# Pasty People Projection?



## Lumen (May 17, 2014)

Whats up with the larger-than-life images on some of the new displays? I mean they look like the people are pasted onto a background. Surreal!!! 

Anybody else experience this at home? Is it something that you're just supposed to get used to after watching plasmas for a long time?


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## mechman (Feb 8, 2007)

The displays which you are viewing are set up incorrectly. You can follow the link in my signature to learn how to properly set up your display. :T


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## Lumen (May 17, 2014)

Sincere thanks, mechman! Your exceptional and valuable tutorial reinforces the old adage that there's no free ride. Combine video calibration with room correction and that's one steep learning curve to climb :gulp:

I'm familiar with the Spears and Munsil calibration disc, and used it last night to set up a new 4K LED TV (Samsung 55HU6950). After almost an hour and a half of careful adjustment and disabling of automatic/gimmicky functions, the picture looks worse than factory presets. MUCH worse (e.g. splotchy brightness, green flesh-tones, etc.). So I put on my trouble-shooting hat and later found more brightness-affecting adjustments: backlight, gamma, and white balance to name a few. Oh well, back to the drawing board. 

I've calibrated my plasma (Panasonic TC-P55ST60) several times over the past year using that S&M disc. It's never taken more than 45 minutes to get an awesome picture. To be fair, the plasma only has basic adjustments for contrast, brightness, color temp, sharpness, color, and tint. It doesn't have any advanced settings like color space, white balance, chroma, gamma, etc.

Hmmmm :scratchhead:
45 minutes to get awesome picture on $700 TV vs. 90+ minutes to get really bad picture on $1500 TV.
I'm not feeling the love here. 
:blink:


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

Just remember the ones on display are usually set to what we like to cal "TORCH MODE" usually the vivid setting or some other setting where the contrast, color and brightness are all way to high.


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## Lumen (May 17, 2014)

mechman said:


> The displays which you are viewing are set up incorrectly. You can follow the link in my signature to learn how to properly set up your display. :T





tonyvdb said:


> Just remember the ones on display are usually set to what we like to cal "TORCH MODE" usually the vivid setting or some other setting where the contrast, color and brightness are all way to high.


Thank you both for helping me understand. I'm getting the idea it's not out of the question for an LED TV to take center stage of a quality HT. 

I don't want to take this thread off-topic, but I also don't want to appear to be post-padding by starting a lot of one or two response threads. So here goes... have the 3 major display types been ranked on this site? As a beginner, I get the impression that best-to-worst goes something like this (I left out newer technology like OLED and 4K on purpose):

Projector/Screen
Plasma
LED w/ Backlighting & High Refresh

Of course, newer technologies are rearing their heads


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

Just a clarification There is no such thing as an LED tv. They are an LCD with LED back lighting. Its a big pet peeve of mine when I hear sales people telling possible buyers that they are an LED display. The only LED displays are the ones you see at arenas and those big advertising signs on the sides of the road.


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## willis7469 (Jan 31, 2014)

That is irritating, and it's part of the problem with confusion.


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## rab-byte (Feb 1, 2011)

tonyvdb said:


> Just a clarification There is no such thing as an LED tv. They are an LCD with LED back lighting. Its a big pet peeve of mine when I hear sales people telling possible buyers that they are an LED display. The only LED displays are the ones you see at arenas and those big advertising signs on the sides of the road.


You're 100% right but it is less of a mouthful to say led vs. led-lcd 

My peeve is when people go on about how you need higher refresh rates and don't talk about frame cadence.


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## lcaillo (May 2, 2006)

BlueRockinLou said:


> Sincere thanks, mechman! Your exceptional and valuable tutorial reinforces the old adage that there's no free ride. Combine video calibration with room correction and that's one steep learning curve to climb :gulp:
> 
> I'm familiar with the Spears and Munsil calibration disc, and used it last night to set up a new 4K LED TV (Samsung 55HU6950). After almost an hour and a half of careful adjustment and disabling of automatic/gimmicky functions, the picture looks worse than factory presets. MUCH worse (e.g. splotchy brightness, green flesh-tones, etc.). So I put on my trouble-shooting hat and later found more brightness-affecting adjustments: backlight, gamma, and white balance to name a few. Oh well, back to the drawing board.
> 
> ...



The learning curve to get a set to its greatest potential is steep, but you can get most of the way there with simple principles in just a few minutes. Turn off all enhancements, set to cinema or whatever setting is known to be closer to proper calibration, turn color down until things look realistic rather than over saturated, and set brightness or black level so that things that are supposed to be black are just barely black.


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## Lumen (May 17, 2014)

tonyvdb said:


> Just a clarification There is no such thing as an LED tv. They are an LCD with LED back lighting. Its a big pet peeve of mine when I hear sales people telling possible buyers that they are an LED display. The only LED displays are the ones you see at arenas and those big advertising signs on the sides of the road.





willis7469 said:


> That is irritating, and it's part of the problem with confusion.


I'll be sure not to make that mistake again, and will spread the word from now on 

Now I need to go talk to the guy in the next cubicle that thinks LCD's aren't going to be made any more, because the world is running out of the chemical used to make them.


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## Lumen (May 17, 2014)

lcaillo said:


> The learning curve to get a set to its greatest potential is steep, but you can get most of the way there with simple principles in just a few minutes. Turn off all enhancements, set to cinema or whatever setting is known to be closer to proper calibration, turn color down until things look realistic rather than over saturated, and set brightness or black level so that things that are supposed to be black are just barely black.


Hi, Leonard! I like your philosophy for ballpark calibration. I imagine since those settings take some personal bias into account, some viewers may prefer them over a cal which portrays a source accurately, warts and all. 

If the new set allows, I'll try storing both types of calibration so I can choose between them during normal viewing sessions with different sources to see which I like better.


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