Shadowy Banding from DVD -Dony DVP S9000ES (1 Viewer)

[Kirk Mango]

I own a Sony DVP S9000ES connected to a 61" Sony XBR300 and for the last year and 1/2 have been trying to figure out what is causing the Horizontal "banding" I see in many DVD's. It looks very similar to shadows that appear as horizontal bands or streaks across the TV when you have contrasts of light and dark in scenes or there is artificial light conditions as in the tent scene of Gladiator. These lines move sometimes and then disappear as the scene changes. I only see them in Progressive mode and when playing the same scene in Interlace they do not seem to be apparent. I have read the posts that Robert has on the forum regarding Vertical Banding and have talked to Sony regarding the Service Bulletin #70 upon which they told me that the fix was not for what I was talking about. Was wondering if anyone has noticed this type of problem with there set up or am I the only one. Sony says they have never heard of any Horizontal Banding. Also, in movies which are animated, there does not seem to be any of this banding. Anyone else seen this before.

Kirk

 

[Jack Briggs]

Hi, Kirk: Have you tried lowering the contrast and brightness controls on your WEGA just a tad? See if that works. JB

 

[Kirk Mango]

I have optimized my XBR300 with the VE disk and the Avia disk. To change any of the settings would make it not meet the standards set by these two test disks.

Kirk

 

[Jim Douglas]

Kirk,
It sounds like the same banding everybody was getting on the Sony HDTV sets. I noticed it on my KP53-HS10 when I got my Panasonic RP-91. I went into the service menu and adjusted it out of mine and have never had another problem. I don't know if the service menu settings are the same for the two sets or not. Try looking through the Yahoo Sony HDTV forum here
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sonyhs10/
If you can't find any info there e-mail me and I'll try digging it up in my old files.
Good luck
Jim

 

[Chip E]

I've heard of Sony tv's having a "banding issue" many times before on different forums. I don't know what , or if theirs a fix for the problem but, i doubt it has anything to do with your S9000ES dvd player.

 

[Ted Ross]

I get the same thing with my Hitachi 43inch widescreen. My hitachi upconverts all signals except 1080i to either 540p or 1080i. The banding is less noticable if I use 1080i over 540p. i have also tried several different DVD players & its worse with some over others.

 

[Kirk Mango]

Jim,

Do you think If I had a Sony Tech come out and Do Calibration on it he could take care of the problem. I am not very keen on the idea of entering the Service menu on my own. I would probably screw something up. I really would like to take care of this issue. It is distracting, especially with the amount of money I put into my HT.

Kirk

 

[Jim Douglas]

Kirk,
It seems like I remember someone on the Yahoo Sony forum getting the problem fixed but I can't swear to it. I would run a search through the yahoo forum and see what shows up.
Have you tried running a search here in the display devices section? I ran a quick search and found a few subjects on this problem. I think you will have your best luck on the yahoo forum.
Good luck
Jim

 

[Jim_F]

The simplest, lowest risk fix for banding on my KP-53HS10 was to turn up the brightness adjustment on the S9000ES and then go back with Avia and adjust the brightness downward on the set (in "MOVIE" mode, in my case) itself until it was "perfect" again.

Of course, this does not address the same problem which occurs on some dark 1080i broadcasts. After trying a service mode adjustment and committing a stupid, avoidable error which required hours of work to correct, I decided to live with it for now.

 

[Greg Schwabacher]

I had the same problem with my Sony 9000ES and my KP-53HS10. I fixed it via a service menu adjustment which changed the blanking along the left edge of the screen. You should be able to find something about it on the Yahoo! forum; I'll try to find out more information in the meantime and will post here if I do.

 

[DustinDavis]

I thought that the 9000ES was one of the players known to exhibit the Chroma Bug? That's what it sounds like you are experiencing to me.

From the Secrets of Home Theater and Hi-Fi site:

"The S9000ES has the chroma upsampling bug, clearly visible in "Toy Story", though not as bad as some other players. As with the 7700, when you hit pause on the remote, the color problem clears up."

If you are seeing this effect mostly in very saturated, solid colors, that's what you're getting, the chroma bug. AFAIK nothing can be done about it maybe some of the suggested tweaks will mask it somewhat.

 

[Greg Schwabacher]

No, it's not the chroma bug. This "banding" occurs when there's a region of high contrast transition (i.e. alternating black and white lines) on the left edge of the screen. The "bands" stretch the full width of the screen and don't look like the chroma bug...they're far more obvious.

Anyway, I had bookmarked the threads on HTF where the banding "fix" was explained, but the links no longer work. Fortunately, I printed out those threads that detailed the procedure for fixing the banding problem via the service menu, and I'll retype the procedure here.

FWIW, this "fix" comes courtesy of Scott Krotz and was posted on 11/25/00. Also, this procedure assumes you know how to enter and navigate the service menu (there are many references for that on this and other forums):

OK, after some experimentation, this is my take on the best way to apply the latest banding "countermeasure"...

First, write down all the values in the PJE category, including all three colors' cent/skew/lin/key/pin values (use the 3 key to switch color modes). Remember, there are different PJE settings for the 4x3, 16x9, and 1080i modes. The values that show up in the service menu correspond to the mode you are currently in. If you leave the PJE category (get back to normal green service menu) you can switch from 4x3 to 16x9 and vice versa if you want.

Then, for the mode you want to apply the fix, go to PJE item #12, PWM1, and increase it until you see the left side of the screen just start to clip out. Then kick it back *two* clicks...the should help make sure you don't get a flash focus error. Then hit mute, the enter to write the values, then when it's done writing hit the flash focus button.

If you get a flash focus error, restore the cent/skew/size/lin/key/pin values for each color to what you wrote down, decrease the PWM1 value, then repeat the write process (mute + enter, then flash focus).

You will need to apply the fix to both the 4x3 mode and the 16x9 mode, and 1080i mode if appropriate.

The what-to-do-if-you-get-a-flash-focus-error is theoretical, because I didn't get FF errors this time...but I'm pretty sure the FF only adjusts the cent/skew/size/lin/key/pin values and then writes them to memory, so restoring those values should put everything back to the way it was before you hit the button. If you get a FF error things will look pretty whacked but resetting those values to what you wrote down *should* fix it.

Based on my testing I'd say this "countermeasure" reduces the banding by about 90% or so. It's still best to up the brightness on your progressive source if you can to help completely eliminate the banding.

So there you have it! Proceed with caution, but people familiar with the service menu should be able to do this with no problems. If anyone gets a FF error, let us know if resetting those values fixes things...people might tread carefully until we know more about that.

Scott

FWIW, this is the exact procedure that I implemented to fix the banding problem on my 53HS10/S9000ES combination and it worked virtually perfectly. I've only seen banding once since I implemented the fix...not significant, IMHO.

 

[Jim Douglas]

Hi Greg,
Haven't seen you posting around to much lately. Greg helped me out when I traded my Toshiba for the Sony HS10.
Anyway Kirk just be careful and read everything very carefully before going into the service menu and you should be ok. Like I said this is how I fixed mine and I think you will be lucky to get Sony to admit this is a problem with the set. I'm like Greg,since I did mine I haven't seen the problem at all.
Good Luck
Jim