Sony VPL-VW60 Tweakers Thread - Page 48

Hey,

Was thinking of doing some "minimalist" tweaking work to my VW60. In other words, turning off RCP, Gamma Correction, Dynamic Iris and most adjustments and simply adjusting with a 2 point grey scale.

Going through the process though,... that notion won't work for me. I think I need all of the processing to dial in the best possible image that I can from my VW60. If I had a video processor then it may be better or easier to tune with.

Using the Iris and RCP and custom Gamma via Image Director I get the best image that I've seen from my VW60. I think a external Video Processor could be easier to tune with but I don't have one and don't feel the need for one just yet.

-Brian

After many attempts, I chose to only use basic settings, no auto iris, with custom gamma.

I found auto iris was giving me strange banding in the bright areas. RCP was a mess and added to banding in the mid tones, especially blues and teal colors. I spent many hours trying to fix it and one day just turned it off, problem solved.

The gamma on mine is important. It allows my pj to be much more linear. Without out the fine adjustments my grays are all over the map. Still have a slight issue in the very near blacks but it rarely shows its face.

I would like to try an external processor. Although my expectations may be way to high, it may not be a wise investment with this pj.

I know you guys have gone through years of different settings and several of you are still not thrilled. I recently purchased a new blu ray player and was testing out several films. I got stuck on Quantum of Solace Blu ray. The third scene involves the interrogation in a dark dungeon alternating with the Siena horse race. The dungeon scene is an absolute torture test for the Sony. The bluish pixels come out in force on the dark detailed backgrounds. The colorful bright horse race scenes look brilliant by the way. I paused some particularly troubling scenes and made some adjustments. My blu ray player (5000es) actually has a mosaic background noise reducer. This actually made a subtle difference. I settled on Auto Iris 1 which I had on OFF before. I also lowered the contrast from 85 to 65. My lamp is set on low. This crushed some of the background but preserved enough detail. The horse carriage scene at the beginning of Gladiator(scene 3 or 4) is another troublesome area for testing. After my adjustments it again looked acceptable. I won't have a chance until tomorrow, but I will post my complete settings. I am curious if you guys have any comments.

im looking for some information for some time now, even read many posts in this forum, but i think i havnt found any answer yet.
i heard there exist some "hidden light reserves" that can be activated by service menu. was this in one post explained ? or is this just the result of overall tweakings ? i would need maximum light as possible from my VW60

Have you tried the "high" lamp mode?

I think you may get more light output if you dis-able the iris. (Depending on how your iris settings are.)

You can turn up contrast. You'll clip but even at max you only clip down to what should be white anyway.

You can also raise the panel drivers or the gains.

Have you measured your light output? Maybe you just need a new bulb.

-Brian

yea, of course, high lamp mode or disabling auto iris is an option as well, i just thought there are some more tweaks behind the normal settings that can increase some hidden reserves next to that

There is a "light cannon" tweak that has been referred to with earlier Sony projectors, and if you spend time searching the forum it may come up. You'd want to be very careful doing such a thing without specific knowledge of it's applicability to the VW60, as who knows what problems could be had?

I think I recall deciding to leave well enough alone on this one and deleted the thread from storage on my computer to resist temptation. I find myself to be dangerous when I mess with things that I'm not very well versed in.

Couple of questions: How would lowering contrast have any effect on the black level (crushing, you mentioned)? Since you have the 5000ES, I would set it to output RGB 16-235 and recalibrate black level and white level with a test disc.

If you don't have one, I plan on being in Portland for business in June. Maybe I can bring some discs and a meter and we can do some tweaking together! (Oh my, that didn't come out right...) We can fiddle with.... I give up!


I hold this knowledge! Mwuuuhahaha! It's actually pretty simple. The old tweak from the "Ruby" thread was to adjust the settings for the iris (basically making sure that the iris was fully open by a certain APL). There was also a gamma tweak which was to adjust the value of DE/UF SW 1
from "1" to "0". While I didn't experiment for long (since it caused the "bright corners" to re-appear and messed with the color uninformity) it did give a boost to overall brightness. Maybe it could be tamed, but it would take alot of time.

