HS1 set-up questions

M

MrSafety

Guest
I treated myself to a VPL-HS1 for Xmas - got it for an absolute steal as well if anyone else wants one! - and am having tremendous fun with it. Problem is I am new to the whole DVD thing and I seem to have spent my entire time since Boxing Day checking out DVD info sites, forums, etc trying to understand about anamorphic, aspects, S-video,screendoor effect,...
Blimey, the more I know the less I know!

Basically I have three questions (for now anyway!):
1. I think I understand how the 16:9 aspect differs from 4:3 and anamorphic etc and when I play a DVD with my DVD player setup to send to a 16:9 TV and my HS1 setup in 16:9 mode, all is groovy. However, last night I was watching a 2.35:1 movie and noticed that I was missing some of the edges of the picture. How do I get this to be displayed so that I see all of it? I tried setting the DVD player to output 4:3 letterbox and this did the trick - was this right or is there another/better way to do this?
2. The DVD player is hooked up to my HS1 using the composite multipin lead which came with it. Is this ok? Would S-video to S-video be any better (or any other alternative for that matter)?
3. I am throwing the HS1 image onto a wall rather than a screen. Since I (i) have an LCD image (ii) am clearly a jobbing-amateur with no real appreciation of the finer detail about video (iii) a bit broke at this point, to be frank. Is it worthwhile buying a screen or would I not really appreciate the difference? Sony do a portable jobbie (VPS-HS60E) which I could probably stretch to but the image size I am already starting to get used to is probably bigger than this screen can handle.

Oh, why am I never satisfied...

Thanks very much for any help/advice any of you more enlightened souls can send my way

cheers

MrSafety
 
1) I leave mine permanently on 3:4 and then have the DVD and NTL stb set to letterbox that way I never have to worrey about changing settings

2) Compersite is the worst input to use, Svideo is better but if you have component (RGB phono plugs) on your DVD player you can get a lead to conect to these from the multi plug, whigh would be best.

3) You will be better off with a proper screen but there are cheaper options i.e. make a screan out of black out curtain linning and a wooden frame or buy a black out blind, both of these options would be far cheaper the the Soney screen and give you time to save for the real thing.

Hope the info is helpfull and you have many happy hours with your new toy
 
Thanks for the response.... but the questions just keep on coming!

1. S-video: I have read that S-video degrades over longer length cables, would this matter to a non-connoisseur like myself? Although I currently have my PJ next to the DVD player, both sited behind me, this is only a temporary measure until I move house - at which point I would expect to need a 3m cable and maybe even a 5m cable? Would the S-video connection over this length be any better than composite to my eyes?
2. I played about with the various settings on my DVD and PJ last night with this blasted 2.35:1 movie and came to the conclusion that if the DVD and PJ shared the same setting it didn't matter whether I used 4:3 letterbox or 16:9 widescreen settings - the picture was the same either way and, in both cases, didn't show the whole 2.35 width. I estimated that it was somewhere around 2.2 or so - certainly wider than 1.85 but I could clearly see that the edges of the picture were cut off. If I set my DVD to 4:3 and my PJ to 16:9, or vice versa, the picture was over or under-compressed vertically. In short then, I can't find a setting where I can see the whole of a 2.35 wide screen through my PJ. Am I missing something or is this an inevitable limitation I should be living with?

Dammit. I'm supposed to be a smart sort of bloke. How do stupid people manage with all this stuff!!!

cheers

MrSafety
 
I leave mine permanently on 3:4 and then have the DVD and NTL stb set to letterbox that way I never have to worrey about changing settings

I'd always recommend using the DVD players 16:9 mode - that way you get the full image, untarnished. The Projector will have to resize/deinterlace to fit the panel anyway, so if there is any letterboxing to do, better the PJ at the same time than do it twice. Also, DVD players often aren't very good at the letterboxing. At their worst, they just remove occasional lines to shrink the image.

Mr Safety, are the side edges missing on 2.35:1 movies?
 
Richard

Yes, the side edges are missing. During the movie there came a point where the camera zoomed in on an electronic timer showing the countdown to some explosion or other. The many-digit timer filled the screen but the last digit was only half-visible, asnd a similar truncation was apparent on the left-hand side of the screen as well. I'm pretty sure no director would have done this deliberately. I froze the picture and measured the image approximately and it was about 29" high and about 61" wide - which is about 2.1:1 rather than 2.35:1.
 
Originally posted by MrSafety


Basically I have three questions (for now anyway!):
1. I think I understand how the 16:9 aspect differs from 4:3 and anamorphic etc and when I play a DVD with my DVD player setup to send to a 16:9 TV and my HS1 setup in 16:9 mode, all is groovy. However, last night I was watching a 2.35:1 movie and noticed that I was missing some of the edges of the picture. How do I get this to be displayed so that I see all of it? I tried setting the DVD player to output 4:3 letterbox and this did the trick - was this right or is there another/better way to do this?
2. The DVD player is hooked up to my HS1 using the composite multipin lead which came with it. Is this ok? Would S-video to S-video be any better (or any other alternative for that matter)?
3. I am throwing the HS1 image onto a wall rather than a screen. Since I (i) have an LCD image (ii) am clearly a jobbing-amateur with no real appreciation of the finer detail about video (iii) a bit broke at this point, to be frank. Is it worthwhile buying a screen or would I not really appreciate the difference? Sony do a portable jobbie (VPS-HS60E) which I could probably stretch to but the image size I am already starting to get used to is probably bigger than this screen can handle.


