[pgvozdas]

Brand new 53HS30. Used Avia to calibrate. When I popped in a movie with an AR of 2.35 there are additonal thin black bars along with the black bars from being in 16:9 mode. The 2.35 bars are not true black and definitely stand out. Also, black images in the movies: space scenes, credits, fades to black, are not true black. I then, with my own eye, lowered the "brightness" setting down about 7 notches. Now I have what appears to be true blacks and the 2.35 bars match evenly with the auto 16:9 bars. Is this ok to do? Technically my TV is not set up with Avia, but it looks better. Should I reset my brightness back to Avia? Is my TV malfunctioning and should the Avia brightness setting give me true blacks?

 

[Matt_Stevens]

You set is doing the 16X9 squeeze and the encoded black bars on the DVD are more of a dark gray, so they stand out. It's unfortuante, but the way things are. Dropping the brightness, as you did, is the usual fix. ISF calibration will make this problem a non-issue.

 

[Marc Alexander]

Does this set have a black enhancement feature? If so, make sure this is turned off then recalibrate with AVIA. If properly calibrated with AVIA, there should not be two shades. You may have to exeriment with the different black level test patterns (advanced AVIA) since some set's black level varies greatly with image contrast.

 

[pgvozdas]

I have the TV's picture mode in Pro. I then adjust the picture parameters within Pro using Avia. I don't see any black enhancements or any picture type enhancements to adjust in any menu. I have the color temp at "neutral" even though the manual says that "warm" is NTSC standard. I don't want warm or cool colors. Maybe I'm wrong on that one and it should be "warm". I made my brightness adjustment using the black bars with the half grey test signal. I tried the others with all black and I belive half white and got the same results. I've been testing discs and when I lower the brightness below the Avia setting to get the 2.35 bars to match the 16:9 bars I believe I'm losing detail in the image. Especailly in the movie "Seven." I can't see much of anything in that film. I also noticed I had my DVD player in a "Cinema" picture mode. There are three choices. Standard, Cinema, and Animation. I had chosen Cinema a long time ago because I thought it made movies look better which is what I use the DVD player for. I went back and recalibrated in Standard mode and it made an improvement. I can still see the 2.35 bars and when a movie fades to black it's not true black. There is a little grey/kinda orangish hue to it, like before. But I can see the detail I was missing when I knocked down brightness to get true black. I'm gonna live with seeing some black bars. RPTV aren't perfect. I'll need an ISF to get it. But for now I'm happy. My roomates can't tell at all. It's my eyes. In 6 months maybe I'll ISF.

 

[Chief93]

PowerDVD has similar Normal/Vivid/Cinema-type settings. Any setting other than normal caused grey "black" bars on the top and bottom. Presumably, this is the player up-ing the brightness at the DSP level. Picking Normal blackened these up nicely for me.