This is topic Black Borders on HDTV in forum The Afterlife at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.


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Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 10-02-2009, 03:15 PM:
 
I enjoyi films that were presented in scope in theatres on my brother;'s 50 inch Sony 1080p HD set because the black picture border is jet black and blends with the black frame around his screen. The black picture border on my screen is very good but I can still see it because is is slightly lighter than the black frame around my Samsung HD set. I love watching flat 16X9 movies on my set because the pictures fills the entire screen. Is there anything I can do to make a slight adjustment on my set to make the picture border darker so it matches the frame around the screen?

-Claude
 

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Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 10-02-2009, 03:23 PM:
 
Lower the brightness setting.
 

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Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 10-02-2009, 04:01 PM:
 
No, don't lower the brightness setting. Lower the backlight, a separate adjustment. Most LCD sets have theirs jacked way up, I brought the backlight on my Sony down by almost half ( I recommend that on Sony LCD sets the backlight be no higher than "5"). Compensate by raising the picture level and possibly the gamma settings, if addressable on that model. Also try turning the Black Corrector setting to "off", if it's on now.

If your set is part of the Wega XBR series, e-mail me and when I get a minute I will send you some good setting numbers that you could try.
 

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Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 10-02-2009, 04:27 PM:
 
Mark,

My set is not a Sony Wega but a Samsung. I do not know the model number now but I can let you know tomorrow because I am now at my mother's nursing home.. It is a 1080p set by the way.

-Claude
 

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Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 10-02-2009, 05:53 PM:
 
Depending on the Samsung model, you may need to experiment with some combination of lowered brightness (black level); reduced backlight level; and any Dynamic Brightness settings the TV has. You should be able to get pretty good blacks out of it. The trick is to get good blacks without crushing everything that's dark into black so you lose shading details. Dynamic Brightness settings do create better blacks, but while crushing the overall black level. In general you're better off disabling Dynamic Brighness stuff, but you never know for sure until you try it and find out what works best on your set and for your viewing conditions.
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-02-2009, 07:56 PM:
 
One of my friends has a Series 7 Samsung 52" LCD-TV. I can't remember specifically what we did to adjust the picture, but we didn't have to do much. It's a great TV set.

My Sony Bravia XBR4 TV was set by default at the factory in the "Vivid" setting. Yeah, you gotta change that. The back light in my TV set is also set at "5". I also have all the noise reduction and motion enhancement features turned off. Sometimes motion enhancement is fun to play around with while watching a baseball or football game. It really sucks when applied to movies.
 

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Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 10-03-2009, 01:44 PM:
 
Thanks for the information, everyone.

I played with the backlight control on my set last night and the black boders is still not black enough. I thought about playing with the contrast but decided not do because if I increased the contrast to get a better black, I know I will be screwing up the picture. Meanwhie, I will try to find other options to get the black border I want.

-Claude
 

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Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 10-03-2009, 02:41 PM:
 
Masking.
 

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Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 10-03-2009, 04:31 PM:
 
Good one Adam.

We had a Hollywood SMPTE screening at the Gene Autry Museum which was cut short when the side masking came in all the way, blacking out the entire screen. Some wag piped up, "Well, that helped the black levels."

* * * * *

The Contrast setting affects the level of the whites; it shouldn't affect black levels unless they dive when cranking the whites too high. The Brightness setting affects black levels.
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-03-2009, 06:12 PM:
 
It would be pretty cool if TV sets had some of the same kinds of image controls you get in Adobe Camera RAW. If you happen to over-expose a shot and clip the highlights you can still use the "recovery" feature to bring back a lot of details that were blown out of the picture. Of course, movies on Blu-ray and most other HD video content doesn't have 14-bit or 16-bit depth.
 

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Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 10-04-2009, 03:33 PM:
 
i played with the back light control on my HDTV set again last night and have finally got the black picture border set the way I want- pure black! Watching movies with a scope ratio is much better now because all I see is only the picture in a darkened room. The setting also seem to improve the HD picture quality. Even up converted images from a DVD look great like WHAT A GIRL WANTS I saw last night. The picture was so beautiful I felt I was watching it in Blu Ray. This is the thing I like about Blu Ray and my high definition television because the joy it brings me every night with the opportunity to watch movies with stunning picture quality and sound.

