Official Sony KDS-XXA3000 OWNERS THREAD! - Page 405

yeah thats what I mean with it turned on, its darker, so I just left it off.

and yeah i noticed its not available but that was my question: Game Mode ON or Game Mode OFF but with Motion enhancer ON?

ok i'll try that out. What does cinemotion Mode 2 do?

If you mean CineMotion AUTO 2 (vis-a-vis AUTO 1), being that CineMotion is Sony's version of 3:2 pulldown film-to-video conversion, it adds SERIOUS artifacts to progressive source material when used in conjuction with Motion Enhancer, giving the picture that weird, creepy 3D video look (particularly with Auto 2). As it's designed to work with interlaced sources (1080/60i, 480/60i), it's best to disable it altogether with 720p and (especially) 1080p sources.

Which Video options are you a fan of? Everything off (Motion Naturalizer, Motion Enhancer, & Cinemotion)? I've never liked Motion Naturalizer & have recently switched to also having Motion Enhancer turned off with Cinemotion on Auto1. I may try reversing that for a week or 2 (Motion Enhancer Standard & Cinemotion Off).

However, I am a big fan of Game Mode with my PS3. I've always gotten motion blur without it, no matter what everything else was set to.

Always Enjoy Your Input!

same thing happened to me, and i believe it has to do with either the receiver or just both being Sony. while the optical out from my TV does not work when ran to the receiver, i can run my ps3 via optical to that same port on the receiver, and it works fine. if your receiver has some inputs with the "TV" label on them, i believe those are the only ones your TV will work through, so my guess is you could convert optical to digital coaxil audio, as my receiver has that and plain analogs for the "TV" inputs. i know it's really crappy, but i hope that helps.

Very kind of you, csean! Frankly, I'm not a fan of any of the Video options. Not to say that many of them don't have their virtues. In fact, some of them can be quite effective in certain situations if one can live with the trade offs.

Admittedly, despite my owning a PS3, I don't do a lot of gaming (though I've recently become a fan of COD4--not very good at it yet, but it's hella fun!). In truth, my calibrated settings (sans any of the enhancements) look pretty fantastic with games, so Game Mode gets bypassed.

Motion Enhancer-Standard alone is generally pretty effective (High can really smooth things out). When I first bought the set, ME-Standard was my default. But after calibration, I found that it wasn't needed and that it takes away a noticeable amount of sharpness; it's been off ever since. Fortunately, blur is as close to being a non-issue on my set as the SXRD technology will allow (in addition to what little that may be evident as a natural byproduct of watching HD DVD and Blu-ray in their native 24fps). All told, I'm pretty jazzed with all the miscellaneous settings being in their default positions.

ok, YOU SIR, need to post all your picture/video settings so I can copy you please!

I also don't do as much gaming as I like. My PS3 is mostly used for Blu-Rays.

I've recently found, like you say, that I've a much sharper picture with Motion Enhancer Off, although Standard definitely has served it's purpose for me when I needed it. Motion Enhancer on High really smooths things out, but to me it's just to much (kinda fake looking).

I'm just glad we own a TV that gives us so many useful options. This TV really gives everyone the "to each his own" capabilities. To me there's really no wrong settings, just better personalized tweaks.

Previously I posted that I reduced the G-Gain to to help with the green tint to the skin.
Well it only helped a little but not completely.
TV is out of warranty purchased Feb. 08-2008 Called Sony no dice they said there is no known issues with the A3000 and Green Tint to the skin in the system.

I only see it with bright scenes and can also notice a green tinge to the total dark scenes too.
Its not terrible but bothersome because I see it I cant keep from seeing it.

So I have a call in to a technician I will keep you all updated.

Is there a "recommended settings" sticky for this TV anywhere ? I love my TV but sometimes the artifact from the motion enhancer is too much. I am a little lost in the fine tuning that can be done between "motion enhancer" and what can be done for each input via the "home" menu and it's sub-menus.

So, I am hoping for general and specific advice on how to get the most realistic looking picture for:

1. a PS3 playing Blu-Ray
2. Regular DVD player through component
3. DirecTV or cable Hi-Def through HDMI

I am not asking about color settings nor the basics that a $50 TV would have, obviously, but rather about all of the gadget setting that this TV has including the various motion options.

