Re: Asus VC239H with Xbox one [Color/Greyscale Calibration]

[philbaines]

Does anyone have any calibrated settings for this? No matter what I do I just cannot get it looking decent!
Also should I have my Xbox one set to limited range or full? When I put it on full I seem to be getting crushed blacks.

Little confused with it all.

Thanks...

[Chief Blur Buster]

Limited Range is usually easier, but Full Range is better if calibrated.

This is a budget 23" 60Hz IPS monitor, so it should look "ok" -- can't fix motion blur but blacks shouldn't be crushed.

Ideally, you want full range for the least banding (countouring) artifacts. Then recalibrate the monitor's display to meet the full range. To un-crush blacks you need to probably "reduce Brightness/increase Contrast" or "reduce Contrast/increase Brightness". (Usually it's slight _reduce_ Contrast *and* slight _increase_ Brightness). Sometimes it's under different terminologies, such as "Black Level" etc.

The uncrushing is a little counterintuitive due to the "decrease one/increase the other". You want the black equalling exactly the monitor's best black level, and the white equalling the monitor's brighest white. So it can be a very fiddly back-and-fourth adjusting game.

The easiest way to do this is to use test patterns such as http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/ ....
Use these patterns:

http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/contrast.php

Adjust until you get the best, brightest, punchiest colors without making all the dimmer square disappear.

Hopefully the XBox web browser works on these patterns. Or you can also File-SaveAs the colorbands.png image from that page and put it on a thumb drive, and view it in an image viewer.

After doing this, if you see problems such as worse banding, then go to this image -- http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/gradient.php -- does the smooth gradients look ugly and banded? -- if so, try resetting to limited range and then recalibrating based on that. Then look at the smooth gradients again. The XBox might have been more optimized for limited range, but most computer monitors work best with full range.

If you don't like calibrating and instead prefer to buy an adaptor -- try this: Another trick is to instead use a HDMI-to-DVI adaptor and connect your XBox to the monitor's DVI input instead. This is because HDMI inputs often are configured to limited range by default, and DVI inputs are often configured to full range by default. This does not always work but is another option.

Or adjust from a PC first. Make sure both PC and XBox are set to the same range (Full Range) and connected to the same monitor input (use a DVI-to-HDMI adaptor). Once you're done, swap inputs from PC to your XBox, and see if it looks good. But try calibrating directly from the XBox web browser or XBox image viewer. Whatever you do, calibrate the same input you plan to use.

Please report back if this all works for you. Thank you!

[philbaines]

Great,thanks for your help!
I'll give that a try later and report back.

[Chief Blur Buster]

You're welcome!

TL;DR: of "why this happens":
Limited range is common on HDTV's while full range is common for computers/monitors.
But the HDMI input is often limited range by default, while the DVI input is often full range.

So if adjusting fails to fix things properly, then reset the monitor to factory defaults and use a HDMI-to-DVI adaptor instead. Problem solved more easily albiet with cost (usually -- but sometimes unfortunately not -- Murphy's Law can bite here too!).

[philbaines]

That makes sense,just ordered a new HDMI cable and a converter that will be with me tomorrow,so with a bit of look I get a decent image from it

[Chief Blur Buster]

Usually adjusting does the same thing, but I can understand how it can be a challenge -- adjusting is not always fun if you can just afford a cable. Let's hope that the cable works automagically at defaults.

Adaptors also work too, and some graphics cards include them (surprised you didn't have one lying around). A HDMI-to-DVI cable (one cable, no separate adaptor dongle) is also available at places like Monoprice and Amazon, too.

Please note, this is not always guarantee that will fix things -- sometimes it fails to resolve things & you still have to adjust anyway. But it will help if this is a situation where a monitor uses Full Range on the DVI input (like PC's do), and limited on the HDMI (like many HDTV-connected devices do).

[philbaines]

All my cables come,and honestly I cannot see a difference.
Been digging about and apprently the "full" setting on the Xbox one is broke,so maybe this is why I'm getting crushed blacks on the full range.
It looks better to me if I use limited,but blacks seem more of a grey colour.
Any ideas what's next?

[philbaines]

https://www.reddit.com/r/xboxone/commen ... mment_list

Looking at that post,leave the Xbox one on limited,then calibrate from there?