Essential settings to tune on a Sony KV-xxFV300/310

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FinalBaton
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Essential settings to tune on a Sony KV-xxFV300/310

Post by FinalBaton »

Thought I would share a couple of interesting discoveries I made while fiddling in my tv's service menu, that will help other owners get the best out of their set.

I believe these are essential settings to tune.

Since this is a popular consumer CRT SD tv for gaming, this should be of particular interest.

Also I know that for some this is nothing new; they already know all this. But not everybody does and it should prove useful to at least a few.







First, to enter service menu (TV off FIRST) : DISPLAY --> 5 --> VOLUME UP --> POWER





-----------------------------------------------------
ESSENTIAL SERVICE MENU SETTINGS TO TUNE
-----------------------------------------------------



SUB SHARPNESS (SSHP) : at max (jack that sh*t up)

I know that artificial sharpnening is bad. Like real bad. It expands the blacks to create the illusion of sharpness, but all it does is distort the picture.

But bear with me : the SSHP setting doesn't work that way. In fact it's completely different than the "SHARPNESS" setting in the TV's regular menu, wich gives an unpleasing result.
(I will take pics of the effects of both at some point to compare).

SSHP really tightens the picture, without any unpleasing effects.
I know you might be reluctant to try this since it's called 'SHARPNESS', but believe me, it works like a charm and doesn't distort the picture.

So : get the SSHP setting at max value, and bring down the "Sharpness" from the TV's regular menu to minimum.
This will give you the tightest picture you can achieve on this set.






SHARPNESS LEVEL FOR DYNABLACK (SHPH/SHPL/SHPO) : at minimum for all

This will allow you to use the very useful 'Dynablack' setting (wich makes blacks "blacker") in the regular menu without adding artificial sharpness.






AXIS PAL/AXIS NTSC (AXPL/AXNT) : at either 0 or 1

This is the infamous 'Red Push' that most Sony CRTs have.

You can either turn it off and raise the gain of each color (RDRV/GDRV/BDRV), or vice versa.

This one is up to you, but at the very least you should be aware of the effects of this 'Red Push' setting.






SUB BRIGHTNESS (SBRT) : near max

This will ensure that you don't get a RIDICULIUSLY HUMONGOUS brightness difference between dark spots and bright spots (you don't want that).

You will instead end up a more balanced brightness spectrum in your image

*This one was reminded to me by Taiyaki. Thanks again






SUB CONTRAST (SCON) : between 0 and 5

This will give you a good contrast and give a punchy appearance to the lighting.

The more you jack up the value on this, the more your picture will look faded and overly bright, so it's essential to keep it at a minimum.







------------------------------------------------------
ESSENTIAL REGULAR MENU SETTINGS TO TUNE
------------------------------------------------------






BRIGHTNESS : Very low (between 0 and 3)

Brightness will just make your image cloudy, kind of faded. So keep it at a minimum.




SHARPNESS : All the way down

Again : this one is extremely important.




VM : Off

Very important! This introduces nasty artefacts on the whole picture. Avoid at all cost!







Hardware used for this calibration :
PS2 hooked up via component cables to avoid possible errors introduced by a transcoder.
Reference for color correction was a PVM-1354Q.




Will add some stuff to this post as i make progress in my tuning.
Recommended values for other settings can be found below.
Last edited by FinalBaton on Mon Jul 11, 2016 10:53 pm, edited 28 times in total.
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Re: Optimal settings for Sony KV-xxFV300/310

Post by bobrocks95 »

I've got a 310 and a lot of this is news to me! Definitely going to look into the sharpness setting tonight and take pictures of my own for comparison.

Does the sub refer to sub-pixels I wonder? It's an interesting setting to have hidden away, I think I glossed right over it going through the service manual.

