Brightening a "Dark Picture" on Large-Screen TVs with the HDMI Format Setting
I just saw a great TV source for testing my 3575 tuner for "dark pic" via HDMI to my Vizio 47" 1080p LCD... except, it was a REVERSE situation to the "dark pic" a few others are reporting, primarily those using 768p TVs. My dark pic was in a live pic on my TV... no 3575 involved!
I'm an analog cable subscriber but one of my local analog channels (NBC 13) switched to HD broadcasting for their news... essentially, a "dense" HD-produced program on an analog channel. All other std analog channels show NO evidence of darkness on the TV itself, but on one occasion I noticed my local HD news looked noticeably dark overall
ON THE TV ITSELF, i.e., in the signal being fed on the coax, not thru my 3575's normal line connection to the TV. Today, it was dark on the TV again... the weather lady was in a dark brown suit with 2 buttons on front, and it was hard to see the jacket split and the two buttons.
I recorded a segment on my 3575 where she was mostly facing the camera. I then played the rec and PAUSED to check PQ on the still frame, pressed STOP and changed the HDMI Format setting, pressed PLAY and got to the same pic and PAUSED to make a direct comparison.
I was set for YCbCr for HDMI (where RGB Range doesn't apply), with output set for 480p cuz my 1080p TV does a better job upscaling to its native res. When I switched from YCbCr to RGB Format, her suit (and the whole pic) brightened up and I could now see the split jacket and buttons. Setting my RGB Range to Enhanced added contrast, and the tuner pic became a little sharper, but it also became a little darker again.
However, after many tests and going back-and-forth, I finally settled on YCbCr, which gives me a noticeably sharper pic (and RGB Range has no effect). If I see any dark scenes that lose some detail, I'll just have to live with it! If I happened to play an entire movie shot in darkness, and it bothered me, I might switch to RGB/Normal just for that movie?
Anyway, it appears that programs produced and broadcast in HD, with its higher density pic, MAY present some "darkness" problems in the raw signal from the station, esp. on 768p TVs (usually 40" or smaller). Setting the 3575/76 for RGB/Normal might brighten that pic, altho some people get a brighter pic using YCbCr. It prob. depends on several factors, incl. channel, program and TV. In my case, it happens on an analog channel, with a digital HD production, viewed on my 47" 1080p LCD.
It appears people with "dark pic" should at least test the RGB/YCbCr settings to see their relative effect on the darkness of their pic. Based on my experience in my system, YCbCr MIGHT produce the best pic for the vast majority of things most people watch today?
I had a PM conversation with a 3576 user who has a 52" Samsung and got a dark pic in one particular scene of a commercial DVD. He set his 3576 to HDMI Format = YCbCr cuz it brightened his pic up for both TV watching and for recording! He also mentioned that there was a YCbCr setting in his TV, and setting that ON made things worse! Obviously, he just left his TV setting OFF.
Another user "just gave it time to correct itself" while watching thru Component RGB connection to his Samsung HDTV!
These may or may not have any effect on the 40" or smaller 1366x768 (720p) TVs some others have reported a "dark pic" on? Those people should really look for a TV setting that might be "DVD" or "DTV" usage cuz the 768p resolution is a COMPUTER resolution, which is what the design of many of these "smaller" TVs was based on. Finding a TV/DVD/DTV type setting might put the TV in video mode and more compatible with DVD/video scaler resolutions of 480i/p, 720p, and 1080i/p.