[K.N]

Hi,
I set up MPC-BE with madVR and picture quality is mostly fine on my TV, like 24 Hz playback is working, however it is way oversharpened. I prefer a softer image but more importantly, I dislike the artefacts that are introduced due to oversharpening. There is significant aliasing and ringing. It is very distracting.

I experience this with 4k content on my native UHD screen, so there is no scaling involved.
I looked through madVR settings and I couldn't find any option to adjust this. Is there any way to tune down sharpening, contrast and backlight settings?
Thanks!

 

[Vern Dias]

Calibrate your TV, that's most likely where the problems are. Sounds like you are using the factory defaults.

 

[K.N]

Calibrate your TV, that's most likely where the problems are. Sounds like you are using the factory defaults.

Thanks for the tip! Maybe it's a noob question but how can I calibrate it? And more importantly, will it have an effect in the end? I ask this because I see that the TV's settings are changed by madVR. So if I change something in the TV settings won't it be overwritten by madVR?

 

[VBB]

No, madVR doesn't interact with your TV's settings. It also does not sharpen, unless you want it to. Make sure the TV is in some form of Movie mode, and that the sharpness setting is neutral. Turn off things like edge enhancement, etc.

 

[Vern Dias]

How To Calibrate Your TV

Be aware that any change in signal (such as 24FPS vs 30FPS or 4K vs 2K) as well as using a different input can result in your TV using different values for any or all settings.

 

[K.N]

No, madVR doesn't interact with your TV's settings. It also does not sharpen, unless you want it to. Make sure the TV is in some form of Movie mode, and that the sharpness setting is neutral. Turn off things like edge enhancement, etc.

Hm, this is weird. Because my TV's setting DO change, very significantly and it happens when I make MPC-BE full screen. Interestingly, change happens in two steps: First when I start MPC-BE, the picture shown on the screen becomes somewhat desaturated and when I make it full screen, madVR takes over and the image becomes quite normal again, except the mentioned oversharpening.

This second change is when the TV kicks in: backlight and contrast go to 100%, sharpening also goes up etc.

However, now I tried Movie mode and the image is quite good now, there is no oversharpening.

Turns out, it was my TV all along that was poorly set up. It seems like somehow it has different settings when it receives full screen movie signal and when the "usual PC output". I don't get it but that's what I can decipher. MadVR gets exclusive access to the screen and outputs a kind of signal that the TV recognizes as a movie and sets itself to a different state. Now I checked, and during normal use (I use my TV as my main monitor) it has two modes: "Normal" and "Entertainment". But when I start a film full-screen, it has also Movie mode and Natural and what not. It was initially on "Natural" and this caused the horrible artefacts. When I set it to "Movie", it became quite normal.

I missed this because I never thought these TV modes do much except that only PC mode has 4:4:4 and low latency. I never fiddled with these modes before. And I believed madVR initiated the setting changes on the TV, since I didn't experience anything like this with other players before. And because I believed that what madVR does is optimizing picture quality to the best possible quality the screen can produce which would implicate that it changes the screen's settings. Now I get that I have to fine-tune the screen to my liking and madVR "just" optimizes the signal that the TV gets.

Many thanks for the help!

 

[K.N]

How To Calibrate Your TV

Be aware that any change in signal (such as 24FPS vs 30FPS or 4K vs 2K) as well as using a different input can result in your TV using different values for any or all settings.

Ah, yes I just figured it out. Never knew that before. These new TVs think they are so smart! LOL

 

[Vern Dias]

See my previous post regarding what can affect the settings. Selecting PC mode changes the defaults for many of the settings, but they still may not be set optimally.

 

[VBB]

In addition, what you're describing sounds like the TV changing between SDR and HDR modes. That's perfectly normal, and the TV would very likely have separate settings for the two.

 

[K.N]

In addition, what you're describing sounds like the TV changing between SDR and HDR modes. That's perfectly normal, and the TV would very likely have separate settings for the two.

I'm not sure my TV has a HDR mode. It's a 2014 model, though a premium one.

 

[captain_video]

Why not simply adjust the sharpness setting on your TV?

 

[K.N]

Why not simply adjust the sharpness setting on your TV?

Yes, adjusting the TV settings turned out to be the solution (see above), I just didn't it was possible or necessary (see above).