Color Space YCbCr 4:2:2 vs RGB discussion

digitalvideo

I'd like to start a discussion on Color Space in bd players ( YCbCr 4:2:2 vs 4:4:4 vs RGB vs Auto) and if any of you have done any testing with Spears and Munsil and if you had an ISF Calibrator calibrate your system and what settings did he set them to?

I'm looking for the right setting to have the least amount of processing and the purest PQ from the bd to the plasma. I set my bd player to 'Source Direct' to out put the native content off the disc but still wondering where color space should be set to. YCbCr 4:2:2 is the native color space for bluray.

I have a Pioneer Elite Kuro PRO-151FD plasma hooked up to a Pio Elite bdp-23FD bluray player and was wondering what the settings should be set to? I would assume it might matter on what bd player and tv is being used. On another website/forum an ISF Calibrator (D-nice) who's calibrated hundreds of tv's said that the Pioneer do internal processing in RGB. So in this case is better to set RGB 16-235 HDMI color space in BD player with Pioneer Kuro?

On Another forum some members said that with their Panasonic plasma's the processing chips do internal processing in 4:2:2, so any signal other than that is subsampled again for processing, then upsampled to RGB after processing for display.

One member said in his calibration class they tested and found that RGB is best for 480 material.

http://www.highdefjunkies.com/archive/index.php/t-11038.html?

kuntasensei

I'll share a brief story. I'm running an Oppo BDP-93 (and was running the BDP-83 before it) with an Epson 8500UB projector. I ran the BDP-83 at 4:2:2 for a long time. Then one day I was tinkering with Spears & Munsil and came across the chroma and luma resolution tests. What I found was that I was getting full resolution with the luma pattern, but chroma was clipping the finest resolution on the test pattern so that the lines combined. That means a loss of chroma resolution.

So I tried various settings on the player, and it turned out that if I set the Oppo to RGB instead of any of the other color spaces, the test pattern suddenly passed full chroma resolution. I sent sample pics to S&M to ask them about it, since I thought maybe it was a problem with the BDP-83. But since most objective tests of the Oppos show that they pass with flying colors, the theory we developed was that the problem may occur in the Epson's conversion of 4:2:2 to RGB before output to the LCD panels.

My point is this: There's no correct setting across the board, considering the various combinations of gear you might have and how each of them affect the end result. In my case, RGB is the right setting to get the optimal picture (though it's a VERY small difference, only noticeable in very fine detail) because my projector doesn't have to do the color space conversion when fed RGB. It just depends on how your display handles its conversion to RGB before output. If you have the S&M disc, it's pretty easy to find the best setting for your particular setup. And since the Oppos reportedly have tested for correct output across all color spaces, if you see a problem with a particular color space but find one that works correctly, set your other sources that way as well. I'm running my Xbox 360 and cable box at RGB now because of what I found with my Oppo.

digitalvideo

kuntasensei wrote: »

I'll share a brief story. I'm running an Oppo BDP-93 (and was running the BDP-83 before it) with an Epson 8500UB projector. I ran the BDP-83 at 4:2:2 for a long time. Then one day I was tinkering with Spears & Munsil and came across the chroma and luma resolution tests. What I found was that I was getting full resolution with the luma pattern, but chroma was clipping the finest resolution on the test pattern so that the lines combined. That means a loss of chroma resolution.

So I tried various settings on the player, and it turned out that if I set the Oppo to RGB instead of any of the other color spaces, the test pattern suddenly passed full chroma resolution. I sent sample pics to S&M to ask them about it, since I thought maybe it was a problem with the BDP-83. But since most objective tests of the Oppos show that they pass with flying colors, the theory we developed was that the problem may occur in the Epson's conversion of 4:2:2 to RGB before output to the LCD panels.

My point is this: There's no correct setting across the board, considering the various combinations of gear you might have and how each of them affect the end result. In my case, RGB is the right setting to get the optimal picture (though it's a VERY small difference, only noticeable in very fine detail) because my projector doesn't have to do the color space conversion when fed RGB. It just depends on how your display handles its conversion to RGB before output. If you have the S&M disc, it's pretty easy to find the best setting for your particular setup. And since the Oppos reportedly have tested for correct output across all color spaces, if you see a problem with a particular color space but find one that works correctly, set your other sources that way as well. I'm running my Xbox 360 and cable box at RGB now because of what I found with my Oppo.

Thank you for that.

Yes, after doing some more research on different website/forums (blu-ray.com, avs, highdefjunkies etc) and reading what D-Nice posted who's a professional certified ISF calibrator and talking to Kevin Miller who's also an ISF calibrator is that the Pioneer Kuro plasmas do their processing or sampling in RGB and to set your bd players to RGB 16-235 if you have a Pioneer Kuro plasma. Now I'm not sure about where to set your bd player if it's hooked up to a different display (Sony, Panasonic, LG, Sharp, Toshiba, Vizio etc) so I would ask around at the website/forums I posted above. I read that some displays like the Panasonics might do their processing or sampling in YCbCr 4:2:2 but I'm not sure if that's true or not.

digitalvideo

This is what another member said on a different website forum about color space below:

"Blu-rays are encoded with YCbCr 4:2:0, at the end of the day your display is still RGB based, setting the colour space just dictates were it is transcoded, but the main question is were it can be done without loss.