-Claude
 

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Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 10-04-2009, 03:54 PM:
 
Bobby, where is this "recover" feature you speak of? When I import a RAW file into CS4 (which required 2 updates to Adobe Camera RAW before it would even recognize the files from my camera). I can adjust all sorts of parameters, but I must have missed the "recovery".

quote: Claude S. Ayakawa

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The setting also seem to improve the HD picture quality.

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quote: Joe Redifer

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Bobby, where is this "recover" feature you speak of? When I import a RAW file into CS4 (which required 2 updates to Adobe Camera RAW before it would even recognize the files from my camera). I can adjust all sorts of parameters, but I must have missed the "recovery".

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quote: Bobby Henderson

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One of my friends has a Series 7 Samsung 52" LCD-TV. I can't remember specifically what we did to adjust the picture, but we didn't have to do much. It's a great TV set.

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I wrote that comment Friday evening. We watched the Oklahoma Sooners lose to Miami Saturday night on that TV set. I was so annoyed at the offensive coordinator of OU calling so damned many draw plays and hardly ever allowing Landy Jones to do what he is good at doing: throwing the football. It's as if the Sooners coaching staff deliberately wanted the team to lose.

Anyway, Sunday afternoon my friend calls up saying his TV doesn't work. No picture. And the TV is turning itself on and off intermittently. Oh yeah, this TV is 14 months old. Just 2 months out of warranty (he didn't want to throw down a few hundred for an extended warranty). It appears the problem may be either a bad power supply or the main board in the TV itself may be on the fritz. He'll probably end up spending a few hundred anyway.

Based on some Internet searching, a least a few others have had the same problem with the Series 7 52" LCD HDTV. Could be a design flaw.


On top of that, at my workplace we had to send in a Samsung computer monitor for service. It was still under warranty. However, when they shipped back the monitor they forgot to pack the monitor stand with it. A couple of weeks have passed and we're still waiting for the damned replacement part.

 

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Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 10-05-2009, 09:40 PM:
 
Bobby, make sure your friend's TV has the latest firmware. And have him try a factory reset: Hold down the "EXIT" button on the remote for 10 seconds. I had an issue with my Samsung 650 13 months into it, and I was sure it would mean a service call (vertical line down the middle of the screen that would *not* go away). Samsung had me do the factory reset thing, and the problem went away. Go figure.

Also, did he register it online with Samsung? Samsung extended the factory warranty from 12 months to 15 months on the all their TVs in the 550A-650A-750A series if you registered online (maybe other models, and maybe they still do with current models). I don't think you can do it retroactively though, esp. after the initial 12 months has lapsed.
 

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Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 10-05-2009, 09:44 PM:
 
I bought my Samsung HDTV from Costco and they have a no question asked return policy for ninety days and a two years extended manufacturers warranty from Samsung so I have nothing to worry about for roughly another year and a half. Even if my set 'dies' shortly after the warranty expires, I will not sweat it because I would have got more than my monies worth because I got the set at a great price. It pays to shop at Costco!

-Claude
 

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Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 10-05-2009, 10:47 PM:
 

quote: Bobby Henderson

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The "recovery" feature is in the Camera Raw utility, not Photoshop CS4 itself. The "recovery" slider is under the "basic" tab, the 4th slider down (below the color temperature, tint and exposure sliders).

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quote: David Stambaugh

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Also, did he register it online with Samsung? Samsung extended the factory warranty from 12 months to 15 months on the all their TVs in the 550A-650A-750A series if you registered online (maybe other models, and maybe they still do with current models). I don't think you can do it retroactively though, esp. after the initial 12 months has lapsed.

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quote: Bobby Henderson

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I wrote that comment Friday evening. We watched the Oklahoma Sooners lose to Miami Saturday night on that TV set. I was so annoyed at the offensive coordinator of OU calling so damned many draw plays and hardly ever allowing Landy Jones to do what he is good at doing: throwing the football. It's as if the Sooners coaching staff deliberately wanted the team to lose.

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