(1) A 2.35:1 image is displayed as a letterbox within a 16:9 frame (which in the case of the HS1 is itself a letterbox within a 4:3 frame).

I just don't see how you could be experiencing the effect you describe - the HS1's image width will be constant no matter what the aspect ratio of the source material. It's only the height that changes.

(2) Use an s-video connector, the picture quality will be much better. That said, the HS1 does a very good job on composite video - much better than I expected.

(3) I think you should have a got a screen with the unit. I know I got a 60" (diagonal) one with mine. The quality is much improved over a white wall but the construction of the supplied screen is lacking. The actual design of the screen is pretty good though and it's easy to stow away when you're not using it and to set up when you do fancy watching a film. It's also well sized for a typical living room. If you do get one, just be gentle with it as mine broke after a month (still usable but annoying to setup).


Gav
 
Gavan

Thanks for the advice on S-video and screen. But sticking with the "impossible" problem I'm having I did some tests last night as follows:

I tried out one 1.85:1 DVD and the offending 2.35:1 DVD, displaying both using the same settings and measured the screen dimensions of the image projected on my wall. The results were as follows:

1.85:1 movie - image 135cm wide, 76cm high - ratio 1.77:1
2.35:1 movie - image 135cm wide, 62cm high - ratio 2.18:1

Now, admittedly I could be a cm or two out in my measurements but in order for the 2.35:1 ratio to be realised on my wall the image should have been under 58cm high - nearly 2 inches different.

Now I understand that what matters here is resolution rather than image size - I want the extreme edges of the picture to be displayed rather than just enlarging the picture minus the edges - but that isn't what I'm getting... and I'm not making this up!

I then tried this out by doing the same test using a TV connected to my DVD rather than the projector and although I wasn't able to accurately measure the differences I could clearly see that the edges of the 2.35 movie were missing on the TV as well...

... ok, so it's a setup problem with my DVD player and not my PJ and perhaps I should post to another thread. I have an LG DA3620 and, whilst I contact their support website to see if they can assist, anyone got any idea what I'm doing here that is so stupid?

thanks
 
MrSafety,
I'm not sure if this is the problem you have, but...

All TV's and projectors (with analogue input) suffer from overscan, to some extent. Overscan means that the display device is programmed so that the picture is zoomed in a bit. A part of the image thus disappears behind the edges of the screen.

Overscan is used because all picture sources (dvd players, VCR's) are not equal: some produce a slightly smaller image than others. In order to have picture without seeing the visible edges on all sides, the picture is zoomed in.

Overscan can usually be reduced by entering the Service Menu of the TV or projector. HS1 does have a service menu.

Does the HS1 have a setting for adjusting horizontal picture position? Try scrolling the picture sideways. That way you will see how much picture is hiding beyond the edges, ie. how much overscan there is on your projector.

Maybe this is your problem? I know that on my Panasonic PT-AE100 there's quite a bit of overscan, when using composite, s-video and component inputs.

Regards,
Olaiho
 
Yeah, you're right about the overscan!

If I adjust the horizontal positioning I can clearly see how much of the picture is not being displayed. However, there doesn't seem to be a way to adjust the horizontal size unless I am feeding a video signal from a computer to the PJ - the PJ won't let me adjust this parameter if I am feeding in a signal from a DVD player.

BTW, I tried this movie out on a larger TV than I had previouly tried and although there was still a small amount of truncation it was much better than the PJ so I guess the problem is not with the DVD player at all but with my HS1.

[Full marks, though, to LG who were ready to deliver me a replacement player today based on a call I made to their support agent on Friday afternoon]

Have any other HS1 users either noticed this problem or found a way around it? I guess you only notice it when a movie has text at an extreme left- or right- hand edge of the screen. Do I need to just grit my teeth and live with this - it's only an inch or two on each side after all - or is there a way round this?
 
Problem solved!

Thanks to Olaiho for pointing out the overscan. After being bounced around 3-4 different Sony customer service numbers - no-one in the UK seems to admit to being responsible for home cinema projector support - I eventually decided to bite the bullet and see if I could access the HS1 service menu myself and do what I thought was required and change the horizontal size.

And it worked.

Access to the HS1 service menu is the same as for the VW10HT (and maybe all other Sony PJs for all I know) and I changed the value down by something like 6-7% and all is well!

