SONY SXRD 60"...WOW!!!

Wow, I thought it had been all but confirmed that the new design erased the speakers from the side, for the underneath style. I actually would've preferred that. I've been set to buy the 50" SXRD for a while now, but the main issue holding me back are those side speakers. I don't like them at all, nor would I even use them. I virtually never watch TV very late at night anymore. Damn, I hope somehow, someway this info is wrong, and the side speakers are gone (OR AT LEAST REMOVABLE). Otherwise I may have to look elsewhere.

 

I made an appointment with Kevin Miller today for the middle of May to calibrate my SXRD.

It'll cost but my system should really shine after the calibration.

 

I calibrated my 50" SXRD using the Avia disc. I am not sure if I did it right, but I am sure happy with the picture. The problem was that I felt the television deserved something better than my old Sony DVD player, so I went out and bought a Sony DVP-NS3100ES which has HDMI output that upscales to 720p/1080i. I looks great.

 

It still kills me that a $400 (heck, even the $200 ones) DVD player scales better than a $5,000 television. I'd like to see them start putting better scalers in these sets.

 

What would cause the bottom left corner of a 60' SXRD to be slightly lighter than the rest of the screen? The very corner being the "brightest" point and gradually getting darker toward the center of the screen. This is especially noticable on movies with black bars at the top and bottom, or on a totally black screen.

Don't get me wrong, it is not much lighter, but it is slightly lighter. My wife cannot see it, but it annoys me.

I have not had the set calibrated. I wouldn't know who could do that in my area.

 

http://www.imagingscience.com/isf-trained.cfm

 

Many of these top calibrators do tours around the USA.

The above website is a good start.

 

Today's the day!

Kevin Miller will be here at around 2PM to calibrate my SXRD and my Denon 3910.

I'm looking forward to seeing what this SXRD is capable of doing when properly tweaked.

 

Definitely report back.

Some tips: You'll probably need to shift the image of the 3910 over to the left one click to account for some pixel cropping that it has. Also, you'll want to set it for 7.5 IRE if you're using HDMI/DVI connection, and Auto1 for deinterlacing. I strongly recommend 480p or 720p output from the Denon. *Important* ask KM if he can check to see what colorspace the SXRD is applying to the output of the Denon. It should be applying NTSC 601, not ATSC 709. He should be able to tell with color bars. You're registered on AVS forum, right?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=32137

If all the HDMI inputs on the Sony apply ATSC 709 to the incoming signal, you may have to consider going with 480i via component out of the Denon and let the Sony handle the deinterlacing and scaling. Not really a bad compromise considering how mucked up your colors can be if the Sony isn't doing the decoding properly.

I think you've already done it, but there's a way to set the SXRDs DRC mode to properly deinterlace and detect 2:3 pulldown for 1080i sources. I posted earlier in this thread on how to do that (my poor brain has forgotten the exact settings).

edit: found it, you have to turn Cinemotion to "on" which you already have done. I thought there was one other setting that had to be made to ensure proper deinterlacing, but I could be wrong

 

A full report after the calibration is absolutely required. I have been wondering about how good of a job these guys do for years.

 

Oh man I can tell you that a good ISF guy is worth every penny! I have Steve Martin come out once a year to do a tune-up on my set. It looks totally amazing. The amount of detail and knowledge that goes into a full blown ISF calibration is mind boggling. The results are not subtle. And once you watch what NTSC/ATSC is really supposed to look like, you'll never want to watch a standard set again

 

Thanks for the tips guys! I'll be sure to have Kevin check out the 3910 thoroughly and get his input on the best way to view DVDs via the 3910 (HDMI or component? 1080i or 720p or 480p?).....we shall see.

 

You guys are driving me crazy, I wish Sony would hurry up and bring out the 70" XBR SXRD, I do not want to buy the 60" when my room needs the 70".

 

Buy the 60" now and when the 70" comes out, put the 60" in the bedroom. I had the same thoughts here.

 

Buy one of the SXRD front projectors, and then you can go as big as you want!

 

More expensive than the RP's but I should check this out. Thanks for the tip.

 

Ok.

