General Forum

Re: BeoVision 7-40 Mark III - Customer Review

355f — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 16:59:29 GMT

soundproof:

The search function here on BW is quite nice. Try entering: service menu
Since it's not recommended to make changes in that, most people are reluctant to state the service menu access code out in the open. But it's there.

One thing BnO is extremely good at is ensuring that the baseline settings on their vision products are as good as they can be. I have always found that to be the case.

I remain to be convinced that playing with a few settings in the service menu is going to make an all round difference- settings altered inthat section tend to have an effect on others and the panels are calibrated at the factory. In any event there is no way I would play with backlight settings- as some have done as this reduces the life of the set. Reducing shapness can also lead to reduction in perceived depth-

Re: BeoVision 7-40 Mark III - Customer Review

Beolab — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:31:51 GMT

The Beonic Man:

Forgive me for being pedantic Fredrik but if you look more carefully at the photo you have just posted you can clearly see the dark grey areas on the top and bottom of the movie being played. The bottom is more noticeable than the top. This is how it appears on my set so it seems that this is the best we are going to get. I don't mind because I can live with it and it is an improvement on the Mark II but I can't possibly ever say that it is black when clearly it isn't. LCD technology has a long way to come still, although I think we are all agreed on that now. I will always be interested to know if I can improve on these default settings so if I can let me know how. The sharpness is something I am eager to turn down but I still don't know how. An earlier post suggested that people may feel reluctant to post something that is not recommended by B&O, in this case how to access the advanced menu. If this is the case, why does the Beo 5 forum still exist with the majority of posts continuing to discuss programming the Beo 5 remote when this too is something that B&O do not want users to do? It seems quite contradictory to me, especially now that the link to the software has been removed.
Simon.

I don´t know what to say to convince you that the pictures are truly not modified with any brightness ore enhancers.. I have just rotated the upper picture so it should be horizontal ... The second picture are nothing dun with at all!.. Open the second picture in PS and then bright it up and you are going to see the 16:9 lines clearly and that nothing have been dun to the picture...

Regardsszzz

Now i have brighten the picture 29% so you can see that i haven´t been fiddling...:

Re: BeoVision 7-40 Mark III - Customer Review

The Beonic Man — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:05:45 GMT

Beolab:
The Beonic Man:
Beolab:
The Beonic Man:

This is really useful information and something I wish to try on my 7-40 set. Can you please advise how to change the sharpness levels? I assume this requires going into the advanced settings menu. The only options I have in the standard menu is to change brightness, contrast, colour and size and any changes here make the picture worse if anything. There are also no number settings such as 14, only left or right of a midpoint. Thanks.
BeoLab - I changed the settings for brightness and colour as you suggested but did not get the same result as you have done! Are you sure you haven't edited this picture in Photoshop before posting? !! Would love to get the same picture you are showing. My dark greys are clearly and irratitingly visible.
All the best.
Simon.
Simon! why would i lie about the black levels? No its not PS... Just went in to Paint and write: Pitch black and then reduced the JPEG quality to fit under 100Kb of size..
I can show more pictures if you want to.. I can show a up-brightened picture in PS..
And i can tell you when i plugged my MK III for the first time i was disappointed in the blackness because the 16:9 lines was light grey!!!! Way worse than my MK II !!! But after about a vile in use the blackness have become the blackest black i have ever experienced from a LCD..! And the black doesn't´t have the fine details like the Pioneer Kurio LX508D but it is black..=)
A friend of my have also tuned and tweaked the service menu picture settings a bit..( He is educated in ISF calibrating...)
But he didn't do a serious calibration,(3 hours) just a fast one... And the settings were already pretty good he taught, but everything can get even better as we all now...;)
Here you can see a another picture but the same frame.. I have no increased the expose in the camera and now you can see the black frames.. And the blacks are deep black as you can see in the picture...:
Regards

Hi Frederik,
You wouldn't lie about anything I am sure! It was an attempt at British humour but it seems I am losing it in my old age. The fact remains that I do want to experience these levels of black you are talking about but when I try out what you did on my own TV, I do not get the same result so what am I doing wrong or what am I not understanding from you? Perhaps you could talk me through it slowly. I have my Beo 4 remote and Mark III 7-40 switched on and ready for your instructions. Waiting in anticipation.
Best wishes
Simon.