If there is no sticky, maybe one of you guys that really knows this thing inside and out could throw together a helpful guide? This is the longest thread that I have ever seen in my life and, unfortunately, kind of worthless for that reason. A guide would be GREAT.

Thanks,

B

Hi,
I found this review of Sony products with motion processing which contains descriptions of what the effect is doing. Maybe some of you can get more out of this than I have gotten...


"Though motion blur is not as significant with SXRD (or LCoS) as it is in many flat panel LCDs, the Sony KDS-50A3000 is a 120Hz set that offers two features designed to minimize motion blur: Motion Enhancer and Motion Naturalizer.
Sony's literature and manual are both vague in describing what each of these features does. But I scoped out a bit more detail from Sony HQ. With both of them turned off, the set converts a 60 frames per second (fps) source (a 60Hz refresh rate) to 120fps by simply repeating a each frame a second time. For a 24fps source, the set repeats each frame four times to produce 96fps. (Incidentally, according to Sony, the SXRD panel itself doubles the frame rate yet again by flashing each frame it receives from the set's video processing circuitseither original or repeatedtwice. But that added detail does not invalidate the explanation here.) Turn on the Motion Enhancer, however, and the added frames are interpolated from the prior and subsequent frames. There are two active settings of this control: Standard and High.
The Motion Naturalizer, however, with two settings, works differently. Instead of repeating or interpolating the added frames, it adds either black frames (Mode 1) or darkened but not totally black frames (Mode 2) between the original frames.
You can select both of these motion features together, in which case you'll get a complex combination of the two processes.
In practice, I found that while the Motion Enhancer did smooth the motion somewhat, it produced a very unnatural effect on film-based material by making it look like video. I did not use it. Motion Naturalizer, on the other hand, smoothed the motion without the "video" look, but significantly reduced image brightness. While the Motion Naturalizer is a clever and occasionally useful feature, I never found it compelling and generally left it off. The Motion Naturalizer also adds flicker on 24fps sources. You won't see it on all program material, but if it bothers you it can be eliminated either by defeating the feature or by converting the 24fps source to 60fps (and accepting the addition of 60Hz, 3/2 pulldown). For more on both of these features, see our *(below)recent review of the Sony VPL-VW200 projector. In that device, the Motion Enhancer has the same name, but the Motion Naturalizer is called Film Projection.


*From the VPL-VW200 projector review:

"If you turn off both the Film Projection = Motion Naturalizer and Motion Enhancer features, the extra frames needed to upconvert the source frame rate to 96Hz or 120Hz are produced simply by repeating frames. For more detail on the Motionflow feature, see "Poetry in Motion?" at the end of this review. "

"The other Motionflow feature, Motion Enhancer, is more controversial. Not in its operation; it does what it is claimed to dosmooth out the motionand does it beautifully. But the result is an image that looks more like video than film. It's what I imagine a director might see when watching an on-set video replay of a shot taken by a video camera run in parallel with the film camera. The Motion Enhancer's image is both fascinating and disturbing. We're so used to the look of film that this processing takes usor took me, at leastout of the movie. Those of you who've ever seen a Masterpiece Theater production where the British filmmaker used film for outside scenes and video for inside ones will immediately recognize the jarring nature of the effect. You might like it, but you're certainly not seeing the director's intention. Apart from checking the Motion Enhancer out, I didn't use it. "

Poetry in Motion?
If the Motionflow features are both turned Off and the display receives a progressive source at 60Hz, Sony's processing frame doubles that 120Hz; it does not remove 3/2 pulldown for film-based, 60Hz sources. If you feed the display a 24Hz source with Motionflow off, however, the processing quadruples that to 96Hz, not 120Hz. In both cases the added frames are simply repeated from the original source frame. Film Projection = Motion Naturalizer mode performs either black or dark frame insertion. For 60Hz material, Mode1 drops a black frame between each active frame when upconverting to 120Hz. Modes2 and 3 operate differently. The original frame is made much brighter, and the added frame is a darker version of the original, rather than pure black. In Mode3, which Sony recommends and I preferred, the sum of these two frames is nearly as bright as the original; in Mode2 the combination is darker, but not as dark as Mode1. For 24Hz material, where the frame rate is quadrupled to 96kHz, the process is much the same, only this time the frame sequence for each original frame is ABAB, where A=the brightened original frame and B=the darker original frame. That, by the way, is why 24Hz is converted to 96Hz and not 120Hzan even number of frame multiplications is required for this process.
With Film Projection = Motion Naturalizer Off and Motion Enhancer on and a 60Hz source, the added frame needed to increase the frame rate to 120Hz is interpolated from the prior and following frames. According to Sony, Motion Enhancer does not operate on 24p material, though this is contrary to my experience; I clearly saw its effects when I tried it with 24Hz Blu-ray and HD DVD discs. Select a combination of Film Projection = Motion Naturalizer and Motion Enhancer and the result is a complex mixture of the two processes, except for Film Projection = Motion Naturalizer Mode 1. According to Sony, that mode turns off the Motion Enhancer since the interpolation would involve a combination of original and full black frames. Sony also states that an SXRD display actually refresh at twice the frame rate. That means that when the panel receives a source that has been converted to 120Hz, the image is refreshed 240Hz. For 96Hz, it's 192Hz.

