jsteffe wrote:You should always turn the sharpness control *completely off* on your TV and keep it that way. That represents the original, unfiltered image. The sharpness control adds an extra filter that may increase the perception of sharpness, but it always does so at the cost of introducing artifacts that weren't originally. (Or possibly magnifying small flaws that wouldn't have been so noticeable otherwise.) The more you turn up the sharpness, the more unnecessary artifacts you introduce.
If you haven't done so already, also make sure that you turn off "smooth motion," "motion flow," or similarly titled features. They give the image an artificial, soap opera-like look and also do not represent what is actually on the Blu-ray.
Somewhat off-topic, but I noticed some tremendous artifacting and weird as hell moire patterning in the night time scenes (especially scenes with one strong on-screen light source: match, lantern, etc.) of Olive's BD of
1900.
My "sharpness" level was 0, and all the other settings are as you indicated above. My settings have been at these numbers for years, and I've never noticed this sort of problem before (unless the compression on the disc was suspect, as it was on several Criterion titles for a while). So putzing around with the advanced settings, I altered the "black tone" from "off" to any of the three options: dark, darker, darkest. This killed the artifacting and moire dead. It also crushed a fair amount of detail in the blacks, but I sort of prefer that look.
I'm assuming the disc is somewhat problematic (long film, and being Olive) but what is the consensus on this "black tone" setting?