Hehe! okey then! I don´t now where to start but here we go ;)....
For the first my room is pretty dark when i watch and tune so i can see the small detailed differences clearly...
For tuning the blackness you can use a ordinary DVD and try to find a black scene with white text or like, if you don't own a calibration disc... Then hit stop/pause on your Beo4!
Now we can go in to the ordinary picture menu and tune the blackness.. If you begin with the brightness.. Just push the marker down to the bottom I-o------I-------I   Then gradually increase the the little marker just to until you can see the screens begins to brighten up, then stop. there!
Now you have have find the zero black for the screen I------o-I-------I Then we are going to look at the white object in the picture.. If the white now are to grey or dark then increase one ore two notches until the whites are true white...(I-------oI--------I)
The contrast you can leave about here I--------Io-------I
The color you can decrease just one push down to: I-------o-------I
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Costumer service menu:
Hit menu and go down to "remaining opportunities" then hit two times at the red button + Go
Now you are in the Costumer service menu not the Service menu..
Here you can go into "Adjustments" and then select promotion mode set to ON.. If you hit Exit you can now see a black frame in the upper right frame.. You see how the VisionClear works! If your TV are on full power or on half.. Mine was on half power...

But when i and my friend tweaked the service menu picture adjustments a bit, i now use more power of the video processor! according to the measuring meeter...
I don´t wright the combination here because some users maybe then tweak their TV´s to full destruction!!
You most now what you are doing in here, so be careful and wright down every single modification you are doing!
But in here you eider need a calibrator tool to now what to tune, or if you are a ISF calibrator guy...
But if you wont to see the sharpness is set to you type in the combination for service menu, then Monitor, then Picture Adjustments, then Panel /PW Adjust... It should be set to 14....
And if you push stop and then go in to Picture settings you can turn off or set the Movie mode to Auto or ON.. The standard mode is set to ON...
I know this isn't enough to get true black, if don´t tweak the picture settings in the service menu... But when it comes to this you are on your own unfortunately, because your TV set can react different to my TV set and more ....
Good Luck Simon!
Regards Fredrik L.

Fredrik,

Many thanks indeed for this response. You have obviously gone to a lot of trouble to sit down and type it all out for me. I have taken note of everything you have said and I will remember the information supplied on how to access the customer menus for the future if need be. But, for the moment, I think I will just talk to my dealer about it and see what they have to say. I would rather not change settings that I am unfamiliar with and I don't want to invalidate my warranty on the product so the safest option is to do it all through the dealer. I think I get carried away with this forum sometimes because there is a welath of information here on how to adjust things but at the end of the day the dealer is who I should talk to I feel. I am going in their on Thursday so I can mention it then. Its not a really huge issue for me as I am generally quite satisfied with the picture and the dark greys, but, if there is a way to make them blacker then of course this would be of interest to me. At the very least, I can ask them to check to see that all the settings are as they should be, including the sharpness level set to 14. I am going to take a break now and watch a bit of TV. Its been a long and tiring day and I have spent too much time on here for one day. Thanks again to you for this post.

Simon.

Re: BeoVision 7-40 Mark III - Customer Review

Peter — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:04:33 GMT

The Beonic Man:
A valid point Peter. Perhaps you should adopt the same thinking with the Beo 5 and many similar posts. It depends whether you want to compliment the B&O philosophy and work alongside the dealer networks or not. I would imagine that you do since the link to the configuration tool was swiftly removed. I think consistency is key here.
Simon.

Afraid so! That was me!