On the Kuro I believe you can lock what colour space it receives or as you have it, set to auto. If both the player and display are set to auto I wonder what the preferred colour space is? Reading some posts over on avs, suggests that RGB 16-235 is the best, including D-Nice, but it probably comes down to the combination of equipment, a pro calibration should result in selecting the best colour space for ones setup.

As discussed Source Direct only relates to resolution and frame/field rate. These other settings need to be set manually, or are automatically negotiated, either via HDMI DDC (this allows devices to negotiate supported formats i.e. colour space, number of speaker channels etc), or set to what is received. But auto doesn't always give you the best results.

Regarding colour space, as I said Blu-rays are encoded with YCbCr 4:2:0, this is how the components that make an image are stored. Somewhere in the chain this has to be converted to RGB, which is passed to the pixels for display (in basic terms), but as I said, whats important is where this convergence occurs, it depends on how a display handles different colour spaces.

The converter in a display maybe far superior (not as susceptible to loss of data) to that of the one in a Blu-ray player, with this you are best sending as close as possible to what is encoded on the disc which is YCbCr 4:2:2 and let the display convert it to RGB, but then again some displays may take an RGB signal, convert that to YCbCr and back again, it just depends on the display and player."

kuntasensei

digitalvideo wrote: »

The converter in a display maybe far superior (not as susceptible to loss of data) to that of the one in a Blu-ray player

In the case of most consumer-grade BD players, I would agree with that... but as far as Oppo players go, they handle the conversion with no artifacts because they have the high-end chipsets to do so.

As far as Source Direct goes, I have my Oppo hard-set to 1080p. And though my display does accept native 24fps, I actually get smoother side-to-side pans by not letting the Oppo pass 1080p/24. Again, this is something that the Spears & Munsil disc is good for checking, as they have a 1080p/24 pattern with a scrolling bar that makes it fairly obvious which your display handles better. Ultimately, all of these things should be determined by checking with a calibration disc and test patterns, as opposed to just accepting what others say on the internet about your particular model. Everything in the signal chain, including the receiver you're passing video through (if it doesn't have a bypass mode for any processing it does), can affect the end result... and only through careful observation of test patterns can you find the optimal settings.

digitalvideo

kuntasensei wrote: »

In the case of most consumer-grade BD players, I would agree with that... but as far as Oppo players go, they handle the conversion with no artifacts because they have the high-end chipsets to do so.

As far as Source Direct goes, I have my Oppo hard-set to 1080p. And though my display does accept native 24fps, I actually get smoother side-to-side pans by not letting the Oppo pass 1080p/24. Again, this is something that the Spears & Munsil disc is good for checking, as they have a 1080p/24 pattern with a scrolling bar that makes it fairly obvious which your display handles better. Ultimately, all of these things should be determined by checking with a calibration disc and test patterns, as opposed to just accepting what others say on the internet about your particular model. Everything in the signal chain, including the receiver you're passing video through (if it doesn't have a bypass mode for any processing it does), can affect the end result... and only through careful observation of test patterns can you find the optimal settings.

Yeah, I think it matters on what display is being used. I have the Pioneer Elite Kuro plasma and they offer a feature called "Film Mode" and if you set it to 'Advance' while watching bluray and if it detects a 1080p/24 signal it will upconvert it to 1080p/72. So I need to set the bd player to 'Source Direct' to send the 1080p/24 signal to the Kuro so the Kuro does the processing. I notice if the Kuro does the processing it gives the film a more cinematic film look to it. Nothing replicates and duplicates film like the Kuro's with regards to plasma and lcd/led techology.

digitalvideo

I was told over on another website forum that in order for the Kuro display to accept snd lock in RGB 16-235 from the bd player is to set the Pio Kuro display to Color Space 3. You all might want to look into that and see if that's what your display needs too.

To assign the type of digital signal, follow the steps below.
1 ) Access the Option through the Setup.
2 ) Select HDMI Input from the Option menu.
3 ) Select Video from the submenu.
4 ) Select the type of digital video signal recommended for the attached device. Color 3

digitalvideo

I just watched Point Break on dvd on my Pio Kuro plasma and Pio bdp-23FD. I had the bd player set to RGB 16-235 and Source Direct. I had my Kuro plasma set to Color Space-3 RGB 16-235 with Film Mode-Advance on. It looked like I was watching it in the theater on a movie screen. The Pio plasmas duplicates and replicates film authentically, it was amazing to see all the pops, scratches, film grain as the original source and how it upconverts dvd.