View topic - Pros & Cons of the WF655's PQ (long post)
Pros & Cons of the WF655's PQ (long post)
Moderator: jttar
I've had the Sony 60" WF655 RPTV for a week now, and would like to comment on its performance with particular reference to PQ. It delivers a beautiful picture with well-lit scenes, particularly in HD. Travelogues and nature programs on Discovery HD and INHD, as well as baseball games in HD, just look stunning. With DVDs at 480p on my Sony 975V DVD player, PQ as expected is noticeably inferior to true HD, but still very good with outdoor scenes, well-lit close-ups, and deep-focus scenes. With the latter, one gets the dazzling, almost-3-D effect that only a large screen like this can produce.
[As an aside, I should mention that the HDMI port on my 975V appears dead, a problem that others have also reported. I'd really like to watch DVDs upscaled to 720p, so am currently mulling whether or not to send the player back to Laredo for a second time (it had the infamous Tray Locked problem back in January), or just write it off as an substandard machine and move on to a better DVD player, one that does not bear the name Sony.]
My only complaint with the WF655 is that, regardless of signal source, the PQ of the WF655 drops dramatically with nighttime or dimly lit scenes. It cannot render subtle shades of hue or lighting in the darker areas of such scenes - often they just become a monotone dark gray having no detail. The WF655 likewise cannot show detail in black suits or dresses, even in well-lit scenes. For example, in the movie What Women Want, whose DVD PQ was rated 4.5 out of 5 by Widescreen Review (WSR) magazine, Mel Gibson wears a black polo shirt and black sport coat in the movie's early scenes. Except in close-ups, the WF655 cannot distinguish between the two garments - no texture or contrast can be seen, and his clothes just look uniformly dark gray. I knew going in that LCD RPTVs could not produce true black, but expected that dark scenes would look better than this in a 2nd generation TV like the WF655. Although not as distracting, the problem is there even in dark scenes on HD programs on network TV. It's also more tolerable in DVDs with good PQ. The movie Dark City (WSR PQ rating of 5/5, Reference Quality DVD) as expected has many dimly lit scenes, but they appear smoother and more film-like than those in the Paul Newman movie Nobody's Fool (WSR PQ rating of 3.5/5).
Which brings me to the purpose of this post: what settings are others using to optimize dark scenes on the WF655? I've set the black level using DVE, and am currently viewing DVDs on Vivid (sometimes Standard), with the following settings: Picture 34; Brightness 33; Color 33-40 (depending on the movie); Hue 0; Sharpness 35. The Picture Mode on the 975V is set to Cinema1. I've tried changing DVD output to 480i and using the WF655's Advanced Video settings on pp 100-101 of the manual, but can see no real improvement over 480p. I also tried the Pro Mode settings suggested in a recent post by KATZ, but did not care for the very low contrast image they produced on my TV. It also did not improve dimly lit scenes.
In summary, the WF655 is a very nice monitor, but with a flaw. It's definitely worth the price, and the 60" size, coupled with a good surround system, really draws you into a movie and provides the HT experience. But I don't have the "can't-wait-to-watch-it-tonight!" feeling that I'd hoped for. I suspect that its limited gray scale range is inherent in the LCD RPTV design, and that those of us who obsess over flawless PQ will eventually look for something better.
- jdown
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- KATZ
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I spent ~2 hr yesterday with DVE, mainly Title 7, Ch 3-12 (learned a lot about video!) but still get no joy with the Pro Mode setting on my 60" WF655. I calibrated brightness, contrast, & color according to DVE, but found that I still preferred more contrast and more color when actually viewing a movie. This is probably a matter of personal taste, although I am still puzzled as to why our TVs seem to differ so much.
As I said in the first post, I'm quite happy but not ecstatic with the WF655, and expect to enjoy it for a long time. I've never yet seen an item of electronic gear that was perfect in every way, and alternatives to LCD RPTV all have drawbacks of some kind (e.g., burn-in, limited size, high cost, rainbow effects etc etc).
- jdown
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I think you hit on it when you said that it "may be a matter of personal taste! When I had my 40"XBR professionally calibrated the picture looked too dark to me. The techs (2), that did it told me to watch it that way for awhile and I'd get used to it. My wife flat out refused to watch it at all that way and switched to a different "mode" for a brighter picture. After a week of watching the "calibrated Pro mode", I brought up the brightness and contrast to what I liked and left it like that for as long as I had the TV. My wife said "well, there goes $300 out the window!" I didn't argue, but the picture was pristine (to me) after I turned it up a notch or two.
- KATZ
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I don't know your technical background but then you may not have one in TV or audio production or video, etc... My suspicion is that you are a standard viewer of TV, video, or film etc...?
It is very common that the majority of people are "used to" a bright picture and they find TV settings approaching what they should be as "dark" or "dim" or "not bright enough". That is an issue with what you are used to as opposed to what the picture should look like.
Yes, as was mentioned there is an adjustment period. You have to
recalibrate your eyes and brain so that you can see what you've been missing when the brightness, contrast, and sharpness are set too high.
I find the "vivid" settings to be unrealistic and harsh. It's hard to watch it so I don't use that setting. The "standard" mode is ok, but again, it's overly bright and actually loses contrast due it's hot settings.
That mode can work, if adjusted properly, in a very bright room when watching a movie or TV during the daytime when the ambient lighting is bright.
That brings me to another point many people miss. Our eyes adjust to our environment pretty amazingly. The ambient lighting in your viewing area will have a major impact on how you will set your TV.
But, that is the whole point of adjustments. You can't use other peoples adjustments because you don't know their room lighting conditions nor how well their eyes pick up light and process it.
That is why there are "reference" video sources. There are guides on what you should be seeing and then you adjust your settings so that you can see what works in your environment.