Kevin just left and he was very impressed on how my SXRD looks and how DVD's look with the 3910.

He perfected the greyscale and did some other tweaks to the picture in the service menu.

After the tweaks he felt the color on the set looked perfect. The color temp pre-calibration at 60 IRE was 7000, post-calibration now is 6525.

His recommended menu settings for the SXRD were similar to what I had used which are: Picture Mode: Pro/ Color Temp: Warm/ Iris set to 2.

Brightness at 31/ Contrast at 50/ Color at 31/ Tint at 0/ Sharpness at 20.

DRC Mode at Cinemotion/ DRC Palette at Custom 3.
Advanced Iris at High (that was a major change from before). Everything else is set to OFF.

For the Denon 3910 the settings on the SXRD are:
Brightness at 31/ Contrast at 50/ Color at 32/ Tint at R1/ Sharpness at 5.

He felt the 3910 should be set at 1080i with the HDMI cable.

He felt the 3910 should be set at Normal and 0 IRE.

So now I will watch some HDTV and DVDs and see how much improvement I can see. At least now I know the SXRD and the 3910 are set up optimally.

I have on the Preakness telecast on HD-NBC right now and it looks gorgeous.

The cost was $400.

Worth it for me. Now I can boast a state of the art Home Theater.

 

^^^Congratulations. I've been procrastinating for the last few months on my HDTV purchase. I will still be in my apartment for another year or so, and I've decided that I really don't have the room for a big screen TV right now. The only way I could go big, would be to get the 50" commercial Panasonic plasma I've had my eye on, since I can place it much farther back, close to the wall. However, if I go with a current microdisplay RPTV, it's going to look quite overwhelming in my limited space, and the CRT rear projection that I'd like to get is completely out of the question, as the depth is double the microdisplay. DAMN I HATE APARTMENT LIVING! Well, I should say I live in a average apartment, with decent space, but it's never enough. It's not fair for me to complain too intensely, as I've seen truly small apartments that make mine look large. My living room is too shallow though!

I'm thinking since I can get a really good deal (about half what the plasma would cost) for the Sony 34" Widescreen Tube HDTV, and the picture is excellent, I'll probably go that route, and then save my pennies for a larger set in another 1½-2 years. At that point, I'll have the 34" set, and a new larger screen as well.

 

Congrats JohnG!

I'm really perplexed about his recommendations for the 3910 at 1080i. Very counter-intuative. Where you able to explore the colorspace issue with him?

 

He knew of the debate on AVS between 7.5 IRE and 0 IRE but is in the camp that 0 gives you the full spectrum. It gets technical but since he's been around since the beginning of ISF and the earliest video shows, I will defer to his opinion. He says he mainly calibrates Samsung DLP these days but has done 10 SXRDs in the past year.

I can understand how one would feel that the 3910 would be best left at 480 or 720p and let the SXRD do the converting but one of the first things he mentioned when he got here was if the 3910 was set to 1080i via HDMI into the SXRD. He felt that was best for this combo.

He put on the DVD "Seabiscuit" to check on the colors and look of a good DVD after the calibration and thought the movie looked fine.

He felt the combo of the SXRD and the 3910 didn't present any color problems.

He spent most of the time getting the greyscale right. Which was hard to do in my bright sunlit room (it had to be sunny yesterday ).

We also discussed the insanity of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. How it is a real shame we are back in a format war with such cool possibilities for these TV's. He says he staying out of the war for the time being. The lack of software is the main reason at this point.

Kevin is a fun guy to talk to you. It was like having a friend over for the afternoon.

At the very end we watched the end of the NY Met/Yankee game on FOX-HD. He liked the ending of the game, I was sick to my stomach. What the heck is wrong with Billy Wagner!

 

Well, the IRE setting is independant of the colorspace issue. It's a pretty serious concern. You can see for yourself by putting a colorbar patter up with the 3910 and cycling through the various resolutions. Check out the pattern I'm attaching. The one in the upper left is correct for DVD movies. I'm 99.99% certain though, that you're gonna see the (incorrect) one on the bottom left on your set. Check out the greens especially.

