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Just got a Panasonic 50" plasma and had it hooked up to HD-DVR with the supplied RCA cables.Finally got over to Radio Shack and bought one of their HDMI cables. It seems to me that the picture is lower quality. Could this be possible?
Of course I'm going to have to hook up the RCA's again just to see. Major hassle.
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hdmi interfaces either.doesnt matter either way.
whatever looks best to you is best.
as far as the pq being lower..............most people are not used to seeing a correctly calibrated display.
the hdmi may be giving more realistic information wrt color/gamma.
when seeing a correctly calibrated system the usual comment is how it doesnt look as -sharp- or the colors dont look as deep or the image isnt bright enough.
after living with it for a while though and becoming accustomed to it the previous way looks artificial.
have you used any type of calibration dvd for setting controls on the display/sources ?
No I haven't. Just got the plasma and I been hesitant to start messing with the settings. Plus, I read somewhere that you should run the TV for a few hours before making adjustments.But I think it's time. What is a good DVD to get? And is it user friendly for true beginners?
You may already have a DVD. A number of THX mastered DVDs include a "THX Optimiser" in the DVD extras. That includes the test patterns for setting brightness, contrast, colour and sharpness. You need a blue filter for the colour tests and they can be obtained cheaply from THX. A website address is provided. I think any of the Star Wars or Alien series of DVDs has the Optimiser in the extras, and some other titles do alsoI own a copy of Digital Video Essentials and it worked fine with my previous TV which had a CRT. I recently purchased an LCD set and while it works OK with it, I actually find it easier to set the brightness and contrast using the tests for them in the THX optimiser. Digital Video Essentials includes the blue filter required for the colour setup. Navigating the menus in Digital Video Essentials is a real pain.
There are at least 2 other options out there, neither of which I've tried. There's AVIA which is a commercial product. There's also a 'shareware' product called GetGray intended purely for digital displays. You have to download the files and burn your own disc. It obviously doesn't come with the necessary blue filter but their website has instructions on how to get one including from THX.
I'd check if you already have a copy of the THX Optimiser on one of your DVDs and go with that first. It does a reasonable job. The others all have a lot more tests but you need test equipment to use most of those other tests.
Calibrating the basic 4 settings is easy and the results look good. How much better they look than your set's default settings will depend on how good a job your manufacturer did in choosing those defaults. Some are definitely better than others so you may or may not notice a big difference.
narrative that explains the hows and whys for a better overall understanding of what is happening.1 of the most important things you can do is to turn that --sharpness-- control down to minimum or --off--.
the added --sharpness-- is video noise defining the pixel edges which at first might look better but is actually obscuring detail and ultimately artificial as we do not --see-- like that.
if you have photoshop or another program that lets you edit images you can see this by loading an image and repeatedly using the --sharpen-- tool.
the best audio and video systems do not knock you down and dazzle you but instead pull you in slowly without you really being aware of it.
Ran all the tests except the one requiring the glasses. I've ordered those.The geometry test has me confused. I have a 50" Panasonic plasma. When I run the test with the circle, it is kind of a flattened circle. What is this telling me and do I need to fix it? How?
I'm running from memory here.I think you have to set screen aspect to 4:3 for this test so the image is in a standard screen format with black borders at the side. The image should look circular then. If you look at it in wide screen 16:9 format, it is stretched sideways and will give you a flattened circle.
set your display and/or dvd for 16:9 or your display is currently set for something other than --native--.you might not get a perfect circle but it should definitely not look flattened as you describe.
did you run the tests from a thx optimizer movie disc ?
is that disc maybe fullscreen 4:3 instead of widescreen ?
with 16:9 displays you have to be careful to get the --widescreen-- version of the movie.
I used "Finding Nemo".Where would I find the native setting?
Using the aspect button on my TV remote, I get the options of 4:3, full, zoom, h-fill, and just.
the actual screen shape ?if the screen shape is 4:3(1.3:1) then the remote option would be 4:3 and the dvd player set to output 4:3.
if the screen shape is 16:9(1.7:1) then the dvd player needs to be setup to output 16:9.
most widescreen movies are 1.85:1 which is like 16.65:9 or 2.35:1 which is like 21:9.
