Samsung LNTXX61/65/66 Calibration Settings - Page 2

You can only get the hdmi black level control from hdmi 2 and hdmi 3.

After you folks have done your calibrations, how accurate are your colors?
I was drawn to Samsung after seeing reviews that said Sony and Sharp
have over-saturated greens and reds that cannot ? be corrected by calibration.
A side-by-side comparison with the same high-def demo signal of Sony, Sharp, and Samsung seemed to confirm that the Samsung colors were more accurate.

I just did the HDMI black level change and slight tweaks to the other "Basic" settings (not comfortable with cause and effect of changing "advanced" settings, such as gamma). My wife was watching dancing with the stars last night and was absolutely wowed by the PQ. In fact, she called me over to see something, and I couldn't believe how much detail I could pick out of a dark suit. I threw in the Star Wars 1 dvd to my Denon 757 upconverting player and the picture was consistently spectacular and non clouds in space with this panel. (btw, I had dnie on)

If anyone can expound on the effects of changing the non basic settings I would appreciate it.

I've read the owner's thread closely. I saw the bright sides issue on a component input, not an HDMI input, so my experience did not match the experience of mikegb who saw it only on the HDMI, and not on the component. Since RenRen99 is seeing it, I hoped he'd tell me if he saw it on component, and if so, if he could make it go away with an adjustment (and which one). I wouldn't expect the "HDMI Black Level" adjustment that mikegb made to affect the component inputs.

Sorry, I didn't realize it was on component only. I seem to recall some talk about reduced gamma having some effect. I don't own a set yet, otherwise I could be more helpful. Maybe you can find that discussion in the owners thread.

Dynamic? Ouch... do you still have eyeballs... might be torched out by that mode.

All,

These are my setting for the 5265F using the AVIA disc. Very dimly lit environment:

Settings
TV: 5265F
Connection: HDMI
Mode: Movie
Contrast 80
Brightness: 38
Sharpness: 35
Color: 49
Tint: G52/R48
Backlight 6
Color Tone: Normal
DNR and DNIe: Off

Detailed Settings:
Everything Off; Color Space: Wide

Setup
Energy Saving: Medium
HDMI Black: Low

I only had acccess to a component signal, so I can't say if it was on the HDMI inputs. My problem is that the right/left too-bright issue that I saw was the only thing that bothered me on this wonderful set. I came to the owner's thread to find out what I was seeing - was it one bad set, incorrect settings, something that just didn't bother anyone else? I had a chance to play with a lot of settings, but never touched gamma, and never touched HDMI Black level.

mikegb posted pics that exactly showed the issue that I saw (sides too bright), but he saw it only on HDMI, and it magically disappeared on component. He posted a fix that was specific to HDMI. I've seen several pics of a pure uniform black screen, so I lean towards thinking that this "problem" was something that I can either fix or that won't appear on the set I actually purchase, but I'd like more info before I finally pull the trigger.

That's why I'm in the "settings" thread (as well as the owner's thread). I'm hoping someone here can say they've seen it on component, and solved it by doing ....... something.

What is your brightness setting at? Is it at 60 or above? If so, what happens if you lower it to 50?

Thanks for sharing. What equipment/inputs are using these settings for all? Or are they specific to STB, OTA or HD DVD, etc.? I find that I have slightly different tweaks between input sources.

I had about an hour of adjusting/playing at a Magnolia BB as I tried to decide whether to pull the trigger. I decided not to - not yet. I tried brightness settings above and below 50. I spent a lot of time on brightness, contrast and backlight settings, but this issue was not the only thing I was looking at. I don't think anyone should rely on my comments as a non-owner, with limited time to adjust. I wasn't even specifically trying to get rid of the side brightness issue all the time.

Initially, I was trying to match the D92, which my wife thought was "sharper." It was really more of a contrast issue. However, I never really got it to settings that I liked and eliminated the bright sides on dark scenes. Let me be clear - I thought the picture was superb. I was comparing to the Sharp D92 and some Elite plasmas. I thought the 65F could match them and it had the capability to go much brighter. I just never quite got it to settings that I would have been happy with when the scene went dark between clips. OTOH, the source was the BB channel, and the only dark stuff I saw was between clips, not true dark scenes, so I certainly have not drawn any conclusion that this is a problem - I'm just hunting for info.

Do you see the bright sides on component with brightness above 60? What is your contrast and backlight setting? I'll probably go back for another look this weekend and I'd like to try some specific settings that others are using here.

BTW, thanks for posting your pictures.

Someone posted that the brightness on the set works from the outside in, so if your brightness is higher, the outer edges will be brighter. I too had this lightened sides problem. I adjusted the gamma to +1 or +2 which made the screen a bit more uniform, then changed hdmi black level to low.