Hope this helps or informs....

B

Thanks. This is very good information. I just wish it also described Cinemotion.

Now I'm back to where I started. The screen refreshes at two different rates depending on source. 96 hz and 120 hz.

Pauly, disregard all that above. It was well-intentioned, granted. But all it succeeded in doing was to confuse the situation. It's very simple, really. The A3000 is a native 120Hz HDTV period! My recent series of posts in the A3000 Settings Thread explaining how it goes about doing that is exactly on point. If those posts make sense to you--and it appeared that they did--then that's the jist of it.

No problem. When I get home I'll jot the settings down and post them. The usual caveats apply, of course: What works for one TV may not be suitable for the next one.

You can see my confusion though right?! You seem knowledgeable but then again reviewers should be knowledgeable too! It isn't really that important to me it looks good nonetheless.

Oh, I definitely understand! But the Home Theater Magazine review you referenced got it right, too. They just didn't complete their thought, so to speak. In other words, when they said that, for 24fps sources, it repeats each frame 4 times, "producing" 96Hz, they were technically correct. Those 4 repeated 24Hz frames "produce" 96Hz. So when you add 96 to the original 24Hz frame (remember, "repeated" is the operative word here...and you can't repeat something without the original), you have a total of 120Hz. They just failed to simplify the explanation, and there have been other reviews done that do in fact explain it properly, without confusion.

How do you explain this quote? Or is that not relative to the A3000?

No sticky or guide exists for what you're asking because, quite frankly, there's no such thing as "one size fits all", so to speak. Most of the ancillary settings are personal preference. If you don't like what they're doing to the picture, disable them or put them in their default positions--fortunately, we always have that option. The manual gives a pretty good general description of what those optional settings do.

Also--and you probably don't want to hear this--you're going to have to do some reading, either here or at the A3000 Settings thread, especially since questions like yours are asked repeatedly. Seems like no one likes or has the time to read anymore. I know these things run a tad long, but everything you could possibly want to know about this TV is contained within the pages of both threads. If it's worth it to you, then you'll go ahead and dive in. In the end, I'm bettin' you'll be glad you did.

Amen. When I was getting ready to purchase a TV last February, I made a point of reading past posts from this thread every moment I had to spare. After about 2 weeks & hours of research, it was this post that made up my mind to purchase this TV. I've not missed a post since. There's so much knowledge to learn and share here. This time last year it was davehancock and others. Now its people like Hughmc, Davidhir, BasicBlak, & others.

I'm a firm believer in using other users settings as a guide or starting point, but I've yet to agree a 100% with anyone else's. Every TV & user are totally unique & I know anyone of the gentlemen listed above would agree. One of the greatest things about this TV, is it has setting & options that should satisfy anyone's tastes.

And yes if anyone's wondering, I'm a huge fan of this TV.




ps. davehancock where have you been?

And you will find people who want NO enhancements, and people like me who think some of the enhancements make the TV work better.

One of two issues

1) Skin tones can be seen as too green (I would actually call it more yellow, which is related for obvious reasons) in the SXRD line when the Green Color Gamut is well above the reference x.300 y.600 on the CIE Chart. A Lumagen Scaler is about the only thing you can use to nail the position correctly and it clearly corrects the condition I am speaking of.

2) The other possible issue could be the beginning of an OB Green Blob failure.

As you note an issue in the dark scenes as well, #1 does not seem that it is the answer in your case, but #2 is more likely.

No argument there from me....

& ChazzMatt



What Enhancements are you a fan of?

