Contrast Issues with SP3

[Alexander]

Hi everyone,

It is great to have a place like this with good reliable information. I have had more questions answered here than by Microsoft technicians.

I have tried various things, but whenever I am streaming videos, in netflix or off a website, the blacks and grays are not differentiated well. Everything is too dark.

I have tried using the tweak tool and turned off dynamic brightness. I have installed the intel drivers and increased video brightness. Still the issue persists and darks are too dark and it is hard to stream a movie with a lot of night scenes as everything is black.

Has anyone solved this or is this something unique to me?

 

[Bandito]

You're not alone.

I tried all of the tweaks and drivers mentioned in the other threads related to this topic, but none of them have had any effect on my SP3's display. I cannot differentiate any more of the grays in the test pattern now than when I originally got the machine.

The only way that I can get the machine to display most or all of the test pattern, so that each shade can be distinguished, is by changing the gamma to one and that wreaks havoc with everything else, so that's not a workable option.

Perhaps someone else knows of a trick that will improve our display settings.

 

[bluegrass]

How do they look when you plug in a monitor? I have similar difficulty watching dark scenes in TV shows or movies on my TV.

 

[wertzius]

Install one of the Intel drivers. Go to the energy options in the Intel HD graphics control panel. Deactivate the Display Power Saving technology at the bottom. You are done!

 

[*DS*]

Alternatively, instal the Surface Tweak Tool and use it to turn off dynamic contrast adjustment.

The black level problem is also discussed in this thread.

 

[vikarna]

Hi everyone,

It is great to have a place like this with good reliable information. I have had more questions answered here than by Microsoft technicians.

I have tried various things, but whenever I am streaming videos, in netflix or off a website, the blacks and grays are not differentiated well. Everything is too dark.

I have tried using the tweak tool and turned off dynamic brightness. I have installed the intel drivers and increased video brightness. Still the issue persists and darks are too dark and it is hard to stream a movie with a lot of night scenes as everything is black.

Has anyone solved this or is this something unique to me?

Install one of the Intel drivers. Go to the energy options in the Intel HD graphics control panel. Deactivate the Display Power Saving technology at the bottom. You are done!

Good!

And

Try out my settings: http://www.surfaceforums.net/threads/color-calibration.11429/

 

[Alexander]

I went through the tweak tool and the intel drivers before making this thread. No, it did not fix the darks.

 

[wertzius]

Have you tried the test in the surface tweak tool? If you see steps in the greys, the deactivation didn't worked.

 

[hadrian]

It looks pretty smooth...You can differentiate greys and blacks well?

 

[Sven]

I installed the tweak tool and disabled the dynamic contrast setting, however, I notice that after this the 'auto brightness adjustment' setting is greyed out and no longer available.

Any idea how to get it back!? Or do they go together mutually inclusive ...

On the plus side contrast is much improved, on the downside I've noticed a decrease in battery life with the dynamic contrast setting turned off.

 

[Alexander]

Hi Sven, how big a decrease in battery life?

 

[Sven]

Approximately 20-30 minutes on a full charge or thereabouts - still monitoring though.

Definitely decreases quicker but not alarmingly so. Nothing else has changed, so the dynamic contrast definitely is a power saving feature.

On the plus side contrast is improved.