Re: BeoVision 7-40 Mark III - Customer Review

Beolab — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 14:42:23 GMT

The Beonic Man:
Beolab:
The Beonic Man:

This is really useful information and something I wish to try on my 7-40 set. Can you please advise how to change the sharpness levels? I assume this requires going into the advanced settings menu. The only options I have in the standard menu is to change brightness, contrast, colour and size and any changes here make the picture worse if anything. There are also no number settings such as 14, only left or right of a midpoint. Thanks.
BeoLab - I changed the settings for brightness and colour as you suggested but did not get the same result as you have done! Are you sure you haven't edited this picture in Photoshop before posting? !! Would love to get the same picture you are showing. My dark greys are clearly and irratitingly visible.
All the best.
Simon.
Simon! why would i lie about the black levels? No its not PS... Just went in to Paint and write: Pitch black and then reduced the JPEG quality to fit under 100Kb of size..
I can show more pictures if you want to.. I can show a up-brightened picture in PS..
And i can tell you when i plugged my MK III for the first time i was disappointed in the blackness because the 16:9 lines was light grey!!!! Way worse than my MK II !!! But after about a vile in use the blackness have become the blackest black i have ever experienced from a LCD..! And the black doesn't´t have the fine details like the Pioneer Kurio LX508D but it is black..=)
A friend of my have also tuned and tweaked the service menu picture settings a bit..( He is educated in ISF calibrating...)
But he didn't do a serious calibration,(3 hours) just a fast one... And the settings were already pretty good he taught, but everything can get even better as we all now...;)
Here you can see a another picture but the same frame.. I have no increased the expose in the camera and now you can see the black frames.. And the blacks are deep black as you can see in the picture...:
Regards

Hi Frederik,
You wouldn't lie about anything I am sure! It was an attempt at British humour but it seems I am losing it in my old age. The fact remains that I do want to experience these levels of black you are talking about but when I try out what you did on my own TV, I do not get the same result so what am I doing wrong or what am I not understanding from you? Perhaps you could talk me through it slowly. I have my Beo 4 remote and Mark III 7-40 switched on and ready for your instructions. Waiting in anticipation.
Best wishes
Simon.

Hehe! okey then! I don´t now where to start but here we go ;)....

For the first my room is pretty dark when i watch and tune so i can see the small detailed differences clearly...

For tuning the blackness you can use a ordinary DVD and try to find a black scene with white text or like, if you don't own a calibration disc... Then hit stop/pause on your Beo4!

Now we can go in to the ordinary picture menu and tune the blackness.. If you begin with the brightness.. Just push the marker down to the bottom I-o------I-------I Then gradually increase the the little marker just to until you can see the screens begins to brighten up, then stop. there!

Now you have have find the zero black for the screen I------o-I-------I Then we are going to look at the white object in the picture.. If the white now are to grey or dark then increase one ore two notches until the whites are true white...(I-------oI--------I)

The contrast you can leave about here I--------Io-------I

The color you can decrease just one push down to: I-------o-------I

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Costumer service menu:

Hit menu and go down to "remaining opportunities" then hit two times at the red button + Go

Now you are in the Costumer service menu not the Service menu..

Here you can go into "Adjustments" and then select promotion mode set to ON.. If you hit Exit you can now see a black frame in the upper right frame.. You see how the VisionClear works! If your TV are on full power or on half.. Mine was on half power as default...

But when i and my friend tweaked the service menu picture adjustments a bit, i now use more power of the video processor! according to the measuring meeter...

I don´t wright the combination here because some users maybe then tweak their TV´s to full destruction!!

You most now what you are doing in here, so be careful and wright down every single modification you are doing!

But in here you eider need a calibrator tool to now what to tune, or if you are a ISF calibrator guy...

But if you wont to see the sharpness is set to you type in the combination for service menu, then Monitor, then Picture Adjustments, then Panel /PW Adjust... It should be set to 14 as default....

And if you push stop and then go in to Picture settings you can turn off or set the Movie mode to Auto or ON.. The default mode is set to ON...

