Owners ONLY thread >>> 60"/70" XBR2 <<< Settings/Tweaks

That's good timing, this thread shows up the day after I got my 70"
I got a lot of good info in the XBR1 thread when I had that set, lets hope this one goes smooth with no haters trying to screw things up!

Now lets hear some settings!

Rev 6, Suggested XBR2 setup control settings to maximize picture Quality:

LAST CONTENT EDITED DECEMBER 9, 2006 Extended detailed brightness adjustment procedure added at bottom of post. Recently edited sections are in Italics.

NOTE: Significant changes have been made in the settings of the 4 Sharpness controls since the Oct. 30th edit.

I think this may now be the best place to post and update my settings and control findings in the hope that they may help add to the findings of others interested in maximizing the performance of their XBR2.
In my experience these settings will be close to optimum. These settings have been edited as noted above, from the original settings, and from time to time may be updated as needed.
Note: AikenGhoti has a list of helpful control settings at post #5 just below this that you can also check out.

Quick settings Guide for XBR2:

Here are some quick (OK, so it isn't all that quick) suggested settings for the XBR2 which are now based on 1 years experience with both a 60 inch XBR1 AND XBR2 :

Set up your room brightness before you try to adjust your set. The primary adjustments that need changing when you go from a bright room to a dark room are: Iris, and some possible minor adjustment of Brightness (brightness about 60 in a brightly lit room, 55 in the evening or in a dark room).

Note: I find the best setup of the XBR2 - to achieve the best looking images is not, as I originally expected about the same as the XBR1. Some of the sharpness controls in particular seem to behave differently. What follows has been edited to take these changes into account - at least to my eye.

Also note that the following settings are generally designed for High Quality HD programs over the HDMI input. HD programs of low quality will require reduced sharpness settings

Notes on possible improved Standard TV picture quality:
I should also add here that it seems to me Sony has made a clear improvement in the image quality of standard 480i TV sources . The improvements are not great, but I think they are there on at least some of the better sources (and usually using Mode 1- not just with mode 2 as I had expected was required).

Setup Settings (on the left side of the main menu) :
Go to Color matrix: This is a new control. For now, leave at Standard ( default setting).
Select a 480i source for each input connection you will be using. On each 480i input, go to CineMotion and select Auto (this mode is automatic for film and non film sources). With 1080i sources you can not access this control ( CineMotion with 1080i sources is - by default - set to automatic ).

In the main Menu (note that most settings are intended for HD program sources):

1. Picture Mode:
Use Custom.

2. Advanced Iris: In the daytime use something close to Max. In a darkened night- time room try Auto 2 mode.
For shows with little content involving dark scenes --like SNL, Leno, Conan and Situation comedies I avoid the Auto Iris modes to prevent occasional compression of highlights and bright portions of images. (There may be some color shifts associated with the Auto 1 and 2 Modes, however I feel that for most users the advantages in Contrast Ratio (CR) is great enough to overcome the small possible shifts in color = use the Auto 2 and 1 modes).
Usually Set Iris to Mode 2.
The exception is Brightly lit shows - Leno, Conan, SNL and 20 good years etc,: Max in daytime -brightly lit room, Min at night in dimly lit room
In general use Mode 2 for all HD and SD Movies

3. Picture: When set to 100 I have found there is a color shift toward Cyan in the brightest parts of many shows and the DVE gray scale step ramps. Turning it down to 88 will improve the tendency to wash out the shading detail in faces and white shirts while degrading the Contrast ratio a bit but I feel this is a good trade -off for maintaining proper color temperature and face shading detail - and it has the added bonus of cutting the brightness down at night- which is helpful on my 60 inch set.
Set to 88.

4. Brightness: HD -My recent tests on good HD video source programs from HDNet show brightness needs to be at 55. With SD DVD use Avia or DVE alignment disks to set this control. If you use the Gamma setting at Low - Reduce the brightness setting to 53.. Toshiba HD-DVD players match the brightness settings for HD TV programs over my HR10-250 TIVO....so for HD DVD use the same brightness setting of 55.
Normally set to 55.

Note;I have now included at the bottom of this post a detailed Extended Procedure for accurately setting the Brightness control on any source - for those with the patience and interest to try it.

5. Color and Hue: HD and DVD- The Avia test disk on my Toshiba HD -DVD player shows some definite red Push on these sets. I find it necessary to lower the color level to about 42-44 for HD programs. For most good standard DVD players the correct setting with Avia or DVE may also have to be lowered. This is all a matter of taste and the amount of red in the program material.
Set to 42-44.

6. Color Temp:
Select Warm 2 -if image is too warm for your taste try Warm 1.

7. Sharpness: HD- This control sharpens only in the Horizontal direction. This control boosts the frequency response in the Mid- frequency range where the eye is most sensitive to sharpening, and therefore will tend to introduce outlining on vertical edges, so it should not be set too high. Most competitive sets have just one sharpness control and it is of this type.

This control also is a master gain control for the DETAIL ENHANCER control (see #14 below). Any setting you use for the Detail Enhancement control will be modified by the Sharpness control i.e. if you set Sharpness to 0 you will find that the Detail Enhancer has no effect on the image at all. As an example this means that if you like the effect of the detail Enhancer at a setting of Medium with a Sharpness of 20 and you increase the Sharpness to 40 - you may find the Detail Enhancer to have it's original impact if lowered 1 step -to low.

