Mitsubishi TV Iris Setup

If you have a Mitsubishi HD1080, you've undoubtedly tried the "Iris" feature. The idea is fantastic -- when the room gets dark, the TV is supposed to automatically change the brightness and contrast settings to be appropriate for the room.

Unfortunately, by default, in dark rooms, the Iris sets the TV to be very bright and low contrast. In bright rooms, the brightness remains about the same, with a little more contrast. Not very useful.

I decided to try the service menu on my HD1080. Though I couldn't find a way to save the 16x9 mode for my DVD, I did find some fairly straightforward settings to adjust the Iris to my liking.

The TV has 3 different slots for lighting levels. I find this to work extremely well - 0 represents "lights off in a dark room", 1, a "lights on at night time", and 2, "daylight"

The first step: Figure out which brightness and contrast settings suit you best for the 3 different types of lighting. You'll need to convert the slider bar position into a numeric from, 0 to 63. "32" represents the middle of the slider. I started from the center and counted steps.

I chose the following settings:

0 - Brightness: 26, Contrast: 27
1 - Brightness: 32, Contrast: 32
2 - Brightness: 38, Contrast: 36

Now that you have your numbers, its time to go into the service menu and enter them in.

I take no responsibility if you mess up your set with the service modes. So if you decide to try this, be careful! Always write down the existing settings before changing anything! If you accidentally use the arrows without writing down a value, you can exit by pressing "Menu" and go back in, the changes will not be saved.

To get into the service menu, press "Menu", then 2+3+5+7. The TV will jump into the service mode. BE VERY CAREFUL. Press "Audio" until it reads "Iris". Press "Video" to scroll through the Iris options. Use the "Up" and "Down" arrows to change the value displayed.

Here are the Iris values and what they mean:

BR0 - Brightness Level 0 (0-63)
BR1 - Brightness Level 1 (0-63)
BR2 - Brightness Level 2 (0-63)
CN0 - Contrast level 0 (0-63) 
CN1 - Contrast level 1 (0-63) 
CN2 - Contrast level 2 (0-63)
0TO1 - Incoming light level at which the TV will go from "Level 0" to "Level 1" (0-255)  
1TO2 - Incoming light level at which the TV will go from "Level 1" to "Level 2" (0-255)

So, enter your numbers into the BRx and CNx fields. Press "Enter" to save your changes, and Menu to exit the service menu.

Note: the TV will *not* change the current display to reflect your changes. It will only adjust to your new settings when the light level changes. You can simulate this by either turning on the lights (if they're off), or covering the sensor in front of the TV.

If you find that the TV changes modes at the wrong time (goes into "Daylight" mode, or stays dark when your lights are on), you can adjust the "turning point" by adjusting the numbers in the "0TO1" and "1TO2" slots. The bigger the number, the more light it takes to change modes.

That's it! Enjoy!
-- Rob (address now unknown)