I know this isn't enough to get true black, if don´t tweak the picture settings in the service menu... But when it comes to this you are on your own unfortunately, because your TV set can react different to my TV set and more ....

Maybe i going to revial my tweakings when my friend have done a real ISF calibration... But sadly you can´t do a Full ISF because B&o have to manny restrictions in the BV7/BS3/VisionClear unfortunately...=(=(=(=(=(....

Good Luck Simon!

Regards Fredrik L.

Re: BeoVision 7-40 Mark III - Customer Review

The Beonic Man — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 14:22:00 GMT

Peter:
The reason we don't post the code to access service menus is that an enthusiastic amateur can really mess up a TV by playing with the service settings. More true with CRT models but it is still perfectly possible to damage a BV7. Said amateur will then call the service department in and when damage or ridiculous settings found, will then say that Beoworld told him how to do it!

A valid point Peter. Perhaps you should adopt the same thinking with the Beo 5 and many similar posts. It depends whether you want to compliment the B&O philosophy and work alongside the dealer networks or not. I would imagine that you do since the link to the configuration tool was swiftly removed. I think consitency is key here.

Simon.

Re: BeoVision 7-40 Mark III - Customer Review

Peter — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 14:06:14 GMT

The reason we don't post the code to access service menus is that an enthusiastic amateur can really mess up a TV by playing with the service settings. More true with CRT models but it is still perfectly possible to damage a BV7. Said amateur will then call the service department in and when damage or ridiculous settings found, will then say that Beoworld told him how to do it!

Re: BeoVision 7-40 Mark III - Customer Review

The Beonic Man — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 13:51:55 GMT

Forgive me for being pedantic Fredrik but if you look more carefully at the photo you have just posted you can clearly see the dark grey areas on the top and bottom of the movie being played. The bottom is more noticeable than the top. This is how it appears on my set so it seems that this is the best we are going to get. I don't mind because I can live with it and it is an improvement on the Mark II but I can't possibly ever say that it is black when clearly it isn't. LCD technology has a long way to come still, although I think we are all agreed on that now. I will always be interested to know if I can improve on these default settings so if I can let me know how. The sharpness is something I am eager to turn down but I still don't know how. An earlier post suggested that people may feel reluctant to post something that is not recommended by B&O, in this case how to access the advanced menu. If this is the case, why does the Beo 5 forum still exist with the majority of posts continuing to discuss programming the Beo 5 remote when this too is something that B&O do not want users to do? It seems quite contradictory to me, especially now that the link to the software has been removed.

Simon.

Re: BeoVision 7-40 Mark III - Customer Review

The Beonic Man — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 13:24:52 GMT

Beolab:
The Beonic Man:

This is really useful information and something I wish to try on my 7-40 set. Can you please advise how to change the sharpness levels? I assume this requires going into the advanced settings menu. The only options I have in the standard menu is to change brightness, contrast, colour and size and any changes here make the picture worse if anything. There are also no number settings such as 14, only left or right of a midpoint. Thanks.
BeoLab - I changed the settings for brightness and colour as you suggested but did not get the same result as you have done! Are you sure you haven't edited this picture in Photoshop before posting? !! Would love to get the same picture you are showing. My dark greys are clearly and irratitingly visible.
All the best.
Simon.
Simon! why would i lie about the black levels? No its not PS... Just went in to Paint and write: Pitch black and then reduced the JPEG quality to fit under 100Kb of size..
I can show more pictures if you want to.. I can show a up-brightened picture in PS..
And i can tell you when i plugged my MK III for the first time i was disappointed in the blackness because the 16:9 lines was light grey!!!! Way worse than my MK II !!! But after about a vile in use the blackness have become the blackest black i have ever experienced from a LCD..! And the black doesn't´t have the fine details like the Pioneer Kurio LX508D but it is black..=)
A friend of my have also tuned and tweaked the service menu picture settings a bit..( He is educated in ISF calibrating...)
But he didn't do a serious calibration,(3 hours) just a fast one... And the settings were already pretty good he taught, but everything can get even better as we all now...;)
Here you can see a nother picture but the same frame.. I have no increast the expose in the camera and now you can see the black frames.. And the blacks are deep black as you can see in the picture...:
Regards

