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Hi gang. I'm mostly a lurker on here, but now I have some newbie calibration questions. I used the service menu on my tv set to eliminate some overscan, but now I'm noticing ANOTHER really annoying and distracting display problem, that maybe someone can help me with....
I have a 26" Toshiba 26HF85 CRT HD-ready TV (Dec. 2005). I bought it in early 2006. Actually it's the Canadian edition, so technically it's 26HF85C. It has served my modest needs very well indeed. When I bought it, I was looking for a low-priced HD-capable set to watch DVDs in "anamorphic" quality. Plus SD over-the-air TV. Eventually I may subscribe to a HD service, or try out HD over-the-air reception, but for now I am satisfied with this set-up.
I've yet to see what a true HD signal looks like on this thing, so I don't know if it suffers from the 1080i "glow" at the top of the screen some folks have mentioned. But DVDs play back great. And the picture quality seems remarkably comparable to, or better than, all but the priciest LCD or plasma sets, to my eyes. My only real complaint (until recently) was the dreaded overscan, which was pretty severe. Also, there was a bit of bowing.
A few weeks ago, I bought the Digital Video Essentials calibration disc, and used it to refine the colour/tint and brightness/contrast settings. Big, big improvement. But I was still unhappy with all the overscan. So (very carefully), I ventured into the service menu.
I noted all of the caveats from folks on here -- I wrote down all the SM settings beforehand, and noted all changes. I tried not to change any setting that I didn't understand. More or less.
While viewing some anamorphic test patterns on the DVE disc, here's what I ended up changing to try and eliminate the overscan:
H. SIZE - changed from 42 to 34
V. SIZE - changed from 44 to 43
V. LIN - changed from 24 to 20
V. CENT - changed from 27 to 15
Also, I noticed that changing the setting EW PARA from 11 to 10 removed the bowing, which had been very noticeable, esp. in "Natural" 4:3 pillarbox mode. Finally, I changed the Image Tilt on my regular TV menu to -1.
The overscan is now just under the 5% mark on the DVE test pattern. When I tried to reduce the overscan further, to around 2.5% as suggested by someone on here, distortion was revealed at the outer edges, so I dialed it back to just under the 5% line. Maybe I could have fixed that distortion by changing some other SM settings, who knows? I wanted to tread lightly in there.
I did not try changing any other settings, like V. CORR or COR. TOP, etc., as recommended by some other posters to this site.
Using a grid test pattern and a ruler, the screen geometry now seems to my untrained eye to be totally OK.
BUT ... (sigh) ...
Ever since I made these SM changes, I can see a new problem: hugging the left edge of the screen, there's a half-inch wide, slightly brighter vertical band, and then immediately to its right, about an inch wide, slightly darker vertical band. There's a fainter "echo" of this dark band about an inch to the right. And I think another, barely visible, echo another inch to the right. Even though it's only a slight change in brightness, it can be very distracting in some scenes, eg. bright daylight scenes.
(When viewing over-the-air SD broadcasts, there's a similar ghosting effect on most of the channels -- again, by about an inch to the right. Is this just a coincidence, an unrelated artifact of poor OTA reception, or does it have something to do with my main problem??)
I assume that the only reason I can see this on the left edge of my screen now, where I didn't notice it before, is because it had been hidden by the overscan. Am I correct to think this? Or is it that my SM changes introduced it as an unintended side effect, which could be avoided if I tweak certain other SM settings?
Will I need to do a service call to fix this? Or is it too much to hope for that there are some SM settings I can play with by myself to correct it? I don't mind if I have to bring a technician into the apartment, but I really don't want to try and somehow move this heavy beast to a store somewhere. It weighs a ton.
Should I perhaps post all this over in the "direct view CRT" section of the forum instead? There's a pretty active Toshiba thread over there.
Thanks in advance for any help. If I need to post any more info, such as more of my service menu settings, I can do that.
I have a 26" Toshiba 26HF85 CRT HD-ready TV (Dec. 2005). I bought it in early 2006. Actually it's the Canadian edition, so technically it's 26HF85C. It has served my modest needs very well indeed. When I bought it, I was looking for a low-priced HD-capable set to watch DVDs in "anamorphic" quality. Plus SD over-the-air TV. Eventually I may subscribe to a HD service, or try out HD over-the-air reception, but for now I am satisfied with this set-up.
I've yet to see what a true HD signal looks like on this thing, so I don't know if it suffers from the 1080i "glow" at the top of the screen some folks have mentioned. But DVDs play back great. And the picture quality seems remarkably comparable to, or better than, all but the priciest LCD or plasma sets, to my eyes. My only real complaint (until recently) was the dreaded overscan, which was pretty severe. Also, there was a bit of bowing.
A few weeks ago, I bought the Digital Video Essentials calibration disc, and used it to refine the colour/tint and brightness/contrast settings. Big, big improvement. But I was still unhappy with all the overscan. So (very carefully), I ventured into the service menu.
I noted all of the caveats from folks on here -- I wrote down all the SM settings beforehand, and noted all changes. I tried not to change any setting that I didn't understand. More or less.
While viewing some anamorphic test patterns on the DVE disc, here's what I ended up changing to try and eliminate the overscan:
H. SIZE - changed from 42 to 34
V. SIZE - changed from 44 to 43
V. LIN - changed from 24 to 20
V. CENT - changed from 27 to 15
Also, I noticed that changing the setting EW PARA from 11 to 10 removed the bowing, which had been very noticeable, esp. in "Natural" 4:3 pillarbox mode. Finally, I changed the Image Tilt on my regular TV menu to -1.
The overscan is now just under the 5% mark on the DVE test pattern. When I tried to reduce the overscan further, to around 2.5% as suggested by someone on here, distortion was revealed at the outer edges, so I dialed it back to just under the 5% line. Maybe I could have fixed that distortion by changing some other SM settings, who knows? I wanted to tread lightly in there.
I did not try changing any other settings, like V. CORR or COR. TOP, etc., as recommended by some other posters to this site.
Using a grid test pattern and a ruler, the screen geometry now seems to my untrained eye to be totally OK.
BUT ... (sigh) ...
Ever since I made these SM changes, I can see a new problem: hugging the left edge of the screen, there's a half-inch wide, slightly brighter vertical band, and then immediately to its right, about an inch wide, slightly darker vertical band. There's a fainter "echo" of this dark band about an inch to the right. And I think another, barely visible, echo another inch to the right. Even though it's only a slight change in brightness, it can be very distracting in some scenes, eg. bright daylight scenes.
(When viewing over-the-air SD broadcasts, there's a similar ghosting effect on most of the channels -- again, by about an inch to the right. Is this just a coincidence, an unrelated artifact of poor OTA reception, or does it have something to do with my main problem??)
I assume that the only reason I can see this on the left edge of my screen now, where I didn't notice it before, is because it had been hidden by the overscan. Am I correct to think this? Or is it that my SM changes introduced it as an unintended side effect, which could be avoided if I tweak certain other SM settings?
Will I need to do a service call to fix this? Or is it too much to hope for that there are some SM settings I can play with by myself to correct it? I don't mind if I have to bring a technician into the apartment, but I really don't want to try and somehow move this heavy beast to a store somewhere. It weighs a ton.
Should I perhaps post all this over in the "direct view CRT" section of the forum instead? There's a pretty active Toshiba thread over there.
Thanks in advance for any help. If I need to post any more info, such as more of my service menu settings, I can do that.
