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General discussion

LE26A456C2D: advanced picture settings on non-HDTV res

Mar 8, 2009 8:10AM PDT

greetings, i have a question about the features of an LE26A456C2D HDTV i recently bought: i noticed that on non-standard resolutions (that would be anything different from 720p, 1080p and so on) i am unable to configure some of the advanced picture settings (such as sharpness, saturation, black level and so on). now, the hilarious thing is that these settings are disabled even on its native resolution (or its closest multiple of 16 supported by the video card anyway), so i have to either use native resolution, but with washed out colors, or settle for a fuzzy, non-native compromise... i already know that this limitation has been set by the manufacturer for whatever reason, but what i'd like to know is if there are ways around this (either on the screen or the video card side), so i could enjoy the actual colors even with its native resolution. any ideas on how to proceed from here? thanks in advance.

Discussion is locked

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Few questions
Mar 8, 2009 9:08AM PDT

BeastOfSoda,

1. Are you using HDMI or the D-Sub (15-pin) input?

--HDTech

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re: Few questions
Mar 8, 2009 10:01AM PDT

i'm using a HDMI cable, connected to the computer through a DVI-D to HDMI adapter. i also tried VGA, but somehow it doesn't appear to work.

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re: re: Few questions
Mar 8, 2009 10:05AM PDT

actually, i'll rectify that: it works, but the advanced color controls are still disabled (sorry for the double post, i felt it was a necessary detail).

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Checking
Mar 8, 2009 12:28PM PDT

I'm going to check this out personally.

I should be back in a few days with an answer.

--HDTech

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re: Checking
Mar 8, 2009 5:36PM PDT

much appreciated, thanks. i'll look forward to your insight on the matter Happy

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results?
Apr 5, 2009 12:16PM PDT

sorry for bumping an old thread, but i haven't heard from you: are you still looking into my conundrum, or should i assume there were no positive results in your research? thanks in advance for your reply.

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results?
Apr 6, 2009 7:16AM PDT

BeastOfSoda,

Wow, thanks for checking back. I didn't mean to backburner your question like that, and I do have an answer.

The ability to configure some of the advances settings goes away with the PC input. Settings like Black Level can actually come from the video card, and the television will yield to those functions, particularly with the PC input.

With HDMI, it's sending a digital signal - and not an analog one. So analog processing features are disabled for the digital-to-digital transfer of the picture. The mapping and PQ are sent by the video card itself, and like television inputs, some of the analog processing features disable when it detects a digital connection. You don't want to take your nice digital picture, transfer it to analog, process it and put it on the screen to adjust the black level - at least in theory.

One thing that came to mind - and this may or may not help - is that the actual specification for the US version (LN26A450) of that television is that the actual resolution on the panel is 1366x768. Try changing your output resolution to that, and see if maybe that doesn't render the picture a little more accurately.

When you say VGA doesn't appear to work - do you mean that there is no input at all, or that the input isn't satisfactory?

Keep me posted.

--HDTech