To disable CE-Dimming/Auto Dimming on the 2012 ESxxxx series sets:
Auto dimming works by dimming the screen when a certain low brightness level is reached. By raising the brightness enough, that can assure that the tv never reaches that low brightness level. Of course that means raising the tv brighter than you should, resulting in an overly-bright and washed-out image. You can compensate for that however by making a simple adjustment in the white balance menu. Basically, you're cranking up the brightness a bit at the beginning of the processing chain, where CE-Dimming is involved, and then compensating for the brightness later in the processing chain in the white balance, once CE-Dimming has looked at the image and decided not to auto-dim due to the extra brightness. It's just a simple trick, but it works really well.
- turn your brightness up to 53
- In your white balance menu, set the following:
R-Offset - 12
G-Offset - 12
B-Offset - 12
R-Gain - 25 (default)
G-Gain - 25 (default)
B-Gain - 25 (default)
Keep gamma on 0
That's it! CE-Dimming is now reduced to the point where it should not bother you. There is only the slightest hint of CE-Dimming remaining. And Micro-Dimming still appears to be working. This can be applied to Standard, Natural, and Vivid modes. CE-Dimming does not affect Movie/CAL modes like the other modes.
I have tried to tweak it a bit more hoping to completely eliminate the dimming altogether by dropping the Offsets another 4 points each, and adjusting the brightness accordingly using the AVS calibration disc. This results in the CE-Dimming appearing to be virtually eliminated. Just make sure all Offsets are dropped equally to avoid any unwanted color changes. Here is my workaround after dropping the Offsets down another 4 points each and using the AVS disc to adjust the brightness and contrast:
Brightness - 61
R-Offset - 8
G-Offset - 8
B-Offset - 8
R-Gain - 25 (default)
G-Gain - 25 (default)
B-Gain - 25 (default)
You may find you don't even need to drop it down further, and just keep the Offsets on 12 and brightness on 53.
Another nice benefit to doing this is it disables the screen turning off when the image displayed is all black.. The screen will still turn off however when switching sources. You can also still apply color adjustments to the white balance settings once you put in the workaround. For instance, I find my set has too much of a red push, so to compensate I reduce the R-Offset and R-Gain settings:
Brightness - 61
R-Offset - 3
G-Offset - 8
B-Offset - 8
R-Gain - 10
G-Gain - 25 (default)
B-Gain - 25 (default)
Until Samsung gives us the ability to disable CE-Dimming at our will (if ever), this should work nicely to accomplish the same thing without having any apparent negative effects.
