Sony 4000 issue: technican settings?

[Wazza69]

Hi,

I have a SonyV4000 40” LCD TV. I have never been happy with the picture compared to other TVs. My friends budget LG TV looks better in my opinion.

Once thing I did notice, was that I set it up with the settings from this popular website which many people recommend (with backlight up).

http://www.*/Sony-KDL40W4000/Settings/

It looked terrible with a unnatural and over sharpened picture. I then tried the THX Optimizer and noticed that the settings were way out compared to the optimizer. For example on the THX drop shadow test, I couldn't even make out the word THX! I checked the settings again, they are the same as the previous website.

The TV itself seems to run OK and doesn't do anything strange. Is it possible that the service technician settings are incorrect? Is there anything I can check or take the TV to? ( apart from spending £300 on ISF). The TV was bought brand new so it does seem strange.

Source is Sky HD and upscaling Pioneer 600AV DVD player

Any help appreciated.

 

[David Mackenzie]

Hey Wazza, what you've come across is a perfect example of why taking other people's settings for granted isn't a good idea if you want the best quality. Although these settings will be an improvement over Sony's factory defaults, the only way to get the best performance is to pay for a calibration (not ideal, I know).

When we calibrate displays, we need to match them to other sources in the system. It sounds like the settings on the HDTVtest site are out of step with the signals being output by your DVD player. I'm not familiar with the Pioneer 600AV, but it's possible that it also has its own Brightness and Contrast controls which will need to be carefully set in order for it to "play nice" with the TV.

Also, you say that the picutre looks terribly oversharpened - even with Sharpness set to Minimum? Two things to check here. I remember that on the Sony V4000s, there was a bug where setting Sharpness to Minimum on the TV with a standard-def video input would actually apply the MAXIMUM amount of Sharpness! Setting it up one notch to "1" would solve the problem.

Alternatively, does your DVD player have a sharpness control of its own? What is it set to?