Sony kv36hs420 unable to get 540p input from Retrotink 5x

[flashlight]

UPDATE - It was the hdmi to component converters I was using, after testing 4 different types, this was recommended to me and worked beautifully! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074V57Y73?ps ... ct_details

I saved a great condition sony HD CRT kv36hs420 from going to the dump. I managed to get it into my house after doing my research regarding its capabilities.

So far -

1) I have set HDPT to 0 in the service menu
2) Tried 4 different HDMI to Component adapters (I could not locate the PORTTA brand, that people seemed to have success with in the past). 2 of which had resolution toggles that I tried to force 1080i from them. Only one would ever give me an image when I set the tink to 540p, and that would scroll slowly vertically
3) Tried retrotink firmware 2.58 2.59 and 2.60

Something odd that I did notice, one of the adapters I could force a resolution of 1080i on, to the best of my recollection, was outputting an image when I would set tink to 1080p, 720p and 480p, but within a 1080i output according to the top left resolution display. In theory, even though the tink isnt outputting in 540p, but the hdmi to component converter is scaling to 1080i, am I getting a lagless display at the TV side? or too difficult to tell because the scaler built into the converter could be introducing lag?

if anyone knows any current brands of "passthrough" hdmi to component that might work for me let me know as well! Thank you.

[BazookaBen]

If your adapter let you "choose" a resolution, then that's a scaler, not plain converter.

You need a HDMI>component converter that doesn't have scaling functionality. You want it to just to do a straight digital>analog conversion.

[flashlight]

I have tried 4 hdmi to component converters. (I cannot find portta anymore), 2 were passthrough, and 2 with scalers. The ones with scalers included resolution buttons to toggle output/conversion resolutions.

[BazookaBen]

I have tried 4 hdmi to component converters. (I cannot find portta anymore), 2 were passthrough, and 2 with scalers. The ones with scalers included resolution buttons to toggle output/conversion resolutions.

What GPU are you using? RGB>YPbPr might be an option if it has analog output whoops dumb question

For HDMI, maybe hunt down a HD Fury 2

[flashlight]

Im outputting from a retrotink 5x pro l. Im hoping to run my n64 and ps2 throuugh it.

[BazookaBen]

Im outputting from a retrotink 5x pro l. Im hoping to run my n64 and ps2 throuugh it.

Oh yeah, forgot what we were talking about.

Here's something you can do to test your adapters better: send them a 720x540 signal from a PC. Any laptop or desktop you have around with a HDMI output.

You can make the resolution with Custom Resolution Utility. Then use CVT standard, GTF, or Automatic CRT timings. At least one of those should work on a basic HDMI>analog YPbPr converter.

[Josh128]

I currently have my HS420 apart for cleaning, when I get it back together, I should be able to test. Hopefullly this weekend.

[Josh128]

For 540p, make sure your 5X doesnt default to 1080p every time you power up-- mine does with the 540p FW. You'll need to blindly enter a sequence on the remote to get the output to 540p so you actually get a picture on your set. I forgot the sequence, if I get it today Ill update this post with it. **EDIT, see below.

MENU - Down - OK - Up- Up - OK (This will set output to 540p from power up on FW 2.39)



For your rolling picture, try adjusting the option "SSMD" to 3 as seen in the video below- I had to do it on my HS420 for stability even in component. Not sure if your problem is the same, but this definitely helps with SD component input stability.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT5ariz5-X0

Below is an incredible resource for the service mode of these sets. Ive been tinkering with my HS 420 and have concluded that the HDMI in port should be avoided at all costs. It applies a non-integer scaling to 480p sources, and often "jumps" vertically on anything less than a 720p source.


https://www.avsforum.com/threads/the-so ... es.531494/

[Josh128]

Any luck with this?

Wasted almost my entire weekend fiddling with my unit. I have no issues getting 540p to work on it through the Portta YPrPb transcoder.

Noticed a few things I didnt before or have since forgotten.