Ahhhh i see. I will take a look into this hint, thanks very much !

Popping?


Anybody else get an occasional pop from their projector? Sounds like plastic heating up and expanding, and not quite fitting together very well. My old emerson 26incher made a very similar sound from time to time when i first turned it on. I still don't have it mounted yet so it is on a table next to me so i can definitely hear it pretty good.

No, sir. Pop-free since 2007.

My old Sony HD CRT would pop a bunch, but no popping on the VPL-VW60 as of yet.

Cant say i've ever heard my VW60 pop. My HD CRT RP makes a few creaks, pops and groans, but still throws a great picture

Brian,
Did you ever get a chance to try out that VIP 3D device with the VW60?

I haven't been able to order one yet. I want to. One potential problem is I've read light output is reduced.

Recently 3D-Vip started offering RF glasses (same product Monster sells) which makes putting the devices into an existing system much easier. For example I can send the output of the Blu Ray player into a 3D-Vip displayer and have the emitter setup right with the rest of my gear. It doesn't have to be put somewhere with line of sight for the glasses.

-Brian

Hi Fellow VW60 Tweakers,

I finally got a laptop to use for my projector tuning and it makes all the difference. I got a older laptop from a recycling place and the only things I put on it apart from XP are HCFR and Image Director. It makes it so much easier for me that it's re-interested me in more tweaking.

Why do I tweak my VW60 after years of owning it and using it daily? Because, I like to learn about projector tuning and I like to think I'm hunting a very accurate projected image. It's not because I see blotchy blacks or things like that. I've seen them now and again over the years but almost never.

I found today that I get more output from my VW60 with the iris on than I do with it off. I guess I need to adjust the iris values but it doesn't bother me to have it on and it doesn't adversely affect grey scale or gamma according to my measurements so for now it stays.

I have no idea how to make RCP work for me so for now I have it off till I can figure it out better. I can dial in the 2D colors perfectly and still they are very "off" in terms of Y or the third dimention. So, more experimenting will be needed there.

I don't know why I can get the luminance correct for RGB and balance is good and the 2D colors are fine but then the Y values for colors are still off. Like I said,... I've still got learning to do.

-Brian

I took mine up to Chuck Williams last Friday. He told me today he got ID3 working on his laptop, and it's doing the things it's supposed to do. He's got a 1.3 gain screen same as mine and is going to tweak Gamma and then go back through everything else and optomize. I'll pick it back up this coming Saturday morning. It looked good when it left here, and I suspect it's going to look even better when it gets back.

Chuck Williams does great work.

Hi,

Today I tried to setup my VW60 without many of the processing features.

I turned off Gamma Correction, RCP, and Iris.

So, I tuned with Panel drivers and bias and gains only.

It was difficult but in some ways I get better values that I did with the extra processing enabled. My Delta E's for colors were all lower (except for yellow.) The 2D Graph shows the colors all over saturated but in terms of the Y values they were all very close to correct.

Seems I was able to get better contrast with the dynamic iris engaged so I may copy my bias and gain values into Iris 1 and 2 and then experiment with those.

I wanted a sort of baseline setup with which to evaluate the extra processing features so that I can decide based on data if I want to have them on or not.

I certainly got a very enjoyable picture with all the "extras" turned off.

-Brian

Very good idea to get together a "baseline" without the features.

I just did a "quickie" run with ID to get a flat 2.35 gamma. RGB balance could use some touch-ups, but the CIE chart looked respectable. Didn't get a chance to check Y values.

Next session will be my attempt to use RCP and ID to get a good tradeoff of Y and saturation.

Biggest breakthrough in my latest session was making sure that the color decoding was as tight as possible via the Color and Hue controls. Made things much easier. Surprized that I needed to bump Color setting up to 56!

I'll try and post some graphs and readings later.

