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| Dark areas of films are solid grey+red blocks (solved) https://forum.lddb.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=7616 |
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| Author: | ruinatokyo [ 11 Feb 2018, 12:45 ] |
| Post subject: | Dark areas of films are solid grey+red blocks (solved) |
Hope someone can troubleshoot this for me  I was watching the Criterion Silence of the Lambs which told me something is really wrong, as half the film is very dark, and all the dark parts are swaths of grey and red with no detail. I don't usually watch live action stuff so I guess I never noticed before. But I put on another movie today and the dark areas are the same solid blocks of color. My setup is really complicated, so I thought I might ask here in case anyone has dealt with this. Thanks! |
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| Author: | publius [ 12 Feb 2018, 08:25 ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Dark areas of films are solid grey+red blocks |
Without telling what player you're using, & what other equipment it's passing through on the way to the display, & what the display is, I don't think anyone can help. |
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| Author: | ruinatokyo [ 12 Feb 2018, 09:30 ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Dark areas of films are solid grey+red blocks |
I'll try to get some shots soon and post info. Thx! |
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| Author: | hippiedalek [ 12 Feb 2018, 11:15 ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Dark areas of films are solid grey+red blocks |
Sounds like you need to tune your brightness/contrast levels. Do you know how to use colour bars? |
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| Author: | ruinatokyo [ 12 Feb 2018, 13:13 ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Dark areas of films are solid grey+red blocks |
Okay, so here are the shots from Silence of the Lambs (the same thing happens on other discs, CLV and CAV). I shut off all of the player's filters, etc. The only thing in operation between the LDP (R7G) and the TV (Sony Bravia KJ-65X9300D) is a Lumagen HDQ on default color settings (lower color settings fixed it about 50% but for many films that setting looks like a used-up 70s film). The weird effect seems to affect shadows the worst. Here, the space between Jodie Foster's face and her hair near her eye is a solid grey band.  Here, very close into her hair looks like an amiga demo effect. 
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| Author: | rein-o [ 12 Feb 2018, 15:34 ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Dark areas of films are solid grey+red blocks |
Well, you need to run your LD player into your lumagen using your yellow video connector. Then you need to adjust all your settings on your TV and lumagen. you have too many things fighting each other and giving you a poor image. |
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| Author: | admin [ 14 Feb 2018, 08:45 ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Dark areas of films are solid grey+red blocks |
ruinatokyo wrote: Here, very close into her hair looks like an amiga demo effect. +1 for the great reference   Julien |
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| Author: | hippiedalek [ 14 Feb 2018, 22:39 ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Dark areas of films are solid grey+red blocks |
I found this article to be a great help and a good first step for calibrating my system. I hope it helps. https://www.videouniversity.com/articles/color-bars-and-how-to-use-em/ |
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| Author: | ruinatokyo [ 15 Feb 2018, 11:14 ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Dark areas of films are solid grey+red blocks |
Thanks guys. Going to take a look on the weekend! |
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| Author: | audioboyz1973 [ 15 Feb 2018, 11:22 ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Dark areas of films are solid grey+red blocks |
Take the Lumagen out of the chain and see if it still happens. Or are you using the "d-ext" function on the player? If so, turn it off, reset brightness, and see if it still happens. |
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| Author: | Guest [ 15 Feb 2018, 16:11 ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Dark areas of films are solid grey+red blocks |
audioboyz1973 wrote: Take the Lumagen out of the chain and see if it still happens. Or are you using the "d-ext" function on the player? If so, turn it off, reset brightness, and see if it still happens. when I turn on the D-EXT on my R-7G player, I get better black coloration where it should be black details on tv screen. I always use the d-ext feature. |
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| Author: | audioboyz1973 [ 16 Feb 2018, 00:08 ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Dark areas of films are solid grey+red blocks |
My suggestion is turn off the d-ext and leave it off. It may give the superficial appearance of improving blacks, but it is crushing the blacks in the process (you'll be losing a lot of shadow/grey detail). I'm also certain it's the root cause of what you're seeing; it messes with the black levels and I've found my Lumagen does not like non-standard black levels. Long story short I had used d-ext to adjust between 7.5/0IRE discs but when I got the Lumagen doing that screwed badly with it and I got the same problem with mine (but far worse than your example). You will get a much better result overall by leaving the d-ext off and calibrating black levels (brightness) properly using a test disc like video essentials. |
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| Author: | Guest [ 16 Feb 2018, 11:24 ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Dark areas of films are solid grey+red blocks |
