there was a way to have different settings based on the input resolution. Like settings just for 480i and then different settings for 1080i, etc... I think that would be great if it were possible.
 
#4 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by JasonWW /forum/post/0


I'm not going to post anything about getting the colors and such right as I'm still messing around with that, but I did manage to make a big difference in the SD image quality.


The settings that I think are pertinent:

Picture mode - custom

Sharpness - 25

Noise reduction - High

DRC mode - High Density


Now I suspect having the noise reduction on so high may have removed some of the amazing sharpness on the HD channels, but I honestly can't tell. The HD channels still look great. I was hoping there was a way to have different settings based on the input resolution. Like settings just for 480i and then different settings for 1080i, etc... I think that would be great if it were possible.

I was playing around with settings last night and I know the rule of thumb is to turn enhancements off. But I put noise reduction on medium and then put detail enhancer on medium and the SD picture looked better with no noticeable effect on HD. A good test for the detail enhancer is the side ESPN HD bars when they are in 4x3. With detail to off they looked fuzzy and on medium they looked much clearer. On a side note I have heard comments on "washed out colors". I have color at 50, live color off, red and green reduced and the colors look great. I was watching the Phillies game and if their helmuts were any redder it would be unnatural.
 
#5 ·
I would suggest noise reduction somewhere below the max. Max level noise reduction can cause smearing and what may even seem like motion blur in some games. I noticed this when playing Call of Duty 2 on the 360.


Mode - Custom

Sharpness is about 30.

Brightness - 54

Contrast - 75

Noise Reduction - Low or Medium


Just about every other setting is off (texture, edge enhancement, etc.)
 
#6 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by maximum360 /forum/post/0


I would suggest noise reduction somewhere below the max. Max level noise reduction can cause smearing and what may even seem like motion blur in some games. I noticed this when playing Call of Duty 2 on the 360.


Mode - Custom

Sharpness is about 30.

Brightness - 54

Contrast - 75

Noise Reduction - Low or Medium


Just about every other setting is off (texture, edge enhancement, etc.)

Ironically, 75 for contrast and 54 for brightness is exactly how mine looks best on the THX optimizer setup.
 
#7 ·
Well, I may have spoken too soon. On an HD channel the DRC mode is grayed out, so I assume it is turned off. I'm going to see if other settings get changed between channels as well.


Watching HDnet and changing the Noise Reduction I see that on high you lose a tiny amount of detail. Off and low still allowed some faint noise speckles to be seen. Medium fixed that without doing more than is needed. So I would say Medium is a good choice for HD channels and High for SD channels.

Now the catch 22 is that you can't and probably won't change them based on every time you change the channel. The difference between high and medium on an HD channel is very faint (standing 1 foot away) and not very noticable, but on a poor SD channel the difference between high and medium is very apparent (from 8 feet away). So the lesser of 2 evils would be to leave it on high.


Having all these custom settings for each input brings up another problem. It seems these sets tend to lose the setings if the power gets disconnected. Now I've got a UPS on it, but still, a long outage can run that battery down in an hour or two. I guess I'm going to have to write them all down based on the input.


Also, I can't put my finger on it, but I swear sometimes the settings are a little different from the last time I changed them. I may be just forgetting, but it makes me not trust the settings memory 100%. I want to hear from more people on this though.
 
#8 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by JasonWW /forum/post/0


Well, I may have spoken too soon. On an HD channel the DRC mode is grayed out, so I assume it is turned off. I'm going to see if other settings get changed between channels as well.


Watching HDnet and changing the Noise Reduction I see that on high you lose a tiny amount of detail. Off and low still allowed some faint noise speckles to be seen. Medium fixed that without doing more than is needed. So I would say Medium is a good choice for HD channels and High for SD channels.

Now the catch 22 is that you can't and probably won't change them based on every time you change the channel. The difference between high and medium on an HD channel is very faint (standing 1 foot away) and not very noticable, but on a poor SD channel the difference between high and medium is very apparent (from 8 feet away). So the lesser of 2 evils would be to leave it on high.


Having all these custom settings for each input brings up another problem. It seems these sets tend to lose the setings if the power gets disconnected. Now I've got a UPS on it, but still, a long outage can run that battery down in an hour or two. I guess I'm going to have to write them all down based on the input.


Also, I can't put my finger on it, but I swear sometimes the settings are a little different from the last time I changed them. I may be just forgetting, but it makes me not trust the settings memory 100%. I want to hear from more people on this though.

Hmmm...here in Chicago we had some power outages last night. I will have to check my settings when I get home. For those setting their picture at 75 or higher, are you getting those readins from using a test disc like the S&V and DVE? I have both disc but used S&V. My final setting for picture was about 50. I'll have to go over that as well. Despite the negatives that recently popped up, this set looks very nice on HD and DVD. SD pictures look good.


