Official Sony XBR4/XBR5 calibration thread - Page 12

Good question. Haven't seen anyone on the forum so far reporting success. There was some discussion on the owners thread, but the only test I recall was from someone trying it with the HDMI input. I was unable to test it myself because I can't get OTA signals from an antenna. Sony told me that the receiver would need to support PCM, and the specs for their new ones say "Accepts 8ch linear PCM." I've looked at various receiver specs and not seen clear statements about this.

Have you tried your receiver with the internal tuner?

Pete

Okay guys I need help,

I'm a bit confused about which settings I should have for Motion Enhancer and Cinemotion when I'm watching HD over the air channels.

Please, please help me out. Thanks in advance.

Can anyone explain to the average person what cinemotion does and what the different modes are for? I'm not seeing a difference when swtiching. Does it depend on source content? Does it need to be used along with Motion Enchancer?

Thanks.

That's the 64 million dollar question right now.

Check out post #269 in this thread. It's probably the best post related to cinemotion and motionflow I've read.

I believe most people say that they get the most benefit when watching 1080p/24 by setting cinemotion to auto1 and motionflow to standard. Most other times, leave cinemotion at auto2 with motionflow = standard.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Calibration Settings from the Cnet.com review of the 46XBR4:

http://help.cnet.com/9602-12576_39-0...sageID=2510365


Also a link to the actual review is in my post in the Owner's Thread:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...9#post11750769

Brandon

Nice find thanks Brandon!

Here are my current settings after calibrating it with my Colorfacts Pro and Spyder 2. The white balance is pretty dead on to D65 white point. Remember that all Sony XBR's are not created equal. That is why I would recommend that anyone that wants to get the best picture from their XBR, get it calibrated either by me or a pro.

Picture Menu
Picture Mode: Custom
Backlight: 5
Picture: 79
Brightness: 48-52 depending on connection 52 for SD cable
Color: 55
Hue: 0
Color temp: Neutral
Sharpness: 70
Noise reduction: Low
MPEG noise reduction: Low
DRC mode: Off

Advanced Settings
Black corrector: Off
Advanced C.E: Low
Gamma: Low
Clear white: Low
Color space: Wide
Live color: Low
Detail enhancer: Low
Edge enhancer: Low

White Balance Menu
R-Gain: -1
G-Gain: -1
B-Gain: -4
R-Bias: -1
G-Bias: -2
B-Bias: -3

Screen menu
Wide Mode: Full
Auto Wide: On
4:3 Default: Zoom
Display Area: -2

Video Options menu
Motion Enhancer: Standard or High
CineMotion: Auto 1
Game/Text mode: Off
Video/Photo Optimizer: Video
Video Color Space: x.v.Color
Photo Color Space: sYCC
Color Matrix: Default
RGB Dynamic Range: Auto

General Menu
Power saving: Low
Light sensor: Off

All I know is if you want to see something weird put on an HD movie (can even be from the Cable STB), set Cinemotion to Auto 1 and Motion Enhancer to High.

edit

edit

anyone try cnet's settings yet, how are they,

What are most people setting for Motion Enhancer and Cinemotion? I am a total newbie, and so any help would be greatly appreciated. I just want to truly get the best experience from watching my 46XBR4. If you have different settings for movies, hd, sd, gaming, etc., please post those as well. Thanks in advance for your help.

The brightness and color are significantly different from what I got using Avia test patterns, and we don't like Warm2 at all. I like R.MnTnA's settings much better.

Pete

See the posts at the top of the page. Very impressive that vumcrab can see in the future and answered the question before it was asked.

Do you think that running this config for BD playback on a PS3 is optimal or should something be tweaked for that?

If I put this same settings in Cinema mode, will it be different than custom? (I am running custom config for games)

Well... I have a Sony engineer calling me back within an hour, re: what's the techincal difference between Cinemotion Auto1 and Auto2 (and Motionflow for that matter). Maybe we'll get some non-marketing material answers soon...

in vivid mode the image is very bright and clear (although overdone).

why cant this level of brightness be acheived in other modes, like standard or cinema, even after pushing the backlight and picture settings to max??

(sort of, but not really anything you don't already know)...

Here's the response I got from Sony... doesn't get into too much technical detail unfortunately:

Below is a brief description of reverse 3-2 pull down technology. Sony's CineMotion adds some additional algorithms to this.
The Auto 1 and Auto 2 settings use these different algorithms. Our engineers told me it is just a matter of preference as to which setting you use.

I have also attached a short Power Point on Sony's Motion Flow technology (Motion Enhancer).
Some video and animation has a shutter or vibrating feel to it and the standard setting smoothes this out.
The high setting is there because some film requires more enhancements to give the video more of a cinematic feel. Again, this setting is a matter of preference and only discerning viewers can really tell the difference between the two settings.

I hope this has been of some help to you.

CineMotion® Reverse 3-2 Pull-Down Technology
Sony's term for a TV circuit that detects a 3-2 Pull-Down sequence and performs the reverse or inverse operation. When film studios release their work on TV, DVD, or videotape, they have to transfer film (which runs at 24 frames per second) to video (which runs at 30 frames per second). How do you get 24 into 30 without speeding up the film? Well, first take note that video actually flashes 60 half frames, called "fields," per second because of its interlaced scan. The film studio has a machine (telecine) that takes one film frame and transfers it to three video fields, then takes the next film frame and transfers it to two video fields-thus 3-2. The technology makes it possible to watch films at home, but creates imperfections and subtle speed shifts in the movie. A Reverse 3-2 Pull-Down circuit looks at the video as it's coming through the television, and in a split second rearranges the fields into whole film frames like completing a puzzle. The surprising thing is that the TV's circuit doesn't have to interpolate, or guess, how the film frames actually started out; it has all the necessary clues and can re-create the film perfectly. Sony's CineMotion® technology takes additional steps to make the image as close to the original film as possible.