I believe my picture setting is higher than yours, but I'm a fan of really saturated colors myself. I think my hue is one tick to the left or right, but that only applies to composite inputs afaik.
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Re: Optimal settings for Sony KV-xxFV300/310

Post by 22point8 »

If you have a setting for Scan Velocity Modulation, you want to turn it off.
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Re: Optimal settings for Sony KV-xxFV300/310

Post by FinalBaton »

22point8 wrote:If you have a setting for Scan Velocity Modulation, you want to turn it off.
Absolutely
On this set it's accessible trough the regular menu.
It's listed in the bottom of my original post :

"VM : off"
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Re: Optimal settings for Sony KV-xxFV300/310

Post by FinalBaton »

bobrocks95 wrote:Does the sub refer to sub-pixels I wonder?
I wonder as well.

Service manual only says "Sub-Sharpness"
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Re: Optimal settings for Sony KV-xxFV300/310

Post by bobrocks95 »

The FV310 has 3 sub-sharpness settings:
SSHR - Sub-sharpness for RF
SSHV - Sub-sharpness for Video
SSP4 - Sub-sharpness for YUV

I would have thought only SSP4 would do anything since I'm using component, only SSHV had any effect. I'll test more tomorrow (really late here now).
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Re: Optimal settings for Sony KV-xxFV300/310

Post by FinalBaton »

I am now at a point where I feel confident sharing my color tweaks in the service menu.

Everything now looks balanced yet vibrant. Took me a little while getting it down but now it's pretty much set. Might tweak it a tiny bit still, but it shouldn't be anything major.




With the 'Color push' off :


Go to the "VID-ADJ" block

RDRV : 14
GDRV : 24
BDRV : 2
RCUT : 16
GCUT : 16
BCUT : 16

Other interesting settings are GDOF/BDOF (Green Drive Offset/Blue Drive Offset)

These will make shades of a same color (blue for example) farter apart or closer in brightness.
For example, if you look at a blue spot with a deep blue shading area on it, jacking up the BDOF value will give you an even deeper shading portion, while lowering it will have the two blue areas closer in brightness.





-------------------------------------------------
RECOMMENDED REGULAR MENU SETTINGS
-------------------------------------------------




TV's regular menu settings values I currently use :


PICTURE : 23 clicks up
BRIGHTNESS : All the way down
COLOR : 24 clicks up
SHARPNESS : All the way down
HUE : Halfway
TEMP : Standard (neutral)
VM : Off
DYNABLACK : High




Only setting I might adjust from game to game is to put 'Dynablack' at Off for games that have a lot of contrast between dark areas and bright areas.
Last edited by FinalBaton on Mon Jul 11, 2016 10:49 pm, edited 10 times in total.
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Re: Essential settings to tune on a Sony KV-xxFV300/310

Post by FinalBaton »

Might as well post some pics I took to show a fellow shmupper.
Of course a good camera would have represented more accuratly what the set looks like.
Still, it gives a good idea

http://i.imgur.com/Bq53Y1u.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/CveiUFK.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/5opaGvR.jpg
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Re: Essential settings to tune on a Sony KV-xxFV300/310

Post by FinalBaton »

It's raining Sony CRTs here!
There's always one FV300 listed whenever I check (sometimes up to 3), and more often than not a FV310 is listed as well.

Now's a great time to pick one up. (unless you already have a good-sized quality RGB monitor)


Curious to see if it's the same elsewhere
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Re: Essential settings to tune on a Sony KV-xxFV300/310

Post by bobrocks95 »

FinalBaton wrote:It's raining Sony CRTs here!
There's always one FV300 listed whenever I check (sometimes up to 3), and more often than not a FV310 is listed as well.

Now's a great time to pick one up. (unless you already have a good-sized quality RGB monitor)


Curious to see if it's the same elsewhere
It took me a year to find my FV310, and that was with me constantly emailing anybody with a model that looked similar or didn't have a picture posted...

Do you live near a big city?
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Re: Essential settings to tune on a Sony KV-xxFV300/310

Post by FinalBaton »

bobrocks95 wrote:
FinalBaton wrote:It's raining Sony CRTs here!
There's always one FV300 listed whenever I check (sometimes up to 3), and more often than not a FV310 is listed as well.

Now's a great time to pick one up. (unless you already have a good-sized quality RGB monitor)


Curious to see if it's the same elsewhere
It took me a year to find my FV310, and that was with me constantly emailing anybody with a model that looked similar or didn't have a picture posted...

