Toshiba 4x3 Anamorphic Adventures- (Tips) (1 Viewer)

[Paul Walther]

After experimenting on my Toshiba 55HX70 for the past week I can now do a manual anamorphic sqeeze setup in 5 minutes flat (And return to normal 4x3 in another 5 minutes). For those of you who may have the 43, 50, 55, or 61 H70 or HX70 models, these tips may help you get there quickly, but as usual, PROCEED at your OWN RISK! I've only worked this out on a 55 inch model.
First, this method is based on the tip posted by Michael (from The Laser Video Experience) at the Keohi Toshiba Tips site. After some modification to his suggestion I am getting outstanding results in a quick, easy to repeat 5 minute process. To get there you will need to do some initial experimenting to get the best combination of service mode parameter values to enter. Once you have these values, they're easily repeatable.
Step 1- Set your DVD player to 16x9 mode and fire up the Avia (or similar) anamorphic widescreen circle and square geometry grid.
Step 2- Go into service mode, enter the 2nd service convergence grid (the one that leaves the service parameters adjustable on the upper left screen) by hitting 7 twice. TURN OFF the red and blue guns.
Step 3- DO NOT start adjusting convergence, but rather start adjusting the following service parameters to begin 'squeezing down' the screen- HIT, WID, and PARA. (Channel up-down adjusts parameter, volume changes value) Exit the convergence screen once in a while to see how the Avia grid looks. Your goal is to get as good a geometry as possible on the GREEN grid WITHOUT adjusting convergence. This will make it easier and quicker to switch the set back to 4x3.
STEP 4- You will probably notice now that no matter what you do, a bit of a "football" shape is left in your geometry. At this point make the following compromise- adjust the WID control to OVER stretch width (works out to about 1 and a half inches on my 55 inch screen- I doubt you'll ever miss this amount on widescreen movies anyway). On my set I lose just the very last crescent of the left and right Avia circles. There is a point at which the green gun will become 'unstable' if you really over stretch WID; back off a tick or 2 from that amount. Now, readjust HIT and PARA to get the screen as close as you can to good geometry on the Avia grid. Most of the football look should be gone.
STEP 5- Now the fun begins. Fine tune your geometry with the LIN, VSC, CNR and VFC parameters. On my set the following values gave very good results.
HIT- from 37H, changed to 5AH
LIN- from OEH, changed to 11H
VSC- from OFH, changed to 10H
WID- from 2CH, changed to 24H
PARA- from 17H, changed to 29H
CNR- from O6H, changed to O8H
VFC- from ODH, changed to OOH
STEP 6- WRITE DOWN the values you come up with- once you get the numbers, they're easily entered again for the exact same results. Takes me 2 minutes to re-enter geometry values. Steps 1-5 DO NOT need to be done again!
STEP 7- What about the Red and Blue guns? Don't I need to do a full service convergence to align them? Because we didn't actually adjust Green in the service convergence mode, the Red and Blue are relatively linear to the Green in the amount that they differ. If you simply do a 9 point USER CONVERGENCE, everything comes together surprisingly well without having to do a full service convergence. Takes about 3 minuets. What problems remain are usually at the extreme edges, not even seen on widescreen material. A quick service mode touchup can be done to "clean up" at a penalty of about another 5 minutes if you want.
STEP 8- Watch some anamorphic movies of various ratio. On 2.35:1 movies, I still had a bit of bowing on the lower edge that I decided to get rid of. I made the decision at this point to slightly alter the green grid in service mode to better align this area. The result is a near spot on anamorphic geometry at the expense of introducing a modest geometry error when I switch the set back into 4x3 mode. Since my viewing is FAR more critical on DVDs (of which most are anamorphic), it was a good decision to make.
Final comments: Now, to watch an anamorphic film I set the DVD player to 16x9, enter the 7 service parameter numbers, and do the 9 point user convergence. Undo the same to reenter 4x3 mode. Takes 5 minutes either way. The benefit is a complete removal of downconversion artifacts, and about 30% greater resolution. Even my wife was blown away at astounding detail of our "Jurassic Park" DVD.
There's no going back.
Good luck, all.
P.W.
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DocW

 

[Nathan_H]

