Hitachi 51/57/65F59A CRT RPTV Tweaks Thread - Page 148

So is ANYONE using my meter?
Michael

I have no word on it coming my way. I'm waiting on it. I'll defintely use it to see where my baselines are at.

cleaned my 3yr old 51 & did some of the diy tweaks prior to football today. brought it back to life nicely. my house is quite dusty & i thought it would be much worse than it was. lenses still had a noticeable dusty coating. got some sprayway & did a quick wet/lift on the lenses & made a few passes on the mirror. picture was much sharper / blacker, etc. didnt go deep with the cleaning or settings since i'm impatient & a little worried it would turn into a nightmare if I tried too much. didnt want a repeat of my attempts at plumbing. appreciate the tips here.

Sorry guys, I've had so much crap happen since the holidays, I haven't been able to use it. Mustang, i'll send it your way this week.

No worries. Im just as busy. Hang onto it if you think you can get some work done with it in the next few weeks. Thats if Michael is cool with it.

Thank you sir. You are a gentleman and a scholar.

I'm cool. Actually, I'm f*ing freezing, but that has nothing to do with the meter.
This was the meter that sat in a TX post office for six weeks when they couldn't figure out were Leo lived, so I get a little antsy if it "disappears" for a while. You guys continue to fight it out, and keep us posted.
Michael

Sure, you can laugh, you have TWO!

And if you want to use one I'll send it your way... I know the Mail always delivers!

Hope you have warmer days coming.

Mustang... I heard is snowing in Austin, perfect time to have a meter.

I've have my scheduled time alone coming for spring break, I'm planning on doing the cammuflage Op (schumuflege), or which ever is the correct word. I know some of you done it already, what is the recommended thickness of the washers and how many washers. Once is time to do it I'll experiment different things but in the mean time ... some planning does not hurt.

Hi everyone i'm new to this forum and had a question I hope someone could help me with. My 57F59A's HDMI port started having problems with the picture colors. I switched over temporarily to a component input and had the same problem. When using straight coax. or RCA cables the colors are fine but obviously I don't have HD. I read this Thread about the service settings and mine were already updated. Any ideas of what the problem could be?

Probably best to loosen up the focus barrel and use little wooden shims for the actual scheimpflug adjustments, Leo. That will tell you what size of washers to use. Using washers for the adjustments themselves, over and over with each try, is tedious to the max!

b

Perhaps your component conn's have become unseated on Pb or Pr? That could explain color problems there.

But HDMI is different, and the same color probs should not be on both. If you don't know about the board swapout for the HDMI problems on Hitachis, search out jwebb, who is responsible for telling us here about it.

b

Holy hell it's been a log time since I logged into this forum (it makes me want to spend too much money). LOL Anyway my 51F59A has been sitting in storage for the last 4 months until recently (long story...) and it's blurrier than I remember, even after a few 117pt convergences. I haven't cleaned the optics or screen in 2 years so that's getting done here shortly.

Anyhow I've avoided the DCAM convergence menu option since I don't want to accidentally press a wrong button and mess stuff up. Well I've gotten the courage to do so. I've tried the tutorial on the 1st page and DIY guide for the version that doesn't require you to press the blue button (I'm guess that's behind the plywood panel with the screws) on the front of the TV.


It doesn't work. The remote doesn't change into any other mode. I have the CLU-4362S remote. Also worth noting is I have the 51F510 screen on my 51F59A (some of you might remember that) and I never hooked up the Magic Focus sensors since it was a different model of TV. Also do you need a jig to do the DCAM convergence?

What am I doing wrong to enter this mode (other than trying the blue button method, which I'll try here shortly since the wife is using the TV ATM).

Thanks!

Hello,

I always used the blue button. I think I tried the non-button routine once or twice but no luck. You don't need a jig for convergence, as this assumes you will leave green alone and adjust blue to green and red to green. The jig (or template) is required when adjusting geometry (green), which is a structural adjustment.

Regards,

Joe

I agree. Just use the blue button and be done with it -

b

Ditto. The remote process is hit and miss.

I've never had to use the Blue button, and once you get the remote into the correct settings you don't even need to go close to the tv to enter SM.

Try this sequence... Hold TV then press (zero) 0, then press (one) 1, release TV. The tv will turn off, turn tv back on and and try the sequence for DCAM. Once in DCAM the remote most likely won't move, you have to do the first sequence again but this time cover the IR on the remote so the tv won't turn off... That is it.

For geometry you can always use the patented LastButNotLeast's (Michael) string technique.

Friday night I was messing with the remote DCAM modes. Somehow it got the the service menu, I was trying to get out of it and the background turned purple and I heard loud white noise (like the on air input with no signal). I had to uplug the TV. Looks like everything got reset. Oh well... convergence was out of whack. I redid that.

Saturday I cleaned the mirror, lens, and screen. Then I found the blue button and did the convergence that way. Why the hell didn't they make the regular convergence like that?! It's soooo much easier to see if you're lined up. That took a while.

It looks sharper for sure but text around the edges are still a little fuzzy. Damn you PS3 for putting text around the edges! haha I Tweaked the picture some more using Back To The Future, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and Scott Pilgrim Vs the World Blu Rays a little.

Ever since I got that board replaced that fixed the HDMI shift problem the colors haven't ever been quite right (though I've gotten used to that now I think) but the biggest peeve has been that the bright stuff is too bright and the dark is too dark. There's no detail in the dark areas. I have to turn brightness up and contrast down to get any kind of detail in there. Like this scene from BttF, the dark areas in Bif's coat are so dark it's nearly black without the brightness jacked up:



Oh well, the picture is pretty good darn good now. I just wish it was a little bit sharper around the edges.