Do you live near a big city?
I don't. But I search for the whole province of Quebec whenever i do kijiji/craigslist searches.
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Re: Essential settings to tune on a Sony KV-xxFV300/310

Post by bobrocks95 »

FinalBaton wrote:I don't. But I search for the whole province of Quebec whenever i do kijiji/craigslist searches.
Oh okay, you're talking much more generally. Like at any given time there are several you can buy somewhere. Unfortunately the only ones I found for the longest time were in California, southern Florida, Boston, or Chicago. I did see an FV300 2 hours away from me though...
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Re: Essential settings to tune on a Sony KV-xxFV300/310

Post by FinalBaton »

bobrocks95 wrote:
FinalBaton wrote:I don't. But I search for the whole province of Quebec whenever i do kijiji/craigslist searches.
Oh okay, you're talking much more generally. Like at any given time there are several you can buy somewhere. Unfortunately the only ones I found for the longest time were in California, southern Florida, Boston, or Chicago. I did see an FV300 2 hours away from me though...
No I mean close to me

I live near Quebec City. Montreal is 3h 1/2 from me and if I see something I really like listed there, I will go
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Re: Essential settings to tune on a Sony KV-xxFV300/310

Post by FinalBaton »

But I gotta add :

Kijiji is EXTREMELY popular here, and everybody sell stuff on there.

So having everybody using the same site here, coupled with the popularity of that practice (selling used goods online) might explain why it's easy to find a FV300 or 310 here.


But also the timing seems good: people seem to be parting en masse with the CRTs they have in their basement nowadays
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Re: Essential settings to tune on a Sony KV-xxFV300/310

Post by nmalinoski »

I have a KV-27FV310 with a little bit of a blue convergence issue in the bottom-left corner. Is this something I can fix through the service menu, or would I need to open this sucker up for that?
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Re: Essential settings to tune on a Sony KV-xxFV300/310

Post by Ikaruga11 »

Great wealth of information. I've always wanted a Sony KV-27FV310, and this thread will be a massive help to those who have one.
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Re: Essential settings to tune on a Sony KV-xxFV300/310

Post by strygo »

This thread got me to sit down and clean up the FV310 that I had picked up a few months ago. It had a weird distortion in the upper right that I was able to resolve.

In my quest to obtain this TV, I had read about the "INTL" setting in the service menu. In prior Sony CRTs I'd gotten, this setting was absent. I then forgot about it.

I stumbled upon it again today and I'm glad I did. Setting its value to 2 or 3 has the effect of adjusting the frame offsets for 480i and produces a much clearer 240p-style visual, similar to what the Mimo Genius II does for my PVM. I happen to like this look much more than the flickering of 480i. Definitely check this out if you're interested.
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Re: Essential settings to tune on a Sony KV-xxFV300/310

Post by bobrocks95 »

strygo wrote:This thread got me to sit down and clean up the FV310 that I had picked up a few months ago. It had a weird distortion in the upper right that I was able to resolve.

In my quest to obtain this TV, I had read about the "INTL" setting in the service menu. In prior Sony CRTs I'd gotten, this setting was absent. I then forgot about it.

I stumbled upon it again today and I'm glad I did. Setting its value to 2 or 3 has the effect of adjusting the frame offsets for 480i and produces a much clearer 240p-style visual, similar to what the Mimo Genius II does for my PVM. I happen to like this look much more than the flickering of 480i. Definitely check this out if you're interested.
Really interesting setting, I just gave it a try. Depending on how the quality compares, it could potentially replace an Extron Emotia for 240p titles running in 480i, if you happen to have a set with the option.

