Update:
Well after watching some 4:3 DVDs i realized the geometry was off. Oops, I used the Full mode dimensions, not the HD dimensions. So more tape, more string, and it is re-reconverged. I also reset white level, black level, saturation, hue and sharpness, just from user mode. It looks fantastic now.
My 480P mode has the same settings but is very, very over saturated in the reds, so at some point I’ll figure out how to fix that in service mode. It must have happened after the last calibration.
Considering this will be a secondary TV, it looks great. If I can get the 480P fixed up for the old DVD player (once the 941 moves to the DLP) I’ll be set.
Original Post:
For those not in the know, I’ve had a 56″ Toshiba TW56X81 HDTV for about 5 years now. About 4 years ago I reset it to factory defaults in designer mode (by accident) and it has never been perfect since.
I’ve never bothered to get any HDTV source for it as I know it is mis-configured and even worse, this set has different internal settings for every source input (s-video, progressive component, 1080i, etc)
So I’ve been looking at these new Samsung 1080P DLP sets coming out any month now on the net and in the process learned about the Samsung HD-941 DVD player. This player is last years model but has one advantage over the newer models – there is an easy hack to enable 1080i upscaling of the 480i DVD content over component outputs. It also has HDMI which my new set will use, but I thought hmm, I could actually play around with my existing TV.
So I bought the thing for $250 (you can find it online at closeout for around $130) and hooked it up to the component in that my Toshiba SD-9100 was using.
First off the signal was red and horrible. Once I told the player to use 480P, everything snapped into place and a few cursory looks at discs showed it very comparable to my much older Toshiba and faster, too.
I should note the 941 has the Faroudja DCDi chip for smooth upscaling (at least on HDMI) so this was a plus – the 950 does not.
So I enter the hack to get the 941 to turn on 1080i for component (HDCP, the protection crap hollywood is cramming down our throats, is not supposed to let HD signals come over analog connections. come on people, it is STILL 480i signal on a normal DVD, sheesh) Once I the hack (press angle, 4, 3, 2, 7, angle) the TV showed “HDCP off” and I could then use DVI Select to choose 1080i!
Of course the image was horrible because the 56pt convergence for 1080i mode had never been touched since the reset 4 years ago. So I went to Fred Meyers and bought some masonry string, some white masking tape and a metric ruler, downloaded a full mode grid from keohi and went to work. 3 hours later i have pretty good looking 1080i signal from a DVD player. Of course the grayscale and colors are off, but I don’t have the tools nor time to really fix that. It is “good enough” until the real HDTV shows up 🙂
This makes me want to play with other 1080i sources though. 🙂
The only issue I had was the player went into “jaggies” mode for some reason and I had to power cycle it to fix it. There is a firmware upgrade that fixes a blacker than black issue with HDMI, but I have not tried to get it or even see if I have it already. I don’t have a burner on my PC so I am not sure I can eve make the CD-ROM that would replace the firmware.
You can find pictures here.
Many thanks to Huey and the AVS Forum folks for their posts and input.