1.) Straight 480p with a TS and YPrPb transcoder was giving me 32ms of input lag at the top left corner of the screen-- previously, I have gotten 14ms. Im not sure if that was straight into HDMI or not, but Im very puzzled at that result. ** EDIT - it is 14ms going straight into HDMI. When going into component, 480p is indeed 32ms. So you should think using the HDMI port could give you the sharpest picture at the cost of a single frame of lag. Problem is, when feeding the set's HDMI port with a 5X set to 480p, the set displays the image as if it is centering it in a larger raster, and doesnt allow you to use the zoom function that works fine when you feed into the component port-- which is extremely perplexing because when feeding from the TS directly into the HDMI port at 480p, the image fills the screen and is not displayed as if its centering in a larger raster.

2.) Straight 480p from the 'cube [ or through the 5X and Portta < **need to retest this ] gives a crisper overall image than using the 540p mode on the 5X and stretching the raster on the HS, despite seeminglyh slightly better convergence when in 540p/720p/1080i modes than 480p mode. I did tune the set with permalloy strips and magnets using the 240p grid pattern in the 540p mode, so that may explain the slightly better convergence in those modes, but the fact that the 480p mode is noticeably sharper sharper is another puzzling result for me. Perhaps its user error, with all the fiddling of options I did.

I dont know if theres some digital info the 5x is sending to the set that is locking out the zoom function / making the image small and centered compared to the TS direct HDMI input. I guess I need to check some more things, but my conclusion thus far is that this set is a hot mess-- capable of a beautiful picture but with some really crazy caveats.

[BazookaBen]

2.) Straight 480p from the 'cube or through the 5X and Portta gives a crisper overall image than using the 540p mode on the 5X and stretching the raster on the HS, despite seeminglyh slightly better convergence when in 540p/720p/1080i modes than 480p mode. I did tune the set with permalloy strips and magnets using the 240p grid pattern in the 540p mode, so that may explain the slightly better convergence in those modes, but the fact that the 480p mode is noticeably sharper sharper is another puzzling result for me. Perhaps its user error, with all the fiddling of options I did.

I wonder if 480p signals get some artificial sharpening in post processing

[Josh128]

I dont know. It really doesnt look like thats what it is, it looks objectively better to me. I can turn up the velocity modulation in 540p mode to add sharpness, but it still doesnt look as crisp and colorful as the GC 480p direct into component with the VM turned off. Maybe its the 5X's output that is doing something, or maybe there is actually a difference in the how the horizontal scanning frequency is done in 480p mode. From all I read, the set should always electrically scan out at 33.75 KHz, in all input modes, so I dont know. Its very strange. I'll need to waste some more time investigating that I suppose.

[Josh128]

I did find the 4:3/16:9 switch in the HDMI menu of the 5x, this fixed the letterboxed 480p issue when going into HDMI port. The vertical scaling is still off though, unlike when going in via component. Also, 4:3 480p is "jumpy" going into HDMI port, but I found an option that stops it. I have not however, found a way to get around the non-integer scaling though, thinking its not possible. Work in progress.

[BazookaBen]

I don't know if you're dealing with the same root issue, but somebody in this thread also had to do some tinkering to fix 480p scaling: viewtopic.php?t=68605

Not talking about the 540p trick, but with actual 480p signals they were having some blurriness and fixed it in the service menu

[Josh128]

Haha no worries! I did tell her you said I would be crazy not to pick up the set. She said if I didn't I'd regret it, and I asked her would I regret it if I did? She seems to have taken it well. I love her for putting up with me and my obsession with gaming displays.

Hell of a woman you got there man, now you owe her, keep that in mind next time she wants something that sounds silly to you.

As for your scanline issues... I may have found a solution for you. Try adjusting MDVS in your service menu, should be under category MID1 number 11 based on your model:



Just messing around in mine and came across this as I was fiddling. Best part about these sony's is even though the menu is cryptic nothing saves automatically. I just unplugged my set and brought it back to my settings. I'm keeping my fingers crossed this will solve your problem, or at least be on the right track.