On the audio front, how come this set doesn't allow you to output a digital audio signal to your 5.1 receiver. I used an optical cable out from the A2000 to my Pioneer receiver and the display on the receiver goes crazy. I can only get analog audio out from the TV. I've heard others say the same thing. What's the point of having it if you can't use it?


Anybody here thinking of getting the XBR2?
 
#9 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by jbug /forum/post/0


On the audio front, how come this set doesn't allow you to output a digital audio signal to your 5.1 receiver. I used an optical cable out from the A2000 to my Pioneer receiver and the display on the receiver goes crazy. I can only get analog audio out from the TV. I've heard others say the same thing. What's the point of having it if you can't use it?


Anybody here thinking of getting the XBR2?

No. No xbr2 for me.


Do you have the built in speakers turned off? I think someone mentioned that in the official thread.
 
#12 ·
Jbug,


Regarding Optical out, here is my experience with the a2000:


Comcast cable (Gurnee, IL) directly into a2000 bypassing the box gets me a usable 5.1 signal from the HD networks, NBC, CBS, etc to my Yamaha RX-V496 receiver. (of course you can't get the HD-cable channels this way).


Comcast cable to the box and from the box to the a2000 via HDMI gets me either nothing (via the auto-output mode on the cable box) or a message on screen saying "audio is unuseable" or something to that effect (via pass-through mode on the cablebox). I have to use the optical out from the cable box to my receiver for 5.1.


I can't remember if I had the speakers set to off or the audio set to fixed (I don't believe so).
 
#13 ·
Moved from an above post
Quote:
Originally Posted by jbug /forum/post/0


It doesn't seem to matter whether the speakers are on or off.

My optical out on the a2000 works fine (as long as the a2000's speakers are off) for over-the-air HD broadcasts the TV decodes.

The original text in this post

One tweak I would highly recommend (though professional calibration might change this), is to turn the advanced options "detail enhancement" to medium for HD video game feeds. At least on the Xbox 360 (720p and 1080i) this really seems to draw out the texture detail. Take a look at the cobblestones on the ground in the Perfect Dark Zero "Old Town" map.


There is a noticeable detail improvement when going from off to low, and from low to medium. Going any higher than medium doesn't seem to yield any benefit to my eyes. I'm not sure how this enhancement would be for other game consoles (Wii at 480p or the PS3 at 1080p).


Also, for you shadow detail fans, take a look at the gamma option. This really draws out the shadow details, but don't over use it because it will start to make even dark scenes look like an overcast day shot. I currently have it set to low.


Be careful when using the black corrector option, as it crushes blacks on high quality feeds. There may be a place for it in low quality feeds (where there is so much noise in dark areas that you would prefer to crush them).


It is quite a challenge to get the black areas dark, while still preserving shadow detail. As far as the Xbox 360 is concerned, calibration DVDs seem to be of little benefit. On my Xbox 360, there is a brightness difference of about 12 a2000 units between 480p (DVD output) and 720p/1080i. This means that any DVD calibrations on the Xbox 360 I do would be questionable at higher resolutions. Differences between display devices at differing resolutions make it hard to rely on calibration DVDs.


Finally, I suggest running both an Oppo 970 and Xbox 360 and 1080i. In both cases, this yielded the sharpest picture to my eyes (and I tried EVERY possible resolution), but it was only marginally sharper than 720p (upscale can only go so far).

An addition I have to this post (10/19/2005)

I now run my Xbox 360 with detail enhancement set to high. I do see a difference now between medium and high, and high and max. Detail enhancement should not be ignored for high quality sources. I still run my Xbox 360 at 1080i. I hope Microsoft comes out with an HDMI solution that will allow the 360 to output 1080p over HDMI.
 
#14 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by harync /forum/post/0


Jbug,


Regarding Optical out, here is my experience with the a2000:


Comcast cable (Gurnee, IL) directly into a2000 bypassing the box gets me a usable 5.1 signal from the HD networks, NBC, CBS, etc to my Yamaha RX-V496 receiver. (of course you can't get the HD-cable channels this way).


Comcast cable to the box and from the box to the a2000 via HDMI gets me either nothing (via the auto-output mode on the cable box) or a message on screen saying "audio is unuseable" or something to that effect (via pass-through mode on the cablebox). I have to use the optical out from the cable box to my receiver for 5.1.


I can't remember if I had the speakers set to off or the audio set to fixed (I don't believe so).

Thanks for the info. I don't have cable, just OTA so I'm wondering if there's something that I'm missing. The owners manual is not the best and leaves a lot to be desired as it in many cases doesn't go the full mile in explaing things.
 
#16 ·
Being new into the HDTV world, the A2000 will be my first HDTV purchase. I do not have the display yet, but have been buying other things to put together once it comes in. My question is, what is the best set-up? Meaning, I have been reading people connecting HDMI/VGA, Digital Coax, component, composite, s-video ect to the TV, OTA, Cable Box, ect......What is the best way to connect all these pieces of equipment? Does a $180 HDMI cord work better than one I can get on ebay for $15?