The value of this control is that it adds texture to faces. Small smooth skin detail (not crags or sharp lines in eyes or hair) in close ups of faces is what this control can add -more than the other 3 sharpness type controls. For this reason I find I now usually prefer settings above 4. For those who feel the picture is too soft - pay close attention to setting this control as below.
Set to 20 - if more is needed go to a maximum of 40.

8. Noise reduction: Normally use Off. If you see noise in the picture (high frequency noise--grain etc) do not be afraid to increase the Noise reduction to Low or if it is really noisy -possibly Medium. This applies to HD films and HD Video sources as well as SD/DVD films. As you increase Noise Reduction levels you will also introduce a small amount of motion Blur. This is not easily seen for Noise reductions at Low.
Normally Off. With noisy shows use Low or Medium (example:I use Medium with 2 1/2 men).

9a. DRC mode: The XBR2 is different from the earlier XBR1 and a2000. There are 2 modes available with their own Matrix adjustments. The trick here is to use these controls the way Sony intended when they designed V2.5 DRC.

I suggest the following:
DRC MODE:---------------------------------
Generally speaking I would recommend Mode 1 as the best universal Mode.

Also note that we should definitely remember to use Mode 1 and the DRC Palette control with all HD 1080i and 720p shows.
This capability was not available on the earlier XBR1 (the XBR1 could use the DRC for 480i and 1080i only) and with the a2000 sets there was no Palette control available at all for 720p or 1080i HD programs.

For HD shows from Component or HDMI inputs (including for the first time 720P as well as 1080i) use Mode 1 (or Off if Mode 1 appears overly sharp) . Do not use Mode 2--it has filters that will degrade the high frequency response to something suitable for DVDs (about 5-6 mHz). HD detail will be lost.


9b. DRC Palette: When the DRC is in mode 1 -- here is where you set the amount of sharpness introduced by the DRC.
For high Quality HD shows like leno, Conan O'brion, 20 Good Years, SNL or for HD DVD disks I suggest using in Mode 1 100/1, this means 100 on the Vertical axis and 1 on the Horizontal axis .
[i]
The DRC Palette enhances the image differently than the sharpness control above. It is different in 3 ways:

First it enhances the image in both the Vertical and Horizontal direction at the same time --a highly desirable effect.

Second: The enhancement occurs in the Higher frequency range than the Detail Enhancer and Sharpness controls. This means it adds a subtle snap to the image that at first may may not be all that obvious. I consider it absolutely necessary and find 100/1 to be typically the best setting on the best shows.

Third, it does not introduce outlining and therefore results in a cleaner sharpening than the Sharpness control. However the palette control has about 1/5th as much effect as the sharpness control. Therefore, I recommend that the sharpness control setting should be set so that the sharpening is shared with the Palette control and the Detail control.
I do not recommend, as I often see in this thread - ( for sets not set up by ISF techs -), using only the Sharpness control - with the other controls at 1/1 or off.

[i]For DVD 480i sources scaled within the player to 1080i and fed into the set via the HDMI connection I recommend mode 1.

If the source is noisy try Mode 2. Note that Mode 2 is only available when the input format is 1080i. This new -specially designed mode should reduce the presence of spurious noise and the sharpness behavior of the DRC matrix should be more suited to somewhat noisy DVDs and Standard definition 480i TV programs. DRC Palette with Mode 2: You will have to experiment with this- and it will be program or DVD movie dependent.

Note: I have found in many cases I get a better result on 480i SD sources if I use Mode 1. Sony appears to have improved the picture quality with SD in mode 1 as well as mode 2 even though i was led to believe the emphasis was on mode 2 as the new feature for v2.5 DRC

If you use a DVD player with only component 480i or 480p output -use Mode 1. Mode 2 is not available.


10. Black Corrector: Off

11.Gamma: Usually leave at off. If the picture appears overall to be too dark -try increasing this to Low and see if you like it better. This control should not change the black or peak white levels--it should only changes the brightness of values in-between -But I have been finding the Brightness does increase and therefore a correction is required in the brightnesss. For Low Gamma reduce the brightness to 52. Boston Legal is an example of a show that I prefer with both low NR and Gamma at low.

12. Clear White: Off

13. Live Color; OFF

14. Detail Enhancer: This control appears to enhance both H and V edges of thin objects--like lines , hair, eyes etc. It appears to have a small effect on edges of large areas like the edge of a coat or shirt--hence it acts more as a detail enhancer- than an Edge enhancer. Again, this control has the good property of not adding a lot of outlining.
I suggest setting this at Low - or if more sharpness is needed - at Medium.

As mentioned earlier, the SHARPNESS control acts a master gain control for the Detail Enhancer control (see #14 below). Any setting you use for the Detail Enhancement control will be modified by the Sharpness control i.e. if you set Sharpness to 0 you will find that the Detail Enhancer has no effect on the image at all. As an example this means that if you like the effect of the Detail Enhancer at a setting of Medium with a Sharpness of 20 and you increase the Sharpness to 40 - you may find the Detail Enhancer to have it's original impact if lowered 1 step -to low.

