Recently made the HD plunge.... few ?s

[jhh979s]

I replaced my 5 year old Sony 32" Wega CRT with a 40" Samsung LCD (LN-T4066F). I love every inch of it except its SD performance, but I dont watch much TV so its not a big issue. My biggest concern is burn-in. The manual said not to leeve static images for longer than 2 hours which conerns me because most movies are 2+ hrs and many are 2.35:1 which leaves black bars across top and bottom. I assume they are giving the worst case scenario here, whats the real "danger zone" time frame.
I also have a question about HD content. I have a PS3 and have watched a few Blue-Ray movies. So far the best looking movie was Casino Royal by far. The worst was Underworld which often had a grainy look too it. So I'm curious, is there a certain date cut-off for true HD movies because devices for recording in HD havent been around forever. Are older movies just up-converted and then stamped to a HD disc? I could be totally misinformed on this, just curious.
My last question is calibration. I payed good money so I want it to look its best. The TV came with 3 presets, Dynamic(extremely bright), Standard(kinda dull), and Movie(very dark). And various options are not available when any given preset is in use. I.E. the "Game Mode" is not selectable when "Standard' is in use. So when calibrating should I start with the mode that has the most settings available? Any reason some options are not available?

Your input and advice is appreciated.

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: jhh979s
I replaced my 5 year old Sony 32" Wega CRT with a 40" Samsung LCD (LN-T4066F). I love every inch of it except its SD performance, but I dont watch much TV so its not a big issue. My biggest concern is burn-in. The manual said not to leeve static images for longer than 2 hours which conerns me because most movies are 2+ hrs and many are 2.35:1 which leaves black bars across top and bottom. I assume they are giving the worst case scenario here, whats the real "danger zone" time frame.
I also have a question about HD content. I have a PS3 and have watched a few Blue-Ray movies. So far the best looking movie was Casino Royal by far. The worst was Underworld which often had a grainy look too it. So I'm curious, is there a certain date cut-off for true HD movies because devices for recording in HD havent been around forever. Are older movies just up-converted and then stamped to a HD disc? I could be totally misinformed on this, just curious.
My last question is calibration. I payed good money so I want it to look its best. The TV came with 3 presets, Dynamic(extremely bright), Standard(kinda dull), and Movie(very dark). And various options are not available when any given preset is in use. I.E. the "Game Mode" is not selectable when "Standard' is in use. So when calibrating should I start with the mode that has the most settings available? Any reason some options are not available?

Your input and advice is appreciated.

You really shouldn't be concerned about any burn in issues with your set.

I get what your asking about your second question but your thinking of it wrong. Just because a movie is old does not mean it was shot in standard definition. Older movies were shot(and some are still today) on film. Film does not have a clear resolution to it. This medium is converted to digital when it is stored on DVD and/or HDDVD/BR. The higher the resolution of the medium the closer you get to its original source.

For video modes don't choose dynamic. It is probably the worst choice in fact with oversaturated colors and overly bright white's the entire picture looks unnatural. Standard is a good starting point. From there, use a calibration disc...or if you prefer, have it professionally calibrated.

 

[Shadowknight]

Originally posted by: PurdueRy
For video modes don't choose dynamic. It is probably the worst choice in fact with oversaturated colors and overly bright white's the entire picture looks unnatural. Standard is a good starting point. From there, use a calibration disc...or if you prefer, have it professionally calibrated.

Yep. And when you calibrate, make sure the color temperature is set to "warm" first. Also, the various presets? Don't matter. They're just pre-set settings for the user settings (color, tint, sharpness, contrast, and brightness). A properly calibrated set is going to seem less bright, since unless it's an old set post-calibrated settings for contrast will probably be under 50%. The lower the contrast, the less likely you are to get burn in, and the longer the TV will last. Don't worry about how "bright" the TV is... after calibration, you should have set the brightness to a higher level to compensate for the lowered contrast.

To get started immediately (and why not?) see if you have a THX optimizer on movie you already own. After that, consider (from best to worst) either professional calibration ($325 or so), a measuring device to plug into your computer (like the SPYDER, but I think it only works on monitors, not TV sets) for around $250, but you can use it over and over and, finally, a calibration disc from AVIA or DVE. They've recently released updated discs and I think they're offering high-definition versions in December. The THX optimizer helps, but they gear it for whatever specific movie they've bundled the software with, while DVE/AVIA is better for an overall balance.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: Shadowknight

Originally posted by: PurdueRy
For video modes don't choose dynamic. It is probably the worst choice in fact with oversaturated colors and overly bright white's the entire picture looks unnatural. Standard is a good starting point. From there, use a calibration disc...or if you prefer, have it professionally calibrated.

