2014-07-21, 16:23
Calibrating PC's is a pain in the butt at the best of times.
I had an HTPC about 5 years ago and gave up on it purely down to problems calibrating black level. Having just bought an NUC (and I use windows rather than openlec) I fully expected to hit the exact same issues and I did. Luckily, I got the black level/shadow detail just right after masses of tweaking and hair-pulling only to find that setting everything back to the defaults worked more or less perfectly with minor tweaking within XBMC and the TV. I did not repeat the main source of the problem I had last time of trying to calibrate both the HTPC's desktop and video settings - they counteract each other to some extent and best to calibrate video if thats your main use and live with whatever the desktop ends up at (generally its slightly brighter).
I use AVS HD 709 as recommended above (the "Black Clipping" pattern in Basic Settings) and it nails the black level providing you use the correct settings and adjustments (easier said than done, I know), BUT BEWARE, in getting the correct setting for XMBC you may then lose your PS4 black level settings if you are using the same input on your TV (I use a Lumagen Mini which allows multiple settings from different devices on the same TV input), if you use different inputs on your TV you should be be fine. Also, your TV may well be doing some manipulation of the signal, it might be converting it to RGB or whatever and it may be set to full instead of limited etc, etc. Its a minefield and its easy to despair over, been there done that.
Remember, no two devices have the same color/black level output on your TV, they all need tweaking to some extent. Its better to tweak the device itself if it has the appropriate controls rather than tweak using the TVs controls. Your PS4 may just have been pretty near perfect out of the box, thats more luck than anything else. Your NUC on someone elses TV may give perfect shadow detail, again, luck. A calibrated TV is only calibrated for the sources it had attached to it when it was calibrated, add in a new source and it may very well be that the display from said device is not optimal and the device and/or TV needs recalibrated. If possible, calibrate the source device to the TV, although sometimes its just easier to tweak the TV as usually it has full controls but as said before, if you have one input in use for all devices chances are one or more devices will end up with a less than optimal display - for example, in general, brightness can't be set at different levels on the same input for different devices (I know some TVs can do this, a lot can't).
Try a different input for the NUC and tweak away without disturbing the PS4 settings if you can. Getting the black level etc right on a PC can be done but its more difficult given the multitude of settings on both the NUC and your Telly, any mismatch in settings on either of them and you have a bad picture.
If someone has the same setup as you, they may be able to give specific advice (I use a Pioneer Kuro and the best setting for me in the TV is having the NUC connected as a "Video" source rather than a "PC" source - far better picture and only allows 16-235 input, makes things a bit easier to correct if it goes wrong, also inputting YCbcr rather than RGB gave me the best gamma level which also affects black detail).
Good luck, you'll get there, just don't give up as it is all do-able, just takes time and a bit of thinking through the problem. Its not rocket science, but at times it feels like it is, like I said been there done that and still have the bald patches to show for it!
I had an HTPC about 5 years ago and gave up on it purely down to problems calibrating black level. Having just bought an NUC (and I use windows rather than openlec) I fully expected to hit the exact same issues and I did. Luckily, I got the black level/shadow detail just right after masses of tweaking and hair-pulling only to find that setting everything back to the defaults worked more or less perfectly with minor tweaking within XBMC and the TV. I did not repeat the main source of the problem I had last time of trying to calibrate both the HTPC's desktop and video settings - they counteract each other to some extent and best to calibrate video if thats your main use and live with whatever the desktop ends up at (generally its slightly brighter).
I use AVS HD 709 as recommended above (the "Black Clipping" pattern in Basic Settings) and it nails the black level providing you use the correct settings and adjustments (easier said than done, I know), BUT BEWARE, in getting the correct setting for XMBC you may then lose your PS4 black level settings if you are using the same input on your TV (I use a Lumagen Mini which allows multiple settings from different devices on the same TV input), if you use different inputs on your TV you should be be fine. Also, your TV may well be doing some manipulation of the signal, it might be converting it to RGB or whatever and it may be set to full instead of limited etc, etc. Its a minefield and its easy to despair over, been there done that.
Remember, no two devices have the same color/black level output on your TV, they all need tweaking to some extent. Its better to tweak the device itself if it has the appropriate controls rather than tweak using the TVs controls. Your PS4 may just have been pretty near perfect out of the box, thats more luck than anything else. Your NUC on someone elses TV may give perfect shadow detail, again, luck. A calibrated TV is only calibrated for the sources it had attached to it when it was calibrated, add in a new source and it may very well be that the display from said device is not optimal and the device and/or TV needs recalibrated. If possible, calibrate the source device to the TV, although sometimes its just easier to tweak the TV as usually it has full controls but as said before, if you have one input in use for all devices chances are one or more devices will end up with a less than optimal display - for example, in general, brightness can't be set at different levels on the same input for different devices (I know some TVs can do this, a lot can't).
Try a different input for the NUC and tweak away without disturbing the PS4 settings if you can. Getting the black level etc right on a PC can be done but its more difficult given the multitude of settings on both the NUC and your Telly, any mismatch in settings on either of them and you have a bad picture.
If someone has the same setup as you, they may be able to give specific advice (I use a Pioneer Kuro and the best setting for me in the TV is having the NUC connected as a "Video" source rather than a "PC" source - far better picture and only allows 16-235 input, makes things a bit easier to correct if it goes wrong, also inputting YCbcr rather than RGB gave me the best gamma level which also affects black detail).
Good luck, you'll get there, just don't give up as it is all do-able, just takes time and a bit of thinking through the problem. Its not rocket science, but at times it feels like it is, like I said been there done that and still have the bald patches to show for it!