Using 1080i via the 3910 just seems so backwards to me. Everyone of your DVDs are going to be 480i. First the Faroudja chip does very good (and sophisticated!) analysis of each pixed to determine if its film or video, mixed cadence whatever. Then it will determine the proper deinterlacing and convert to 480p/60fps. From there it does a relatively simple scale to 1080p (not available to any of the outputs). Now, it has to take those 1080 progressive frames and un-interlace them to to 1080i/60fps. Your SXRD now gets to look at those 1080i/60fps and analyze each of the pixels to determine film, video, mixed cadence whatever. Basically the same thing the Faroudja chip spent time doing. But, the Sony may or may not get it right. So, there's a good chance the Sony could 'undo' the superb deinterlacing benefits of the Faroudja chip.

I don't want to come across as being negative about the way your system was setup. Far from it, I am glad you had an ISF calibration done, and I'm sure the results are amazing. As with many hobbies, there are some folks who are just trying to eek the last bit of performance from said gear

 

Sam, For the uneducated what do those color bars mean and how do you know which is right and which is wrong.

 

Sorry, I really should have given a better description when posting that pic.

SMTPE 601 is the color standard for NTSC. So, every TV broadcast, DVD movie, etc. needs to be decoded using this color formula. SMPTE 709 is strictly for ATSC aka HDTV both 1080i/720p.

The top left chart shows what the color range of an NTSC DVD should look like when properly decoded. You can do this by making sure to use 480i/480p component into your set. However, some TVs have seperate component inputs for 480i/480p or720p/1080i. What the manufacturer is (slyly) telling you is that one set decodes using 601 (SD) the other for HD (709).

Now, if you're using one of those 'upscaling' DVD players, they typically output 720p/1080i via HDMI/DVI output. The problem arises when your TV 'sees' the 720p/1080i output and thinks that's it's really HDTV, so it applies the 709 color paramater when decoding. This is incorrect, and you'll get the results shown in the lower left box. Notice how wrong (dark) greens are now.

The upper right hand box shows HDTV correctly being decoded by the 709 standard. Notice, however, that colors are different that regular NTSC colors. You've probably seen HDTV have a more brilliant array of colors than standard TV can provide. HDTV has a wider range of colors available, and must be decoded accordingly.

The last box, on the bottom right, would rarely happen. This would occur if you had an HD TV broadcast, and fed it out s-video/composite/whatever into your Standard-def TV. Not many folks with an HD box will be doing that, much less care if their colors are right

There are some ways around the whole 'upscaling DVD players' problem. Some players actually transcode the NTSC color standard internally to the HD 709 Matrix on output, resulting in correct decoding. However, this is rarely documented on a per-player basis, even by A/V enthusiasts. I'm still not even sure how the Denon 3910 does with this, although I've asked around with no definitive answer. I'm unable to test myself, as I don't have HDMI input on my TV, so I can't see how it upscales. 480p looks damn good though!

There is another way around this (supposedly). If you use DVI output, the color format is RGB, which does not get decoded by a TV. The set just displays what is being fed to it. But, using DVI is not always the best solution either. DVI is limited to 8-bits of color information per pixel. The processing of newer deinterlacers like the one found in the 3910 and several stand alone video processors run at 10 bits. But 10 bits can only come out of HDMI. So you may experience more banding from noise, etc., with 8 bits, but at least your colors should be correct.

I've just give a very top-level description of this issue. I can definitely expand on any of the above points, because truely one could write pages on the subject

 

He did put up the color bars from a Joe Kane set up DVD and liked what he saw so I have to imagine everything's ok with my setup.

I know this stuff can be debated all day (too bad its not simple....why does everything about this hobby have to be so darn hard).....I don't know how regular people ever get involved with a Home Theater.

But I like what I see so far. We watched a Discovery HD program on Sweden's ICE HOTEL last night and it was so good my wife didn't go to bed till 1AM even though she needs to be up before 7AM.

 

What about in cases where you record a HD program (on a HD-TiVo, for example), and then want to make a copy to VCR (so the program has to be played back at 480i, and recorded via S-video or composite)? Would the color issues you describe come into play in that situation?