Interesting, I'll give it a try as well as VSCO and see if either help. Ive never heard anything about this option, thanks.

Thanks for reminding me of this Ben!! Some great discussion on that thread. I dont think I ever got around to trying what incrediblehark mentioned, the #11 MID1 option, MDVS in the HDMI mode. Also will play with the IDSW and DPSW options mentioned in that thread to see what they do. If that works it would be really interesting, I plan to give it a try today. As mentioned by what is shown in the SM overlay, the set is definitely treating 480p into HDMI differently (it shows VGA) than into the component port.

I also plan to further investigate why the 480p stretched to a 540p raster appears to be softer than straight 480p into component-- could be related to one of the above mentioned options as well.

[Josh128]

MVDS does it. It adjusts the internal digital scaler and I was able to use to get perfect scaling on the 480p HDMI input. Thats sorted now. The HDMI port is very wonky though. Sometimes you plug into it and it only gives you about 7/8 of the image with the tops and bottom blanked out-- if you unplug and replug it will give you the whole image. Its totally random and can even occur when changing modes on the 5X that require a resync. But once you get it, it seems to be good.


Another issue people have is that the 480p HDMI input can be jumpy or jittery. I found an option called HSEP that stops the vertical jumpiness when you set to 0. There is still a periodic, very minute "shift to the right" by about 1 pixel, followed by an unnoticeable "return back to the left" by 1 pixel that occurs every 5 seconds or so on this input. I have not found a way to stop it, but it seems to be somehow related to displaying 480p in 4:3 mode over HDMI-- when the 5X was set to 16:9 on the HDMI option, I dont think it happens. Another strange issue, after I made the changes, I checked the lag with the TS going into the HDMI port. Now at 480p, instead of 16ms like it was earlier, its at 32ms, just like the component port 480p. I have no idea why that changed. Very wonky.

I will say this though. I was able to tune this set with the SM, a few magnets, and a few permalloy strips, and it has the best convergence and geometry I have ever seen on a CRT this size-- its extremely impressive. Because of this,

[ldeveraux]

I have tried 4 hdmi to component converters. (I cannot find portta anymore), 2 were passthrough, and 2 with scalers. The ones with scalers included resolution buttons to toggle output/conversion resolutions.

This is weird that PORTTA, the brand most people trust for this kind of thing, only has 2 converters left for sale on Amazon.

[BazookaBen]

MVDS does it. It adjusts the internal digital scaler and I was able to use to get perfect scaling on the 480p HDMI input.

Is there a reason you're not doing the 480p-inside-540p firmware for the 5x?

I guess the downside is you have to resize the screen in the service mode, which means if you hooked up an actual 480p or 1080i source, like a Wii or Playstation 5, they'd be overscanned like crazy

[Josh128]

The image is noticeably softer (horizontally) in that mode vs straight 480p to the set. Not quite sure why, but it may be related to the scanning beams covering a huge area after the raster stretch.

Finding the digital scaler adjustment is a big deal though. Still working on it.

[Josh128]

At this point in the thread, OP seems to be gone and Im talking to myself and others, but Ive got this thing DOWN (with 1 caveat)! Ive got a 540p, lag free, sharp as a tack image going over component. The HDMI port is too squirrelly to use for any case other than 720p or 1080i. 480p syncs differently just about every other time you use it, and it blanks off the tops and bottom of the image, has strange jitter (vertical and /or horizontal) and doesnt always give you the 16ms of input lag at 480p-- sometimes it decides it will have 32ms of input lag, so FUCK the damned HDMI port on these sets. Its trash.

With a properly configured set, you can get razor sharp screen filling 480p using the 540p mode of the 5X Pro. The key (other than HDPT=0, of course) is the IDSW parameter. Once you have the system powered on and outputting the 480p image in the 540p mode, you will most likely get an image that fills the screen horizontally but only takes about half vertically. Using the ZOOM/Picture mode button on the remote can sometimes stretch it vertically, but it will still not fill the screen. Changing the IDSW to 1 will make the image fill it. From that point you can iron out horizontal and vertical size and positions.