15. Edge Enhancer: new findings: I have tried/studied to find some merit in this control on many shows, and have found no significant value in this control. The only positive effect it seems to have is to sharpen the crawl lettering at the bottom of MSNBC , CNN and FOx News. On the other hand - it's use introduces certain artifacts visible in the Leno and Letterman shows: It introduces jagged artifacts in the vertical part of the lettering in the close ups of the coffee cups, and it does the same to the Blue building behind Leno -for example as the camera moves the Vertical lines in that building flash and flicker. The damage outweighs any possible good- therefore:
Set the Detail control Off


Summary of the 4 sharpness control settings:
The following settings are suggested for High quality HD programs such as Jay Leno -Conan O'Broion, - SNL - A minute with Stan Hooper - and 20 Good Years:
Use Mode 1
Palette control: 100/1
Sharpness control at 20
Detail Enhancer: Low
Edge Enhancement: Off.
This will produce a picture with good detail in the H and V domain, but without Edge Outlining from excessive use of the main Sharpening control.


16 White Balance: These adjustments are beyond the scope of this post, but for now I would propose what may be an unpopular view. Do not try to use the CNet settings. -or anybodys posted settings.

The White balance is a delicate set of adjustments designed to allow trimming each individual set to have close to 6500 K Color Temperature. It just is not reasonable to expect the trim settings of all of these sets to be the same. If you would like to adjust them, I suggest you do it independent of any settings proposed on the forum or published by reviewers.

No harm will result if you want to try to remove a particular color tint you perceive in Black and White images (turn color off) because you can always go back and select RESET and you will be back to the original factory settings--which are not bad on these sets. Note that the top 3 gain controls impact the tint of white and the bright portions of the picture. The lower 3 Bias controls impact the darker and near black tint.

I have edited this after more than 2 months use with my XBR2. I will further update suggested control setting as I find them useful.

Hope this may be of some help.

KT


Extended procedure for adjustment of Brightness control (simplified version is in #4 above):
How to set the brightness control to a specific program source:

The brightness control can be set to the approximate correct setting if you use this approach. Once set, the brightness setting should hold for any HD source from the same receiver/recorder (this assumes HD sources will follow good practice in setup of their cameras etc,..not a bad bet). The procedure takes some time -and if you want to invest the time you should have a setting that will work with all Network Prime-time shows, HDNet, HDNetMovies, Discovery Channel etc. produced on film or video.

Try this procedure with only High Quality HD Electronic Camera (Video -not film ) shows. The shows must have some content where in a given scene the darkness gradually drops from normal to black as your eye moves through the scene. The best examples of this are Musical performances from a relatively dark stage - often with an audience that is not directly lit up such that as you look further back into the audience (or into the back of the stage) the darkness drops to black (it is required that there are still sets, objects or people where you are looking - who, if lit up, would be visible).

When you find such a show - turn up the brightness until you can see into the darkest areas where nothing is visible. Now look for the dimmest objects or people you can find out there in the dark. The cameras are set so that the point where the dimmest objects are visible corresponds to the the level just above black. Now turn the brightness down on your display until the dark areas with no visible features start to go into black. At about that point look for the dimmest objects you found earlier to be just barely visible.

At this setting you are matching the camera setup. The dimmest visible objects from the camera will also be he dimmest objects you can see on the display. Anything darker will be black (as black as your display can go).

To find shows that you can use for this procedure look for musical concerts on sources from PBS and HDNet. You will also sometimes see scenes that can be used on Jay leno or Conan O'brion - at the end of the show if the musical group is working on a dark stage (typically the stage is not dark enough --everything is lit to be visible).
It is almost mandatory to use a recorded program to use this procedure because to adjust the level of black because you will need to watch the same scene repeatedly at different brightness levels. Also -if you use different Gamma settings -perform this setup for each level of gamma. I have found , with the XBR2 you will likely arrive at different brightness settings for each gamma setting.

Try it. This works well --and short of an HD test pattern broadcast OTA and on DirectTV etc. it is the only way I am aware of to find the correct brightness settings. Note that by the nature of this procedure you should feel comfortable that you are not seeing black compression with the setting you pick.


Edited CineMotion notes: 10-19-06
Edited text in Italics 10-24-06
Edited text in Italics 10-29-60 and 10-30-2006
Edited 11 - 21- 06. Further refinement of 4 Sharpness control settings.
Edited 12 - 9 - 06. Minor notes added on Sharpness and White balance controls. Extended Brightness adjustment procedure added.

Ok, I applied KT's settings and I'm VERY happy. Thanks, KT!

BTW I'll do my best to share any information I get when my set is ISF'ed

My (many-times-over) revised KDS-R70XBR2 settings and tweaks:

While I was initially happy with the original settings I posted on the owner's thread, and managed to tweak them to look even better, in the end this happiness was only the result of the contrast between them and the factory defaults, which are awful.

The reason why I never succeeded in overall happiness was because there are some problems inherent in the color decoder that are not easily/properly correctable outside of the service menu. No matter how "correct" I previously tried to make my picture, I never managed to get it to be correct in every way. Finally, I gave up and endeavored to make the picture match the picture of my old Pioneer Elite Pro-510HD, which had a magnificent picture: crisp, clean, and without any questionable colors. I had good success with SD, and HD is doing all right. I'm not sure how appropriate it is to post my settings as examples, since they are very subjective and have only indirect connections to calibration. My old TV is calibrated, but has been tweaked a few degrees in every direction since (think of the Steaming Rat method mentioned below) and is not necessarily "correct," so these new XBR2 settings that closely approximate it are very subjective and may not be good for everyone else. If you're interested, click here for an overview of how I went about it.

That said, my original post from the owner's thread still had some useful general information in it, so I'm going to take out the misinformation and re-post here with the new values.

