Media Room 2.1: Release Date, Features, Wish List?(now 2.1.2295)

[z24man]

Some people may see the black level bug in MR 2+ Some May not every one has there own taste and preference. It only affects the HD channels. What happens is on a dark scene it rises the black level like auto compensation.

[ac]

So here is my experience with the black levels--prior to the 2.x upgrade last year, my picture was fantastic on my calibrated SXRD The day that the upgrade happened, I had the issues some here are seeing. (tried both HDMI and Component). The latest update doesn't seemed to have made a major difference.

One interesting note is that I have had my XBOX with the new client on a different tv and the picture looks great, its a smaller screen, which could be the difference. One thing I will try in the near future is to hook up my XBOX to my SXRD and see if the picture quality is any different that what I experience now.

[ruiner]

I think I have figured out why a good chunk of people don't notice the black levels.

I was playing around with someone else's LCD TV that I had plugged into my PVR to take a look at. With Dynamic Contrast turned on, the black level bug is greatly subdued. Since most TV's have this turned on by default that could explain a lot.

Incase anyone is thinking this is a good thing, DC generally destroys the picture and can remove a lot of detail from it.

[LeafsFan91]

I'm still having trouble noticing anything at all. I keep switching between OTA Global BC and Global BC HD on Telus and there's very little difference. I used PIP to have them both at the same time and still see very little. However the colors do have a little less contrast. But not much of a change in that regard.

[bimmerdriver]

@LeafsFan91, don't take Wonton's response the wrong way. Wonton and others like myself who feel the same way about black levels are very frustrated with the disregard Telus has for this issue. It's not the TV. It's caused by the encoding.

[WontonNoodle]

Yeah sorry, I'm just mad that this problem has existed for 2 years and that Telus KNOWS, and they haven't done ANYTHING about it. As a customer on contract, this is infuriating.

[CordBay]

Originally Posted by bimmerdriver

@LeafsFan91, don't take Wonton's response the wrong way. Wonton and others like myself who feel the same way about black levels are very frustrated with the disregard Telus has for this issue. It's not the TV. It's caused by the encoding.

I was not aware of an encoding problems with Telus Optik.
I have not read all Wonton's posts so wonder if he mentioned the encoding problem at the start?
Maybe you guys in the know could start a progress report thread on the progress Telus [not] might be making. 2 years is a long time.
So was the upgrade.
I think it should be continued to be mentioned in posts. Ad Nausium.
Maybe???? Telus might notice????
I am a relativley recent subscriber and thanks for for this interesting input.
Maybe my older eyes are loosing it but I still can't see a problem with HDTV.

[ruiner]

It was mentioned many times that it is an encoding error. It is a simple flag that needs to be switched. My TV has a setting that overrides this flag that I use to correct for the bug.

I took 2 pictures with my camera to show the difference. My camera was locked at f/6.3 1/40s to keep the brightness the same between both pictures.

Black level bug:



Black level bug corrected for:

[bimmerdriver]

@CordBay, Every time I talk to a Telus CSR, I ask about this. Every time I talk to them, they act as if it's the first time they've heard about it. For me, this is one of the most infuriating things about Telus.

(THE most infuriating thing about Telus is their order processing system, which is a POS, but I'd rather not ruin my day thinking about it).

[BGY11]

If that's the case, then Telus is probably not too concerned about it (since the volume of complaints is probably low). The fact that Leafsfan91 indicated he has compared the picture between OTA and Optik TV for the same channel suggests to me that it could be isolated as well, and not affecting all Optik TV clients.

Bear in mind that I'm not denying that some people are having a problem; I'm simply stating that it is probably very low on Telus' radar as they may not have had a lot of complaints. This isn't like the secondary STBs "disconnecting" from the PVR during a show bug that would probably have generated a lot of calls into the support desk.

For the record, while I did notice a problem when I first got Optik TV, things definitely seem a lot better now. It could be that I've just gotten used to it, but I don't see a large color difference between Optik and other sources anymore (even when using the same HDMI input).

[CordBay]

By chance I thought I'd try the update on Silver SA 330 today.
It downloaded and updated at first attempt of cutting off it's power supply!
So they must have supported the older SD boxes in the end.
All's well in CordBay except for the,dare I say it "black levels"

[ae_collector]

Originally Posted by bimmerdriver

Every time I talk to them, they act as if it's the first time they've heard about it. For me, this is one of the most infuriating things about Telus.

But you aren't talking with the manager of "Black Levels" at Telus. You are talking with a CSR who deals with 100's of people a day, the vast majority of who wouldn't even know if they have a Black Level problem. The people who are into details such as this are on forums like this one and in my estimation not a large number on here know if they have a Black Level problem or not. So any one CSR is not likely to have heard the term Black Level from a customer any more than once a month at best.

[s0ren]

for what its worth, i don't have black level problems on my xbox as the receiver, but my 430 definitely has the black level problem. Everything has a grey colour to dark scenes. Very annoying.

[z24man]

From what I found AT&T uverse system in US. May have same problems crushed black levels also with mediaroom 2.+

[bimmerdriver]

Originally Posted by ae_collector

But you aren't talking with the manager of "Black Levels" at Telus. You are talking with a CSR who deals with 100's of people a day, the vast majority of who wouldn't even know if they have a Black Level problem. The people who are into details such as this are on forums like this one and in my estimation not a large number on here know if they have a Black Level problem or not. So any one CSR is not likely to have heard the term Black Level from a customer any more than once a month at best.

Firstly, not to be sarcastic, but from my vantage point as a customer, there does not appear to be a "manager of black levels". If there was such a person and he or she was even remotely competent, one would think that by now, the problem could have been addressed.

Secondly, there also does not appear to be any tracking of reported issues on the part of the CSRs. My impression, at the risk of being cynical, is that CSRs politely listen (or if they want to be particularly helpful, ask in broken english if your system is plugged in and turned on) and then completely disregard what you said. Seriously, is there no problem tracking system or do the CSRs just write problems down on a yellow sticky note and forget about them? If there was a tracking system, they could enter "black level" into it and see that there is indeed a problem and hopefully ask the "manager of black levels" to explain what is being done about it.