Hi All
My first post here - thanks for having me and hope someone can shed some light...
I recently bought a 37" Toshiba X3030DB LCD and hooked it up to a nice new PS3 (via HDMI) and my Xbox360 (via component). Both are now looking good at 1080p, with the exception of one problem that I've seen a few mentions of here, but no conclusion - colour gradients.
Most noticeable on the PS3 via HDMI in the XMB (purple gradients), Folding at Home, blue gradients on globe and - the real killer - GT HD Prologue, in the blue skies. The latter is completely atrocious, to the point that it is distracting to play as there are chunky, geometric fluctuating blocks of blue, masquerading as a smooth blue sky. They look very much like really bad compression artifacts...
Xbox 360 via component also has this problem, although to a lesser extent, visible most immediately in the grey gradients in the dashboard. I guess this is possibly due to the dimished clarity of component, and less obvious demonstration material - I've yet to test it widely on the new display...
Blueray and regular DVDs via the PS3 don't exhibit the problem - at least not in the source material I've viewed so far...
Now, I've read a few things already that refer to this problem as an attribute/quirk of LCDs, but I don't believe it should be this bad. I work with LCD screens, and frequently view smooth colour gradients that do not display this degree of banding. I'm aware that gradients aren't necessarily 'CRT smooth' on an LCD display, but this is ridiculous.
As a test, I fired up the PS3 browser and visited http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/, to view a few test patterns and gradients - no problems there, again, not 'CRT smooth' but far, far better than the in-game / XMB effects I'm seeing and comparable to other LCD monitors that I have at work. If in-game / XMB gradients displayed as smoothly as these, I'd have no problem and it would be unnoticeable unless you paused and scrutinised.
Setting the PS3 to limited range RGB has eased the problem and, of course, tweaking the Toshiba's settings can minimise the appearance, but is only really masking the prooblem to small extent rather than curing it.
My guess is that it's an issue with the output of the PS3 - a processing issue - since it only seems to be a concern with gradients that are being generated/manipulated on the fly.
Any one else have the same problem or an idea about the cause?
Cheers!
Paul
My first post here - thanks for having me and hope someone can shed some light...
I recently bought a 37" Toshiba X3030DB LCD and hooked it up to a nice new PS3 (via HDMI) and my Xbox360 (via component). Both are now looking good at 1080p, with the exception of one problem that I've seen a few mentions of here, but no conclusion - colour gradients.
Most noticeable on the PS3 via HDMI in the XMB (purple gradients), Folding at Home, blue gradients on globe and - the real killer - GT HD Prologue, in the blue skies. The latter is completely atrocious, to the point that it is distracting to play as there are chunky, geometric fluctuating blocks of blue, masquerading as a smooth blue sky. They look very much like really bad compression artifacts...
Xbox 360 via component also has this problem, although to a lesser extent, visible most immediately in the grey gradients in the dashboard. I guess this is possibly due to the dimished clarity of component, and less obvious demonstration material - I've yet to test it widely on the new display...
Blueray and regular DVDs via the PS3 don't exhibit the problem - at least not in the source material I've viewed so far...
Now, I've read a few things already that refer to this problem as an attribute/quirk of LCDs, but I don't believe it should be this bad. I work with LCD screens, and frequently view smooth colour gradients that do not display this degree of banding. I'm aware that gradients aren't necessarily 'CRT smooth' on an LCD display, but this is ridiculous.
As a test, I fired up the PS3 browser and visited http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/, to view a few test patterns and gradients - no problems there, again, not 'CRT smooth' but far, far better than the in-game / XMB effects I'm seeing and comparable to other LCD monitors that I have at work. If in-game / XMB gradients displayed as smoothly as these, I'd have no problem and it would be unnoticeable unless you paused and scrutinised.
Setting the PS3 to limited range RGB has eased the problem and, of course, tweaking the Toshiba's settings can minimise the appearance, but is only really masking the prooblem to small extent rather than curing it.
My guess is that it's an issue with the output of the PS3 - a processing issue - since it only seems to be a concern with gradients that are being generated/manipulated on the fly.
Any one else have the same problem or an idea about the cause?
Cheers!
Paul