I've now tuned three different inputs/devices. I think tuning color, at least with analog (non-HDMI) transports, is going to be rather inconsistent, so keep in mind what I'm tuning when you look at how I tuned it. I'll color code the results for easy reading. If the forum skin changes and makes this difficult to read, send me a PM and I'll fix it up.

• purple = All inputs/devices
• red = Series 2 TiVo directly tuning noisy analog SD Comcast cable. Connected via S-Video. Note that, due to the analog noise, the settings for this input are skewed towards reducing the noise and the color washout it causes. Unless you are in a similar situation, the settings for this input are probably not useful to you.
• green = Series 3 TiVo using cablecards to tune digital SD and HD Comcast cable; tuned specifically for HD content, but SD looks okay too. Currently connected via component to avoid the 5.1 sound warnings. This is the input/device which is probably most typical of an average person's equipment, but since SD and HD programming varies so wildly at the source, it's been difficult to come up with a happy medium, so keep that in mind.
• blue = Zenith DVB318 upconverting DVD player set to 1080i, using the older LG firmware that allows upconversion over component. Connected via component. (At some point, I'll switch back to the Zenith firmware and use HDMI.) These settings may or may not be useful to you.

IMPORTANT: Several of the settings below are interdependent. The main element is the adjustment of Hue to G 2 to account for the iffy color decoder in these sets. That, in turn, requires something at least similar to my adjustments to white balance, or some fleshtones will go yellow and some greens will go blue. If you want to try my settings, avoid picking and choosing until later.

Picture:

• Picture Mode: Custom
• Advanced Iris: Auto 2 seems to work well in my environment, day and night. It's a little bright in the dark, but I think I'd rather set up a backlight than have to diddle with the setting all the time.
• Picture (a.k.a. Contrast or White Level): 86 84 88. Between the red push inherent in the color decoder, and the apparent increase to red gain/bias inherent in the Warm 1/2 settings, red values well below 100% can max out the LCOS panel while blue and green can still rise. This results in red crush and an effective shift to cyan at the upper end, and tends to make bright areas of faces washed out and featureless unless you lower Picture to allow more headroom. You probably need lower still for Warm 2. If you watch TV in a dark room with no backlight, you might prefer your Picture about 5 points lower.
• Brightness (a.k.a. Black Level): 49 51 45. This is where the noise on my analog SD TiVo sets it apart; not only does it wash out colors, but it also lightens the image and requires me to drop the brightness to 49, while my digital TiVo can have a higher brightness. The DVD player is a lot lower because it encodes black as a lighter shade to keep details from getting lost in black crush, but with this TV we have no black crush and need to compensate to make black look black (an alternative would be Black Corrector, below).
• Color (a.k.a. Saturation): 55 48 48. The washing out of colors on my noisy analog SD TiVo results in a seemingly-high setting of 55, but the digital HD TiVo's value is lower because the colors are what they should be. DVD is similar to the HD TiVo. This is probably very subjective, but most people will be happy with something between 40 and 50. Also note that some shows, like Lost, seem to crank it way up at their end, so don't use them for adjusting settings.
• Hue (a.k.a. Tint): G 2. The color decoder in this TV seems to rotate or skew the color space inappropriately, making reds more fuchsia and flesh too pink. Since the fleshtone correction in Live Color is abominable and doesn't fix red anyway, we fix it here. Note, however, that this in turn requires consequent fixes in the White Balance to fix some tones that are now too yellow, and also some tones that remain a little too fuschia (since we can't afford to use G 3 or higher).
• Color Temp.: Warm 1. Supposedly Warm 2 is closer to 6504K, aka D65, aka overcast noontime illumination. I always find that white to be too beige, though. Perhaps it's my bulb. Note that White Balance can be set differently for each Color Temp, so if you change the temp, make sure your White Balance is correct also.
• Sharpness: Min Min or 17 Min. Note that Min (zero) is, in fact, not just an absence of extra sharpening, but in fact appears to be a slight softening. 17 seems to be roughly the point at which there is no extra sharpening or softening. I've set sharpness to Min on analog SD cable to minimize noise/snow in the so-so signal. I'm trying Min on digital HD cable, because it seems to be just enough to hide mpeg "mosquito" noise, but you might prefer to keep things crisp at 17.
• Noise Reduction: Medium Low Low. I use Medium or sometimes High for the analog SD because there's a lot of noise, but High will produce visible smearing at times and I'd rather have some noise. Higher settings may be the source of some complaints about "motion blur." Most non-computer sources will have some noise in them (either analog noise or mpeg mosquito noise) and do benefit from the Low setting.
• DRC Mode: Mode 1. Mode 1 is for true SD content or true HD content. Mode 2 is for SD content that has been scaled to HD externally (external scaler, some HD cable boxes, etc.). Obviously, if your external device may be scaling either SD or HD and the TV has no way of knowing which is coming in, you're kind of screwed. If so, use Mode 1, because it's okay for SD scaled to HD, while Mode 2 is not okay for true HD content. Note that if you're using an actual external scaler to generate 1080p, you probably don't want DRC on at all, since your external scaler is where that functionality should be happening. Note that turning off DRC entirely also turns off the 1080i deinterlacer, so if you have 1080i coming in and don't want any processing, you might be better off using Mode 1 with a 1,1 palette (below) than turning it off.
• DRC Palette vertical,horizontal: 0,100 SD:1,1/HD:50,20 1,1. The horizontal axis appears to cause the picture to become softer, and the vertical causes it to become sharper. Obviously, these seem to be at odds with each other, so it's difficult to say exactly what the intended use is. 0,100 certainly seems to help clean up analog noise. Note that this is set per DRC mode, per resolution, per input, so you're going to have to set it up many times.
• Advanced Settings
  • Black Corrector: Off. This is actually another good way to deal with DVD players' tendency to elevate black in order to avoid black crush. As mentioned, our TV's don't have black crush, so you might want to try turning this on. I'm not sure yet if this, or Brightness, is the best way to fix it. They don't seem to do the same thing. This would not likely be appropriate for any other device.
  • Gamma: Off. Bleh. Stuff is authored for default gamma, why would I want to change it? Note that enabling gamma correction also throws off many of the settings above. Mind you, it's a good temporary fix for programs that were authored way too darkly.
  • Clear White: Off.
  • Live Color (a.k.a. Fleshtone Correction?): Off. I think this is fleshtone correction. However, it seems to change a lot of colors, randomly saturating and changing hue. I tried it on Low for a while for pure analog content, but it looks bad and now it's off for every input.
  • White Balance: I had to change this to accomodate the Hue adjustment above that brought red into alignment, because it caused a couple of other tones to be too green. Note that the Gain is percieved to affect the high end more, and the Bias the low, so some adjustments aren't symmetrical where I found things like fleshtones being, say, greenish at the upper end and purpleish at the bottom. In a way, it's lucky that we have to reduce green, as the set is supposed to have significant green push. Technically, it's not the right way to correct green push, but if you have to do it for other reasons, it's nice that the side effect is minimized thusly. Obviously, these settings vary by individual TV and by input device, so don't take them as gospel. Note that these can be set for each Color Temp (see above) value, so if you change your Color Temp, make sure these are correct for it.
    • R Gain: 0 0 0
    • G Gain: -9 -9 -9
    • B Gain: -4 -2 -4
    • R Bias: 0 -2 -2
    • G Bias: -2 -1 -2
    • B Bias: -5 -8 -6
    • Detail Enhancer: Low.
    • Edge Enhancer: Low.

