Dynamic Contrast setting

[dadkins]

Is there anyone that uses the Dynamic Contrast setting(Advanced Video controls) on their HDTV/LCD?
Here, it makes the picture too bright and disables the manual controls.

Is there any reason one should consider using this setting?

Thanks in advance!

[MoPe]

Originally Posted by dadkins

Is there anyone that uses the Dunamic Contrast setting(Advanced Video controls) on their HDTV/LCD?
Here, it makes the picture too bright and disables the manual controls.

Is there any reason one should consider using this setting?

Thanks in advance!

No. Never. Ever. Ever.

[dadkins]

Originally Posted by MoPe

No. Never. Ever. Ever.

Ah, fries your picture too, eh?

Thanks for confirming what I thought!

[MoPe]

Originally Posted by dadkins

Ah, fries your picture too, eh?

Thanks for confirming what I thought!

Unless you like wearing sunglasses.. and starring into the sun.

Its mainly for store use, and the ones that like starring into the sun, and hate anything accurate.

[[1080-p]]

Originally Posted by dadkins

Is there anyone that uses the Dynamic Contrast setting(Advanced Video controls) on their HDTV/LCD?
Here, it makes the picture too bright and disables the manual controls.

Is there any reason one should consider using this setting?

Thanks in advance!

its only bright if you have settings set high but dynamic does make the video pop

[MoPe]

Originally Posted by [1080-p]

its only bright if you have settings set high but dynamic does make the video pop

Dynamic usually "pops" the pictures brightness by about 500%.

When I hit the option on my TV, I have to squint to look at the TV. LMAO.

[Blu3]

Originally Posted by MoPe

Dynamic usually "pops" the pictures brightness by about 500%.

When I hit the option on my TV, I have to squint to look at the TV. LMAO.

On mine, it's about a 20% difference. I use it and just turn down the contrast setting to compensate, since doing it this way does appear to give me the same contrast but with a wider range. It definately looks better and does not have the looking at the sun effect. Whites are just fine.

If you use it you should re-adjust your other settings, like brightness, color (amount and temp), tint, black enhancement, etc.. This may be why some here don't think dynamic contrast can look good. They only turn it on and forget to re-adjust the rest. You have to re-do all other settings, since they were adjusted for a static contrast.

[MoPe]

Originally Posted by Blu3

On mine, it's about a 20% difference. I use it and just turn down the contrast setting to compensate, since doing it this way does appear to give me the same contrast but with a wider range. It definately looks better and does not have the looking at the sun effect. Whites are just fine.

If you use it you should re-adjust your other settings, like brightness, color (amount and temp), tint, black enhancement, etc.. This may be why some here don't think dynamic contrast can look good. They only turn it on and forget to re-adjust the rest. You have to re-do all other settings, since they were adjusted for a static contrast.

I like having a bit more control. Low, medium, high or on/off just doesn't cut it for me.

[dadkins]

Originally Posted by MoPe

I like having a bit more control. Low, medium, high or on/off just doesn't cut it for me.

At night, in the bedroom, with the lights low or off, having daylight cooking the room from the TV is not exactly preferred, huh?

I have the backlight on 4(out of 10) right now and the picture is great!
DC is off.
Everything else is default - either 50% or 0.

[MoPe]

Originally Posted by dadkins

At night, in the bedroom, with the lights low or off, having daylight cooking the room from the TV is not exactly preferred, huh?

I have the backlight on 4(out of 10) right now and the picture is great!
DC is off.
Everything else is default - either 50% or 0.

My backlight is also set at 4. I had it a 0 for a while, and 2 doesn't make much difference. I prefer it at 4 also.

I have tweaked the other controls hundreds of time. I got a base line via Avia/DVE and haven't stopped goofing around with the controls.

[Blu3]

Originally Posted by MoPe

My backlight is also set at 4. I had it a 0 for a while, and 2 doesn't make much difference. I prefer it at 4 also.

I have tweaked the other controls hundreds of time. I got a base line via Avia/DVE and haven't stopped goofing around with the controls.

