Advice on eyeballing grayscale GREATLY appreciated! (1 Viewer)

[James Zos]

Well, I did something pretty stupid. In the past I've tweaked my aging 27-inch Panasonic's grayscale settings quite a bit, trying to get hues to look more accurate. I had more or less gotten it to as good as I thought it might get without professional calibration, but just this week I got a new CP72 DVD player, and hues that looked fine on my old Sony DVD player now looked a little off.
So I started tweaking again, and just to see what would happen I went back to the original factory settings WITHOUT writing down my latest settings. Well, the originals look awful, and now I find that it is not so easy to get it back to where I'm happy with it.
The problem is that R, G and B cuts have three different ranges each, making for a seemingly unlimited amount of combinations. I've tried eyeballing it with AVIA grayscale patterns, going through each cut and back again, and now I'm feeling totally lost. I don't know which range to even start out with.
Has anyone else been down this road before? If so, do you have ANY advice? I'm saving up for a projector but in the meantime this set is all I have. I don't believe there are any pro calibrationists available in rural Northern California, where I am, so any tips would be MUCH appreciated....

 

[Jan Strnad]

I'm no calibrationist, but maybe one will take pity and respond soon to your plea! Meanwhile:

Does your set have RCUT, BCUT, GCUT and RDRV, BDRV and GDRV? If so, the "cuts" mainly affect shadow detail and the "drvs" mainly affect highlights. So...

I'd put up one of the darker grayscale patterns, say, 30 IRE, and adjust each "cut" by eye to white. You can go up and down pretty wildly at first to see the effect, and zero in on a neutral shade.

Then I'd put up an 80 IRE or so grayscale pattern and adjust the "drvs" the same way. You'll see a definite color shift as you adjust up and down.

This is a really rough, eyeballin', carpentry-with-a-chainsaw method but, since your grayscale is hosed already, it might help you.

BTW...if I'm wrong about any of this, let me know, you calibrationists!

Jan

 

[Michael TLV]

Greetings

Not bad.

For me, I'd recommend you use the pluge pattern with the 4 or 5 gray boxes.

Look at the dark stuff ... and pick a cut parameter like blue ... and move it through a range. See what happens to the dark stuff. Settle on something that looks neutral to you.

Then do red cut and then green cut. Same deal.

Now look at the white boxes and play with the driver controls ... pick something that looks like a neutral white
to you.

If you are like most, you will settle on something slightly bluish.

Regards

 

[James Zos]

Jan and Michael - thanks for responding!

"Does your set have RCUT, BCUT, GCUT and RDRV, BDRV and GDRV? If so, the "cuts" mainly affect shadow detail and the "drvs" mainly affect highlights."

Jan, I have R,G,B cuts, and only R and B Drives. The cuts seem to affect everything in the picture, particularly flesh tones, while it is harder to see the affect of the drives. (I know it seems like that should be the other way around?)

"For me, I'd recommend you use the pluge pattern with the 4 or 5 gray boxes."

Michael, I'll definitely follow your advice. I know you may not be able to answer this, but do you have any idea what range I should start out with? For example, for some reason R Cut-Off will have three ranges, from 1 to 200, 2 to 255, 3 to 185 (not exact figures, just examples.) Should I try to start all the cuts in the same range?

Thanks again for bothering to respond, you guys!

 

[Michael TLV]

Greetings

The stuff cycles in on itself. Don't worry what they say ... just move them forward and back a bit to see what they do.

Trying to reset things for no good reason is irresponsible and irrational.

Regards

 

[James Zos]

"Trying to reset things for no good reason is irresponsible and irrational."

Yeah. No kidding. But then again, trying to do most things for "no good reason," probably isn't such a good idea, is it? Sorta goes without saying.

In my case, however, I had a reason. I wanted to check my latest settings against the factory settings, to see how much of a difference they made. Unfortunately I stupidly forgot to write down my latest settings - like I said.

So your point is...?

 

[Michael TLV]

Greetings

The reason points to itself.

Are there not enough threads out there that state that there are no usable factory settings for sets. Every set is different. The comparison would be irrelevant since no TV ever uses those settings.

Regards

 

[James Zos]

"Are there not enough threads out there that state that there are no usable factory settings for sets. Every set is different. The comparison would be irrelevant since no TV ever uses those settings."

Okay Michael, now I get it. This seems to be a misunderstanding.
By "factory default settings," what I meant was the settings MY specific television originally had when I first purchased it, not some sort of "universal" settings for this model of televsion. I already know there is no such thing, that they are all different, and that every individual set must be adjusted accordingly.

 

[Michael TLV]

Greetings

Those settings are not stored in the TV if you change them. The only thing in there is potentially a catastrophic reset setting group.

The moment you saved your settings to get out of the TV service mode, the original settings were lost.

Regards

 

[jeff peterson]

Can't someone help out this poor guy by looking at their default settings in the service menu for the same model TV?

 

[Michael TLV]

Greetings

That is one way to help, but we have already given him the information to fix the image himself. He needs to only do it now.

Just eyeball it ...

Regards

 

[James Zos]

"Those settings are not stored in the TV if you change them. The only thing in there is potentially a catastrophic reset setting group.
The moment you saved your settings to get out of the TV service mode, the original settings were lost."

Now just hold on a moment here. This thread seems to be getting more confusing by the second.
The moment I entered my set's service menu for the FIRST time, I WROTE down the existing values for my service menu settings. I did not "save" them, I wrote them down on a piece of paper, so I could always re-input the original settings for my specific set if need be.
Since then I have tweaked them so that they are entirely different than they what they were. It is those tweaks that I have lost, not the original settings. I am basically back where I started.

"Can't someone help out this poor guy by looking at their default settings in the service menu for the same model TV?"

Jeff - I appreciate your trying to help me and your sympathy, but I also think you are making the mistake that Michael mistakenly thought I was making (if that isn't too confusing all by itself!). The service menu settings for every televsion set are different, even for the exact same model of Panasonic like I have, so no one else can provide the original settings (which I already have anyway). I know why you made this assumption, because that is what I had once assumed as well, but the truth is each set is set differently. Again, I much appreciate your trying to help me though.

 

[James Zos]

"That is one way to help, but we have already given him the information to fix the image himself. He needs to only do it now.
Just eyeball it ..."

Yes, I think Michael is right. I have another (possibly foolish) plan, however, and that is to build my own optical light device for setting grayscale - but that will be the subject of another thread, as I feel it may be time to retire this one.

Thanks everyone for your responses!