hda2 hdmi-dvi issues

Originally Posted by PooperScooper

Besides whatever handshaking issues there are and have been fixed, I still dont believe the incorrect video issues with HDMI->DVI have been fixed - sending PC RGB.

larry

Originally Posted by Jose_L

I've been waiting for some info on whether DVI and the XA2 will work together.

So far I haven't found any ppl. claiming that it would work, so I think all us ppl. w/ DVI connections are out of luck.

You know all this copy protection hurts only consumers who follow the rules. If you rip DVD's and remove the copy protection then you should be able to watch upconverted dvd's thru the component outputs.

Regards,
Jose

Originally Posted by LarryChanin

Hi Jose,

As you alude to, the most serious issue regarding HDMI to DVI video connections to displays has to do with the potential to downrezz the image to 480p on some displays. On an AVS survey of HD-A2 owners with HDMI to DVI connections, 43% of those reporting (total of 60) reported problems. I suspect similar statistics would be true for HD-XA2 owners with HDMI to DVI connections, that is, a little over half of the owners would probably not experience this problem.

For example, I have an HD-XA2 player connected to an InFocus projector via HDMI to DVI and do not have downrezzing problems.

As Larry (PooperScooper) mentioned earlier, in addition to downrezzing problems, a problem may also exist with regard to players with HDMI to DVI connections sending incorrect video levels to displays.

Larry

Originally Posted by LarryChanin

Hi Larry,

If you don't mind my asking, on what are you basing your statement that the firmware update hasn't fixed the PC RGB problem?

Thanks.

Larry

Originally Posted by TrevorS

"Downrezzing" may be the most serious, but I'm under the impression it is an especially display specific problem and only represents a small number of people experiencing issues with HDMI->DVI-D. I'm under the impression the most prevalent problem is the crushing of blacks and banding resulting from erroneously extending the luminous range from 16:235 to the full 256 bits.

Originally Posted by TrevorS

"Downrezzing" may be the most serious, but I'm under the impression it is an especially display specific problem and only represents a small number of people experiencing issues with HDMI->DVI-D. I'm under the impression the most prevalent problem is the crushing of blacks and banding resulting from erroneously extending the luminous range from 16:235 to the full 256 bits.

Originally Posted by PooperScooper

Very few people with HDMI->DVI are getting correct video from the Tosh's. DVI input displays are surely in the minority by now, which may be one reason the problem is not high priority for Toshiba to fix, if, in fact, it is fixable (or fixable without breaking something else).

larry

Originally Posted by PooperScooper

If Toshiba had fixed the PC RGB conversion bug with HDMI->DVI I would have thought I'd have seen at least person start a thread and rejoice.

Originally Posted by TrevorS

You seem to be interpreting the above HDMI->DVI-D inputs as Toshiba bashing -- it isn't.

There's no reason to spend money on an ISF tech in order to detrmine if there is a problem with delineation of blacks. However, of course, such evaluations cannot be made without taking the time and trouble to perform fundamental black and white level calibration. As far as below black is concerned (0:15), either the player or the display can be incapable of showing that information, and so that is a separate question (and is not inherently related to black crush anyway).

My own HDMI->DVI-D installation does not currently suffer from black crush, but I'm also using the 1.0 firmware release in my G1 player. Based on the experience of others, I have every reason to expect exactly that problem if I install either 1.4 or 2.0. To be sure, I could be wrong given my particular displays, but if I install 2.0 and the problem hits, then I'm stuck because it is not a reversible install.

Even though I don't currently have that problem, I would like to be able to add the newer features, and so I have been following the threads on these issues for some months. It is the experience of others that I'm relaying above, experience I prefer not to bestow upon myself.

PS. If the partial work around you describe above solves your problem, good for you .

Originally Posted by billymac

larry, i'm no expert, but i do know what i see and i can tell you that calibrating my display does not get me better blacks or shadow detail. the issue is that the tosh is sending PC RGB levels, but my display thinks it's seeing REC709. it is not REC709. and no offense, but it's so tiring hearing others say to simply calibrate for the source. that's great, but the bottom line is the signal and information being sent is not complete. i'm not simply talking about btb and wtw, i'm talking about missing information. something you can not get back. i don't know if you've been reading any of the hdmi switching receiver threads, but there are models out that are essentially doing similar things while transcoding and upscaling over hmdi.

i can confirm this by sending hdmi through a M1-hdmi adapter on another input. with that i can select RGB and Video RGB. when selecting RGB the picture is GREAT! one catch, i can only get 480p. it's totally lame.