Yep. And when you calibrate, make sure the color temperature is set to "warm" first. Also, the various presets? Don't matter. They're just pre-set settings for the user settings (color, tint, sharpness, contrast, and brightness). A properly calibrated set is going to seem less bright, since unless it's an old set post-calibrated settings for contrast will probably be under 50%. The lower the contrast, the less likely you are to get burn in, and the longer the TV will last. Don't worry about how "bright" the TV is... after calibration, you should have set the brightness to a higher level to compensate for the lowered contrast.

To get started immediately (and why not?) see if you have a THX optimizer on movie you already own. After that, consider (from best to worst) either professional calibration ($325 or so), a measuring device to plug into your computer (like the SPYDER, but I think it only works on monitors, not TV sets) for around $250, but you can use it over and over and, finally, a calibration disc from AVIA or DVE. They've recently released updated discs and I think they're offering high-definition versions in December. The THX optimizer helps, but they gear it for whatever specific movie they've bundled the software with, while DVE/AVIA is better for an overall balance.

HD versions is already out for DVE at least
http://www.deepdiscount.com/vi....htm?productId=5743868

 

[zinfamous]

Originally posted by: PurdueRy

Originally posted by: jhh979s
I replaced my 5 year old Sony 32" Wega CRT with a 40" Samsung LCD (LN-T4066F). I love every inch of it except its SD performance, but I dont watch much TV so its not a big issue. My biggest concern is burn-in. The manual said not to leeve static images for longer than 2 hours which conerns me because most movies are 2+ hrs and many are 2.35:1 which leaves black bars across top and bottom. I assume they are giving the worst case scenario here, whats the real "danger zone" time frame.
I also have a question about HD content. I have a PS3 and have watched a few Blue-Ray movies. So far the best looking movie was Casino Royal by far. The worst was Underworld which often had a grainy look too it. So I'm curious, is there a certain date cut-off for true HD movies because devices for recording in HD havent been around forever. Are older movies just up-converted and then stamped to a HD disc? I could be totally misinformed on this, just curious.
My last question is calibration. I payed good money so I want it to look its best. The TV came with 3 presets, Dynamic(extremely bright), Standard(kinda dull), and Movie(very dark). And various options are not available when any given preset is in use. I.E. the "Game Mode" is not selectable when "Standard' is in use. So when calibrating should I start with the mode that has the most settings available? Any reason some options are not available?

Your input and advice is appreciated.

You really shouldn't be concerned about any burn in issues with your set.

I get what your asking about your second question but your thinking of it wrong. Just because a movie is old does not mean it was shot in standard definition. Older movies were shot(and some are still today) on film. Film does not have a clear resolution to it. This medium is converted to digital when it is stored on DVD and/or HDDVD/BR. The higher the resolution of the medium the closer you get to its original source.

For video modes don't choose dynamic. It is probably the worst choice in fact with oversaturated colors and overly bright white's the entire picture looks unnatural. Standard is a good starting point. From there, use a calibration disc...or if you prefer, have it professionally calibrated.

yeah, it really depends on the original source and the type of codec that is used for the HD conversion. Some movies look no better than an upconverted DVD on Blu-Ray while others are absolutely stunning. Best I've seen by far is Curse of the Golden Flower. I also have Casino Royale, but Golden Flower blows it out of the water on my Samsung Plasma.

go to AVS forums and plumb around their Blu-Ray software threads. they have a nice tier-ranking system and discuss the various codecs that companies use for movie transfers. I used to think that HDM = good. ...but it isn't always the case. i suppose a good comparison (I have seen neither) is the first tansfer of The 5th Element compared to the newer remastered 5th Element. Both come from the same source, of course, but the 1st issue on Blu-Ray was craptastic. Apparently, the remastered one is eye-popping.

all the other advicce sounds good here. Burn-in should not be a concern for your set, esp an LCD. Burn-in is essentially non-existent on the current generation of HD sets.