Black levels of FD Trinitron

[andykara2003]

I mentioned in a recent thread that I've just picked up brand new 14" and 21" FD (flat) Sony trinitrons. I was curious as to how these sets would hold up to the earlier non-flat sets.

I also have a brand new 25" non-flat BE-3B chassis Sony which has a gorgeous image. The FD sets compare brilliantly in almost every way - the colours & focus of the 14" and 21" are fantastic and their corner focus and geometry are actually better than that of the older set - really clean, vibrant & sharp images.

The only exception is the black levels. The 25" set's blacks are flawless but both the FD sets bottom out at a dark grey - does anyone know what I can do about this - is there a setting in the service menu that can help?

[Syntax]

Turn the sub brightness down a bit in the service menu. I think its SBR or something similar.

[andykara2003]

Thanks for that - I'd seen that mentioned elsewhere but the the few comments I could find were that this is just a 'meta' brightness control - i.e. it just has a wider range than the standard brightness control, which wouldn't be much help to me as by turning this down, I would also be lowering the peak brightness at the same time. However one person thought that it actually controlled just the lower part of the brightness spectrum so you could get deeper blacks without affecting the overall peak brightnesss. Do you know which one is correct?

[Taiyaki]

Actually in my experience it should be the opposite. In the US at least Sony models released after 2002 up to around 2004 had some quirky default sub brightness where they launched too low, as a result of this many users push their picture level high to get a clearer image in dark scenes (with default out of box settings on many models there was black crush), but actually what you want is to push brightness all the way up (in fact for optimal results on many sets you even want to push sub brightness up a bit) and set picture setting as low as possible (ideally at half or below), this also helps extend the life of the tube. Brightness is contrast now a days but the picture setting is what is called brightness on recent lcd's often times and having that too high will gray out the blacks too.

[FinalBaton]

I had observed in the old consumer set thread(I think it was that one?) that the sub-brightness(SBR) setting of service menu, to my eyes, definitely seems to behave on another level than the regular bightness control of the normal menu. I can't tell you what the difference is between the two exactly, Syntax will prob know the nitty-gritty of it. But I had to tweak the both of them on my set to get the best pic.

[Taiyaki]

Sub brightness, and all sub settings increase the range to which the regular menu setting can achieve I believe. It may have more impact in terms of a single point up or down compares to a point up or down in the regular setting, but they basically technically should be doing the same thing in the end.

[FinalBaton]

Ah. I see

On my set I have sub-brightness fairly high and brightness pretty low. That's the only combo that gave great picture, I tried everything else and none would work as well as this.

[andykara2003]

Thanks very much guys, lowering the sub brightness a few steps sorted the problem - much appreciated!

[Taiyaki]

Interesting, I guess EU models had different default settings then. If this were an American FS or FV model you'd have a lot of black crush with lowering sub brightness.

[Syntax]

Told ya

[andykara2003]

I'm thinking of attempting a basic colour calibration. I'm not talking about using any equipment - just a simplified method to get things roughly right, not bothered about geometry etc. I have the test suite on my SNES & attempted it before but I just couldn't get it right - can someone point me to a the most basic guide possible?

[maxtherabbit]

I'm thinking of attempting a basic colour calibration. I'm not talking about using any equipment - just a simplified method to get things roughly right, not bothered about geometry etc. I have the test suite on my SNES & attempted it before but I just couldn't get it right - can someone point me to a the most basic guide possible?

geometry is easy to eyeball, colors are not

there is a way, using light filters you look through in concert with the SMPTE bars