"justified".I have the Panasonic TH-50PX60U. 16:9
So the DVD player, which I've been using on my 15 year old CRT, has to be reset? It doesn't do it automatically?
set the aspect ratio to 16:9.and also maybe set the output reslution and type of cable used hdmi/component/s-video/composite/dvi/etc.
If I remember correctly, you have to get this test to display in 4:3 format, but all other tests are in 16:6. The instructions say to reset the screen to a 4:3 input, not the output of the DVD. The test is of how the anamorphic projection is done so you want the player ouputting to a 16:9 screen and the screen set for 4:3. That gives you a circle which becomes flattened when you reset the screen to widescreen.
out in the same aspect ratio as your display.set the dvd menu to output 16:9.
set your display menu to --native-- or whatever they call it where you are not squishing/stretching the image.
this will give you a round circle from the dvd player no matter what aspect ratio you have the screen set to.
if the movie is 4:3 then you will have sidebars on your screen.
if the movie is 16:9 then it will completely fill the screen.
if the movie is 1.85:1 or 2.35:1 or 2.4:1 or 2.5:1 then you will get full width but top/bottom letterboxing.
but most importantly you will always have a circle that is round.
I just dug out my copy of the Optimiser and ran through the tests. My player is set for 16:9 playback, as is the screen.The 4 tests prior to 4:3 Aspect Test all display perfectly this way, as do the instructions for the circle test. Those instructions start with the following paragraph:
"This test checks the display ability of your monitor. If you have a 16:9 monitor, set it to 4:3 mode for this test."
So the instruction is to set the MONITOR to 4:3. There is no instruction to set the player to that format. Setting the screen to 4:3 produces the correct result on my screen.
This test is followed by a 16:9 Aspect Test which only produces the correct result when both screen and player are set to 16:9.
The 16:9 test starts with the following instructions:
"If you see a perfect circle while playing back this test, your DVD player is correctly set to display a 16:9 anamorphic movie.
If you have a 4:3 television and you see a tall thin oval, you must stop the DVD player and change the Aspect Ratio setting to 4:3."
So basically what they're doing is checking the TV's aspect setting with the first test and the DVD player setting with the second test. The instructions for both are quite explicit as to which device's settings need to be modified.
Try the 4:3 test with the player set to 16:9 and change the screen setting and see what I mean. I simply followed the test instructions and they appear accurate—things work as intended in this test if you simply change the screen setting for the 4:3 test.
Remember:If you have a wide screen display, you don't have to change your DVD player's setting to 4:3 when you play a 4:3 movie. The player transmits the 4:3 data correctly without needing to be reset. You do have to reset your screen to 4:3 to get it to display correctly.
That's what's going on in the 4:3 test. The signal is in 4:3 and the player sends it correctly to the display. The display has to be set to the 4:3 format to display the pattern correctly.
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I just got the new Dish HD receiver w/ HDMI output. Feeding component (1080I) to the display seemed "sharper" (not necessarily better, though, still evaluating) then feeding HDMI (via HDMI to DVI cable) to Video Processor, than video processor to display via DVI.I might have a DVI cable problem (though I'd expect to have more issues with the component cable given the length (50+ft)) or there are issues with quality of video processing between, receiver, processor, and/or display and/or silly operator setup errors.
Got the Panasonic HD8 50" plasma, I first used S video which was pretty good, then components which gave a better contrast but when adjusting the contrast level of both input to match each other the S video gave about the same picture quality (which btw is excellent). I am also toying with the idea of buying an HDMI input card but the picture quality that I have obtained from both S video and components is so good (amazing) that I would want to try before parting with the 150$
In installing 3 HDTVs, the hdmi always looked better the component video, especially on my son's Mitsubishi.By the way, the Panasonic is an excellent buy.
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