Just picked up my Sony 32HV600, my story and help with red push and other settings. (1 Viewer)

[jeff lam]

I just picked up my 32HV600 which I believe is Sony's 32" XBR replacement. I got it from Fry's for $1299 and finally picked it up last night. Awesome deal, I couldn't pass it up. Anyway, getting it set up with my friend was fairly easy. I had heard stories of this set being so heavy, but it's really not that bad. I had expected it to be much more difficult to get it out of the box and in my unit. Neither of us are big strong guys either. It's 175lbs out of the box.

Anyway, once we got it in the unit and turned it on I immediately noticed discoloration in the upper and lower right corners, looked like magnetic interference from unshielded speakers. Strange because my speakers are shielded. Anyway, after about a half hour of trying to figure this out, I just turned it off for a few minutes and turned it back on to degauss the TV and the discoloration is gone! Yes! Don't have to worry too much about taking it back. I also found the geometry was near perfectly straight with letterbox DVD's. Amazing! This is what I was most worried about as nearly everyone that has a Sony flat direct view has serious issues with bowing and tilting.
I didn't have time for a thorough calibration w/VE, I just immediately turned down the contrast and brightness to about 35% as it was on my old Sony set. I set it to PRO and color temp to warm, and SVM to off, is this where it should be? Anyway when doing this, RED PUSH was blaring out on everything. So I will need to tone it down. On my older trinitron I toned it down using AXPL in the service menu but I heard there is no AXPL on the newer sets. What do I need to do to fix the Red Push? Any other service menu items I need to change to set better black levels, other colors, get closer to 6500K, convergence?
Anyone with an XBR800 have any tips for making this thing shine?
Thanks!

 

[Michael TLV]

Greetings

Decoder items ... RY-R ... BY-G ... type stuff ... it should be in there ...

Regards

 

[JasonRH]

Jeff,
My XBR-450 had a value entitled AXIS. That's what I used to fix the red push. Another possibility is AXNT. Good luck.

 

[jeff lam]

I tried fixing the red push last night and did fairly well.
changed RYR to 15 which helped but my yellows still look a little orange and not quite bright yellow as they should.

I also ran my set through VE and that helped a lot, looks much better now. Although I may have issues with black level. After setting the Blacker than black and lighter than black in VE(setting the black level so the blacker than black bar just dissapears) it wasn't enough for 2.35:1 films with the squeeze applied. I saw 2 sets of bars, the top/bottom of dead space which was black and the bars in between the picture and the dead space which were light black. Using the movie, I lowered the brightness about 2 notches which was fine but now my brightness is too low for according to VE. It there a service menu item that will help hold black levels better?

 

[Michael TLV]

Greetings

Did you look at the GyR too ... that gives you back your yellows.

Regards

 

[jeff lam]

Michael,
GYR and GYB looked like it changed the greens and didn't seem like it helped get the bright yellow back.

I'll play around with it more later. Do you happen to know how I can get good black levels? On my older trinitron I changed the Y-DC to 0 which seemed to make the blacks very good. Is there a similar register in the new sony's that you know of?

 

[jeff lam]

Ran a 2.35:1 movie last night. I adjusted the brightness so the "middle" black bars matched the "dead" bars on the top and bottom of the TV. The dark parts of the screen were very difficult to see. It seemed too dark. I used the THX video test on Monsters Inc to check the black levels. The "THX" in grey wasn't even visible. Popped in VE and saw the same thing, way too dark! So, my question is, how do I get properly calibrated so the 2.35:1 movie bars match the dead bars and still maintain the proper brightness level while in 16x9 enhanced mode?

 

[Michael TLV]

Greetings

You can't. The dead areas are not being scanned ... the black bars in the DVD signal are ...

Only Mattes will make the DVD bars truly black.

Regards

 

[Chuck C]

Well I figure now is as good a time as any to promote my website article's concerning Wegas....
Wega Calibration
Fixing the Wega oversqueeze

 

[jeff lam]

Michael,
There's no way for the scan lines to display true black?

 

[Michael TLV]

Greetings

It can get closer to black if you get it grayscale calibrated, it it will never be truly black as long as electron beams hit it. There is always spillage from the other parts of the screen being excited.

Regards

 

[nousername]

I agree about the mattes. It's the only way to get true blacks when viewing widescreen material...

 

[jeff lam]

I was playing around with it last night and found a service menu register called "ATPD" in "2103-1". The default was 0, when I set it to 1, 2 or 3 (I left it at 2) it helped immensely with holding pure blacks and got rid of my "grey" bars without darkening the viewable picture.

Now I'm very happy with my set's ability to hold black levels even on the scanned areas of the screen that should be black which were grey or light black before. They match the "dead bars" without making the picture darker, only the blacks get darker, everything else remains the same.

Some of you with XBR direct views may want to try it out and if any of you have a service manual I would love to hear what this register is and what it's called.