Have your say & ask the experts

Have just acquired both an Pioneer LX508D and a Marantz DV7001 and am at a low point as to the whole notion of 'the deepest' and 'the most pure' blacks, as raved about by many a journo in this venerable organ amongst many other review generators on the web.

I'm finding that the TV is giving variable performance depending on the source material, e.g a UK DVD of Inspector Morse from, presumably, a video master looked sharp, bright and clear throughout, whereas a couple of epsiodes of the X Files Season 2 looked muddier, dimmer with softer edges to boot around all people and objects. Kingdom of Heaven lacked punch and Star Trek First Contact felt like watching a first generation VHS tape. All of these, BTW, were delivered on DVD via the Marantz player with upscaling set to 1080p and the TV set to Dot to Dot.

Particularly frustrating is this whole 'black' thing - right now, it feels that anything that is black under any condition except direct light (in a scene) becomes an impenetrable block of black with no shading or detail - not at all what I had in mind, when forking out for 'the best tv in the world'. I've deliberately turned down contrast and brightness on the master controls on the TV, not least to avoid plasma burn-in, but also to attempt to gain many degrees of shading, but this seems to have no discernible effect. Also, we tend to watch the set in dim to dark conditions, which one would hope would contribute to the picture's overall improvement.

Any and all guidance in this area will be much appreciated. I'm wondering whether getting a professional calibrater in will help the situation in obtaining the depth of colour and shading without simply witnessing, albeit well presented, extremes of bright and dark. It's all very well to have 'inky' blacks and 'persil pants' whites (I do like that analogy from the July edition review of the 60" plus TV reviews) but when there are only mega-extremes at the expense of ample shades between the two, it feels cheap and nasty in comparison with my old monster Matsui 32" CRT TV of yore.

As a last point, I have on standby an ONKYO TX-SR875 which I have yet to connect as I am awaiting delivery of a set of Gallo A'Diva Ti satellites and matching Gallo TR2 sub-woofer. I am on tenterhooks to set up the whole collection, but feel stymied as to how to make best use of the prize winning upscaling components of each of the main pieces of equipment in order to achieve the optimum picture on this 'best of all possible' TVs of the moment.

Please help!

Thanks in advance

Malcolm

Have you tried using the THX optimiser to set up your tv properly? Basically a series of test cards that you can use to adjust all you picture settings,contrast,brightness etc...  You can find this on star wars dvd's and some others like Pixar films for example.

The factory settings on most tv's are miles off, and setting up properly makes a huge difference to the picture quality. You can of course pay for an ISF engineer to come round your house but will cost you a few £'s.

You also might need to set up the tv for day time and night time viewing as well. On my Pany plasma I set up the "cinema" mode on the tv at night time with the lights turned off. And then set up "eco" mode in normal daylight conditions for daytime viewing.

Also the quality of various dvd's,tv programs etc can vary hugely. If it's a poor quality recording to begin with then there's not alot that can be done to make them look good. Just compare ITV to say BBC1 on sky for example.

Im not sure if your tv is "isf calibration enabled" but if it is there's probably more options than you can shake a stick at. Which could make setting it up properly more tricky. Maybe any owners out there could help you out with their settings, could be a good base to work from.

EDIT: have a look at his as well http://whathifi.com/blogs/television/archive/2007/09/17/how-to-boost-your-tv-s-performance.aspx

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I did have a go with the THX Optimizer and it did seem to suit that particular movie. But the problem of extreme, engulfing, black-hole black remained.

I recognise that DVD quality varies and do take this into account, as well. I had read the article about boosting performance before I took delivery and pretty much have followed it; still to no noticeable effect on the predominance of The Black.

Thanks also for the suggestion that other Pioneer owners might have specific settings that ar universally good for the set. Any offers, Pioneer Pickers??

Check out the Pioneer 8G Owners Thread on the another site.

road dog you could have a go at setting the colours your self there will be posted settings on whf forums or on the other forums as far as dvd pictures go i would set the dvd player to 576i if poss or 576p and let the screen do the scaling thats what i do on mine the picture just looks cleaner and more natural once your colours get set correctly and turn off all noise reduction and lower the picture enhancements then you will never look at other tvs again trust me im a right picky sod and they say these screens are the best cos they are