Harman Kardon DVD 38 Owners Manual - Page 30

INITIAL SETUP "7.5 to 100" complies with NTSC standards for video with "setup", and may be more appropriate when you are only using the composite or S-video output with a display that has limited video processing capability. Changes to any of the settings may be made with a test disc or broadcast signal playing, or you may use the internal test screen by using the Navigation Buttons to highlight the word OFF next to the TEST SCREEN line. Press the Enter Button and the setting will change to ON. A special combination test screen, including both color bars and gray scale along with 100% black and white fields, will be displayed behind the Video Adjustments banner. See Figure 28. If the Video Adjustments banner disappears from view after a few seconds, press any button on the remote to restore it so that you can make any necessary changes. Figure 28 - Video Test Screen With the test screen showing on your video display, the following adjustments may be made: • The proper color intensity setting on your TV. • Proper color adjustments using the color bars, which should be (left to right) black, white, yellow, cyan (turquoise), green, magenta, red, blue, black. • The proper color transition, seen as sharp separation of the bars. • The performance of the color circuits in your TV (with "Video" signals); bar edges should show no vertical crawling dots. With the gray scale and the black/white fields below the color bars, the brightness and contrast of your screen can be adjusted. IMPORTANT NOTE: Video adjustments for all sources should be made using the controls on your video display. Use the DVD 38's Video Adjustments Banner only if additional minor corrections are needed when DVDs are played. Brightness Adjustment 1. Turn down the color control on your TV until the color bars are visible in black and white. 2. Adjust the contrast to the lowest level where you still can see all gray scale bars separately and clearly. 3. Adjust the brightness so that the bars in the gray scale are all visible. The bar farthest to the left has to be as black as possible rather than gray but the next gradation must clearly be distinct from it. All the bars in the gray scale should be gradually and evenly changing from black to white, left to right. Contrast Adjustment 1. Adjust the contrast on your TV until you see a bright white bar in the lower right corner of the screen and a deep-dark-black bar to the left. The optimal contrast setting will depend on your preference and the surrounding light in the TV room. 2. If the brightness of the white bar no longer increases when the contrast is turned up or the borders of the white "harman/kardon" letters on top bloom (overlight) into the black areas (drastically decreasing the sharpness of the type), the contrast has been turned up too much. Reduce the contrast until these effects disappear and the video still looks realistic. 3. If you are watching TV with ambient daylight, adjust the contrast so that a normal video picture has about the same look as the surroundings in your room. That way the eye is relaxed when watching the TV picture. This contrast setting may be reduced when the surrounding light is dimmed, thereby usually improving the sharpness of a video significantly. 4. The gray scale in the middle line needs to have the same clear difference between each bar as before the contrast adjustment. If not, go back to "Brightness Adjustment" and repeat Step 3 and then "Contrast Adjustment," making only minor adjustments each time for optimization. Color Adjustment 1. When the brightness and contrast are set optimally, adjust the color control to the level of your preference. Set the level so that the colors look strong but still natural, not overdone. If the color level is too high, depending on the TV, some of the bars will seem wider or the color intensity will not increase when the control is turned up. Then the color control must be reduced again. Ultimately, you also should test the color intensity with a video - e.g., pictures of natural faces, flowers, fruit and vegetables, and other common natural articles for an optimal setting of the color intensity. 2. Use the large white bar below the gray scale to tweak the warmth of the picture. Every viewer has a preference as to how the glow of the picture should be. Some prefer a colder picture, some a warmer glow. The Tint function on your TV and the white bar can be used to control this. Adjust the Tint to the level where you feel the white color has the tone you prefer. Sharpness Adjustment Contrary to intuition, the picture will appear sharper and clearer with the sharpness, or Edges, setting backed off from the maximum setting. Reduce the sharpness setting on your television, and the Edges setting on the DVD 38 video adjustments menu if necessary, to minimize the appearance of any white lines between the bars in the gray scale portion of the test screen. Convergence and Edge Focus The crosshatch pattern that surrounds the test screen may be used to evaluate edge focus and convergence in front- or rear-projection video displays. However, the controls used to adjust these parameters are 30 30