If you watch TV in a brightly lit room, the PRO settings may seem a bit dim. It's ok to adjust them a bit. But, if you go too hot then you start to add artifacts to the picture which actually degrade the picture quality. You may think that the picture is better because it's brighter but that's not always true, almost never true. Color balance goes away, contrasts are not right, and black becomes gray.
You can adjust the controls up a bit, but if you need to go too far then consider adjusting the ambient room lighting so that you can have a better balance of what you are seeing in the room.
If you are in a bright sunny room, your pupils will constrict to adjust for that light. Most definately the TV will appear dark to you as you eyes are adjusted to the room light not the TV. If the room is ver dark your pupils will dialate and you will see a brighter image from a TV source. Get the proper balance of TV light output and ambient room light and you'll really fine tune the picture quality.
my WF60 had very impressive PQ. I run the power setting at "reduce" which makes the bulb dimmer and I run the PRO settings. I have plenty of brightness and contrast. I do keep the room lighting dim using 2-70 watt bulbs radiating from behind the viewers heads.
Works great.
I hope some of that helps you think about the overall conditions to "tuning" a TV set.
T
- TTV
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I don't know your technical background but then you may not have one in TV or audio production or video, etc... My suspicion is that you are a standard viewer of TV, video, or film etc...?
It is very common that the majority of people are "used to" a bright picture and they find TV settings approaching what they should be as "dark" or "dim" or "not bright enough". That is an issue with what you are used to as opposed to what the picture should look like.
Yes, as was mentioned there is an adjustment period. You have to
recalibrate your eyes and brain so that you can see what you've been missing when the brightness, contrast, and sharpness are set too high.
I find the "vivid" settings to be unrealistic and harsh. It's hard to watch it so I don't use that setting. The "standard" mode is ok, but again, it's overly bright and actually loses contrast due it's hot settings.
That mode can work, if adjusted properly, in a very bright room when watching a movie or TV during the daytime when the ambient lighting is bright.
That brings me to another point many people miss. Our eyes adjust to our environment pretty amazingly. The ambient lighting in your viewing area will have a major impact on how you will set your TV.
But, that is the whole point of adjustments. You can't use other peoples adjustments because you don't know their room lighting conditions nor how well their eyes pick up light and process it.
That is why there are "reference" video sources. There are guides on what you should be seeing and then you adjust your settings so that you can see what works in your environment.
If you watch TV in a brightly lit room, the PRO settings may seem a bit dim. It's ok to adjust them a bit. But, if you go too hot then you start to add artifacts to the picture which actually degrade the picture quality. You may think that the picture is better because it's brighter but that's not always true, almost never true. Color balance goes away, contrasts are not right, and black becomes gray.
You can adjust the controls up a bit, but if you need to go too far then consider adjusting the ambient room lighting so that you can have a better balance of what you are seeing in the room.
If you are in a bright sunny room, your pupils will constrict to adjust for that light. Most definately the TV will appear dark to you as you eyes are adjusted to the room light not the TV. If the room is ver dark your pupils will dialate and you will see a brighter image from a TV source. Get the proper balance of TV light output and ambient room light and you'll really fine tune the picture quality.
my WF60 had very impressive PQ. I run the power setting at "reduce" which makes the bulb dimmer and I run the PRO settings. I have plenty of brightness and contrast. I do keep the room lighting dim using 2-70 watt bulbs radiating from behind the viewers heads.
Works great.
I hope some of that helps you think about the overall conditions to "tuning" a TV set.
T
- TTV
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I also use the power setting on my WF655 at "reduce" which is supposed to make the bulb dimmer. My question is, do you see a difference in brightness by using "reduced" instead of "standard" in the power saving setting? Perhaps it's my eyes or settings but I really don't notice a brightness difference which is why I leave it set to reduced. Something subtle I'm missing?
Joe
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jttar - Sony Legend
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Great post. I agree about poor quality of blacks. However, I have found it often depends on what component is inputing the signal. My DVD player does not seem to do as good on darks scenes as my HD cable box on an HD channel. It is hard for me to tell how much of the weakness is the TV and how much is the DVD player or other component.
One thing you did not mention that I notice is streaking. Ok, not sure what it is really called but I will try to explain. Suppose you are watching a dark scene with someones white face in the middle. Then the scene completely changes. At the time it is changing scenes I feel like I see white horizontal streaks coming out (to the side) of the white face. I have not been able to nail this down to specific resolutions or mode settings. I would almost compare this to moving a mouse on a LCD laptop, you almost see a streak behind the mouse when it moves, this is what I think I see sometimes when there are scene changes.
P.S. My wife says it is not there and it is my imagination.
- Zman
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No way around it.
Most help for black level I have ever read about is adding a neutral density filter above the lens. If you go on avsforum.com you can read about that, plus a tons of tweaks many of us have applied with satisfying results.
At a minimum, I would get an ISF tech to tame the grayscale, and set up 2 or 3 of your often used inputs.
Avia or DVE are essential, if you do nothing else.
Don't get me started on the 975 and Laredo, Texas.
- fortified
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On 2005-05-26 22:28, jttar wrote:
TTV,
I also use the power setting on my WF655 at "reduce" which is supposed to make the bulb dimmer. My question is, do you see a difference in brightness by using "reduced" instead of "standard" in the power saving setting? Perhaps it's my eyes or settings but I really don't notice a brightness difference which is why I leave it set to reduced. Something subtle I'm missing?
Joe
I do notice a difference between standard and reduce. It is very subtle but it's there. I think it adds a bit to the "black" making it appear darker with out dimming the overall picture very noticeably.
It is a very very subtle difference but it is there.
Perhaps if you choose the different settings at night and with the room lit dimly you may notice the difference a bit more?
T
- TTV
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