Screen:

• Display Area: Normal. Of course. Who needs more overscan?
• Horizontal Center: Almost all of my inputs are showing up just slightly off-center to the left, so I'm using +2..+5 here, depending on the source. Your mileage will certainly vary. Do check it out, though.
• Vertical Center (Zoom mode only): -1 for TV sources, because almost all broadcast letterboxed content is shown slightly above center. DVD letterboxed content is usually centered correctly, so use 0 there.
• Vertical Size: Before I adjusted SD overscan in the service menu, I actually changed it in Zoom mode to -1, to be just slightly squished vertically, to offset the factory-set overscan. I couldn't see the difference and I got a little more real estate. YMMV. For Wide Zoom, I changed it to 5, because Wide Zoom is way oversquished by default and I prefer to crop more than squish, not that I'll ever actually use Wide Zoom. After I adjusted SD overscan in the service menu, I changed the -1 for Zoom back to 0. This is important if you do likewise!

Setup:

• Game Mode: Off, even for most games. The purpose of Game Mode is to eliminate display processing time, which is the time it takes for the onboard computer to spiff up the image, and which causes the "input lag" one notices in games that require quick responses. It does this by disabling all image enhancements, like noise reduction, deinterlacing, edge enhancement, and so on. You can get much of the effect yourself by disabling such features manually until you're satisfied, and you'll usually end up with a better picture. Note also that delivering a progressive signal to the TV from your console automatically removes any need for deinterlacing, and is thus a bigger improvement than you might think. If you can deliver a pure, digital, progressive signal, you're really in good shape, because you shouldn't need any image enhancements, though you might also be fine turning on Game Mode if your incoming image is already great.
• Color Matrix: ITU601 for SD, ITU709 for HD. I initially thought there may be cases where my cable company is delivering digital SD video to me in the wrong color space, and so I switched 480 from the analog ITU601 to the digital ITU709. However, after finding that it's really the color decoder in this TV that's at fault, I'm back to using the default values (ITU601 for SD and ITU709 for HD).
• Power Saving: On, because the room is always dimly lit anyway. You'll get the blackest blacks with this On. Note that when this is Off, white balance is a little more blue (higher color temperature).
• CineMotion: Auto for 480i material. Note that this is actually OFF by default (?!?) and you have to actually be in 480i mode to turn it on. Without this, SD looks like crap. With it, some material can look almost as good as an upconverting DVD player.

Notes on color accuracy resulting from my user menu settings above:

Thanks to strutter for posting his pre-calibration reports, which we believe were taken while his set had my settings, but we're not 100% sure:

• Red will still be a little oversaturated, but less off-hue towards magenta.
• Yellow will still be somewhat oversaturated, but should now be the correct hue.
• Green will still be oversaturated, but should now be the correct hue.
• Cyan will somewhat off-hue towards blue. (A problem with Sony's custom color space.)
• Blue should be spot-on.
• Magenta will be somewhat off-hue towards blue. (A problem with Sony's custom color space.)
• Grayscale will be somewhat blue at the bottom and nearer correct at the top. (Not sure if this is Sony or me.)
• Fleshtones, as with the red/yellow/green primaries, may still be a little oversaturated, but should now have much more correct hues.
• Gamma is a touch bright in the mid-to-upper range. (Not sure if this is Sony or me.)
• Note the graphs in the post linked above for an indication of just how much more improvement you can get from a proper calibration.

Note, however, that strutter had just replaced his bulb and had less than 100 hours on it, so that may have affected these readings. New bulbs are always decidedly bluer than middle-aged bulbs.