The resolution loss is obvious with true 480i sources though. If 480i flicker bothers you, I think a Framemeister would be the better option if you can justify it. To each their own though.
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Re: Essential settings to tune on a Sony KV-xxFV300/310

Post by strygo »

Yeah, in general, with 480i titles, the better option is probably running 480p if possible. It's most interesting with titles like Street Fighter Anniversary Collection on PS2.
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Re: Essential settings to tune on a Sony KV-xxFV300/310

Post by Taiyaki »

Any idea what the INTL even does specifically? I don't recall ever using that and I'd prefer to know what it stands for before messing with it.
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Re: Essential settings to tune on a Sony KV-xxFV300/310

Post by strygo »

It stands for interlace. Each frame of a 480i signal is composed of 2 slightly offsetting fields that are each 240 lines. Adjusting the INTL option adjusts the timing slightly of the second field, so that rather than each field being in a slightly different vertical position, they line up. For 240p that is rendered via 480i, this actually produces the desired effect by making the lines match up. This accomplishes two things: it gives room for the black 'scan lines' and it eliminates the shimmering effect caused by the two fields not lining up perfectly.

It's perfectly safe to change - feel free to change it with confidence. If you do, let me know how it goes.
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Re: Essential settings to tune on a Sony KV-xxFV300/310

Post by raskulous »

Reviving this old thread--

I've got a 32FV310 that I picked up for free last year after a couple years of searching almost daily. I'm really happy with the overall condition of the set, but I would like this to be my long-term TV, so getting the picture as good as possible would be ideal.

1: As typical with most flat screen tubes, the picture is bowed upward in the middle section. Is there a way to fix this on these TVs?

2: Convergence is a little off, and I would like to fix it. I have ordered some strips from ebay for this but I've never done this task before. Any tips would be great.

edit: 3: Is it worth recapping?
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Re: Essential settings to tune on a Sony KV-xxFV300/310

Post by matt »

raskulous wrote:1: As typical with most flat screen tubes, the picture is bowed upward in the middle section. Is there a way to fix this on these TVs?

2: Convergence is a little off, and I would like to fix it. I have ordered some strips from ebay for this but I've never done this task before. Any tips would be great.

edit: 3: Is it worth recapping?
You can fix the bowing with a yoke adjustment. Over time, the yoke sags downwards which changes the angle of the beam relative to the screen surface. Tilting the yoke upwards and resetting the rubber wedges will solve this problem. You have to do this with the TV powered on however, so make sure to take the appropriate precautions.

Adjusting the yoke will usually help with convergence issues, too. For remaining patches in the corners, use convergence strips. Messing with the rings on the neck of the tube should be a last resort, since these are finnicky and only affect the center of the screen.
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Re: Essential settings to tune on a Sony KV-xxFV300/310

Post by NoAffinity »

I know this post is super old, but I'm glad it got revived. Thank you to the OP for these tips and pointers.

I spent a couple hours on my 27FV16, messing with the settings mentioned here, and balancing them with some of the other settings. It was interesting seeing what affect different invidual settings have, particular tuning for better balance across light and dark areas. I couldn't get things quite bright enough or quite color balanced until I found the right mixture of sub hue and sub color. Once I increased those to levels that upped the color brightness, I then dialed back the the color drives, and it looks absolutely stunning now.
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Re: Essential settings to tune on a Sony KV-xxFV300/310

Post by maxtherabbit »

tag! I just acquired one of these
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Re: Essential settings to tune on a Sony KV-xxFV300/310

Post by FinalBaton »

wow I had completely forgotten I had made this thread :oops:


tbh there's stuff I understand now that I didn't back then. such as : what sub brightness actually does, and the fact different sets will require different tuning, and that dynablack should not be used ideally(although I hadn't stated that you ''absolutely have to use it'' either). We all learn and grow. This was 5 years ago.

but at least I dug out a bunch of more essential setting to tune and started the discussion, so it can't be all bad eh? at least some people stated they got a use out of it so that's good.


one thing to try out : I saw on another thread that there's a setting on some of these later Wega, to perform double strike on 480i material. this could be useful on 6th gen ports of older games that are 480i only and aren't too filtered and mangled. provided that this option is on the FV300/310. wasn't it called ''INTL'' or something?
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Re: Essential settings to tune on a Sony KV-xxFV300/310

Post by NoAffinity »

