Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater OT - Sony LCD TV and Denon DVD Player Info

I wasn't sure where to put this, but I’ve just had a pleasant experience I wanted to share some information with folks who have the same TV I do and I have an an offer to make. I own a 50” Sony Grand Wega LCD TV (GWII) and I’m very happy with it. I also own a Denon DVD-1600, which is a terrific DVD player. I’ve had both for about 15 months.

There is gentleman on the AVS Forum named “UMR” who made a personal crusade out of doing tweaks, via the Service Menu, to maximize the PQ on the GWII. He is legendary over there and the thread is titled “UMR does GWII”. He has assembled a 25 page .pdf of these tweaks and based on the feedback, the results are startling. I have not had the courage to wander into the Service Menu until recently.

While I have been extremely happy with the 1600, Denon recently introduced their new line and the 3910 caught my eye (upgradeitis comin’ at ya!). About a month ago, I got a pretty nice gift certificate at work as a recognition item, so I started to do some research on the 3910. Long story short, I stumbled across this thread and UMRs comments that the 2910/3910 with the Faroujda chip are not good matches for the GWII, but the 2900 and 3800 with the Silicon Image chip are terrific matches. Took a left turn and looked at the 2900, which Crutchfield (one of the limited places I could use my gift certificate) had just reduced from $1000 to $699. With the thread in mind and the gift certificate in hand, I bought the 2900. If you looked at the thread I mentioned, I also did UMR’s Service menu tweaks. BIG difference on the TV and the picture from the 2900 is simply jaw dropping. The 1600 is excellent, but the 2900 gets to another level. Almost 3D and the colors pop out of the screen. Wow.

If anyone has the TV (GWII or GWIII) an is on the fence for a DVD player, this combination is special. That covers the info sharing.

Now for the offer. It turns out I have a surplus Denon DVD-1600 . Before I take it to ebay, I thought I’d see if anyone here is interested. If you don’t know anything about the 1600, check this out . These folks do the Secrets DVD Shootouts and are the main reference point for research on DVD layers. After 4 years of players being tested, the 1600 is still in 4th place overall. If you click on the model number, it will take you to their review, where it receives their “Secrets Recommendation", second only to the Nobel Prize for HT . The 1600 is in excellent shape, provides a terrific PQ (even on my GWII) and plays DVD-As. Drop me a PM if you are interested and the first $235 takes it (that includes the shipping). Also, I have lifetime parts and labor coverage on it, so if anything does happen to it in the future, you can ship it back to me and I can take it into the local shop for repair.

I was looking for his "tweaks" PDF... to see what bits of nastiness he might be getting people into.

Though this posts scream "Pied Piper" with the mention of video processing chips and who's got the best one and he's either misspoke or used incorrect information twice in replies to my knowledge.

Correction #1 : He mentions DVD video and NTSC video as being 480i - 60 frames per second. That's incorrect. D1 resolution (NTSC) is 720x486i - 30 frames per second. The extra 6 lines are used for the v-blank interval. DV and DVCAM (which are 480i) have really messed "weekend warrior" editors up that way.

Correction #2 : He mentions the DVI connector adds an unnecessary lossy conversion to RGB from component, DVDs are encoded in 4:2:2 YUV colour space, yes, but since LCD TVs (and tube TVs, and projections, and...) all use RGB signals (your dots are red, green and blue, not brightness and colour difference B-Y and R-Y), so unless the TV takes in an RGB signal and then converts it to YUV before converting it back to RGB (which would mean the engineer should be shot and peed on) - it's NOT an extra step.

Just my $0.02 - I'm leery of the ones with a joke for the flock and a hand up your fleece.

Bren R.

One of the thiongs I thought through (and one of the reasons I avoided doing the tweaks for so long) was that with the amount of information put forth, some of it had a chance to be a bit off or incorrect. I would expect some of that from a non-professional forum denizen. He has proven to be pretty dedicated and responsible without hint of being a snake charmer.

The flavor of the responses UMR has gotten based on folks that have done his tweaks has been overwhelmingly positive, so I did the work on the TV and got outstanding results. Part of his .pdf reminds you (a few times) to write down your original settings as you perform the tweaks.

Overall, he's been pretty much dead nuts on with his advice and has been providing great long term input, so "Pied Piper" might not be a bad description for folks who want to enhance their GWII and GWIII.