Sony W829 (KDL-50W829) Reviewer's Recommended Best Settings

hodg100

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Disclaimer: The settings below are supplied for information purposes only. We make no guarantee that using the adjustments below will improve your TV's picture, they may even make it look worse. Every TV, even from the same manufacturer and model number will vary, as will the environment the TV is used in. For further information on how to set up your TV, please follow the steps in our Picture Perfect campaign.


To find a professional calibrator near you, see our Custom Installer and Calibrator Directory.


You can read the review here: Sony 50W29 Review


Scene Select: Cinema


Picture Mode: Cinema 1


Backlight: 3 (Make sure you turn the Light Sensor off in System Settings/Eco)


Contrast: 80


Brightness: 50


Colour: 50


Hue: 0


Colour Temperature: Warm 2


Sharpness: 50


Noise Reduction: Off


MPEG Noise Reduction: Off


Dot Noise Reduction: Off


Reality Creation: Manual


Video Area Detection: Off


Resolution: Low 0 - 20 (play with it depending on compression)


Smooth Gradation: Low


Motionflow: Off/True Cinema


Film Mode: Auto


Advanced Settings


Black Corrector: Off


Advanced Contrast Enhancer: Off


Gamma: -1


Auto Light Limiter: Off


Clear White: Off


Live Colour: Off


White Balance: Red Gain -3, Green Gain -8, Blue Gain 0, Red Bias 0, Green Bias 0, Blue Bias 0


Detail Enhancer: Off


Edge Enhancer: Off


Skin Naturaliser: Off
 
Is that based on movie watching at night? Backlight 3 seems low for general daytime viewing. Will give these a try. Thanks
 
Is that based on movie watching at night? Backlight 3 seems low for general daytime viewing. Will give these a try. Thanks

Yes, night time watching. Crank the backlight up for daytime.
 
Yes, night time watching. Crank the backlight up for daytime.
Have put it up to 7 and looks good. My first set had bad banding and this one has it too but only slightly. Only notice on football and sweeping shots so still may swap for a third at Costco. Will wait till they have a new batch in. Great TV otherwise and sounds like lots of others getting near perfect panels.
 
That's very similar settings to my W9 Mark, with your combo of backlight/contrast and motion flow Off what was the light output ?,
Cheers
M.
 
But they're all different Marty:p

Full screen white was around 117 cd/m2, if I remember rightly.

EDIT: DO you need contrast that low with the W9? I had to lower this to stop clipping the blue channel in the greyscale to flatten gamma.
 
Yeah mate I know :D, I was meaning basic controls not WB, that's very different!, interesting to see you messing with reality creation.... :eek::p
 
But they're all different Marty:p

Full screen white was around 117 cd/m2, if I remember rightly.

EDIT: DO you need contrast that low with the W9? I had to lower this to stop clipping the blue channel in the greyscale to flatten gamma.

I'm a bit low on luminance, infact around 86 cdm, I find the going rate of 120 just to dazzling for my eyes in the evenings!, sweet spot for my W9 contrast is 82. Gamma tracks well on my W9 but 10-30% ire on greyscale have a real excess of blue unless I I use set blue bias -1 but then its a smidge under, pity the bias controls are so course on these sonys !.
 
Mark, have tried your settings and find them very good. But for me Warm 1 is the better choice so what do you think. Why did you set it to Warm 2, it is a bit too warm, isnt it??
 
Hdtvtest say warm 2 too. And me personally ive always thought warm 2 looked best on my past sonys. Maybe its partly down to the source because through cable warm 1 always looked pretty horrible way to blue looking tint to the picture.
 
I watch with Sky receiver connected with HDMI. Btw, which HDMI input will be the best one for the receiver and for a game console.
 
Id stick sky into hdmi 1. And after that just do it in order of importance/usage to you i.e games console blu ray players e.t.c what ever order you want into hdmi 2 , 3 e.t.c.
 
Mark, have tried your settings and find them very good. But for me Warm 1 is the better choice so what do you think. Why did you set it to Warm 2, it is a bit too warm, isnt it??
I'm going to assume it's because it's delivered the more accurate of colour temps. The making the simple WB adjustments that he did to get a decent result.


