How do you adjust contrast? (1 Viewer)

[Tom Martin]

on my THX contrast adjust screen i have a bunch of white boxes. When i move the contrast up or down, the boxes pretty much stay the same shade. Is there another way to adjust the contrast without having a specialized setup disc? I think mine is set at 80 right now. And it's a Samsung 55" projection HDTV.

 

[Chris White]

My guess would be the a setting of 80 is too high. When you adjust the contrast, you're looking at two things. First, look for blooming. When you turn up the contrast, you may approach the limit of the tv's ability to provide enough "juice." When that happens, you'll see bending of the lines in the test pattern. You want to avoid that. With many sets, especially when they're new, blooming never occurs regardless of the contrast setting. Second, look for the difference in shade of the boxes. As I recall (this is all described on a test disc), each box should twice as bright as the previous box.

If you can't tell any difference as you adjust the contrast, then try a simpler approach. Just lower the contrast to about 50 and see if you can live with it. Since you've had the contrast at 80, the picture will probably look too dark at first. Give it some time. You may discover that although the brightest scenes aren't quite as bright, you can now see better detail, especially shadow detail. If you just can't live with the setting of 50, raise it a little bit at a time until you can.

 

[Michael TLV]

Greetings

Also ask if the white white hurts your eyes to look at it. If it does, your contrast is too high.

Regards

 

[Tom Martin]

first, thanks for the help!

now, i set it to 50 and it looks fine to me. i played with the contrast and i didn't see any blooming or line bending. the test was to get the boxes to the point where you can just make out each individual box, but they never really blended. so, it'll just be 50 for now. would maybe going a bit lower than 50 make any difference?

 

[Rick Guynn]

Brightness and contrast are interdependent on these kinds of tests. If your are having trouble setting the contrast, leave it at 50, then try a test pattern to help you set brightness. If you can get that set, then revisit the contrast. You may actually have to go back and forth on these two to really get them set properly.

RG

 

[Jeremy Scott]

the contrast was set about 50% on my 36' jvc hdtv for a few months until i got avia.

then i adjusted it down to about 20%, picture is not as bright but looks SOOOOOOOOOOOO much clearer.

i have yet to see a crt tube that beats the clarity of mine.

 

[Tom Martin]

i guess i need to get either the avia or the dve disc.