Sony Wega 16:9 squeeze calibration question (1 Viewer)

[Sean Patrick]

ok i've had my 32" Sony Wega for over a year now and i'm having a harder and harder time getting an acceptable picture with anamorphic discs, especially 2.35:1 dvd's. Whenever I get the brightness and black level set to a good level with 1.85:1 discs, i switch to a 2.35:1 disc and the black bars inbetween the image and the tv squeeze are always a little too bright, especially in dark scenes. it makes watching the image distracting. When i get the "inbetween" black bars toan acceptable level, things look a little too dark.
is there no fix for this other than a matte? never been able to properly make or mount an acceptable one and I really don't want to go through that again.
would changing component cables help? i am thinking about switching back to s-video. i'd be willing to pay more $ for component cables of better quality if these problems would clear up. right now i am using cheap-o Recoton cables.
thanks
sean

 

[Richard Kim]

Without making artifical mattes, you can lower the brightness level until the lighter black bars blend in with the darker bars. Of course, it may adversely affect the black level of the actual image.

 

[RyanDinan]

Sean,
Those "darker" black bars arent bars at all - It's completely unscanned areas of the CRT - So they will be very black. However, the inner, lighter black bars are "video-black". That is, they are part of the video transfer, and are still scanned. Since the electron beams aren't completely shut off in the scanned area of the screen (the entire 16x9 area), the black bars are slightly illuminated, and will not be as black as the unscanned areas - Just try and turn your brightness down to a point where the "video-black" level matches the unscanned area. That's the best you can do aside from making mattes.
-Ryan Dinan
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[Chuck C]

You can get close to the blackness of the unscanned bars by lowering the "sbrt" parameter in the service menu to about 9. Luckily, you won't sacrifice contrast in doing so. The best thing to do is to create black-out bars or "mattes" that you can tape on the TV to block out the bars.
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Chuck
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