I see a macro in your future
That is: If the numbers are really about the same each time, one could program all the service menu changes into a macro on a remote (like the Cinema 7) and save some time.
Too bad convergence isn't digitally controlled -- so that that could be entered into a macro, as well.
Having to deal with convergence is the sticking point for me, at this point. I'm a stickler about geometry and convergence, and watch more 4:3 stuff than anamorphic stuff, so I'd be hesitant to try it...
But it does sound cool (so I may end up experimenting).
The ideal would be to find the right combination of service menu items to move back and forth without affecting convergence.... But that may be wishful thinking, on my part.
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[Nathan_H]

By the way, although I know what some of the service menu parameters you're adjusting do/mean, I'm not well versed in others.
Can anyone help fill in the blanks/answer the questions, here:
HIT- height -- picture size from top to bottom
WID- width -- picture size from side to side
PARA- parabolic -- bending/bowing, like pincusion on a computer monitor, only the top and bottom are what is being effected more than the sides??
CNR- not sure what this means??
VFC- not sure what this means??
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[Paul Walther]

CNR adjusts geometry in the corners. VFC adjusts the extreme top edges. (I forget VSC, I'm at work now- but it's a minor geometry movement. You'll know it when you see it.)
Regarding convergence, don't let that scare you. Remember, all we're going to initially adjust is 9 point USER convergence, leaving the 64 point service convergence alone unless you really want to. Your green will re-align exactly when going to and from anamorphic mode, as long as you re-enter the same service values. There's no way around doing SOME form of convergence- the blue and red guns are pulling in opposite directions in order to 'squeeze'.
I should have added the warning to write down ALL your service mode values before adjusting, just so you can get back to original values in case of an accidental change.
Also- avoid adjusting VPOS in Service Mode- I've seen warnings about losing S-video inputs by doing this and I'm not sure which sets are affected by this bug. See Keohi site for more on this.
Enjoy, and have fun!
P.W.

 

[Nathan_H]

It occurs to me that since in HD mode with HD content, these Toshiba sets can switch to anamorphic squeeze on their own, that there must be a proper set of changes one can make in the service menu (or, at worst, the addr menu) that will squeeze things without any need to adjust convergence, or alter the overscan to get rid of the slight geometry problems noted in the first post.
Rather than experimenting to find out what those changes are, I'm thinking that one could compare one's service menu settings (and maybe addr settings, if necessary) while in the HD squeeze mode, with what one's settings are while in the non-anamorphic mode. And viola: Those are the changes that need to be made. Set up a macro to make those changes in each direction, and one has 'on demand' anamorphic squeeze.
Trouble is, I don't have any way to generate a HD signal, so I can't do this experiment myself.
I suspect there'd be many of us who'd be mighty appreciative if some intrepid soul who has the ability to generate a HD signal would take a spin through their service menu when in HD squeeze mode, and note where the differences between service menu settings in squeeze mode (versus non-squeeze mode) occur.
Hopefully, based solely on those changes, one could have a guide to doing the squeeze that would work well. (Though, as I note above, it might take looking at addr settings, which would be significantly more tedious.)
Any takers?

 

[Nathan_H]

I guess the only problem with that scenario might be that those service menu settings still require a 540p or 1080i source in order for them to trigger the squeeze, eh? Well, maybe, BUT here's what I'm suggesting: Once the set is actually recieving the 540p/1080i signal, it makes more changes to it's service menu (or addr menu) on it's own -- and that *those* changes (that are the result of detecting a 540p/1080i signal) are the settings that we want to crib from.

 

[Paul Walther]

I understand what you mean, Nathan. The problem here is that a Service setup doing the squeeze in HD mode is incorporating not only new parameter values, but a special geometry adjustment as well. That differing geometry adjustment is stored in memory as an altogether different convergence setting that is automatically triggered when an HD signal is present. Since we cannot store a new convergence/geometry "memory", we need a method that uses the SAME convergence/geometry for both squeezed and unsqueezed formats. My method allows the green gun to keep its convergence settings- its geometry being altered by the service parameter changes. All that needs doing afterwards is the red/green 9 point convergence to realign everything.
Thanks for the input! I've recieved e-mail from some other H/Hx70 owners who are going to put this method to the test and see if they can duplicate my results. I'll post results as they come in.
Regards-
P.W.

