The display on my 3 day old Mk II has never looked very bright except at night. Even during the day in the shade with no direct sunlight on the screen it is almost impossible to read.

While playing aroud with the unit yesterday, I discovered I could improve the brightness by going into the dimmer control. When I go into the dimmer control screen it will always say 100% (right where I left it last), however the screen often looks far darker than 100%. If I then repeatedly press the right arrow key the display will eventually become much brighter (even though it still reads 100% as before). This may take anywhere from 1 to 20 button pushes for it to work.

This procedure makes the screen look reasonably bright for a while. But eventually after several reboots of the unit, the display will come up very dim again. Going into the dimmer menu still reads 100% even though you can barely see the display. Repeating the procedure above will fix the problem until it happens again later in the day.

Also, even when I am able to get the display brighter
it is still really not very bright-- it just verges on being barely acceptable.

Is my unit defective? I'm mentioning this on this board because I've read a fair number of other posts from users with displays that are hard or impossible to read. Yet, others comment on how bright their displays are. Is there some kind of quality problem?

I'm mentioning this on this board because I've read a fair number of other posts from users with displays that are hard or impossible to read. Yet, others comment on how bright their displays are. Is there some kind of quality problem?

You know, I'm beginning to wonder the same thing.

I was thinking that some of the posters on the bbs were just hard-to-please whiners (sorry, Dredd), but yesterday I happened to be driving in such a fashion that the sun, low on the horizon, was shining directly through the rear window into the display of my Mark II (blue) and even though the sun was bright enough to make visible the grid lines and the backing plate that make up the screen, I could still read the words on the display with no real difficulty--that is, they were washed out but nonetheless legible.

This is so far removed from the problems described by other users that I can only conclude that some units are inherently providing more display contrast than others. I have my dimmer display set to 100% with headlights off, and some considerably lesser percentage with headlights on (don't remember exactly what I set it to) but even if I turn my headlights on in the daytime, the screen is still legible.

I have a strong feeling that some other people's Mark IIs are not so accommodating. Could there be a difference in screen brightness/contrast from one empeg to another?

Now, this is almost certainly completely irrelevant, but on the off chance that it will spark an idea in someone's head... my display is one of the ones that is mounted too "high" relative to the fascia, with the result that the top left corner is obscured from my normal driving position. Could display panels mounted lower in the unit somehow produce less contrast? Naahhh, not likely, is it?

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

We only know of two players which had a hardware brightness fault. If you have this fault it is equivalent to turning the brightness down to minimum - or worse - on a normal player. You can't see the display at all in daylight.

Other than that, the display brightness is very consistant on the Mk.2 and we've never seen a player exhibit abnormal display behaviour other than the two players I just mentioned. This would almost certainly be picked up during soak test, during which 32 players sit on a rack side by side - display variations would be very apparant.

I strongly suspect that the differences in viewing quality can be explained by screen colour, mounting position and individual perception.

If anyone is convinced otherwise then we'll pull your player in under warranty and put the issue to rest one way or the other. If it's normal, you pay for shipping.

Rob

Greetings!

Another thought: do the people out there with the dim displays have digital cameras? (Or can scan in a photo?) It might be easier for people to compare if you take / post a photo or two of your player in daylight. This might save a lot of time and trouble for those debugging, plus give a comparison to those who may or may not have this problem.

I would recommend a standard shot - maybe the boot logo at 100% brightness.

Paul G.
Q# 15189
SN# 090000587 (40GB Green)

Follow up to my original post...

When I got in my car after work this afternoon I was greeted by the brightest looking screen I have ever seen out of my unit! It was even very bright and sunny out, though no sun was shinning directly on the unit. It looked how I would expect the screen to look.

Upon seeing this I immediately went into the Settings->Dimmer menu and tried pressing the left arrow key once, dropping the setting from 100 to 90%. This caused the display intensity to drop in half if not more. I then pressed the right arrow key returning it to 100% and it got even dimmer. After fiddling around a bit in this screen I finally got the brightness level to come up abit again, but never to anywhere close to the level I had seen when I first turned on the unit just a few minutes ago.

On the way home the sun started to go down. While driving through a heavily wooded area that's fairly dark I looked at the screen of my empeg and was dismayed to see the perceived brightness in the dark woods was nowhere close to how bright it had been for a few moments in the sunny parking lot at work.

I then turned on my head lights and the screen got even dimmer. This is strange because my night and day dimmer settings are set at 100/100%. I noticed that every time I cycle my lights on and off, the brightness of my unit changes in semi-unpredictable ways. Everytime I turn the lights either on or off, the display gets somewhat darker. Finally after cycling them a good number of times, the display will suddenly snap back and be really bright again. Arrrghhhh! Why does this have to happen to me?!??

Does that sound like normal behavior Rob? It doesn't to me at all. At this point I am throughly convinced there is something wrong with my unit.

Sorry dude, your unit is defective. Mine did the exact same thing when my display was broken.

Believe me, it's an inconvenience to have to go through, but empeg is very fast at resolving this problem, and you should get your player back in 4 or 5 days. And when you get your empeg back, you'll be so happy you'll forget all about it.

DiGNAN

Arghh i have to REALLY check that on mine, i thought its the old brain again, now i know what to search for ...

Let me check this, maybe it *was* only the brain :-)

I'll report later, thx for the hint though !!!


Nils

dont even try this, i am working on Software to calibrate scanners & cameras, NO WAY of comparing brightnesses this easy way, sorry ... :-(


Nils

No, of course it's not normal. I have no idea how trying to push the dimmer setting past 100% could have any effect on the brightness whatsoever - definitely one for support@empeg.com

Rob

I have no idea how trying to push the dimmer setting past 100% could have any effect on the brightness whatsoever.

Um, holding down a front-panel button allows extra voltage to build up in a capacitor somewhere? I dunno. If that's correct, then holding down a button for fast-forward would also produce the same result outside the dimmer menu.

Moot point anyway, he'll have his unit fixed soon enough.

___________
Tony Fabris