Thanks also to BeachComber for doing a quick read of my settings on his 300-hour lamp. Gleaned were:

• Overall color temp was probably in the low 9000K's, which is a blue-ish white, but not nearly as hyper-blue as the default settings, which are more like 20000K. I do prefer my white hotter (bluer) than 6504K (aka D65), so this is not surprising. It's a little higher than I thought, but once you go over about 7-8K you get less and less change, so 8K and 9K aren't terribly different. One might prefer to apply my white balance to Warm 2 instead for something much closer to D65.
• My own bulb is much older and probably runs cooler (more orange), so I may already have something a lot closer to D65 than BeachComber got. YMMV.
• I seemed to have pretty good consistent color temperature across most of the scale (30-100 IRE), but the bottom end of the scale measured pretty cool (orangey). I don't see this on my set, and certain meters measure RPTVs poorly at low levels, so perhaps this isn't accurate. Hard to say.

Service Menu:

I'm not going to tell you how to get into or use the service menu. It's a dangerous place, where you can turn your TV into a very large brick, and if you're not capable of finding the information on how to use it, you're probably also not qualified to be in there. If you do figure out how to get in there, I still recommend that you don't. I'm quite smart, I'm an engineer by trade, and I'm very cautious, and yet I still nearly turned my TV into a brick once. I was practically in tears. If you still ignore my cautions and go in there and make changes that brick your TV, well, all I can do is hope you didn't save the settings and that you can undo them by unplugging your TV. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. If not, enjoy your $5000 brick. I hope I'm being really clear here.

• WEM Service:
  • 70 scancon inpl_ovs.spf: (Note: The adjustments below were all made while in 480i modes, and automatically affect all of Normal, Full, Zoom, and Wide Zoom. All of composite/s-video/component/hdmi 480i/480p have separate settings, which are similar, but not identical. You adjust the settings for the current input/mode when in the service menu. Similar to above, colors are: S2 TiVo on S-Video (PackID 131) and S3 TiVo 480i material on component (PackID 139). Beware of thinking you're adjusting 480 material when your input device is upconverting to HD for you. Hit 'info' outside the SM to see what you're getting. Also, don't adjust overscan for HD, it creates moire patterns and aliasing. Also note than any tweaks you make to the optical block with the physical adjustment screws may affect what you need here.)
    • 0 HOVERSCN: Was 54 50, I made it 16 16. This brings more of the SD image on-screen horizontally. This is the value that brings the image aspect into line after the VOVERSCN value I came up with below. It just barely hides the ragged left/right edges on cable NTSC. Note that this value may vary based on your input device's video timings and whether it's digital or analog.
    • 1 VOVERSCN: Was 54 50, I made it 33 33. This brings more of the SD image on-screen vertically. This is the least overscan I can get away with that exactly fills a Zoom mode screen with true 16:9 letterboxed TV content (e.g. Ghost in the Shell SAC, many movie commercials). If you do this, is very important that you undo the -1 vertical size in zoom mode that I mentioned in the user section. This value should not change based on the input device and should be good for all SD devices (e.g. vcrs, non-upconverting SD DVD players, etc.).
    • 2 VOVERSFT: Was 200 200, I made it 201 201. This shifts the image vertically 2 interlaced input scanlines per tick. This is a balance that happens to work well on my TV for the mix of usually-above-center and sometimes-properly-centered 16:9 letterboxed you get material on TV. I centered based on the narrowest 16:9 material I could find (e.g. Ghost in the Shell SAC, many movie commercials) and with an eye to making sure that taller-but-vertically-off-center material didn't have any visible black border. Note that this value may vary based on your input device's video timings and whether it's digital or analog.
  • 72 scancon inpr_ovs.spf: (Note: This is usually marked as inactive, but if you enter picture-beside-picture mode, you'll actually get an active data set here for the right-hand picture, plus a new data set in 70 that's separate from its data set for the full-screen mode. I personally suggest using the same SD values, but unlike full-screen mode, I do suggest eliminating overscan in the picture-beside-picture HD modes, since they're already imperfect and there's really no harm done. At least it offers you a simple workaround to see something near the border if you need to, without compromising the full-screen picture quality. Better than nothing.)
• PANEL:
  • 20 IRIS: (Note: The adjustments below are all for Auto 2 iris mode. Also note that I quickly abandoned the idea of messing with the iris, since uneven heat from the lamp may play a factor in optical block degradation--do so at your own risk!)
    • 3 I_OFSET: I didn't change this from the default of 128. This literally offsets the range that IRISMIN and IRISMAX are in. Each step here seems to be worth 8 steps in IRISMIN and IRISMAX.
    • 10 I_GAIN: My default was 167, and I'm trying 106. This setting increases the image boost that compensates for the closed iris on dark scenes. Lower numbers make the bright parts of dark scenes brighter. Truly black areas do not seem to get boosted, so you shouldn't be harming your spiffy black levels by adjusting this. Note that very low values will cause white crush as the TV tries to boost the image past the range the LCoS panels can actually display.
    • 33 IRISMAX: I adjusted this from the default of 681 arbitrarily to 721. This opens the iris a little more on bright scenes. I did this because adjusting the IRISMIN below caused the bright scenes to darken/dull a little. Since I adjusted IRISMIN down by 40, I arbitrarily tried adjusting this upwards by 40. It may be that I should be using a proportional change, though, of perhaps +80 or so. 40 seems okay. This is still a work in progress.
    • 34 IRISMIN: I adjusted this from the default of 340 to 300. This closes the iris more on dark scenes, to provide slightly better blacks. I chose this number based partially on what others have tried, and also on careful examination of what lower values did to the display. I saw no real changes below 300 or so, and so I kept this change conservative.
  • 21 Timer:
    • 0 LMP: This is the total time your current lamp has been on.
    • 2 OPERAT: This is the total time your set has been on.