Mark why did you go for true cinema for motion flow over Clear? Was it for the extra boost of light output?
 
;)
I'm going to assume it's because it's delivered the more accurate of colour temps. The making the simple WB adjustments that he did to get a decent result.


Mark why did you go for true cinema for motion flow over Clear? Was it for the extra boost of light output?

Probably to avoid soap opera mate, it barely shows but is there ;)
 
Blue was clipping above 80 contrast? What test was this on? On my set blue didnt clip until 95 contrast
 
I wonder if someone could help please. I bought this tele (my first smart tv) and tried applying the settings as suggested by Mark. When I press the Options button on the remote and select Picture or Screen Select, On the top it says "Analogue TV" and don't let me check the type to HDMI for the settings to be applied. On the review screen shots, I can see it shows HDMI2 but i can't get my head around to find how to change the input mode for the above settings to be applied. Also on Screen Select menu, 'Photo', 'Game' and Graphics are greyed out and when I try selecting them a message come up "not available with current input mode". This is kind of driving me crazy now as I can't find help anywhere.

My Current setup: I have a HDMI cable going straight into Sony BDVE28 Home theatre system which has another HDMI going into my PS3.


edit: Actually ignore me, me being daft just realised need to go to that mode first then press the sync menu button and go from there. cheers
 
Last edited:
Mark, have tried your settings and find them very good. But for me Warm 1 is the better choice so what do you think. Why did you set it to Warm 2, it is a bit too warm, isnt it??

No but it might be warmer than you're used to. The settings wont work in conjunction with Warm 1. Why not give it a few days on Warm 2 and then try and go back :)

Mark why did you go for true cinema for motion flow over Clear? Was it for the extra boost of light output?

Exactly as per Martin's reply below John although I personally don't find Clear all that subtle and I would never consider it for anything but sports :)

;)

Probably to avoid soap opera mate, it barely shows but is there ;)

Blue was clipping above 80 contrast? What test was this on? On my set blue didnt clip until 95 contrast

Clipping in the greyscale (not the primary) at 80-90% stim. You would need to look at a gamma graph as RGB (breakout) rather than as one :)
 
Thanks for your settings Mark, much appreciated. I've had the set for a few weeks and love it.

I'm struggling with getting a good setup for watching F1 on SKY and wondered if you could help.

I'm using my own settings so far but with Clear motionflow as this really makes the motion much smoother. My particular issue is getting a sharp good HD picture but getting rid of the (my apologies if the terminology is wrong) the artifacts / jagged edges - kinda like you see on lower quality jpegs etc. When I use the advanced settings for noise reduction etc it takes a lot of the definition out of the picture.

Are there any alterations to the settings you gave that could help ?
 
@ tef89,

I have the W905 so probably not of any relevance but I'm using sharpness 60, reality creation manual with resolution at 10 (cinema 2 or 20 in cinema 1) and noise reduction Min. Everything looks pretty good to me at that.
Mark.. Don't shoot me down to hard lol.
 
@ tef89,

I have the W905 so probably not of any relevance but I'm using sharpness 60, reality creation manual with resolution at 10 (cinema 2 or 20 in cinema 1) and noise reduction Min. Everything looks pretty good to me at that.
Mark.. Don't shoot me down to hard lol.

Thanks Panman :)

I'll give those a try. I have a 47w805 downstairs and the same source / footage looks a lot better (HD on it in general looks nicer compared to the 50w829) so I'm not sure how transferable they'll be but I'll give em a try in the meantime.
 
Clipping in the greyscale (not the primary) at 80-90% stim. You would need to look at a gamma graph as RGB (breakout) rather than as one :)

Ok i had a look - it was clipping slightly on both blue and red with contrast 95, but the gamma response was going from 2.35 to 2.3 so it wasnt too major
 
Ok i had a look - it was clipping slightly on both blue and red with contrast 95, but the gamma response was going from 2.35 to 2.3 so it wasnt too major

Fair enough, if you can sleep at night knowing that to be the case then I'm glad for you:D
 
No mate I will probably calibrate it out to be honest, but i do like the high contrast look
 

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