FinalBaton wrote:wow I had completely forgotten I had made this thread :oops:


tbh there's stuff I understand now that I didn't back then. such as : what sub brightness actually does, and the fact different sets will require different tuning, and that dynablack should not be used ideally(although I hadn't stated that you ''absolutely have to use it'' either). We all learn and grow. This was 5 years ago.

but at least I dug out a bunch of more essential setting to tune and started the discussion, so it can't be all bad eh? at least some people stated they got a use out of it so that's good.


one thing to try out : I saw on another thread that there's a setting on some of these later Wega, to perform double strike on 480i material. this could be useful on 6th gen ports of older games that are 480i only and aren't too filtered and mangled. provided that this option is on the FV300/310. wasn't it called ''INTL'' or something?
heh, well all I can say is AWESOME POST, FinalBaton. I spent at least four hours...til midnight...last night tweaking settings and getting a feel for how they all intertwine (particularly the "sub" settings vs. the regular menu iterations).

I spent another 4 hour today. Playing, fiddling with settings while in-game with various games and sources, playing some more. The geometry on this unit is just mangled. There's no perfecting that. But what I'm getting in terms of image, color balance, and all that goodness, is just phenomenal,thanks to your post paving the path.

My phone camera doesn't do it justice but the quality of the image on-screen is so friggin good that the phone camera is capturing some pretty good stuff now. (Click through to the pic source and download to see as best as I can capture it.)
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My older (non-WEGA) set doesn't have any dynablacks, but has composite, s-video and component, and everything else you recommended lines right up with settings I have in my service menu. The only deviation for me is setting SCON to something like '12', while balancing SHUE, SCOL, and *DRV settings
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Re: Essential settings to tune on a Sony KV-xxFV300/310

Post by Taiyaki »

Gosh this thread is already 5 years old. FinalBaton your thread lives on. :D

For what it's worth, 5 years later, my favorite crt ever is still the FV300, and I still have three (one in use, one still new in box, and one second hand that I keep for parts) for future proofing. lol

I no longer have any of the pvm/bvm's, or any of the many other consumer crt's, as I gave, sold, or disposed of everything else. FV310 is awesome but I could never adjust to the high voltage regulator, it just made the picture less crt-like to me. I guess at this point in time anything in the FV or FS range, post calibration, would work for me. Such great sets.
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Re: Essential settings to tune on a Sony KV-xxFV300/310

Post by matt »

FinalBaton wrote:one thing to try out : I saw on another thread that there's a setting on some of these later Wega, to perform double strike on 480i material. this could be useful on 6th gen ports of older games that are 480i only and aren't too filtered and mangled. provided that this option is on the FV300/310. wasn't it called ''INTL'' or something?
Yes, the INTL option works great with interlaced "240p" games. It completely removes the interlacing on 480i signals and can be set for either field (depending if you select "2" or "3"). I use this mode often for PS2 games and the result is indistinguishable from a real 240p port. The only downside is that my 36FV300 is much too big to TATE so it's not helpful for most of the Xbox 360 shmups.

One curious thing I found is that in the PS2 version of Metal Slug 6, the sprites and backgrounds are offset from each other by half a line. The TV can deinterlace one or the other but not both at the same time.
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Re: Essential settings to tune on a Sony KV-xxFV300/310

Post by tjstogy »

matt wrote:
FinalBaton wrote:one thing to try out : I saw on another thread that there's a setting on some of these later Wega, to perform double strike on 480i material. this could be useful on 6th gen ports of older games that are 480i only and aren't too filtered and mangled. provided that this option is on the FV300/310. wasn't it called ''INTL'' or something?
Yes, the INTL option works great with interlaced "240p" games. It completely removes the interlacing on 480i signals and can be set for either field (depending if you select "2" or "3"). I use this mode often for PS2 games and the result is indistinguishable from a real 240p port. The only downside is that my 36FV300 is much too big to TATE so it's not helpful for most of the Xbox 360 shmups.

One curious thing I found is that in the PS2 version of Metal Slug 6, the sprites and backgrounds are offset from each other by half a line. The TV can deinterlace one or the other but not both at the same time.
Does the INTL option affect 240p? Would there be any reason not to leave it on all the time for 240p-480i consoles?
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