A service menu hack that changes Wide Zoom from being a non-uniform stretch to being a vertical-only uniform zoom. This is useful when someone takes a 4:3 video with a 16:9 letterbox in it, and stretches it across an 16:9 channel:

• http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...3#post17620423

Another service menu hack that allows you to increase (or decrease) the amount you adjust screen size and position by in the Screen menu.

• http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...5#post17921795

Adjusting optical trapezoid and rotation:

• http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&&#post8789315

Removing pincushion/hourglass due to screen bowing:

• http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&&#post8716833

A remote control macro that toggles closed captioning:

• http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&&#post8753245

Further reading:

• KTTV Images is maintaining a similar list of settings, two posts above, and has some interesting observations regarding the various settings related to sharpening/enhancing.
• Owen has detailed his own advanced tweaks , including several physical modifications to improve black levels.
• An interesting take on calibration in general is the Steaming Rat method. It's a lot less technical than traditional calibration, but might offer insights on what you want vs. what calibration will give you. There's something to be said for both. The Steaming Rat method heavily influenced the results above.
• The CalMan software website has a page with a link to a good beginner's guide to calibration. See here.

Change log:

• 2010-01-13: Added a link to the Screen center/size adjustment hack.
• 2009-11-29: Added a link to the Wide Zoom hack.
• 2009-11-27: Made note of the extra and separate overscan settings for picture-beside-picture mode and how they might be used to see the hidden area of HD material without harming full-screen picture quality.
• 2009-02-01: No changes, my optical blocks have been giving me too many headaches to care about further tweaking. It's not likely there will be more updates. The info above is all pretty good, though, and pre-dates my problems.
• 2008-02-23: Noted that Cool/Neutral/Warm1/Warm2 have separate white balance settings. Noted BeachComber's meter readings.
• 2008-01-28: Tweaked SD overscan again after finding AMC channel showing a ragged & mpeg-ringing left edge.
• 2008-01-27: Changed Power Saving from "Auto" to "On", because my low lighting means I always got "On" anyway. Added notes on lamp/tv timers in service menu. Added Further Reading links to Owen's tweaking and to the CalMan page with a beginner's calibration guide. Separated SD overscan tweaks into two different inputs. Fixed VOVERSFT after noticing I left the user size adjustment on.
• 2008-01-23: Tweaked SD overscan in service menu to perfectly fill Zoom mode with 16:9 letterboxed content.
• 2008-01-21: Put SD-only overscan reduction info into the Service Menu section.
• 2008-01-17: Added some notes about resultant color accuracy, based on strutter's pre-calibration report.
• 2008-01-16: Added a service menu section with my current iris fiddling; Added a really severe warning about the service menu
• 2008-01-15: Notes on low vs. min Sharpness; Noted that dark rooms might do better with lower Picture; Elaborated on Game Mode; Fixed colors for new forum skin; Added Change Log
• (prior to changelog): 18 months of slow tweaking

Just upgraded from the a2000 and here are my settings so far:

Power save: ON
Custom
Min
Picture: 87
Brightness: 47
Color: 44
Hue: 0
Color Temp: Warm 2
Sharpness: 5
Noise Reduction: Off
DRC: Off
Black Corrector: Off
Gamma: Low
Clear White: Off
Live Color: Off
White Balance:
Detail Enhancer: Off
Edge Enhancer: Off

How many hours do you guys have on your sets?

I'm going to play with mine by using some of your settings but not till I have a couple of hundred hours on it.

I applied KT's settings b/c the out-of-box settings are not very hot. In addition, I've been leaving the set on all day to get some hours on it in anticipation of a ISF calibration.

I've been using a combination of AG's and KT's settings. Two observations: watching last episode of Six Degrees in a night scene an FBI agent's dark suit showed as monochromatic black. I paused it and changed gamma from off to low and lo and behold the detail emerged from the black murk. So to avoid black crush, gamma, not brightness, is your friend. Then, I watched a DVD of Dances with Wolves which was too light across the board. Gamma needed to be off for that. For what it's worth.

I have about 130 hours on my set now. It definitely does change a bit between 0 and maybe 70 or 80, but it seems to have been stable since then.

I've been messing with my settings pretty much every day since I got the TV, but except for two one-tick changes to the HDTiVo's white balance last night, I've actually been using the same settings for three days now and I think I'm finally happy. Now I have to get used to watching TV again instead of monitoring the picture.

By the way, for those using eyeballing more than instruments, have you noticed that some programming is extremely-saturated at the source? I've notced that Lost seems to be hyper-saturated, and some DHD programs as well.

It's annoying, because I had tuned my settings during a couple of those programs, only to find that everything else had become totally washed-out. I had to settle on a happy medium of sorts.

We should mention here about the pincushion/screen-bowing problem...