I forgot this is the LCD section (my tv is a plasma). I should mention that each tv is different, and if dynamic contrast works to improve the PQ on one set it doesn't necessarily mean it will work like that on all other sets.

I have 3 possible modes for each input on my tv. Switching from the one I use, with the dynamic contrast, to one without dynamic contrast, does not increase the tv's light output overall (remember, I have compensated the contrast setting to equalize light output), but the mode with dynamic contrast does exhibit better contrast, with a wider range from whites to blacks. Without it, the image is a bit more flat, as if it has a narrower range between black and white. But I had to re-adjust all other settings for it to look good. When I first set up the tv with reg contrast and turned on dynamic contrast, it was overkill and did not look good. The opposite is also true - if I use the dynamic contrast's input settings and change only the dynamic contrast to reg contrast, the image doesn't look good now and it shouldn't, since all my other settings are optimized for dynamic contrast.

I was able to mirror the dynamic contrast image without dynamic contrast but this only works from an overall perspective. If you look closely, you will notice that the dark areas have deeper blacks and the bright areas have brighter whites with dynamic contrast. It's hard for me to put this into words, I'd have to show ya. My only downside to dynamic contrast is that it gives me flicker on some dark scenes, but not as bad as some other people that I've read about. I only see it on a scene or two thus far.

[Blu3]

I was fooling around last night and man, I'm torn again between the two contrast modes. There are things that definately look better with dynamic and there are things that look better without it. Flesh tones look a little better without it, more natural, but color, surface texture and lighting look better with it, more natural and defined, like wood grain, concrete walls, etc., but not always, some objects' color do look more natural without it, like some clothes, and some bright lights do too. Dynamic intensifies the glow effect around lights, most noticeably in Red October (panel lights inside the subs), but the weird part is it also intensifies shades and blacks and makes those look better. The toughest part is that I can optimize the PQ for each contrast setting, and both have advantages and disadvantages. I can't seem to find a middle ground here. I need to get an ISF cal and just call it a day

One thing I learned for sure - no matter which contrast mode you go with, you want to adjust everything else, as in contrast/brightness/color/color temp/black enhancement (if you have any)/tint and so on. If you simply adjust your settings in reg contrast mode and then switch to dynamic, it will not look good, and vice-versa.

[dadkins]

Love to!
With Dynamic Contrast enabled, some controls do nothing(like backlight).

Something else I noticed, it seems that this TV remembers settings per connection type.

HDMI can have settings higher than TV(or vise verse) and when you switch between the two, the settings are different.

[Blu3]

Originally Posted by dadkins

Something else I noticed, it seems that this TV remembers settings per connection type.

HDMI can have settings higher than TV(or vise verse) and when you switch between the two, the settings are different.

Today's tvs have memory for each input. So if you are switching inputs between regular tv and HDMI, that's why. Each input will be at whatever you set them.

If you are simply changing cable types on the same input, e.g. from HDMI to some other cable, that will also affect your PQ, because each connection/cable type carries with it its own PQ capability/capacity, e.g. S-video cable has a max res of 576i (or something like that, and sets here in North America will default to 480i/p, since only Europe uses the full S-video res) whereas HDMI can do 1080p. If you switch cable types, you might want to re-adjust your tv settings for optimal PQ.

[dadkins]

Originally Posted by Blu3

Today's tvs have memory for each input. So if you are switching inputs between regular tv and HDMI, that's why. Each input will be at whatever you set them.

If you are simply changing cable types on the same input, e.g. from HDMI to some other cable, that will also affect your PQ, because each connection/cable type carries with it its own PQ capability/capacity, e.g. S-video cable has a max res of 576i (or something like that, and sets here in North America will default to 480i/p, since only Europe uses the full S-video res) whereas HDMI can do 1080p. If you switch cable types, you might want to re-adjust your tv settings for optimal PQ.

Only cable (TV) and HDMI here.
Just something added since the last TV I bought... 20+ years ago?

Thanks Blu3!