HDMI Enhanced Black Levels, xvYCC and RGB

[admin]

When trying to get the most performance out of your home theater, few things are more important than proper display calibration. Sure, setting up your speakers correctly and room acoustics are important, but if your display is calibrated wrong, even the most clueless of friends are bound to notice. Audioholics has written a wealth of information on tests and calibrations that are more general and that cover a broad range of topics, but this article is more targeted. It has come to our attention that many of you utilizing an HDMI connection might have your black levels incorrectly set. Why the sudden confusion? Options have changed with the introduction of HDMI 1.3 and its tag-along partners: Deep Color and the new xvYCC color space. Read on.


Discuss "HDMI Enhanced Black Levels, xvYCC and RGB" here. Read the article.

[Dezoris]

Clint this is one of the best articles I have seen on here.

It is my understanding that some TVs do an RGB conversion process on incoming signals and convert them to xvYCC and some displays don't?

So getting the settings right is based on what you have which is the most confusing part.

This only applies to BluRay disks. I don't think you want DVDs setup on these setting because the color space of DVD does not use xvYCC.

For BluRay

1. You need a display that does 1080p
2. You need a display that supports HDMI 1.3

On BluRay Player
To enable xvYCC support: (Only on HDMI cable and 1.3 spec.)
Enable super-white output.

Color Space:
Set RGB to limited

Ok now here is where it becomes tricky, do you set the output of BluRay signal as RGB or Y Pb / Cb Pr / Cr?

And also on most displays there is an option for setting for HDMI signal.
In the case of the Panasonics there is a normal and expand mode.

So how do you know what is best for your specific display?

[patnshan]

My display "accepts" all these signals but am not sure which is right. I currently have mine set to RBG, but after reading this article I am going to change it to the other one.

As for super white, I was told on another forum to turn that off as my display does not support that. I saw no difference either on or off.

Of course, my display is 720p so it may make little difference anyway. As you can see, I am still confused on this

Pat

[Dezoris]

Originally Posted by patnshan

My display "accepts" all these signals but am not sure which is right. I currently have mine set to RBG, but after reading this article I am going to change it to the other one.

As for super white, I was told on another forum to turn that off as my display does not support that. I saw no difference either on or off.

Of course, my display is 720p so it may make little difference anyway. As you can see, I am still confused on this

Pat

You have a right to be confused.
You can't use super white/color space discussed unless you are running 1080p and HDMI 1.3.

[jeffsg4mac]

Here is a good primer for more advanced calibration if anyone is interested.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=852536

[nguyenpqh]

I've read Clint's article and it makes perfect sense. But what's bothering me is that I swear the image from HD sources (i.e. blu-rays) look better on my TV when I have it set to support xvYCC. To be precise, I am using a Samsung LN-T4061F connected to a PS3 via a DVIGear HDMI cable. I have the PS3 set to output YCbCr with super-white turned on. Now, when I turn the xvYCC support off from the TV, the image gets brighter, but the colors look washed out. On the other hand, when xvYCC support is turned on, the colors are sharp and vibrant, although some dark areas seem too dark ("black crush"). I thought I might have some peculiar tastes so I asked my friends to give their opinion and everyone seems to like the image better with the xvYCC turned on. Again, this is only for HD (blu-ray) sources. For DVDs, everyones seems to like it more with the setting off, as there is too much "black crush". How do you account for this without saying that me and my friends are blind?

[sclawrenc]

First of all thanks for your great info. I still have a question that maybe someone can help me with.

If I have a tv, reciever and ps3 which all support xvYCC, should I turn on xvYCC? I have read that most DVD/BD don't use the xvYCC anyway, but I would like to know if it's recommended to turn it on or leave it off if all of my devices support it.

Thanks to everyone

[Cruise Missile]

http://www.audioholics.com/tweaks/ca...vels-xvycc-rgb

Hope this helps.


Edit: Wasn't trying to be smart, silly me didn't look at the entire thread first.

[wzpgsr]

Any suggestion on a proper pluge pattern to help set black levels on my Apple TV? I have found a downloadable steps and ramps clip, but after conversion to an Apple TV-compatible format, too much of the data was lost for it to reliably display correctly. Thanks for the succinct explanation in this article!

[Alex2507]

Thanks for the article. I just wanted to point out that Avia II does have that really black third verticle bar on the far left of the pluge pattern used to set contrast which is black level which Panasonic calls picture. I hope I got all that right and wonder if they will be able to make it anymore confusing by calling one thing even more names in the future.

Anyways, Avia II doesn't tell you what to do with it. They don't even mention that it is there. They talk about the bar on the left being barely visible when the setting is correct. I think it's actually the bar in the middle that should be barely visible and by that time the blacker than black bar is gone. Maybe they added the blacker than black bar for people with sets that could see it but chose not to mention it so as not to confuse the people who could not see it.

Obviously the article is so over my head that it's ridiculous but I thought people might want to know that you don't have to spend the exta money for Avia Pro when Avia II has the third really black bar.