Here's a few pics from my 4661 taken mid-day. The source is my time warner 8300 hd box connected via monoprice cl2 hdmi cables.

As others have cited on the 61/65/66 thread, I too can see the brightness start increasing on the left and right side starting at a brightness level at 60 (even with HDMI Black Level set to low). As I increase the brightness above that, it starts to merge until you see the brightness more uniform across the entire screen. It's an odd issue and, in talking to others, it's the same across the older 5296 as well.

I have my brightness at 50 and I have not seen the side bars light up since lowering my HDMI Black Level to low. I personally think a brightness level above 50 is too high which is why I am not too concerned. I have been looking for it every night while watching tv and I have not noticed it. It is a curious issue though and one I am monitoring.

As for my contrast and backlight, I can't recall exactly where I am right now (and I'm not home). I think I have settled on backlight of 5 and contrast of 80.

The brightness control definitely works from outside in. Gamma seems to work from inside out. In reality, anything over 60 is unwatchable so I think this is a non-issue.

This was posted in the owners thread and I thought it would be very helpful to people reading this thread.

Ran through a full calibration today, thought I would post the color temp I achieved as well as the RGB levels and a CIE Diagram. This set calibrates pretty damn well... spent only about half an hour and got some pretty good results.

Original RGB


Final RGB


Final Color Temp


Final CIE Diagram


Just thought I would share my experience!

bmrowe, what set do you have, and what are your settings after calibration.

I have the LN-T4066F. The graphs I posted are all of grayscale, each cut and gain should vary quite a bit between different sets so I dont think posting the values will do anyone much good.

I should probably also note, that while I have not been able to change HDMI Black Levels to low to account for these bars under HDMI (because HD Tivo does not enable the option), it is currently unclear that once I do, if this will also get rid of the bars that I'm seeing in component mode (older DVD player).

Actually not true. I have HDMI black level enabled on my HDMI 1 input.

Same here, I have it enabled on 1 as well.

I have tried:
Denon AVR2307ci via HDMI and this allowed HDMI black level to be changed
PS3 -- yes
Xbox 360 through Denon -- yes
Motorola HD Cable box -- yes

Mr Foxer - I haven't hooked up anything via component, but I have been meaning to do so anyway. I want to see if SD is any better with component vs hdmi. I will report back on my findings. My brightness setting is about 46 and my backlight is set to 6 I believe. You can definetely make it go away for the most part with a reasonable setting on HDMI without the black level set to low. I know this because it took me a day to figure out how to enable the setting on my bluray and hd-dvr box. I was able to dial it out with just the brightness controls before I got into the hdmi settings.

And what exactly does HDMI Low Levelt do? Is it like Energy saving on the Sonys?

On the owner's thread Scholar79 says he sees it on component, and that he had to go to below 30 on brightness to make it disappear, and that was too low. That probably matched my experience. The more interesting thing was that he also says:

I saw the bars on black between scenes. However, I don't recall seeing any increased brightness on the edges with normal full screen pictures, and I looked hard. I don't know what I would have seen on a starwars type space with stars image. It could be a software/image processing issue of some type. I'm particularly interested in this comment:

This should be easy to test - just feed a 2.35 aspect ratio movie to the screen. I would expect to easily see the side brightness nonuniformity in those upper and lower horizontal black bars if it's really a brightness/mura/screen illumination issue.

I also wonder if this issue varies a lot between sets. I don't think the set I played with (did not adjust gammma) could make the brightness problem disappear with a brightness only adjustment until the brightness was unacceptably low.

This is the exact experience I've had. In a 2.35 movie via component, I can start seeing the light on both sides after I turn the brightness up to anything over 50-55. I posted some pictures in the owners thread area (page 57 or 58) to show the different levels.
From what I can tell, this is actually normal behavior since they go away completely around the mid 40 range in Brightness. And from all of the calibration settings on here, no one seems to be higher than 40 anyway.

I think people are just trying to find an issue and are freaking out over nothing......but this is my first HDTV, so maybe I'm not correct....??
My HDMI cables and PS3 will all be arriving this week, so then I can play with the HDMI settings too, but right now I'm on S video and Component...

cts

Well all the info I supplied essential is grayscale related, so the biggest changes were in the 'white balance' part of the menu.
Contrast 95
Brightness 44
Sharpness 26
Color 52
Tint G55
Backlight 4

Detailed Settings
Black Correction Low
Color Wide
Gamma 0
Everything else off

White Balance
RO 15
GO 14
BO 13
RG 10
GG 18
BG 12

Not sure how much help all that is... I have to assume that the white balance will vary from set to set. Let me know if you have any other questions. Oh, also worth noting is that I measured an actual contrast ratio of 835:1.

CR of 835:1 Has anyone ever measured a Sharp/Sony set?

That is actually very good... You are just use to manufacturer specs and the fact that there are many ways to measure contrast ratio.