I have to say that using 3 permalloy strips and 5 1cm magnets, along with the killer dynamic convergence options in the SM, has allowed me to get the best convergence Ive ever seen on set larger than 25". Its impressive, and the geometry is damned good as well. The controls Sony has put into these HD sets are the most comprehensive Ive ever seen on any CRT. The end result is a picture that rivals my old Hitachi Ultravision Digital 36 HD, but with even better purity and convergence.

Only caveat is that the IDSW=1 parameter doesnt save, OF COURSE, so you have to switch it every time you use the set. Unless I figure something else out, this is currently the way.

[BazookaBen]

Yeah that's some pretty astounding geometry for a big flat tube.

Too bad about the service menu thing. Maybe you can get one of those advanced remote that you can program macros into. Press one button to turn on the TV in service mode, press another to navigate to the IDSW setting and flip it.

Of course with IR that might not be super reliable

[Josh128]

Yeah, its a bit nuts to have to do that IDSW on power on every time, there may be another setting that locks it in that mode. Its amazing how much of a time suck tuning these things is-- Im reminded of why I have a love/hate relationship with doing it.

The geometry is good, the slight dips at the center top and bottom of the screen can be adjusted with the MPIN setting, which is quite amazing for a SM option. I can improve on that but I ran out of time yesterday. Whats more impressive than the geometry is the convergence. If you look at the corner convergence, its amazing, literally the best Ive ever seen on a big tube, flat or curved. Thats due the electrical dynamic convergence options (D-CONV).

I will play a bit more to see if I can come up with something to avoid the need manually setting IDSW option at powerup as admittedly thats kind of a downer. It only takes a few seconds if you know where to go, but still. With this option and using 16x9 mode on the 5X, you barely have to do any raster stretching at all, as evidenced by the OSD letters being in normal size and position. Previously when I had done it, I had to stretch the hell out of the centered image which made the OSD letters not fully visible, so this is indeed "the way".

Here you can see the convergence is exquisite and OSD is normal and not stretched, using IDSW=1 and 16:9 output from 5X (right click and open in new tab for full size).



Here are some of my original 540p tests where you can see how much I had to horizontally stretch by looking at the OSD.

Centered 480p in 540p raster using 4:3 output from 5X



480p stretched to 540p raster using just VSIZ and HSIZ with 4:3 output from 5X without IDSW=1

[Josh128]

Another day, another update-- I was able to get it tuned perfectly without using the IDSW option. Its absolutely perfect now, the settings store properly. Its as good as its going to get. I can honestly say that finally my old Hitachi Ultravision Digital 36" has met its 480p match .

Ive gone through so many options at this point, I figure the best thing I can do to help others with HS sets it is to video myself scrolling through all the service menu options and post it on the net, that way its all documented. I'll do similar with the 5X settings, but really its mostly all defaults @ the 540p setting. Im so glad I can finally stop tweaking it and maybe play a bit of zero-lag goodness now. Crazy thing is, its a damned CRT. I hope once I get it in its final place I dont get some crazy geo-directional purity issues, lol. I swear that high end CRT tech is more like voodoo than actual concrete technology.

[ChuChu Flamingo]

So whats the lag with 480i and 240p in 540p mode with retrotink? Any downsides if you have the retrotink on games that switch between 240p or 480i?

[BazookaBen]

So whats the lag with 480i and 240p in 540p mode with retrotink?

In this thread they measured it at roughly 1/8th of a frame, close enough for Duck Hunt to work: viewtopic.php?t=68605

[ChuChu Flamingo]

Not bad. Anyway to test 540p without retrotink? I have a gamecube with component,ossc, and a mister with component. I know on mister you can output component with some configurations. Id like to see how the picture quality is natively on my 30hs420 since $320 for a retrotink is kinda expensive.