the whole thing is absolutely ridiculous in my opinion. trust me, the picture REALLY is that bad under these conditions. it's not an issue of simply calibrating for the source. it has everything to do with the stupid hdcp handshake, edid and the player misinterpeting the display device.

toshiba should be able to fix all of this by simply letting you select the colorspace output at the player level. why is that so difficult? is it a limitation of hdcp? oh my god, here comes hdmi 1.4. sigh. i'm sorry to sound so frustrated and like a cry baby but i've spent so much time trying to get this to work, it's really sad. if you take a look at the pole that someone started about people having issues with 2.0 firmware you'll see it isn't just a few people. be sure and add those with video and those with both video AND audio. imo, those numbers aren't something to overlook or blow off.

Color Space: This option applies to computer and HDTV sources (it won't appear in the menu for video sources). It allows you to select a color space that has been specifically tuned for the video input. When Auto is selected, the projector automatically determines the standard. To choose a different setting, turn off Auto, then choose RGB for computer sources, choose REC709 for component 1080i or 720p sources, or choose REC601 for component 480p or 576p sources.

Originally Posted by billymac

larry

i own an in72 and in76 so i'm familiar with the colorspace options on your infocus. you can uncheck auto and then choose rgb or rgb video however i believe you'll find that you get a green cast on the image. or, you may only be able to get 480p or 720p. i believe hihostevo owns either a 7205 or a 7210 and has issues where he can only get 720p out of his A1 over the m1 input.

there's an option on the INXX series that enables you to turn on and turn off DDC which basically has something to do with the hdcp handshake and edid. disabling DDC on the HDMI and M1 ports allows me to select RGB colorspace on the infocus but all i can get is 480p. selecting anything else locks up my player and i've tried everything. it's a great example though of what the picture "should" look like, so i know i'm not dreaming all this up.

i wish i could speak more technically about what is going on with the colorspace issue, and maybe pooper or someone else can help me out here, but essentially when the player sees certain dvi displays, it not only incorrectly sends the wrong color space, but information from the source signal is lost in the process.

i do not know if the 7205 firmware has the DDC option but you may want to play with it. it may allow you to disable DDC. what's funny about DDC is, when i disable it i am unable to select either of the REC's only RGB and RGB video.

Originally Posted by billymac

it has everything to do with the handshake though. that is the root of both problems.

Originally Posted by LarryChanin

Are you saying that somehow Toshiba's implementation of the HDMI to DVI connection via DDC is telling the player to send PC RGB color space levels instead of Studio Video levels, because it is incorrectly reading the characteristics of the display?

Originally Posted by LarryChanin


The fundamental problem with this seems to be that even if DDC is the root cause in both situations, turning it off seems to invoke HDCP handshake problems which are even more objectionable, i.e., down rezzing or loss of signal.

Originally Posted by PooperScooper

When you guys say "downrezznig", do you mean the 1080p HD-DVD video is downrezzed to 480p? Or is it just that 480p SD-DVDs aren't upscaled?

larry

Originally Posted by LarryChanin

Please correct me if I am wrong, but to definitively determine whether the problem even existed, and now has been resolved, wouldn't someone first need to have a professionally calibrated display, and then special calibration test discs to test for blacker than black and whiter than white, not just test discs used to adjust contrast and brightness?

Larry

Settings to Avoid White and Black Crush on a Pioneer DV-59avi

The player suffers from white crush over HDMI in the default setting. All white information over 235 gets discarded. I've been measuring the HDMI port data, and found one, and only one, setting where the player behaves like it should. That is, outputting reference HDMI-Video levels, no black crush, no white crush and no compression of the signal range.

In the Video Adjust menu:

White Level: All the way to the left (min setting)
Black Level: One notch down from center settings (towards min)
Black Setup: 7.5 IRE
HDMI Color Adjust: Enhanced

All other settings as default for the "HDMI Direct" preset.

Settings for HDMI output were tested for RGB only. Don't know how YCbCr is handled over HDMI.

Carl Sundbom

***************************************************

Additional HDMI settings for a Pioneer DV-59avi:

I did some work tonight, and these are my findings.

Tools:
Firmware revision of DVD Player: 1.526
Test patterns: Avia Pro IRE window patterns (from 2.5 IRE to 108.5 IRE)
Video black defined as 7.5 IRE, nominal white as 100 IRE, peak white 108.5 IRE.
Represents DVD content luma values from 6 to 254.
Data analyzer: Lumagen VisionHDP scaler IRE readout feature

Standard vs. Enhanced "HDMI Color Adjust": The "Standard" mode prevents output of any values lower than 16 or higher than 235 over the HDMI port. Assuming we are trying to output what's on the DVD, the only way to make this happen in "Standard" mode is to compress the dynamic range from 1-254 to 16-235 by using the black/white level controls to cram the BtB and WtW content into the 16-235 range. Not recommended, since we will lose fidelity. You will be able to see BtB and WtW if you do this, but you will lose grayscale steps in the middle.

