Toshiba 57HX81 Owners: What settings are you using? And various PIC SIZE questions... (1 Viewer)

[Michael D. Bunting]

My 57HX81 was delivered this past Sunday. This is my first 16:9 RPTV and so far I'm very happy with the set!
I have been playing around with the settings ever since and I can't quite get them where I think they should be.
I'm interested in seeing what other 57HX81 owners are using for their settings. Please share if you can.
Here are my current settings:
Contrast 40
Brightness 57
Color 52
Tint -13
Sharpness 35
Temp Medium
Flesh: Off
DNR: Auto
Mode: Film
I'm somewhat confused on what PICTURE SIZE to use when watching various DVD's. Are these settings correct?
16:9 Anamorphic DVD's - set PICTURE SIZE to FULL
NTSC/DIRECTV - set PICTURE SIZE to

 

[MichaelG]

Michael, unfortunately I am going to give you an answer that won't help you but...

The settings for Contrast/Tint/Brightness/Color/... can not be compared to the settings on other TV even if they are the same exact model. No two TV's are the same and that is because each color CRT will be slightly different in their initial setup. You could find that other people do have similar settings, but you just can't copy those settings, or average them out for them to be correct on your TV. A Color setting of 52 on your might be equal to a Setting of 59 on someone elses. Really all you can do is calibrate it with Video Essentials or Avia as best you can. The other option is to pay for an ISF calibration which would yield the most accurate results for your TV.

I know that probably not what you want to hear. As far as pic-size settings, yes FULL MODE is for anamorphic DVD. If you are watching non-anamorphic DVD, either letterboxed, full-frame or full-screen, using Theater Wide 2 will stretch the picture to fill the screen WITHOUT changing the aspect ratio. So, if you have a non-anamorphic widescreen movie (say The Abyss for example), use Theater Wide 2 mode. The other two modes stretch the picture without keeping the aspect ratio the same. I believe that most people here like to use Theater Wide 1 for TV/Satellite.

 

[Michael D. Bunting]

Michael - Thanks for your reply.

I understand what you are saying about the settings - I was just trying to get some feedback on what others were using. I think I'm pretty close to being set - I have used Avia on this set already.

As far as the PIC MODES go:

I thought my DVD player (JVC SA75GD Progressive Scan) would automatically scale any type of DVD I played (WS Anamorphic, WS, 4:3, Pan & Scan, etc.). If this were true and it does indeed auto scale automatically, then I should be able to leave my TV's PIC SIZE set to FULL - and let the JVC do the scaling. Then I could manually switch over to Theater Wide 1 for watching regular broadcast or satellite TV.

But I don't think the JVC does auto scaling...... Can anyone confirm this for me?

Is the 3:2 pulldown feature the same as the auto-scaling feature? If not, can someone explain these 2 features to me?

I'm very tempted to return this player (despite being very happy with the picture quality) and order/pick up the Panasonic RP91 - as I know it does auto scaling definitely and should ahve a better PS picture quality to boot.