On arrival, many sets seem to have their screens bowed slightly inward. This causes a pincushion (hourglass) effect for 4:3 material. There's a simple fix:

• Get a suction cup. I used a really soft, slippery one, probably made out of some fancy space-age material, about 2" across, that was actually an attachment for a pole meant for changing high-up lightbulbs. It has a quick-release, in the form of a long string attached to the edge of the cup. This actually turned out to be handy, so I suggest using a cup with a place to pull up on the edge to release suction. Otherwise, you have to yank on the cup to get it off, and that might not be safe.
• Clean the suction cup carefully with soap and water. It's important that it has no grime or particles on it, or you might mark/scratch your screen. Wipe it dry carefully with a clean cotton cloth that won't shed fibers. My suction cup is clear, and that helped me find the last bits of grime on it.
• Put your thumbs on the back of the suction cup and pull back the edges with your fingertips, then place it against the middle of the screen and release the edges. This avoids pressing the cup against the screen and making the problem worse. If it won't stick, get a better suction cup. Don't moisten it or lick it or anything like that.
• Tug gently on the cup. If you're like me, you'll hear crackling from the edges of the screen as it settles more correctly into position. Keep tugging gently until it feels like the edges have settled (crackled) into position as much as they will.
• Move the cup around closer to the edges of the screen (maybe 6" from the edge), tugging as you go. I was able to slide mine around safely, but if you're not sure your cup is totally clean, don't do that or you'll scratch your screen. (Removing and replacing the cup takes a while, but so does replacing your scratched screen.) I managed to find a few more spots I was able to crackle more into place.

In the end, I reduced my pincushion almost to none, though there's still a very slight inverted keystone vertically. It's not enough to bother me, though. The pincushion had really been bugging me, but I'm quite content now.

I got my set Saturday and overall am very pleased....definite WOW factor on HD sources, especially the Bengals game today- WHODEY!...had to do it, sorry...
Here's my question....hate to admit it, but have been eagerly anticipating the return of the show "Breaking Bonaduce" on VH1....apparently this is broadcast in 480i and the mosquito noise was VERY distracting especially around any white text on the screen and also around the VH1 logo at the bottom right corner....any suggestions? Thanks in advance,
toby

Eric: My Lumagen HDP has to shink the picture by 104 pixels horizontally and 65 vertically at 1080p. That works out to 1816x1015. The set says it is receiving a 1080p signal .What I am unclear about is the practical effect of this on PQ. Is the sets real resolution only ~ 1820 x 1020 or is it something else???

Maybe some enterprising people have discovered how to do this? I still can't figure it out.

I used to own the XBR1 (for 3 weeks) and you could disable the Antenna and Cable so that tv/video button would not switch to them. I run everything in through video inputs and it always bugs me when I can't disable those channels.

On the XBR2 I cannot figure out how to do this. I think this is an oversight on Sony's part since the function to disable ant/cable on the XBR1 was in the channel label menu (not video label). Since that's been replaced by the TV Guide software I think I'm out of luck.

Any ideas? All I want is for TV/Video to NOT switch to an OTA or Cable channel.

Thanks!

-Stu

Hi

I am not awre of any other HD test pattern sources. I also have never seen or hard of any tint differences between Tuners -Tivo Boxes etc. Since it is all pure digital there should be no color differences.

Your HD Tivo is coming in on input 7 or 8. As you probably know each input has it's own set of memorized adjustments, so if you want to cut the slight greenish color on your Tivo sources try this:
Go to the White Balance controls and reduce the Green Gain (this is for the bright part of the image ) and the green Bias (this is for the darkest parts of the image). Try reductions of just 1 or 2 and see if that helps. These adjustment will not effect your DVD players and other sources.

KT

I think you are wanting to do what I did last night. I just went into the video input labeling settings and set the input sources I don't use to "Skip". Therefore, it just skips over them when you hit the TV/Video button when you're cycling through the sources.

Shot in the dark... have you tried hiding ALL of you channels in the Show/Hide channels menu? Or maybe do a channel scan with nothing connected and come up with no channels found?

That's the only thing I can think of that might signal to the UI that the tuner is not desired.

Okay, I've been trying to find a Closed Caption toggle code, but can't seem to find one. So, instead, I worked out the following macro that will toggle CC. It's a bit gross, but it actually works. It was tricky because of the extra option in the CC on/off menu.

Exit
Menu
DirectionUp
Select
DirectionUp
Select
Select
DirectionDown
DirectionRight
DirectionLeft
DirectionDown
Exit

Funny I'd be reading this today, because I tried it last night. I disabled all the channels and did the channel scan with no cable connected and it still cycles through the Cable/ANT input. Too bad, since I don't really need it since I have the Series 3 Tivo. I'm considering getting a splitter to feed the tv a signal so there's at least no more static. I'll probably then pick one channel (like the tv guide channel) and enable it so there's no confusion if someone stops on that input.

By the way, this is my first post, as I only learned about this forum a couple weeks ago. In that short time it's been an amazing resource. How did I miss it all these years? (Assuming it's been around for years.) Thanks everyone!

I'm using an 8300HD box for my cable so I never did a channel scan and refused to do the TV guide setup (eventually it asked if I wanted it to quit reminding me and I picked the option to stop reminding). You could try unplugging your set and that should reset it.

Yes, everyone should definitely do this as it saves a bunch of time.

Guys,
I saw a 70" XBR2 and was impressed with it. But I am not certain if Sony has resolved (or at least minimized) the panel uniformity issues because over in the front projector forum, some are still having uniformity issues with the new Sony Pearl (which uses the same SXRD panel):
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&&#post8736197

So how does your XBR2 compare to this picture?