"Enhanced" mode will allow us to output any value from 1-254. Now we just need to map the video black to 16 and nominal white to 235 (still preserving the WtW content up to 254). Since my testing concluded that we need "Enhanced" HDMI Color Adjust to get us in the ballpark, let's look at the other settings.

There is an interaction between the "Black Level" control and the "IRE Set up" control. You can achieve almost the same results by leaving "IRE Set up" at 0, and compensate by raising the "Black Level" control as you can be setting "IRE Set up" to 7.5. However, it's not perfect, and black will end up being a little off from its standard value (a little higher or lower than 16, depending on "Black Level" setting). Setting "IRE Set up" to 7.5 and lowering the black level one notch gets us to perfect video black (luma 16 over HDMI). This will also preserve most of the BtB content (80-90% in my estimation).

The "White Level" control in its default setting will re-sample all content over 235 to whatever the maximum value is. For "Standard", this will be 235, so everything over 235 will be output as 235. For "Enhanced" this will be 254, so everything over 235 will be output as 254. This will also "stretch" the rest of the grayscale, so all values will be too high. Lowering the "White Level" to it's leftmost position will preserve all the steps between 235 and 254. The "stretching" of the grayscale is also avoided to a large degree.

The settings I ended up with are the same as the ones I listed earlier. They are as close as I could get, but they're not perfect. There is still a slight "stretch". A value of 6 on the DVD would be output as 5 or 4, and a value of 251 on the DVD would be output as 254. There is clearly some re-sampling going on, no matter what settings are used. I doubt this will have any real effects watching a movie. An SDI mod may be the only way to get the 59-Avi to output a pristine "DVD perfect" signal, but from what I've seen so far, this is one heck of a player

A couple of more points of clarification.

1. The 'HDMI Color Adjust' defines the output range. Standard is 16-235 and Enhanced is 1-254. I think this control is a misguided attempt at implementing Video vs PC levels. "Standard" set video black at 16, and nominal white at 235, alright, but it compresses all BtB data into 16 and all WtW data into 235. Since the whole point of running Video instead of PC levels is to pass BtB and WtW, this is clearly a design flaw.

2. The black level control defines the value of black. This should be 16 over HDMI. It doesn't operate like a normal brightness control, which would move the entire video range up and down. Moving it up only compresses values in the midrange. Nominal white doesn't move when you increase black level.

3. The white level control should be renamed to "white crush control". All it does is define what values should be output with the maximum luma value. By default, it defines everything from 235 to 254 to be 254 (in Enhanced mode). Rasing the white level control pulls even more values in to be 254. It also "pulls" the rest of the range with it, increasing the difference between between the mid grays. So how much white crush do you want? Now you have a choice!

Carl Sundbom

Originally Posted by giomania

Larry, Carl Sundbom performed a great deal of research on white and black crush for the Pioneer DV-59avi using a Lumagen VisionHDP scaler IRE readout feature. See below for the details. At the time, he had a display with a DVI input. I hope this helps explain some things. I wonder if Carl has a HD Player...of either format?

Please note the above is for the Pioneer DV-59avi, not the Toshiba HD-DVD Player. I posted it because Larry was asking how to determine if there is a problem, and this provides an explanation of one way to research it.

Mark

Originally Posted by LarryChanin

Needless to say, I'm looking for a less expensive approach that doesn't involve purchasing a Lumagen VisionHDP scaler with IRE readout feature ($2,500) and a copy of Avia Pro ($400).

Just a note to others following this thread, the Pioneer DV-59avi's problems, which prevents it from passing Blacker than Black or Peak White data, (i.e. luminance data below 16 or above 235) is not related to a HDMI to DVI problem as in the case of the Toshibas.

One thing (among many ) that I'm not clear on is does sending incorrect color space levels (PC RGB) to the display, automatically mean there must be blacker than black or whiter than white problems?

Originally Posted by giomania

Is it not the case that BTB and WTW does not exist on PC RGB levels? I know it seems counter-intuitive, as the PC RGB range (0-255) is greater than the YCbCr (16-235) range. My memory is not working well today. Hopefully Carl will chime in when he gets the PM.

Mark