Color Temp. Question? (1 Viewer)

[Chris Will]

I have a question concerning the color temp. setting on TVs. I have a Sony Vega KV-32FS12 and it has three settings for color temp. to choose from: cool, neutral and warm. I've been doing some reading and the correct setting (to my understanding) should be on warm. I've had the TV for almost 2 years and it has been on cool ever since I bought it. I switch the setting to warm and I'm having a hard time adjusting. Movies look good but video games look horrible and so does cable TV. What I'm looking for is an in depth explanation to why the color temp. should be set on warm. When I had it on cool whites look white with a hint of blue, but on warm the whites look reddish or off-white. Is it something I should give my eyes more time to get use to? What sucks is watching the TVs at work and at friends houses and then coming home to my tv which has a reddish overtone compared to there TVs. Any information would help. I've only had it on the warm setting for 3 days.

Thanks



PS. Why can't they make a TV that delivers the picture the way it was suppose to be, Never The Same Color (NTSC) sucks!!!

 

[Jack Briggs]

Sony claims its Warm color-temp setting is calibrated to the D6,500 standard. You should select that. Cable will look horrible because, generally, most cable signals are substandard to begin with, certainly compared with DVDs. The so-called "Cool" color-temp setting is, in fact, hot (running much higher than 6,500K, and therefore tinted heavily to the blue end of the spectrum). These settings are mislabled intentionally because people associate blue with "coolness."

But when you heat a piece of carbon, it glows red at lower temperatures before reaching a neutral white and then a hot blue-white.

Give yourself some time to adjust to more accurate video. The non-enthusiasts in this world, who comprise the majority, prefer garish pictures that are tinted blue. The manufacturers kowtow to the majority.

 

[John-Miles]

What Jack said is correct, if you want a really good explaination look uo radiation heat transfer in a heat transfer text book or online. basically on a clear sunny day when you take into consideration refraction of light and dozens of other factors the light spectrum is at a temperature of 6500 degrees kelvin. this is essentially a curve on a color chart. depending on the temperature the curve will shift to the right or the left. higher temperature curves emphasize blues while lower temperature curves emphasize reds. this is mainly due tot he wavelength of the various colours.

the warm setting should be around 6500k while the cool and neutral settings will be higher, i believe the cool may even go as high as 9300k.

If i am not mistaken it does not matter too too much which setting is used in and of itself, however any properly filmed material should ahve been filmed for 6500k so you will get the most accurate reproduction if your set mimics that temperature setting. I BELIEVE that if something were filmed at a different temperature setting then you could in theory get the same picture by having your set at the same colour temperature. for example if an episode of sienfeld were filmed at 6500k and 9300k then it would look the same on two tv sets if one were calibrated to 6500k and the other to 9300k.

however i could be wrong on that. as far as i know it is merely a metter of standards. what goes in should come out the same, not at a different setting.

I hope this helps. sorry but my heat transfer is a little rusty, and I dont ahve any texts here so i cant be more clear.

 

[Hugo]

Hi Chris, warm setting (6500k) is what the film industry uses by default to make movies. So if you have your temp at 6500k, you're watching exactly what the director of a movie intended the viewer to see. Hope that helps a little bit more.

Hugo

 

[JohnPhi]

Can it damage your tv to run colors either hot warm or standard. I really like the medium setting on my hitachi, so someone let me know

 

[Kevin P]

Selecting a specific color temperature won't harm the TV, it just alters the gray scale to lean more towards red ("warm") or blue ("cool").

Even if a set is claimed to deliver a 6500K gray scale on a specified color temperature setting, in reality it rarely achieves this without an ISF calibration. So if 6500K looks bad on your set when watching movies, perhaps it's because (a) you're not used to it, (b) it really isn't 6500k, or (c) your set has red push, which often appears more prevalent on warmer color temperatures. An ISF calibrator can fix (b) and (c) for you.

KJP

 

[Chris Will]

Thanks for the help. I'm pretty sure that my tv has bad red push. The warm setting is just too red. Whites look yellowish. I'm happier with the neutral setting. I plan on have the TV ISF calibrated sometime in the future. I'm getting married in a year and my fiance made me put my home theater upgrades on hold until after the wedding. She used the guilt trip method (I love you more b/c I'm saving up for our wedding) so I had to given in or I'd be in trouble. Oh well, its just a year and hopefully I'll be making more money by then.

One last question. Is the NTSC standard D6500K the same for black and white movies, i.e. Psycho? I tried it at the warm setting and it looked more yellowish gray and not B&W. On the neutral setting it looked more like B&W. I will never go back to the cool setting b/c it just looks too blue now.

 

[Chad B]

Hi Chris,

You are on the right track with judging the color temp setting with a black and white movie. If you don't have the proper test equipment (like an ISF calibrator would have) or test DVD's, a well recorded b/w movie is a good choice. The bright white areas are the hardest to judge by eye, but the dark gray or shadows can be observed to see if there is any tint to them. There should not be any tint to the dark grays. When a set is calibrated to D6500, the darker grays will look charcoal gray. Try turning the brightness or black level up and down as you watch a b/w movie. Watch and see if the background developes a colored tint as you adjust the brightness. Choose the color temp setting that has the least amount of color tint to it, whether it be red, green, or blue.
If the tv's were perfectly calibrated from the factory, the D6500 or low setting would be correct. But in the real world, with an uncalibrated tv, you just have to go by eye and don't trust what the settings are supposed to be. From what you describe, the medium would be the proper setting for your set.

Chad

 

[Scott Kimball]

I also find the "warm" setting on my Wega to be waaayyy too warm. I use the neutral setting... which is a little bit too cool (judging by eye).

When the budget says I can. I'll get it ISF calibrated.

-Scott

 

[Rich H]

One thing that should perhaps be pointed out.

While there is "one" color temperature that matches NTSC standards, to ensure the best accuracy to the original transfer (D6500K), that does not mean that other color temperatures therefore produce a crappy or unnatural-looking picture. D6500K is essentially what life looks like in the mid-day sun. But color temperature is different in the morning, different in the shade, different in all sorts of conditions. A TV that has a little more blue in it can be comparable to how an object looks lit at a different time of day, or in slightly more shade. A little warmer color temperature can be closer to how the object looks in morning light. There is nothing de facto "unnatural" or "fake" about non D6500K color temp.

So, if someone prefers a little more blue or whatever in their picture, that doesn't necessarily mean they prefer an unnatural looking picture. Objects are lit in a variety of light temperatures throughout the day, all of which strike us as "natural."

Just trying to stick up a little bit for the Heathens

 

[Kevin C Brown]

Even after selecting "warm", still need to calibrate with Avia, right (or ISF, or VE, etc)? Not just use the "default" settings?

 

[Steve_L_B]

A few posts have referred to 6500K as a correct color temperature setting. Be aware that the correct standard white point is D6500K which lies on the 6500K temperature line on the CIE color space chart. This means that although the color temp may be specified as 6500K, it can vary in hue from very green to very magenta. D6500K is more or less the neutral point on this line. Simply having a display's color temperature set to 6500K does not mean it will look good or render colors correctly, it must be set close to D6500.

My own display's normal color temp setting was very close to 6500K from the factory, but skewed considerably toward the magenta region. Correcting this had a substantial positive effect on the overall display quality.

-Steve