Colour problem -Sony 32DX150

[Alandw]

Hi all,

I have had my new Sony DX150 IDTV about a week now and I am generally pretty happy with it except for the way it copes with dark colours - very deep blue, brown and black.

Typically in dull or badly lit scenes, these colours appear excessively dark, absolutely featureless and blank. (I am sure they are not intended to look this way). A person wearing a black or deep blue teeshirt for example appears to be wearing an utterly featureless jet black teeshirt. (When that person moves into better lighting, the colour and features of the clothing then appear)

This effect is the same on both the digital tuner and the analogue.

I have tried upping the brightness and this helps a bit, but has not solved the problem completely. I have read in these forums about black 'crushing', and wondered if this might be what it is.

Can I blame the quality of the broadcast material for this or is it a fault of the telly?

Thanks Alan

 

[Phil_S]

You might need to adjust the sub-bright setting in the service menu. The default value is 6, but I found a setting of 9 improved the picture. One thing I would add though is that I've found the picture on my set seemed to get better over the first 3 weeks after I bought it - it seems to me that the set definitely benefits from a period of running in, so I wouldn't tweak it too much initially.

 

[Alandw]

Ah OK Thanks for that Phil.

I found the setting called AI which is supposed to 'limit sudden changes in brightness and contrast' which when switched OFF improves this black problem a bit, but not completely.

I shall give it longer to bed in perhaps before getting too worried.

Could you tell me how to get to the service menu for this model? I would be very pleased to know.


Thanks Alan

 

[Phil_S]

Alan,

The following is a posting made by someone else, that I saved for my own information. I can't remember who the author is now, so apologies to them for the plagiarism!

Anyway, the procedure is a two stage process. First of all you need to convert your DX150 remote to a service remote:

1. Press the Media Selector button on the remote until the TV green light illuminates.

2. Press down and hold the Yellow button for 6 seconds - until the green light starts to flash.

3. Enter the number "99999" on the keypad - all three green lights will then come on.

Congratulations! You are now the proud owner of a Sony service remote. To enter service mode, make sure the remote is in TV mode, and then press the VCR power button twice - you should get the "TT--" indication at the top of the screen. Press "00" on the remote to exit service mode.

To decode the remote, you allegedly repeat the procedure above, but enter "00000" instead of "99999", but I haven't bothered doing this. (My note: This does work, but I also leave my remote in service mode - it doesn't affect the normal TV functions of the remote).

Once in service mode ("TT--" on screen), press the remote menu button twice to bring up the service menus. They act much like the normal menus; right arrow button to enter submenus and settings, up/down arrows to change values and OK to store. Left arrow button takes you back up the menu tree. Press the menu button again to exit the service menus, and "00" as stated above to exit service mode and store settings.

Be very careful what you change - only alter a value if you know what you are doing, and make a note of the existing value beforehand.

If you take a look in your service menus Alan, could you let me know what values you have for Red Drive, Green Drive and Blue Drive in the Backend menu?

Mine were set on delivery to 41, 25 and 26 respectively, and the set had a horrible red push. I dropped the Red Drive to 26 which resulted in a much better blanced picture, but I just wonder out of interest whether your settings are the same as mine were, or if mine had not been set correctly at the factory.

Phil

 

[Alandw]

Hi Phil

Thanks for the response

I was really enquiring for future reference. I hope you'll understand but I've only had the set a week, and before I start messing with the service settings, I want to to get hold of the service manual for this model.

Someone at agoraquest.com (Unoficial Sony forums etc) says that he has access to many Sony service manuals on line, and I have asked him to tell me the link for this model. I'm still waiting for a reply.

When I have it and am feeling bolder I'll certainly try what you ask, but at the moment I want to avoid any mess ups!

Cheers Alan

 

[Phil_S]

No problem Alan. Hope you enjoy your set. I bought mine as a replacement for a Panasonic TX32DT30 that I had a number of problems with, the most annoying being a dark vertical bar visible on the screen. There were other issues, such as a timer that only worked when it felt like it, but when the picture was good it was very good. Initially I thought the Sony picture wasn't quite up to the mark in comparison, but after just under a month of ownership and a few tweaks I now think the picture quality is much better than the Panny - whether that's due to burn-in or just me getting used to the Sony I'm not sure. Anyway, the bottom line is that I'm very happy with it, everything just works as described in the manual, and it hasn't crashed once - again unlike the Panny. I'm aware of a few minor bugs - aspect ratio switching sometimes doesn't work properly after selecting a channel via the EPG, but manually selecting a different aspect ratio and then switching back to the correct one seems to fix it. Having said that, I'm aware that there is a new software version for the TV - mine came with the previous version even though the sticker on the box showed it left the factory after the new software had been released. Sony tell me that they're broadcasting the update again sometime this month, so I should pick it up then.

Regards,

Phil