Ongoing Samsung Series 6 52 inch and Catylist Control Centre Optimum Settings (1 Viewer)

[gperkinson]

Hi Kiwijunglist,

Good timing!!! I have the day off from work tommorrow, by myself, without wife and kids - wahoo!! So I'm going to try and sort this iisue out!!

This is my tv:

Samsung’s Series 6, 7, 8 & 9 LCD and Plasma TVs announced - SlashGear

It's 1080p.

With my curent version of CCC I have done everything you mention, but overscan 0 blurrs the screen and one setting back cuts off the top and bottom. This is the issue I want to fix by hopefully upgrading to a later version. I was hoping 1:1 with default over / under scan filling the whole screen.

Any comments appreciated for tomorrow.

Graham

 

[kiwijunglist]

1:1 will only work with 0% overscan setting.

Overscan is basically a hack to allow you to display the whole picture for displays that dont support 1:1

Depending on what your doing with your TV 1:1 isn't entirely necessary. You may not notice a big different with any scaled media, eg 576pal tv or 720p movies etc...

 

[gperkinson]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

Had a good play with my current settings - amasing what you find out when you can get some piece and quiet at home!!

OK, I understand much more now about what you are saying.

First of all, I now seem to be able to get a clear picture on 0 overscan (Not sure why I couldn't previously??) The cutting off at the top and bottom was because I had the Media Centre set to 14:9 - I had this so I would get a full picture always on the screen no matter what was being broadcast - does that sound right??

I guess this brings me to your point about how the picture is being broadcast i.e. 576p, 720p, 1080i etc. If I set the Media Centre to "Normal" the picture size changes depending on what is on TV. I guess if I had a 1080 HD broadcast, it would fill the screen - correct?

On the basis of the above, I guess there is no point upgrading, however I was wondering if it might help with blurring, especially with the interlaced channels (TV3 and C4)??

Also, I guess as you say the overscan to 0 is like a hack, because with the default settings my screen is not filled. I would have thought my new TV would have coped with that i.e. automatically adjust with the "Just Scan" option - thoughts??

Thanks again for your input and look forward to any comments on the above. I'm sorry if some questions are vague as I'm new to all of this.

Regards

Graham

 

[kiwijunglist]

your all over the palce.

Just set HTPC to 0% overscan 1920x1080 all the time. And set TV to Just Scan all the time.
The htpc software/hardware will scale the movies and tv so that is is full screen 1920x1080.
its much better for the htpc to scale, dont let your TV scale the images, just have it on Just Scan all the time.

0% overscan is not a hack 0% overscan = over scan off = no overscan compensation.

anything but 0% overscan is a basically a hack to avoid having bits of picture cut of if you don't have a descent tv that does 1:1.

 

[gperkinson]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

I might not have been clear in my reply.

I have set the HTPC to exactly what you have in bold above i.e. 1920 x 1080 with 0% Overscan. Thanks for your further clarification of what the 0% overscan means - that's clear now.

OK, so back to the Media Centre itself. If I have the picture settings to "Normal" with the settings above, some broadcasts are cutoff at the sides and others are not i.e. not all broadcasts fill the screen. If I use 14:9, I always seem to get a full screen, but some broadcasts are cut off at the top and bottom.

Therefore, I don't appear to be getting the full screen all the time like you have described. What do you have your MP Settings set to??

Regards

Graham

 

[kiwijunglist]

im confused are you using media centre or mp (mediaportal)?
also what kind of content are you watching?

Your very vague - What is this normal vs 14:9 setting are you refering to? are you refering to your tv setting or mp setting or mce setting?

 

[gperkinson]

Hi,

When I refer to Media Centre, I'm also referring to Media Portal - sorry for the confusion ... I gave up on Windows Media Centre some time ago

In terms of content. Just TV1,2&3 plus C4 (Not Sky)

The settings I'm refering to are within MP client itself and come up under "My Settings" - I change these using the blue button on my MCE remote - these are NOT TV settings (the TV is set to "Just Scan")

Hope that makes things clearer!!

Cheers

Graham

 

[SitheSly]

Hi,

Last week Samsung released another firmware update for the 6 series, which i have spent sometime doing and finding the best settings to use.

I was looking at a settings thread on AVforums for the settings (see web address for details), where some people were mentioning that some of the older models had a burring problem, which was fixed with a firmware update, this reminded me of this thread.

LE-A656 settings thread *Part 3* - AVForums.com

I know you do not like to do firmware updates, but with the sammy (over here at least) you can get them to come out and do it for you, just ring their customer service and complain, complain, complain.

You can get all information from Samsung on their web site, with the firmware / instructions in the support and download section.

The latest version '1023' gives improved black levels and moition handling.

Cheers

Si

 

[kiwijunglist]

ok thanks for clarifying

If your using MP to watch NZTV I recommend
Set ATI to 1920 x 1080 x 50hz
Set ATI to 0% overscan
Set MP to normal mode
Use HDMI2 input on TV
Set TV to "Just scan"

- The reason you should set ATI CCC to 50hz, is because NZ TV signal is Pal which is 50hz signal.
- Normal mode means the picture will be scaled by the codec to 1920x1080 (unless watching Freeview HD terrestial TV3 which is already 1920x1080)
- Set 0% overscan because you don't want to double scale the picture and loose quality by making the picture smaller and inserting black bars.... as your already at the correct resolution of 1920x1080 and your TV supports 1:1 pixel mapping
- Set TV to just scan, this means that it doesn't try to cut off any of the picture and displays every single pixel at 1:1 mapping

NB - you may notice that Just scan mode dissapears if you set the ATI CCC to 60hz. This doesn't matter because you shouldn't be using 60hz mode. and probably will never need to display 60hz content on your htpc, as everything will be from the tv which is 50hz, or if you watch bluray discs they will be 24 fps (24hz)

If you watch a DVD/blueray/downloaded movie, you may want to set the ATI CCC to 24hz (1920x1080x24hz aka 1080p24). If you don't notice the difference between 24hz and 50hz when viewing a cinematic 24fps movie, then just use 50hz all the time. If you use 24hz, you will also have to set overscan back to 0% (as it defaults to 15%), you only have to set the overscan once and CCC will remember your settings for that resolution.

NB - Not all movies are encoded at 24fps, some are 23.96fps or some maybe 30fps if recorded from ntsc tv, some maybe 25fps or 50fps if PAL DVD.

 

[gperkinson]

Hi,

Many thanks for the reply - I really appreciate it. You certainly know your stuff!!

Had all the settings you talked about EXCEPT I had the rate set to 60hz - You are correct, setting it to 50hz has got rid of a lot of the blurr Awesome!!

I think we have put this one to bed!!

Regards

Graham