Here is a list of the pieces of equipment I have, any suggestions on how others feel is the optimal way to set things up, please feel free to respond.


A2000

Panasonic DMR-EH75V (upscales to 1080i through HDMI)

Bose Lifestyle® 38 home entertainment system

Comcast, Motorola DCT 6412 digital cable HD receiver DVR

Belkin PureAV UPS; 8 Outle AP30800-10


Also, comment about saving setting for diffferent outputs, I remember reading a post on the Official A2000 thread that talked about saving setting onto a USB Flash card (post 2219)? Is that true? If so, can someone confirm?
 
#17 ·
I've been playing around with the settings since Sunday and wanted to share some settings that I got after calibrating the set with the AVIA dvd.


I used the same settings as cnet, but tweaked a few levels. I found that the red was just too much in the pictures. The changes I made are:


Iris to Low. I have a light controlled room and the auto settings were too much.


Color Matrix: Standard.


Color Temp: Warm 1, warm 2 just looked too reddish.


I mainly watch HD or DVD on this television, so I have calibrated based on those sources and figure that I will live with whatever the PQ looks like on SD. I do watch SD in the 4:3 format, so I don't amplify the noise in the picture. It seems to work well. I have 4 other SD tv's in my house that I will watch if I just want a good image.


Eric
 
#18 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by JasonWW /forum/post/0


Well, I may have spoken too soon. On an HD channel the DRC mode is grayed out, so I assume it is turned off. I'm going to see if other settings get changed between channels as well.


Watching HDnet and changing the Noise Reduction I see that on high you lose a tiny amount of detail. Off and low still allowed some faint noise speckles to be seen. Medium fixed that without doing more than is needed. So I would say Medium is a good choice for HD channels and High for SD channels.

Now the catch 22 is that you can't and probably won't change them based on every time you change the channel. The difference between high and medium on an HD channel is very faint (standing 1 foot away) and not very noticable, but on a poor SD channel the difference between high and medium is very apparent (from 8 feet away). So the lesser of 2 evils would be to leave it on high.


Having all these custom settings for each input brings up another problem. It seems these sets tend to lose the setings if the power gets disconnected. Now I've got a UPS on it, but still, a long outage can run that battery down in an hour or two. I guess I'm going to have to write them all down based on the input.


Also, I can't put my finger on it, but I swear sometimes the settings are a little different from the last time I changed them. I may be just forgetting, but it makes me not trust the settings memory 100%. I want to hear from more people on this though.

I think that there are certain things that are for 480i only. DRC and Cinemotion are two of those. The other setting should be the same no matter what the signal.
 
#22 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by EricBurg /forum/post/0


I've been playing around with the settings since Sunday and wanted to share some settings that I got after calibrating the set with the AVIA dvd.


CUSTOM MODE


Iris: low. I have a total light controlled room and find it really gives me nice contrast.

Picture: 69

Brightness: 44

Color: 50

Hue: 0

Temp: Neutral

Sharpness: 22.

NR: medium


All the other settings I have left alone for now. I am trying to see exactly what the edge enhancer, live color and enhanced white and black levels do. They don't seem to make a huge impact on the image so far.


I mainly watch HD or DVD on this television, so I have calibrated based on those sources and figure that I will live with whatever the PQ looks like on SD. I do watch SD in the 4:3 format, so I don't amplify the noise in the picture. It seems to work well. I have 4 other SD tv's in my house that I will watch if I just want a good image.


Eric

Zero on the hue? really? If that's true, something may be wrong with your set my friend.


Both my hue and color were spot on 50 from the factory. 1 higher or lower put them out of whack for me. I was using the AVIA patterns and filters to calibrate.


Regardless, either of those settings shouldn't be 0 or 100 for that matter.
 
#23 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by dallas27 /forum/post/0


Zero on the hue? really? If that's true, something may be wrong with your set my friend.


Both my hue and color were spot on 50 from the factory. 1 higher or lower put them out of whack for me. I was using the AVIA patterns and filters to calibrate.


Regardless, either of those settings shouldn't be 0 or 100 for that matter.

Zero is the factory default for Hue. It is also the middle. You might be mistaking it for something else.
 
#24 ·
The hue scale on my TV is 0 when it is right in the middle. As you go to the left, the display shows R1, R2 and as you go to the right it shows G1, G2..etc. I didn't have to adjust the hue setting from what it was set at is all I'm saying. The reds and greens were well within the 5-10% blocks on AVIA. The color is on the 0-100 scale and set right at 50. Look at the number when you go to the picture settings menu.


Also, we had a bad thunderstorm here last night and I unplugged all my equipment from the wall until this morning and all my settings were still saved on the TV, even the time that I set was accurate. I would guess that if your settings aren't saved, then there is probably a battery that needs replaced.


Eric
 
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