Help with Sony XBR960 (1 Viewer)

Picked up a 34" XBR960 and I love this thing! I am trying to do some initial calibration (not ready for the service menu) and having a hard time of it.

I find the tube quality may actually be 'too' good for the Avia disk. I'll try to explain.. I previously has a Tosh 40" TheaterWide rear projection set and it was really good, to the point where following the Avia instructions was nearly impossible. For example, the power supply and guns were so good, the beam focus was never lost unless I cranked the black and white levels up to 100%. So the sharpness test was really difficult to perform, everything looked good.

Well on the XBR960, I am having even more trouble. I can't get the white level set to the point where the one moving bar is 100% white and the other is barely noticable. Likewise, when I set the black level to the point where the one black bar is invisible but the other is barely visible, everything seems too dark. The sharpness test is a waste because I could pick a setting anywhere from 15% to 40% and they all look the same.

Watching HD content is awesome and really shows off the power of the set. But watching SD content, I can't help but think there's contrast problems all over the place. Colors are too vibrant, especially blue, yet Avia says they're dead-on correct.

Here's what I've got:

Picture: 32
Brightness: 42
Color: 32
Hue: 0
Sharpness: 15
Turned off ClearEdge
Set Color Temp to Neutral
Color Axis set to Monitor (de-emphasize red)

Greetings

AVIA does not teach you where to properly set contrast. The contrast patterns are there to determine where "NOT TO SET" contrast to. It identifies the TV's proverbial RED LINE. We don't drive our cars at 5999 rpm because the red line is at 6000 rpm.

There are a few easy ways of setting contrast short of using a light meter (best way). Take a 100% white windowbox from AVIA and look at it. If the pattern is hurting your eyes ... then your contrast is too high.

Another method giving you similar results is to reduce contrast with the same pattern until the 100% white box stopps looking white. At a certain point it starts to look gray ... (gone too far). Find the point where it looks white and not gray.

Do contrast first ... then go back to brightness and do that. Brightness should be much easier to do after that.

Regards