why did Pioneer add this feature to R-7G and other players if D-EXT fooks up details in picture? all filters switched off during film watch should give an unmolested picture quality. D-EXT should improve some things in certain occasions? although I use high end screened cables with gold plated Y/C plugs, playing NTSC LD, (never the same colors) looks sometimes a bit bland or faded on my TV! with D-EXT enabled I must say that picture quality improved on my old telly box. |
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| Author: | ruinatokyo [ 16 Feb 2018, 11:34 ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Dark areas of films are solid grey+red blocks |
I generally keep D-EXT off, so that's not the issue here. Only a few discs I thought were transferred overly bright and I turned D-EXT on, but then I had to adjust every other setting because the light scenes were too dark, so I try not to use it at all. |
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| Author: | audioboyz1973 [ 16 Feb 2018, 12:05 ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Dark areas of films are solid grey+red blocks |
Sorry ruinatokyo, both you and van-dammage have the generic avatar and I was in a rush to get to work this morning and due to not looking carefully enough thought it was you responding to say you use the d-ext!! Still it may be useful to remove the Lumagen from the chain and see how that looks. At least then that should help determine if the effect you see is coming in at the TV stage or Lumagen stage. |
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| Author: | ruinatokyo [ 17 Feb 2018, 06:47 ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Dark areas of films are solid grey+red blocks |
Thanks again, everyone. I got it fixed. I recently switched from a projector to an LCD and the new LCD required different black/contrast settings on the Lumagen. I used the color bars and had to move the black way up. |
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| Author: | ruinatokyo [ 07 Mar 2018, 02:13 ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Dark areas of films are solid grey+red blocks (solved) |
Just some additional info for anyone this might happen to. I got the Lumagen set up perfectly with the color bars and testing with Silence of the Lambs and 2 other discs. But then I threw a Japanese disc in and bam! The problem was back. That turned out to be that I had to make a new setting just for Japanese discs on the Lumagen that puts the black level at 0 IRE instead of 7.5 IRE. |
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| Author: | admin [ 07 Mar 2018, 05:32 ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Dark areas of films are solid grey+red blocks (solved) |
ruinatokyo wrote: That turned out to be that I had to make a new setting just for Japanese discs on the Lumagen that puts the black level at 0 IRE instead of 7.5 IRE. Yes it was added last year for analog sources: http://www.lumagen.com/testindex.php?module=radiance21XX_updates Production 030517- For 21X4 adds PC/Video level setting for composite and svideo sources. Adds audio mute delay for analog video sources. Julien |
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| Author: | admin [ 30 Apr 2018, 06:33 ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Dark areas of films are solid grey+red blocks (solved) |
So, From the Radiance, PC is 0 IRE and Video is 7.5 IRE. Jim Peterson wrote: Note that we posted a new release today for the 2144 (030517). It allows you to select a 7.5 IRE black (“Video Level”) which is the normal mode) or 0 IRE black (“PC Level”) used by some LD players. When 7.5 IRE is used for a player that actually outputs black as 0 IRE you get “crush” for levels below 7.5 IRE (as one would expect). 0 IRE should be used on PAL and Japanese NTSC post 1985. 7.5 IRE on USA NTSC. How do you guys manage playing alternatively Japanese and US NTSC LDs? Switching between different profiles on the Radiance? I've plugged Input 12 for LD Player and managers different profiles for Audio/Subtitles masking from MemA to MemD. Maybe a quick win would be to plug the 2nd Composite output of the LD Player to Input 11 and copy all MemX from 12 to 11 then set all 12 MemX to 0 IRE and all 11 MemX to 7.5 IRE? This is you end up with a identical video/audio configuration on Video 11 and Video 12 but the difference is only the black level? Julien |
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| Author: | audioboyz1973 [ 30 Apr 2018, 10:29 ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Dark areas of films are solid grey+red blocks (solved) |
Since those 4 input memories are totally programmable I'm sure we'd all come up with different configurations that work best for us. On the audio side I hardly ever use the analogue so on the rare occasion I just switch it in the menu, both NTSC players are through RFD-1's so there's a single digital output to deal with for each. Muse audio is via an SP-D07 to 7.1 input on amp (to play back A-mode audio properly) so don't need to worry about that. For the vertical shift (subtitle masking) I just select one of the presets from the menu manually when needed. There is no generally applicable rule for 0IRE Japanese discs. The NTSC-J might have adopted the 0IRE black level in the 80's but actually most LD's still use the 7.5IRE, with the majority of 0IRE releases tending to be later ones. I find it quite handy to be able to switch between them quickly and easily for comparison so that is something I have programmed into the input memories. I also like to convert things back to 24fps at times with movies. This is a more involved change in the menu so also have this programmed in the input memories. So my memories for LD inputs are: Mem A: Matched frame-rate, 7.5IRE Mem B: Matched frame-rate, 0IRE Mem C: 24fps, 7.5IRE Mem D: 24fps, 0IRE |
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