# Crushed Whites?



## Oleson M.D. (Feb 3, 2010)

Our PJ is a Panasonic PTAX-100U. 3 years old with 700 hours burn time. The screen is a 155" DIY that I have learned is a N8.5.

After some tweaking, we are pretty much pleased with the picture with one exception...."crushed whites".

This is not noticeable all of the time, only in scenes that would contain a lot of snow, or some sports scenes that would have a lot of bright whites.

The contrast/brightness settings have been adjusted and the black level detail is about as good as we will get (I think), just wish we could get more detail with the white scenes.

This issue was VERY evident while watching a blu-ray Alaska video where a group of 6 hikers was walking over a field of snow packed ice. It was pure white, zero detail, not even foot tracks in the snow.

Perhaps this is as good as it will ever be with this PJ.


----------



## mechman (Feb 8, 2007)

What did you use to adjust your white/black (contrast/brightness) levels? DVE? Did you do so with the Blu Ray player? 

I recently purchased the Spears and Munsil Blu Ray disc and I'm pretty happy with it.


----------



## Oleson M.D. (Feb 3, 2010)

mechman said:


> What did you use to adjust your white/black (contrast/brightness) levels? DVE? Did you do so with the Blu Ray player?
> 
> I recently purchased the Spears and Munsil Blu Ray disc and I'm pretty happy with it.



Both setting adjustments (contrast/brightness) were employed. The subject material was live broadcast and blu-ray.

Guess I need Spears & Munsil. Was this difficult to use? Were you able to fine tune the settings to extract the most out of your display?


----------



## mechman (Feb 8, 2007)

The calibration discs are mainly for getting your white and black levels adjusted properly. You can also use it to adjust your color, tint, and sharpness. You start out setting your Brightness or Black Levels. Then you would adjust your Contrast or your White Levels. At this point you would go back and double check your Black Level. And then back to the White Level until you've reached the happy medium between the two.

Then move on to your Color, Tint, and finally Sharpness.

It's very easy to do. Just read the insert included with the disc for the directions on what you should be looking for and you should be good to go. The reason I really like this one over the others is that the others include a lot of background info which really isn't necessary in my opinion. The Spears disc is also quite a bit easier to navigate. The other discs (DVE and AVIA) also include audio tones for calibrating the audio side of things.

Now... all of that being said, if you want to extract the most from your display, you may want to look into a professional calibrator in your area. They will do the best job for you. :T Look for someone THX and/or ISF certified. You can pm member umr here at the Shack as well. He usually does calibration road trips. And I've heard he's very good at it.


----------



## glaufman (Nov 25, 2007)

+1 on what Mech said. In addition:
What picture mode do you have it operating in? Some modes may sacrifice detail to achieve brighter APLs etc. Do you have the light harmonizer (adjusts output for ambient light) in some manual mode or automatic? Is it possible the projector is sensing it's own output as ambient light and trying to boost output?
Lastly to consider is that it might not be the PJ at all... what unit are you using for source material? It could be your player is doing the clipping...
Much of this you may not be able to tell for sure without some calibration disk, such as S&M, DVEBD, or any number of others that are out there...


----------



## Oleson M.D. (Feb 3, 2010)

A calibration disc is on my shopping list.

The sources are a Panasonic DMP-BD60, and a Sony BDP-S301. 

Mode: Cinema 2.

Screen: DIY 155". The room is a total light control environment dedicated theater.

I do not suspect the sources as the crushed white syndrome is evident on broadcast material as well.

But, I am the only person who would ever see this. All of my guests (including HT Pro-Installers) have been amazed at the PQ.

Again, this issue was most evident as we watched a group of mountain climbers trek across a solid white snow covered area. There should have been some detail, such as tracks/footprints, etc., but it was totally void of this. The scene almost appeared as if it was computer generated.

Perhaps I'm splitting hairs, but it would be nice to get that last bit of detail. In the above, the picture was very, very bright white with the sun and snow reflecting everything.

Need to get that calibration disc soon!


----------



## glaufman (Nov 25, 2007)

Well, the PJ is certainly the first suspect then, and you'll need the cal disk to try, but the player also has different picture modes and adjustments, so don't rule that out either... on the PJ, simply changing from cinema 2 to cinema 1 could make a difference... so could turning down the peak white level (contrast/picture), but I do suggest you do this with a cal disk...


----------



## Instal (Apr 8, 2007)

Have the crushed whites been evident throughout the 700 hrs or has this conditon developed solwly? Also is this the original lamp?


----------



## Oleson M.D. (Feb 3, 2010)

This is the original lamp. And I honestly can't say if I noticed this issue before. In fact, it was pointed out to me by a staff member on the DIY Screen section.

Now I really notice it, and hope to fix this after my blu-ray calibration disc arrives.


----------



## Instal (Apr 8, 2007)

I dont know for sure but it seems to me I get crushed whites as well when the lamp ages. It may be that I am using higher lamp settings to compensate for the aging lamp that is causing it. Hard to say without being able to do a side by side with a new and old lamp but I think there might be a chance it is your lamp not the PJ. Do you have a spare to experiment with?


----------



## Oleson M.D. (Feb 3, 2010)

No spare lamp, for now.

Still waiting on the calibration disc.


----------



## chadnliz (Feb 12, 2010)

Have you tried it on Natural, I own the same Projector and I run it on Natural often as its still a low amp mode, I guess I wonder if different modes at all change your problem.


----------



## Oleson M.D. (Feb 3, 2010)

Right now we are using the Cinema 2 mode. Seems to work pretty well.


----------



## bassman_soundking (Nov 4, 2008)

sorry for this lame questionas I am a noob to pj's, but what exactly is the definition of crushed whites? Thanx


----------



## mechman (Feb 8, 2007)

If you were to display the ramp pattern and the whites blend (for lack of a better term) together. You should see a difference between 235 and down white. It basically means your contrast is set too high.

http://www.spearsandmunsil.com/articles/settingthecontrastcontrol.html

One of the very simple and most basic things that every projector owner should do is to set their black and white levels. This can be accomplished with the Spears and Munsil disk or the THX optimizer found on many different disks. This is what most folks call 'calibration'. I just call it setting your white and black levels. :T


----------



## bassman_soundking (Nov 4, 2008)

thanx for the response, the tern crushed seems weird but at least I know what it means now.


----------



## glaufman (Nov 25, 2007)

For the record, some professional calibrators seem to agree that it's best to see variations in white above 235, as much content contains information there, even though 235 is considered "reference white"...

More on topic, sometimes the term "clipped" is used as well as "crushed"... I think clipped works better here...


----------



## lsiberian (Mar 24, 2009)

Check the white peaking setting if you have one.


----------



## TwisterZ (Dec 21, 2009)

One good thing in finding a problem is being able to say when I do this I get that. Have you taken the seen in the Alaska disc and viewed it on other TVs or projector setups? If you know there is a footprint or track in the snow then you could adjust your projector until it appears.


----------



## bassman_soundking (Nov 4, 2008)

after reading this looked at my pj's whites and was suddenly disappointed. the factory setting was at max white peaking! I found it looked better at 1. while the whites look less bright now, they have more reality to them( Part of this is due to my gray screen no doubt) Now After a few days the lesser brightness in whites is not even noticeable, it was just the difference from the other setting I noticed.


----------