When we got our signal board replaced the image was put very far out of whack. Even convergence was affected even though they soldered in the original DCU. It took a while to get it back into sorts, but the color freakouts and random on/off behavior went away completely. It ended up to be worthwhile, but a labor of love.

With bright stuff too bright, dark stuff too dark and no shadow detail, you are likely fighting with screen gamma, or the transition from dark-->light. Don't worry too much about the brightness control near the top and contrast near the bottom. Contrast is better set low anyway. Ours is that way now, but I did changes in the SM that also affect these settings.
Keep in mind brightness, contrast, Gamma controls, and source device(DVD, cable, etc) all affect the screen gamma.

Decreasing brightness or decreasing contrast tend to increase gamma.
Increasing brightness or increasing contrast tend to decrease gamma.
The service menu gamma controls have their own affect on gamma and there are two gamma controls in the SM in this, and many other Hitachi RPCRT.

Without a meter gamma is not easy to visualize and adjust. I don't think the gamma images in the test DVDs are worthwhile because there's too much subjectivity involved with them to do adjustments. But maybe if you have a test disk take a look at the gamma squares pattern just for grins.

Regards,

Joe

At the risk of suggesting the obvious, have you tried increasing "sharpness"?
Using any standard sharpness pattern (often combined with overscan measurements), move it up until you start to see edge enhancement. You'll recognize it when you see it.
Are you using the "latest" version of service menu settings?
And, BTW, welcome back. Nice screenshot.
Michael

My sharpness is set to 70, just below the "halo"/"ghosting" effect that occurs when you use too much sharpness. The text in the middle and surrounding areas are crisp and clear. It's the 1"-2" around the edges that are blurry. I know it'll never be 100% sharp but I wish it was just a tad sharper.

I didn't check the service menu settings after the weird "reset" but I had most of them entered at one point.

FWIW that screenshot is a dump from the Blu-Ray not a shot of my TV just so everyone knows.

If you want to improve the image towards the edges the schemeimpflug op needs to be implemented on red and blue as Bob recommends.

Thanks Bob for the tip... I'll let you all know when it happens and comment on the end result.

You probably focused on the spot in the center. Another option is to focus on a point a few inches off-center. The center will be very slightly out of focus, but the edges will be slightly better focused. Might be enough to make you happy.

Right, it's a question of whether the outside edges are out of focus due to the angle at which the lens sits, or if it's just that it takes a pretty expensive lens to get perfect focus all the way out, and be perfect all the way from center to edge. The big ceiling pjs actually have 2 wingnuts per lens that have to be adjusted, one for master focus, the other for relative focus, or center to edge focus. Once that is all set up correctly, the focus can be set up pretty much perfectly, all over the screen.

But those are very expensive lenses, not built for our smaller sets. For CRT RPTVs, you have to get a very well made set, with excellent designed lenses. My 73" Mit has lenses that do an excellent job. This also applies to most of the 65" and 55" HDreadys I calibrate. On smaller sets, tho, I have seen great disparity between the center and the edges. Before HD, Sony used to say to get the best focus 1/3 out from center in all directions and let the rest fall where it may. Which is basically what Michael is saying.

To find out whether your scheimpflug is off - the angles at which your focus barrels hit the CRT faces vs. the mirror/view screen - it's best to have one color to work with at a time. And usually if this is the case, all 3 images won't share the same issue of being off angle. On the Pioneer Elites, the blue image of the 53" models had a severe Sch issue, where you could get 2/3 of the image sharp, but the other 1/3 just would not come into focus without shimming it and changing that angle. In my Cantilever Technique focusing, it's usually the left side that will not co-operate. Luckily, the blue is more a fill color than a structure color, like the red and green are.

I have not heard of this kind of thing on the Hitachis, but will defer to those more in the know about these things, like Leo.

Looking forward to hearing your results Leo -



b

Use RGBOUT to set one color, press blue button for DCAM mode, evaluate corners and edges. Repeat.
Not a bad time to check your focus, too.

Besides the scheimufledge (?) I'm planning on doing a REDO! Against every recommendation of not touching the SCREEN POTS, I'll reset them for all three colors, and then of course will have to re do grayscale, color, electro focus and mechanical focus.

Since you may ask why... last time I took a reading my blue wasn't tracing where is suppose to be, not that it really makes a real viewing difference, but since I'll have some time I'll get the set as close as perfect. Then if I still have time left will try to get the Lumagen set.

Before you touch the screen pots, what meter are you using, and how old is it?

If blue is falling short, you should bring the other 2 colors down instead, in the grayscale high end. That will effectively bring blue up.

Nice surprise Lee seeing you on this side of the forums!

I'm not talking about, grayscale that is with in norm regarding deltas, although due to blue not tracking correctly 100 IRE is suffering.



with the Luminance graph you can better see whats happening.



Like I mentioned earlier, I don't think that this is a must do adjustment, but the tv will have some down time and that is my only time other than late nights to play with it, plus it wouldn't be fun if I just watch movies and TV!?!

Hello,

By the looks of the graph the contrast is set too high. If you want to run an experiment run the contrast down and take new readings. The gamma graph shows a falloff at starting around 90% white. So lowering the contrast will enable better luminance tracking and consistent gamma.

Specifically, record the existing contrast and brightness settings. Then try setting the new full scale white reading (FtL at 100%) to the current 90% value using the contrast control, then check brightness. If satisfied then take new readings. If you must have the contrast set that high for viewing conditions then you'll have compromises in gamma and grayscale. Actually if you have a grayscale error it's best placed in the 100% white area as opposed to 0%...

Regards,

Joe