Thanks I am still waiting for the Tech to call and set up an appointment.

It has becoming so noticeable I don't even like watching the TV

i find it interesting how the users manual clearly states that with CineMotion-2 enabled, the motion enhancer will not affect film-based content, when in fact, without doubt, it clearly does. i've tested it repeatedly with various BD movies in 24p and 60hz, and also DVDs on a regular player, and it's definitely working to reduce some of the judder.

i also find it strange that anyone would watch film-based content on this set without using CineMotion-1 and motion enhancement on standard, as this will eliminate soooo much of the choppy crap, and still maintain enough of a film like look. i understand that to each their own, but it's like COME ON PEOPLE!?! why in the world did you bother buying one of these if you're not gonna utilize what is by far and wide it's best feature? this really isn't to bash anyone at all, and i really do get the whole purist thing, but without the standard interpolation, anything on film just looks so utterly choppy, and not just when the camera pans, but really when there's any sort of motion at all...

I really like cinemotion which is a 3-2 pulldown. I don't consider that an "enhancement". My pet peeve with cinemotion on the A3000 is that it is poorly implemented in the fact that it samples too small of an area of the picture to determine whether or not to do the 3-2 pulldown. In watching DVDs it was evident to me that when backgrounds are stationary, the 3-2 pulldown is turned off. I found that switching my DVD player to progressive output, and allowing it to do the 3-2 pulldown rather than the TV resulted in far less motion artifacts. The motion naturalizer is another feature I do not consider to be an "enhancement". I'm somewhat neutral on the "motion enhancer". I didn't like the effect it had on some video, so I usually have it off.

My reason for avoiding the other "enhancements" on the TV is that I believe the TV is a communications device that's goal is to accurately reproduce what was recorded or transmitted from the other end of the stream. For example, I doubt anyone would like to have an enhancement on their telephone that added or deleted words to "enhance" the phone conversation.

Oh, and if cinemotion is affecting 1080/24p, then something is wrong with it.

affecting it in what way?

when i watch BD it's always in 24p mode unless i'm doing some small tests, and don't get me wrong, my 'Tech Level' is nothing to brag about, but the CineMotion settings totally effect BD playback at all times, and mainly in conjunction with whatever setting i have the interpolation on.

edit: maybe not at "all times" but hopefully you get what i'm saying...

Supposedly the purpose of cinemotion is essentially to restore film based material that was originally 24p, but recorded at 30i, back to 24p. When playing Blu-ray over HDMI to the TV at 24fps, there is nothing for cinemotion to do, because the video is already at 24p. It's possible that cinemotion is doing something more than that, but I don't believe it's supposed to.

On 24p blu-ray, if you have the "motion enhancer" turned on, the effect you're seeing when you turn on cinemotion-2 may be the "motion enhancer" being turned off. The motion enhancer will certainly effect 24p.

Cinemotion worked very well on my old TV, a Sony KDF-70XBR950.

yeah i mean to be honest, when i'm using frame interpolation, i can't see a whole lot of difference between 24p and 60hz, but it's definitely playing stuff in 24p, as the player is set up to do it on auto and then when i hit display it says it's displaying it. from there the difference between CineMotion being off and being set to (the default) auto-1 is damn near astronomical, as long as i have interpolation set on standard. otherwise, if it's on high, as you know, it takes film based content and makes it look like wacky HD video feed, but it does (obviously) make everything super smooth, and in turn it's fun to play around with for test purposes. i've also noticed that it makes stuff look sort of flat. if i was gonna sum this up some way, i'd prolly make a chart and just post that, but i'll do a real simple written summary instead. basically my observations are as follows, and this could change, as i'm gaining interest by the moment to play around with it more and hopefully fine tune my findings a bit ... ok so; CineMotion - all 3 settings with standard motion enhancement on, and @ 24p, would equate to the "Off" setting having by far the most judder, Auto-2 a little bit less, and Auto-1 quite a bit less judder and a lot less choppy for any moving object. This is the same basic result i had on my first 55A3000 of which i had to exchange for the one i currently have. now if i were to take the motion enhancement off completely, all three settings would be very choppy and full of judder. without motion enhancement on at all, the only thing that seems to smooth things out slightly, is if i were to play things at 60hz.

Here is a comparison of some recommended settings I saved off this site a while back that might help you some....

http://mrmaico.smugmug.com/photos/48...8_RzohW-XL.jpg