CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

napos · Joined: 21 Oct 2006 Posts: 164 Location: Athens, Greece

I am curious to see what settings most of you are using, especially, contrast. I mostly want to see what contrast setting you would consider to be "safe" as far as balancing image punch and tube life.
I am currently using a Moome card with gamma correction. If I set the G2 as per Tim's recommendation I end up with a setting of Contrast 50 and Brightness 32, using the C option on the Moome card (Black boost) and full gamma. My screen is 80" X 45 ", with a 1.2 gain.

Nicholas

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2017 2:21 am Post subject:

When I set the G2 up, I use a setting of 60 and 60.

napos · Joined: 21 Oct 2006 Posts: 164 Location: Athens, Greece

gjaky · Joined: 05 Jun 2010 Posts: 2802 Location: Budapest, Hungary

I think the only reasonable answer to your question would involve the light output from the tubes. Contrast value is just a number and as it is it have no strict connection to tube life.

jbltecnicspro · Joined: 23 Apr 2016 Posts: 512

Yeah, what gjaky said. Tube drive (the white balance / grey scale settings) also affect light output and ultimately, tube life.

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2017 10:57 pm Post subject:

napos · Joined: 21 Oct 2006 Posts: 164 Location: Athens, Greece

I have always kept the contrast at 50. My drive/G2 settings are:
R 24/67
G 87/64
B 40/62
When I had my 8500 AC I got up to 15,000 hours on the tubes with similar settings. It was still good to go for more, and I only switched to the 9500 LC Ultra, because I found a great deal of NOS tubes from Curt a few years ago.

cmjohnson · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 5180 Location: Buried under G90s

I've never really had the time or a good enough meter to find out, but I am curious to see how different base settings affect grey scale tracking and calibration and tube life.

Running a series of tests with brightness and contrast set at, for example, 30/30, 40/40, 50/50, 60/60, etc. and then comparing the
results would be kind of interesting.

I personally want a Marquee set so that contrast is at 50 and brightness is at 30 and the picture is as good as it can be.

napos · Joined: 21 Oct 2006 Posts: 164 Location: Athens, Greece

Chris, when I set up my G2, as per Tim's technique, I end up with similar results, using full gamma on the moome card and the C option (black boost). The picture is very puchy, perfect low level details and perfect black levels. A fade to black scene is absolutely black!