Hi Frederik,

You wouldn't lie about anything I am sure! It was an attempt at British humour but it seems I am losing it in my old age. The fact remains that I do want to experience these levels of black you are talking about but when I try out what you did on my own TV, I do not get the same result so what am I doing wrong or what am I not understanding from you? Perhaps you could talk me through it slowly. I have my Beo 4 remote and Mark III 7-40 switched on and ready for your instructions. Waiting in anticipation.

Best wishes.

Simon.

Re: BeoVision 7-40 Mark III - Customer Review

Beolab — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 12:51:32 GMT

The Beonic Man:

This is really useful information and something I wish to try on my 7-40 set. Can you please advise how to change the sharpness levels? I assume this requires going into the advanced settings menu. The only options I have in the standard menu is to change brightness, contrast, colour and size and any changes here make the picture worse if anything. There are also no number settings such as 14, only left or right of a midpoint. Thanks.
BeoLab - I changed the settings for brightness and colour as you suggested but did not get the same result as you have done! Are you sure you haven't edited this picture in Photoshop before posting? !! Would love to get the same picture you are showing. My dark greys are clearly and irratitingly visible.
All the best.
Simon.

Simon! why would i lie about the black levels? No its not PS... Just went in to Paint and wrote: Pitch black and then reduced the JPEG quality to fit under 100Kb of size..

I can show more pictures if you want to.. I can show a up-brightened picture for example..

And i can tell you when i plugged in my MK III for the first time i was disappointed in the blackness because the 16:9 lines was light grey!!!! Way worse than my MK II !!! But after about a vile in use the blackness have become the blackest black i have ever experienced from a LCD..! And the black doesn't´t have the fine details like the Pioneer Kurio LX508D but it is black..=)

A friend of mine have also tuned and tweaked the service menu picture settings a bit..( He is educated in ISF calibrating...)

But he didn't do a serious calibration,(3 hours) just a fast one... And the settings were already pretty good he taught, but everything can get even better as we all now...;)

Here you can see a nother picture but the same frame.. I have now increast the expose in the camera, and now you can see the black frames.. And the blacks are deep black as you can see in the picture...:

Regards

Re: BeoVision 7-40 Mark III - Customer Review

moxxey — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 12:47:45 GMT

355f:
I agree with this and B&O should not be so greedy in its pricing expectations of Plasma and LCD, thats the main problem- they are not ahead of the pack enough to charge £2400 for a BV8 that is made in China for no more than $450. Still fact is it would seem at the present time there are enough people with money that are happy to buy the products and accept them for what they are

I have mixed feelings at the moment about B&O. Speaking positively, I've had my BV7-32 for quite a while and my dealer has offered a fair price as a trade-in. If I'd bought the equivalent Sony at the same time, I'd struggle to shift it for more than £100 on eBay. However, I still have to fork out nearly as much as I paid for my original BV7-32, to upgrade to the BV7-40....with the only difference that it is 8 inches larger. The BV7-40 should be around £6K tops (with 7.2 or 7.4).

I can't also figure how they can sell an old Avant-based BV7-32, with single DVI socket, for only £2K less than the BV7-40. Beolab said a month ago that a new BV7-32 was with his dealer, along with a HDMI expander module and 'high contrast' screen. What happened to this?

Re: BeoVision 7-40 Mark III - Customer Review

355f — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 11:56:07 GMT

The Beonic Man:

My thoughts exactly Terry. For me money is an object and, out of principle, I would not pay that amount for a BV9 (or any other make of) television in the first place. However, it does produce a very good picture although with the rate at which panels are changing and becoming better and better all the time I am sure it will be obselete within a few years. That's not to say it won't be worth buying at that time, indeed that would probably be the best time to get one but I suspect it will be obsolete in terms of the technology in televisions around at that time. I have a feeling that LCD and plasma will be a thing of the past by then too. My guess is that it will follow the same route the BV5 has. We'll have to see.
Simon.