Obviously, they're using different algorithms for Auto1 and Auto2, but that's all I could get out of them... Perhaps they're proprietary, and perhaps Sony has some patents on them that explain it in detail, but good luck sifting through all that information.

The powerpoint presentation just explains a bit about what MotionFlow does... I found a copy of it online (as it's too big to post here): http://www.brownbucket.com/buckets/j...Motionflow.ppt

"anyone try cnet's settings yet, how are they"

I love them, personally. Am now finally happy w/ my X3500

Excellent black levels/detail, natural and accuate seeming colours, bright and vivid when called for.

I doubt they're "perfect", but they're a damn sight closer to what I want to see than any other settings I've tried.

Seemed spot on for my 360 using the Halo 3 Limited Edition A/V calibration disc as far as contrast and colour accuracy went. Whilst I also liked R.MnTnA's settings also, the colour section was off compared to the cnet ones w/ this source/test.

CDJay

I didn't realize that vumcrab spoke for "most people." Sorry, couldn't help myself.

Actually, I speak for everybody, it's just that some of them don't want you to know that I do.

In that case, you're the guy I'll ask. Do you use separate settings for the motion enhancer and cinemotion for SD, HD, BD, DVD, etc., or do you stick with more of an Overall setting?

Thanks again vumcrab.

My 52xbr5 comes in tomorrow, but at first, I'll only have it connected to SD/HD via Comcast cable. I'm getting the PS3 a little closer to xmas for BD stuff. A buddy of mine has the 46xbr4 and he uses cinemotion=auto1 motionflow=standard for 1080i content on his HD DVD and auto2/standard-high for cable. On his HD DVD, auto1 does smooth the picture out by getting rid of the judder, but I'm not sure that's what I'll end up doing with my 52". I can't decide if I like it or not.

It seems that a lot of people are struggling with these two settings together and the post I pointed you to was something I had ear-marked for myself to use when my set gets in. Did you read the post above by God ? Seems Sony is saying it comes down to a personal preference. I guess just about every setting does.

Otherwise, how's the color on your set?

I apologize for getting snarkey. The subject has been discussed extensively on the owners thread as well as this one.




Many thanks!

I wish I could tell you I would have to see it myself to really tell you. My guess would be that the following should be turned OFF for BD and Games since it's in HD-
Noise reduction:
MPEG noise reduction:
Detail enhancer:
Edge enhancer:

Also I think the PS3 can be changed to output Full Range RGB
My Pioneer DVD player has this as well and I have it set to Full
So I set the RGB Dynamic Range on the XBR to Full and it looks awesome. I would give it try and see if it improves the color of the movies and games.

If you put those settings in Cinema mode some of the settings will be grayed out and you won't be able to select them.

Yes the color section probably would be a little off for that A/V disc. Not sure about that disc, but I used the AVIA Pro discs when I calibrated mine. Also I would try turning Off Live Color if you don't like the colors and maybe switch Color space to Standard. Again it's really comes down to personal preference at the end of a calibration.

Hi,

What would you recommend for 1080i Over-The-Air channels? Detail enhancer, Edge enhancer settings they should be?

Thanks.

So i dialed in my 46/4 for upscaled dvd playback via the oppo 981. Little did i know, that the wide/standard colorspace option would burn me as bad as it did. Using Avia, cal'd for the usual (contrast, brightness saturation, and hue) played with the advanced settings until I thought i had achieved a reasonable picture. Then started watching movies (I'm a format war holdout). Looked beautiful. REcently started noticing horrible green push in scenes with limited luminance, particularly chapter 18 in ghostrider. Rechecked black and white balance, saturation and hue, and came up with near identical results. Chapter 18 again, looks the same, if not worse (possibly my eyes playing tricks). Reseat the hdmi connection on both ends, ch. 18 still no improvement. Tried different hdmi cable, no change. Check ch 18. in another non upscaling player connected via component, seems to look as I would expect it too (no excessive green push). Disconnect ac source to Oppo, wait and then try again. Still no change. Recheck with Avia, all is well. Scratching my head as the grayscale patterns on avia don't exhibit this green push. I probably should have tried a different Hdmi input on the set at this point, but I know things didn't look like this initially 4+ weeks ago. Avia being no help at this point, I took the scene where the Ghostrider is on top of the bridge strut and paused it, and systematically went through the settings for what seemed to be the 10th time, but this time with content as opposed to test patterns. Got to colorspace (which I must have changed to wide at some point, but don't really recall). Switched back to standard and the green push disappeared.

So my point is, although you can calibrate using a test disc with the display's colorspace set wherever you want, the push I speak of won't show up in test patterns (as they are mostly static), only playback of encoded media content. I came within a breath of sanity, to learn this. Hope it helps someone else.

Schlick

Well since my cable is going directly into my TV which also picks up HD and SD, I just leave it on Low. I don't think you can see much difference in HD, at least I can't.