So I'm happy apart from (i) feeling disappointed with Sony's support to the extent that I will think twice about buying one of their products again (ii) wondering why the hell simple mods which are achievable without the aid of rocket science via the service menu are either totally unknown to anyone at Sony Customer Support or are regarded as top secret and will not be divulged to any customer directly. Sony would rather have collected my PJ and looked into the problem and have returned it to me than just give me the knowledge to fix it myself - and since I don't suppose they have a DVD player of my model to hand I guess any adjustment they did make would not have been spot on anyway

Oh well
 
MrSafety.

I know how to get into the service menu, but could you post details of the options you changed so I can safley have a go without destoying my PJ
 
The only value I changed was H SIZE which is on the same menu as the H POSN and ASPECT ratio. It's initial value was 1366 and I reduced this down to 1276 to work with my DVD player. I had to reduce it a bit, change the horizontal position to see if I had reduced it enough, and repeat until it fitted properly.

It was just like modifying the normal menu so don't worry about breaking anything.

Good luck
 
Originally posted by MrSafety

Access to the HS1 service menu is the same as for the VW10HT (and maybe all other Sony PJs for all I know) and I changed the value down by something like 6-7% and all is well!

So I'm happy apart from (i) feeling disappointed with Sony's support to the extent that I will think twice about buying one of their products again (ii) wondering why the hell simple mods which are achievable without the aid of rocket science via the service menu are either totally unknown to anyone at Sony Customer Support or are regarded as top secret and will not be divulged to any customer directly. Sony would rather have collected my PJ and looked into the problem and have returned it to me than just give me the knowledge to fix it myself - and since I don't suppose they have a DVD player of my model to hand I guess any adjustment they did make would not have been spot on anyway

Oh well

Do you honestly expect companies to give out instructions on how to get into the service menus of their products and recommend to customers that they make changes? There's a reason why that sort of stuff is in a service menu and not on the main menus.

Sony are exactly the same as ANY other mainstream electronics maker - if they encouraged access to their service menus one can only imagine the costs of putting right all the screwups. There are plenty of tales around from people messing up their TV sets for example by fiddling with the menus.

Offering to collect and examing the unit is perfectly reasonable.

Anyway, I'll bet it's your DVD at fault for putting out an out-of-tolerance signal. I've never heard of anyone experiencing this sort of problem with a HS1 before (indeed, the problem is really uncommon with any PJ). You'll have to recalibrate the PJ if you get another DVD player or if you sell the PJ on.


Gav
 
Gavan

Whilst I appreciate that it is possible to screw up your device by fiddling with the service menu, the option I wanted to change was the horizontal positioning. I don't see a problem with this - it's something you can do on any PC monitor for goodness sake.

Secondly, if Sony took away my PJ they wouldn't be able to calibrate it against my DVD player so how would they know what value to change the HPOS to? They'd have said that it was my DVD player at fault and I would have been stuck in this loop where each vendor blames the fault on the other.

Thirdly, no-one I spoke to at Sony even mentioned service menus or acknowledged their existence. The level of expertise shown was of the "have you taken off the lens cap?" variety - once they'd actually agreed which service centre was responsible for home cinema projector support, that is; I was bounced from pillar to post several times before finally someone accepted responsibility. All this time, no-one offered any advice or information which wasn't already in the bloody manual.

Finally, LG actually exchanged my DVD player (it was too late to cancel the courier) and this didn't solve the problem so I'll accept that the problem is an incompatibility issue between the model of PJ and model of DVD player I have but ultimately one of them had to be tweaked and given that everything looks fine on my TV, logic tells me to focus on the PJ.

But like I said: "Problem solved"
 
About correcting for the overscan on the HS1:
I tried fiddling around with the image shift and size settings.
Two things struck me:

1) It seems you can only adjust horisontal size ("Size H"), and not vertical size. When you do this you inevitably squeeze or stretch the image to some extent - because the vertical size remains constant. Now, how can I tell that I don't mess up the aspect ratio in the image. I mean, how can I tell which is the "right" setting, i.e. the one that doesn't mess up the aspect ratio?
It wouldn't make much sense to squeeze the image so as to be able to get the entire width of the picture if that means you get distorted, "thin" persons on the screen?

Wouldn't a kind of "zoom" setting, adjusting both dimensions at once, be the proper one to adjust for the overscan issue? The problem is, there isn't one in the HS1, as far as I can tell.

2) I suspect that you cannot find a "perfect" setting regarding the overscan setting? This would require the material you input (eg. the DVDs) to be the same, size-wise. They are not, are they?

Sorry if I'm ranting, I hope some of this makes sense - and that someone can tell me whether or not I'm right.
 
All I can say is:

1) I guess you do squeeze the image by adjusting the H size and not the V size but you can always measure the two and see how close they tally with whatever it says on the DVD (1.85:1 or whatever). My tweaking was, as I said, only a few % so didn't noticeably give me any vertical squeezing.

2). In terms of never getting the perfect fit you're probably right but I guess my main problem was knowing that I was missing some of the far left and right edges of the picture and I wasn;t happy with that.

Having said all that, now that I have changed the values I don't look at the far edges any more to see if I got them right or not. I guess as we live with our PJs we stop fiddling and start watching the movies - which is what they're for isn't it!

MrSafety
 

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