When I set the AVE Compatibility in swiss on gc to CMPV-DOL I don't see 540p. Onmly 576i/p 480i/480p auto. Is it in a older version?

Edit:I found it. Didn't go to page 5 was trying to switch swiss resolution lol

[strayan]

The gamecube can be forced to output 540p with oem component cables and swiss (60fps games only afaik).

[BazookaBen]

Not bad. Anyway to test 540p without retrotink?

Pretty easy on PC with Custom Resolution Utility. But you need a VGA or HDMI to Component converter.

The gamecube can be forced to output 540p with oem component cables and swiss (60fps games only afaik).

So what does this look like? Is it centered or scaled?

[Josh128]

So whats the lag with 480i and 240p in 540p mode with retrotink? Any downsides if you have the retrotink on games that switch between 240p or 480i?

Between 1.5 and 3.25ms depending on resolution fed to the 5X when used with a Portta HDMI to component transcoder. NES Light Zapper works. I previously tried the GunCon2 with Dino Crisis and it didnt work-- but it does work with the 5X / VGA transcoder going into a VGA monitor, with the same lag, so I can only conclude that stretching a 480p image to the 540p raster causes issues with the scan tracking tech that the GunCon 2 uses. That said-- back when I tried it the options I used also stretched out the OSD whereas now the options I use dont-- so Im going to retest to see if it actually works now, that may very well be the case (damnit, I thought I was done tinkering!! )

No downsides switching between 240p and 480i that are any different from 5X operation on a standard SD CRT-- that is, its seamless and doesnt require any resync at all, most games and systems work with framelock but a very few prefer triple buffer.

[Josh128]

Not bad. Anyway to test 540p without retrotink?

Pretty easy on PC with Custom Resolution Utility. But you need a VGA or HDMI to Component converter.

The gamecube can be forced to output 540p with oem component cables and swiss (60fps games only afaik).

So what does this look like? Is it centered or scaled?

This piques my interest also-- I have Swiss on this GC, thats how Im loading the 240p suite seen in the screenshots Ive been posting in this thread. Also, I think Strayan is getting his info that it only works on 60fps games from the link below, and he may have misread it, because it lists 540p60 as an output mode, it doesnt call out 60fps games only. This is almost certainly 480p image centered in a 540p raster as the GC obviously cant render out at 540p without hitting framerates and video RAM limitations, and if it stretches the image, it would be a bilinear stretch and add blurriness to the image as 480p can not integer scale into 540p. Its very interesting though, and I MUST try it. In theory it should work exactly the same as the 5X does and fit the same, the only difference being the 16:9 generic vs 4:3 generic output mode of the 5X and which mode the GC outputs with Swiss. To arrive at my final result Ive been using the 16:9 output of the 5X because it doesnt require the intense horizontal raster stretch that the 4:3 mode does. If the GC outputs in a 4:3 mode, it will probably be inferior to the 5X UNLESS you can also force a 16:9 flag in Swiss, and I think you can, but it actually attempts to render the game itself in 16:9 which will cause compatibility issues and also throw the image way out of whack if trying to fill this 4:3 screen.

https://www.gc-forever.com/wiki/index.p ... ility_List

Also, as a side note, I messaged Mike Chi on Twitter to request (pretty please Mike!! ) that he update the current 540p FW by replacing the 240p output option with a 1080i output option. 1080i would allow those that either dont have access to a HDMI to component transcoder, or have a set that doesnt display 540p (like incredibleharks 40" XBR, before he added the newer board that supports it), to still access lag free operation on these Sony HD sets-- it may also be useful for non-Sony HD CRTs as they almost all support 1080i. This would completely cover all the bases for any HD CRT use case.

[ChuChu Flamingo]

So is the best way to adjust convergence the 240p test suite? Which options in the service menu for the dynamic onvergence?

Also heres a weird thing with 540p mode from gc with swiss. When it is not zoomed in it looks fine. When zoomed in it gets this weird flickering in the backgrounds like a wave. What causes that?

https://youtu.be/QQi6Vr550VM