Setup Question

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  • 08-31-2007, 11:45 AM
    Stereomaniac
    Setup Question
    I am tring to calibrate my TV to my Denon DVD. It is a Denon DVD-910. It has a black level adjustment that can be turned on or off. According to 1-800-Denon, Black level on is 7.5 IRE and black level off is 0 IRE.

    Which setting is the one to use for accurate, as-it-was-intended, calibration.

    I am using the Sound and Vision Home Theater Tune-Up DVD. I was thinking or getting an Avia disk. I heard it is a little clearer to us and understand than the Digital Video Essentials disk. Any thoughts?

    Thanks.
  • 08-31-2007, 06:25 PM
    Mr Peabody
    I'm not familiar with the set up discs. I have a Denon 1600 and when set to 480i, composite/S video out, the black level should be off, but when using Progressive Scan, 480p, the extra black level should be on. You can check your manual to see if yours is the same.

    When using those test discs can you do the settings from the TV's menu, or do you have to go inside the TV to tweak it? The only thing I've used for video is the THX set up thing on some DVD's. My TV past all of these tests so I'm not sure how much one of the other discs would help.
  • 09-04-2007, 05:27 AM
    Stereomaniac
    reasearch
    Everything I am doing is from the picture/brightness/color/contrast menu on the standard TV menus. I don't have the background or experience to get into service menus.

    The manual on the 910 just says it will be brighter on and will show the picture "as it was intended" in the off setting. As usual the manual doesn't really explain what the control actually does.

    After doing some more research I found the most USA electronics expect black to be at 7.5 IRE. When rerunning the pluge test I noticed that at the highest black level setting (brightness) I had no bars at all. I also noticed lots of detail loss in the dark areas. With the Denon black level on I had dancing bars in the pluge. Apparently the TV is completely clipping everything below 7.5 IRE.

    The black level control on the Denon is apparently just setting "What is back." If it is on it outputs USA standard 7.5 IRE as black and off it outputs 0 IRE as black.
  • 09-04-2007, 04:37 PM
    bfalls
    If I remember correctly 7.5 IRE is black on a CRT-based set and 0 IRE is black on flat-screen (LCD, Plasma, etc). All calibrations should be made with enhancements (Sharpness, fleshtone, edge enhancements) off. If calibrated correctly these controls shouldn't be necessary because they add noise.
  • 09-05-2007, 05:21 AM
    Stereomaniac
    Yes, that coresponds with what I am seeing on the Panasonic CRT. In some ways the picture with 0 IRE is a little richer, but the is just too much black crush. It looks like I will be leaving the black level on.

    I generally turn off all "features". Just about everything I have read here and in other reviews say to turn these functions off. I don't understand what the manufacturers are thinking when they put these extra functions on AV equipment. They generally just muck things up.