 

[Henry Colonna]

Yikes! This thread, while containing tons of useful information for a Toshiba owner, is giving me a headache :-]
I stumbled upon this thread to gather information about whether I should buy a Sony 53HS20 or a new Toshiba that will "do the squeeze."
Unfortunately, I'm not sure what the goal, or the problems are, that would cause such a complicated set of commands.
This set will do AUTOMATIC anamorphic squeeze? But apparently it's out of adjustment and you have to fiddle with it to this degree?

 

[Paul Walther]

Henry- let your headaches be gone! The new Toshibas do an automatic anamorphic squeeze- no hastles to worry about. The OLD Tosh's, however, do not. For them, one solution is a MANUAL squeeze, the method for doing such being what I've posted here. These tips are meant to apply to the older H70 and HX70 series- the new sets are the H71, HX71 series.
For us older Tosh 4:3 owners, this is a bit of a "Holy Grail" we've been chasing. Get one of the newer sets and you should be VERY happy, with no concern to this issue.
Good Luck!
P.W.
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DocW

 

[Scott_R]

I have been coming and going to this post for a while now. I have the Toshiba 55HX70 also and was very interested in someone coming up with an easy method to do an anamorphic squeeze. Since I have not tried anything like this before I was a little hesitant. So I started messing around in Service mode going back and forth in the menus, writing down all my parameter values and just feeling my way around, not changing anything yet. I finally built up enough confidence to give this a try. After an email with Paul, who reaffirmed what he started this thread with, I did the adjustments this past weekend. I wish I had done it sooner!
What a difference it made. The picture on T2 was incredible! Lot's of detail and crisp. I checked out several other DVD's and was totally impressed. One thing I noticed it helped alot with is things like titles and end credits. Especially those in white. They always were wavy and sort of jagged looking, but after this they were clear and defined.
It was really very easy to do and only took me around an hour to come up with a final set of numbers to use. And Paul is right, after you get these numbers it only takes about five minutes to go from unsqeezed to squeeze mode after doing a quick user level convergence and the same to go back to your original settings.
I still need to tweak it a little bit more just to get it perfect, having a slight bowing in the middle that Paul talked about also.
I'm curious to see if anyone else has tried and is using this method and what kind of results you are getting. I'm very happy with the results I'm getting and am looking forward to watching all my anamorphic DVDs again for the first time!

 

[Scott_R]

I have been coming and going to this post for a while now. I have the Toshiba 55HX70 also and was very interested in someone coming up with an easy method to do an anamorphic squeeze. Since I have not tried anything like this before I was a little hesitant. So I started messing around in Service mode going back and forth in the menus, writing down all my parameter values and just feeling my way around, not changing anything yet. I finally built up enough confidence to give this a try. After an email with Paul, who reaffirmed what he started this thread with, I did the adjustments this past weekend. I wish I had done it sooner!
What a difference it made. The picture on T2 was incredible! Lot's of detail and crisp. I checked out several other DVD's and was totally impressed. One thing I noticed it helped alot with is things like titles and end credits. Especially those in white. They always were wavy and sort of jagged looking, but after this they were clear and defined.
It was really very easy to do and only took me around an hour to come up with a final set of numbers to use. And Paul is right, after you get these numbers it only takes about five minutes to go from unsqeezed to squeeze mode after doing a quick user level convergence and the same to go back to your original settings.
I still need to tweak it a little bit more just to get it perfect, having a slight bowing in the middle that Paul talked about also.
I'm curious to see if anyone else has tried and is using this method and what kind of results you are getting. I'm very happy with the results I'm getting and am looking forward to watching all my anamorphic DVDs again for the first time!

 

[Nathan_H]

For comparision, can you post your final service mode settings, as well? It would be interesting to compare with the previous set of numbers.
I'm still very worried about the bowing and the increase in overscan...
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[Nathan_H]

With the help of forums like this one I tracked down the problems I (and a few others it sounds like) was having: the HIT setting in the service menu was WAY OFF for the HD portion of my TV. Fixing that has set me on the trail of a solution. There's still a lot of minor tweaking, but the big problem I had encountered appears to have simply been a very poor factory setting!

 

[Andy_A]

Hi, does anyone know if this anamorphic squeeze trick will work on the GE/RCA series of tvs in the service menu? Specifically, the GE 31GT720. Please let me know if it is possible. I really need to improve the picture but don't have the funds..