I'm going to pick up my projector from Chuck tomorrow morning. The ISF report came back with sweet looking grayscale and improved gamma. He said he had 17 ftl on his 80" diagonal screen, which of course will be less on my 118", but will still be very nice. It appears objectively that Image Director is an important piece of software.

The thing I love best about image director is as I use it to tune gamma.... it perfects RGB balance in the process.

I'm not surprised about Dr Spank having to turn up "color" to 56 as from my Delta Luma data that looks like the right direction. I tried to use it and it didn't seem like "color" was doing anything except at extremes. (Like turn it down and you get no color saturation.) "Hue" on the other hand was dramatic and looked best left right at the center.

I use Dr Spank's posted correction file for my Eye 1LT. It doesn't change the graphs all that much but results in less red and looks like it moves things in the right direction.

-Brian

That does appear to be so, I'll say both objectively and subjectively now. After getting mine back from Chuck today, getting setup, running all the DVE patterns and videos, and some demo material I always use, I can say it looks outstanding! Colors are sweet, flesh tones are natural, and black level and detail are better than I've ever seen from it to date.

Well worth the time and money to let Chuck Williams work on my Black Pearl.

I'm delightfully close to nailing this ID & RCP thing.

Have my 2.35 gamma almost straight as a string. CIE chart looks very good and luma values and DeltaE are more than acceptable. No clipping and great shadow detail.
At this stage, I don't think I'd pop for an external VP.

*maniacally rubbing hands together*

This projector continues to blow me away.

If you have improved things since you last uploaded the ID files mate, I would love to get my hands on your new ones!

Dr Spank,

Do you have the Iris on?

What I found it enabling Iris throws the color brightness values way off. So for now I'm content trying to nail grey scale and gamma. Needless to say your miles ahead.

So,... If you wanted to post up your settings and ID files they could help put me much closer.

I'm trying not to overwork ID as I can get things flatter but chopier by to much touching up. Takes forever too as I run through the grey scale after tuning any part of any color. (Still fun though.)

-Brian

Jive Turkey,

I'm happy for you with the news of Chuck Williams work on your pj.

When I met him more than 10 years ago he knew much more about display tuning then I ever will. He's a true master.

If you want to share details (Iris on or off?, RCP used?) or a calibration report or anything that would be good.


=Brian

This is how mine ended up after calibration. As I'm sure you're aware of, your results may be different than mine as each projector needs to calibrated individually.

User Menu Settings

Picture
User 1

Cinema Black Pro
Adv Iris Off
Lamp Control High

Contrast 80
Bright 50
Color 50
Hue 53

Color Temp Custom 1
Rg 23
Gg -9
Bg -30
Rb 13
Gb 0
Bb -4
Sharpness 40

Expert Setting Black Level Adj. Off

Gamma Correction
(set with Image Director 3)

Adv. Setting
RCP Off
Color Space Wide

In the spirit of brotherly tweaking, I will most certainly post up all associated settings, ID files and suggestions/findings.

My only niggle so far has been getting 10% to get in line with the rest of the gamma curve. It currently hovers at 2.0 which makes for a tiny bit of "haze" in lower APL scenes.

Getting ~16fL (if not more) on a 133"diag HighPower screen in High lamp mode makes for a pretty convincing image!

As other info, I've got my W/B gains in the Service menu pretty high but Contrast adjusted to 76 to avoid clipping. From memory: R - 154, G - 116, B - 120.

Hi,

Honestly I think I may be "done."

I have been tuning quite a lot lately because I got a laptop specifically for tuning the projector. I've been using painters tape to attach my Eye1Lt to the tripod and that's a big improvement over the old rubber band method. I also got a light meter which is great for certain measurements.

I have turned off all kinds of processing. Iris, RCP, Gamma Correction are all off and even without all that I can get a great calibration.

After my last session,... I was simply in love with the resulting image. I suppose that should be the goal and I'm there.

I guess I'll still check up on it now and then but for the moment Perfect is Good Enough.

-Brian