I agree with this and B&O should not be so greedy in its pricing expectations of Plasma and LCD, thats the main problem- they are not ahead of the pack enough to charge £2400 for a BV8 that is made in China for no more than $450. Still fact is it would seem at the present time there are enough people with money that are happy to buy the products and accept them for what they are- which in a way is a pity in a way because it encourages B&O to be lazy and not pay regard to the market- a very risky strategy. For most dealers whats kept them alive is bl8000, BS9000 and the BV7 not for nothing is the gross margin of B&O near 60%

Im not sure about the new technology thing- certainly for 5 years anyway. It was agreed that SED was a vastly superior technology to plasma and LCD but in the end it died- mainly because of price- It was expected that it would have been at least double the cost of present technology- and the rather alarming facts are that joe public is very happy with their LG or samsung 50" plasma purchase with blue ray for £1000- Have to say that screen was the only one ive known that suffers image retention for 5 mins after showing a menu for the same period of time! with processing so bad a large proportion of the HD data is lost anyway- the purchaser by the way loved it!

And as the MD of Pioneer reported sometime ago, 'how disspointing we have invested so much money when it would seem the buying public is averse to image quality. The BV5 is a bit different- B&O needed a plasma- they were still pushing the avant when everyone else had flat screens- so they botched the avant chassis with the panasonic panel and the speakers from the avant and charged £13K for it! That product will die soon- you cant upgrade it and the BS2 is the limiting factor there.

With the present pricing strategy and the lack of any upgradability they could do well to take a leaf out of Meridians book and make products that can be upgradeable by firmware and software updates- so that the product you bought 6 years ago can be updated to that of one leaving the factory now.

With the recent fiasco of the Beo5 it really makes me wonder what the future will be for this company.

Re: BeoVision 7-40 Mark III - Customer Review

soundproof — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 10:21:27 GMT

The search function here on BW is quite nice. Try entering: service menu

Since it's not recommended to make changes in that, most people are reluctant to state the service menu access code out in the open. But it's there.

Re: BeoVision 7-40 Mark III - Customer Review

The Beonic Man — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 09:32:52 GMT

My thoughts exactly Terry. For me money is an object and, out of principle, I would not pay that amount for a BV9 (or any other make of) television in the first place. However, it does produce a very good picture although with the rate at which panels are changing and becoming better and better all the time I am sure it will be obselete within a few years. That's not to say it won't be worth buying at that time, indeed that would probably be the best time to get one but I suspect it will be obsolete in terms of the technology in televisions around at that time. I have a feeling that LCD and plasma will be a thing of the past by then too. My guess is that it will follow the same route the BV5 has. We'll have to see.

Simon.

Re: BeoVision 7-40 Mark III - Customer Review

TerryM — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 09:23:49 GMT

A really interesting thread.

I may well be accused of being biased,but I have a Pioneer LX608.

A previous contributor stated that he saw judder on a Pioneer Kuro.

Given the extensive user adjustments available on these models,judder would be indicative of an incorrect setting of the Drive mode,or Pro Cinema options.The Pioneer Kuro can handle 1080p24fps signals from an HD DVD source.

Like B & O,Pioneer's remote control does operate several pieces of Pioneer equipment.

The full review of the Pioneer LX508 on the www.hdtvtest.co.uk website makes interesting reading,with the reviewer stating that the PQ of the LX508 was the best he had seen on any flat panel TV he had tested.

Earlier this year I had extensive auditions of the HD ready BV9,and was extremely impressed with it's PQ,and certainly felt it was superior to the BV7 Mk11.

If money was no object,the full HD BV9,or a BV4 plus Beosystem 3,would be for serious consideration.