Harman-Kardon AVR 3550HD - Manual (Page 46)

• Sports: For sporting events.
• Nature: For programs shot outdoors, in a natural setting.
• Movie: For movies and many television broadcasts.
• Custom: Allows manual adjustment of the picture settings. The
Brightness, Contrast, Color and Sharpness settings appear as sliders
with values ranging from 0 to 100. The default setting for each adjust-
ment is 50. Use the
‹ / › Buttons to change each setting’s value.
Picture Adjust: Changes the aspect ratio of the displayed image.
Widescreen (16:9) images are displayed on a full-screen (4:3) device
in letterbox format. Black bars may appear above and below the image.
When displaying full-screen images on a widescreen device, black or
gray bars may appear to the left and right of the image (pillarboxing).
Plasma and CRT monitors may suffer from “burn-in” when the same
image, such as the horizontal or vertical bars, is left on screen for a
long period of time. Adjust the picture so that it fills the display’s screen.
The options are:
• Auto Fit: The AVR automatically adjusts the image as required to
fit the display’s capabilities.
• Height Fit: Adjusts the image to eliminate any bars above or below
it. Bars may remain at the sides.
• Width Fit: Adjusts the image to eliminate any bars on the sides.
Bars may remain above and below the image.
• Zoom 1x: Displays the image as received from the source. If the
image is in the 4:3 aspect ratio, on widescreen displays pillarbox
format may be used. If the image is in the 16:9 aspect ratio, on full
screen (4:3) displays letterbox format may be used.
• Zoom 2x: Stretches the image evenly to completely fill the screen.
The outer portions of the image may be cropped.
Experiment with this setting until you find a pleasing display format for
each program.
Advanced Video Settings: Press the › or OK Button to display the
Advanced Video Modes submenu (see Figure 73).
Figure 73 – Advanced Video Modes Menu
Noise Reduction: Change this setting from the default Off to Low,
Medium or High to filter out signal noise.
MPEG Noise Reduction: This setting is designed to address two
specific types of video distortion, mosquito noise and blocking artifacts.
If you see haziness or shimmering around the edges of objects or the
scrolling credits in a film, or if the image appears to “pixellate” into
blocks, change the MPEG Noise Reduction setting from its default of
Off to Low, Medium or High.
Cross Color Suppressor: Turn this setting on to remove cross color
artifacts, which can occur when high-frequency luminance (brightness)
signals are misinterpreted as chroma (color) signals, causing unwanted
flickering, flashing colors or rainbow patterns.
Film Mode Detect: Normally left off, turn this setting on to compensate
for authoring errors in the conversion of film programs to video.
How to Adjust the Custom Picture Settings
Set the Video Mode to Custom to display the picture settings, as shown
in Figure 74.
Figure 74 – Video Modes Custom Processing
With a color bar test pattern from a test disc or other source on screen,
the following adjustments may be made:
• The color intensity setting on your TV.
• Color adjustments using the color bars, which should be (left
to right) black, white, yellow, cyan (turquoise), green, magenta, red,
blue, black.
• The 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.
Use the gray scale and the black/white fields below the color bars to
adjust the brightness and contrast.
Brightness Adjustment
1. Turn down the color control on your TV until the color bars appear
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.
The bars in the gray scale should gradually and evenly change from
black to white.
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ADVANCED FUNCTIONS