pictures settings for my Sony TV (1 Viewer)

[Mike Mundt]

I have a Sony 27" FD Trinitron. Im pretty happy with it, for the money i paid I got a good deal as far as image quality goes (brand new $400). Its no HDTV but it'll do for now. I recently baught the Toshiba SD9200 DVD Player, because I was told so much that it was truely the best player out their right now by people and home theater reviews. Im really trying to tweak this interlaced picture to get the best image possible. Im running component video directly to the back of the TV and its all monster cable. But when I do image settings, im not very good at it. Color, Hue, Brightness settings I seem to be able to set easily with the THX optimizer on the Star Wars movies.

The settings I have a hard time with are Picture/Contrast, Sharpness and Color Temperature. It seems like the THX optimizer, sets itself great for star wars, but looks terrible on most other movies (like lord of the rings). Im not sure if i understand color temperature correctly, because during the THX test, it tells me to set the contrast until I can not see the distinction between 4 white boxes and then back it down till they can be seen but the brighest white box is still bright. Well the boxes no matter how high I set the contrast are clearly visible and dont even seem to change much. But with the contrast all the way up, movies like LOTR look terrible. Another problem is color temperature, because in the warm or neutral setting the white boxes dont look white. Only on the cool setting do they actually look white. Otherwise they have a redish brownish tint. Is this ok or should they clearly be white? I always find sharpness to be a hard control, because you can set the sharpness fairly high on my TV, and it adds such detail to their faces, but it adds such a graininess to the background when you do this. I can never seem to find a medium, any help? or can anyone offer a better DVD then THX to make my settings for movies?

sorry bout the long post, its hard to get that all into a few sentences

please any help on these issues

 

[John Garcia]

I do not recommend using these optimizers that come with a particular movie to calibrate your system.

You need to invest in a dedicated calibration disc, such as Avia or Home Theater Tune Up (both from the same company). If you can find Video Essentials anywhere still, this is what I generally prefer to use for video calibration, but I believe it is out of print (new version is supposed to be coming). These discs will explain each control and how they should be set, in detail with examples.

Sharpness is probably the most abused control...turn it down.

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[Mike Mundt]

thank you

 

[Mike Mundt]

what bout my question about setting on my sony TV for Warm, Neutral, or Cool. Cool seems to give me the real color of white. While Warm and Neutral show a white that has a redish brownish look to it.

 

[Mike Mundt]

what bout my question about setting on my sony TV for Warm, Neutral, or Cool. Cool seems to give me the real color of white. While Warm and Neutral show a white that has a redish brownish look to it.

Should the white look like a true white. Or is it ok if its on a Warm or Neutral setting for color temperature. Im not sure what is expected of a good picture.

can anyone help?

 

[David Galindo]

Warm is usually the best color setting. You should be able to tweak your settings enough so that the red setting doesnt make the white look brownish.

Tweaking my settings took nearly a month, and now they're absolutely perfect. Almost.

PS I have a TV like yours, a 36 inch Sony WEGA Trinitron.

 

[John Garcia]

I use neutral for all of my settings.

 

[Mike Mundt]

thank you for all the help

 

[Ronn.W]

I use neutral on the Wega also. Also, if you can't find a Video Essentials, or find you don't want to pay the price for the Avia disc, Sound & Vision will work well for the basic setup of your TV. S&V can be found fairly cheap and have the same tests. A well calibrated Wega is, IMHO, the best analog TV out there.

 

[SteveKNJ]

Like you, I have a Sony Wega 27" and it is absolutely the best TV I have ever owned (also the most expensive I have ever bought, but I haven't done the high end TVs yet!!). Definitely buy the S&V DVD (I think it's $14.95 at buy.com with free shipping, $16.95 at Amazon). It tells you exactly how to set each setting and will also help you with your sound too, which for me, was a lot more difficult to tweak than the TV. Also remember to change the TV settings in the light you most watch your movies in (they suggest setting up everything in a dark room. But just remember, what looks good to me, or the people on the DVD may not look good to you, so don't feel locked in to what they or anyone here tells you.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Please note that Sony itself in its owner's manuals states that the "Warm" color-temp setting is the closest to the NTSC D6,500 standard. For the most part this appears true. Unfortunately, Sony direct-view sets tend to run about 2,000 degrees higher than that at all brightness levels. The only way to tame the sets is with a professional grayscale calibration.