AVS Forum banner
1M views 15K replies 796 participants last post by  fmalczewski 
#1 ·
Well mine is arriving in less than 30 hours and no one has started the thread so I figure I might as well go ahead and do it!


Welcome to the official owners thread for the Panasonic ZT60.


Lets see some pictures from the early owners and initial thoughts.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Here2Learn
#3,021 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bond 007  /t/1474480/official-zt60-owners-thread/3000#post_23707730


Agreed. But it can depend on how much youre spending. All I got for my money was a Day setting.

So, calibrating one mode is cheaper?
 
#3,023 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lost!  /t/1474480/official-zt60-owners-thread/3000#post_23707746


So, calibrating one mode is cheaper?

That depends on the calibrator some offer different levels of calibration, for example two point greyscale cal and one mode only. Not everyone offers this, IMO your set deserves a "full" professional calibration.
 
#3,027 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nelson123  /t/1474480/official-zt60-owners-thread/3000#post_23707494


Hey guys. Need some advice. My first ZT60 had a dent on the stand so I scheduled a return. Best Buy took care of the return with no problem. My replacement came today and I ran color slides and see some bad pixels in the upper left corner. I can see several bad pixels in different places while moving through the different colors. It looks like a total of 4-5 bad pixels. With normal content I probably would never have seen them. So my question is...should I return this set? I don't know if it indicates a problem and more pixels will go bad or is this something minor that I should just not complain about. Thanks.

I would be able to see that many bad pixels. In fact I can see 1 bad pixel if it is close to the edge as well. I suggest to replace it. It is too many bad pixels to live with.
 
#3,028 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nelson123  /t/1474480/official-zt60-owners-thread/3000#post_23707494


Hey guys. Need some advice. My first ZT60 had a dent on the stand so I scheduled a return. Best Buy took care of the return with no problem. My replacement came today and I ran color slides and see some bad pixels in the upper left corner. I can see several bad pixels in different places while moving through the different colors. It looks like a total of 4-5 bad pixels. With normal content I probably would never have seen them. So my question is...should I return this set? I don't know if it indicates a problem and more pixels will go bad or is this something minor that I should just not complain about. Thanks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rx74ray  /t/1474480/official-zt60-owners-thread/3000#post_23707849


I would be able to see that many bad pixels. In fact I can see 1 bad pixel if it is close to the edge as well. I suggest to replace it. It is too many bad pixels to live with.

Have you been running the break-in slides? I only ask because plasmas will often have a few "bad" pixels that seem to correct themselves after a short period of use. I had a 65" VT60 that had about 5 "dead" subpixels originally but after 50 hours of break-in slides every single pixel was working perfectly. You might want to give the set a few days before dealing with the hassle of an exchange. Not saying your dead pixels WILL repair themselves, just that they might.
 
#3,029 ·
 AccuCal's website :
Quote:
ISF Video Calibration: Includes calibration of display light output, contrast ratio, color level, resolution, color management system, gamma, 3D mode optimization, correct all video sources present, ISFccc calibration of Day and Night and 3D modes if desired and limited audio/video equipment purchase advice before and after the service. This also includes a detailed report in pdf format of before and after measurements, source settings and display settings. (approx. 3 hours to complete) $350
I'm not sure why Jeff said he'd just be doing one mode. Personally I don't care about Day mode since I usually watch at night and light is under control. And it's not an optimized picture. (If it weren't a compromise you wouldn't need a Night mode.) And as I said before 3D receives limited use at my house so I'd be willing to just use THX 3D for that but if it doesn't take much more to calibrate it then why not? As far as B&W sources, how can you calibrate differently for that? I'd think the gray scale would be the same whether B&W or color source material. I watch a fair amount of B&W movies but I'm honestly not sure if I'd even remember I had a B&W mode.


Also from AccuCal:
Quote:
Additional User Memories For Personal Preference: Customer requested special calibration for personal use on top of that required for an accurate display for each input in use. (approx. 2 hours to complete) $100
I imagine this would include an extra B&W setting.
 
#3,030 ·
You may think you don't care but I highly recommend day and night - plus 3D. Until you have them you don't realize how they can all be of use. I also think its fair to say that 3D may benefit the most when having a pro calibration. I don't think they like doing it, but it makes a big difference. I am not a 3D fan, but I have to admit its pretty cool when done right with the display and source material. Plus you are paying for it - as for b/w, I don't see the benefit ($100) unless you are a fan of TMC.
 
#3,031 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by smurraybhm  /t/1474480/official-zt60-owners-thread/3000#post_23708106


You may think you don't care but I highly recommend day and night - plus 3D. Until you have them you don't realize how they can all be of use. I also think its fair to say that 3D may benefit the most when having a pro calibration. I don't think they like doing it, but it makes a big difference. I am not a 3D fan, but I have to admit its pretty cool when done right with the display and source material. Plus you are paying for it - as for b/w, I don't see the benefit ($100) unless you are a fan of TMC.
Yes to 3D, but why Day and Night? I have THX Day and THX Cinema now. I did A/B comparisons on a number of sources & prefer the Cinema regardless of the time of day. So I will never use THX Day again. I suspect the same would happen if I had pro calibration modes. I'd much rather have the 3 modes be color, 3D and B&W. Because I do watch TCM quite a bit. I still don't know what would be done differently when calibrating for B&W. Does anyone have an idea?
 
#3,032 ·
Because they are not close to accurate based on my discussion with DNice. THX Night is the closest out of the box, but "closest" is not defined by the reviewers. THX Day leaves a lot to be desired in regards to accuracy. I have one mode with my 5020, which DNice calibrated about 4 years ago. The benefit of being able to go up and down makes a difference not only for the environment that you view in, but also the material you are viewing. Just my two cents and you are paying for it based on what you posted above - Day, Night & 3D.
 
#3,033 ·
If Night is "ideal" and Day is "the best we can do with __ MLL" then I really can't think of any situation in which I would watch Day. But as you said, I'm paying for it so it makes sense to ask Jeff to do it.
 
#3,034 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by smurraybhm  /t/1474480/official-zt60-owners-thread/3030#post_23708175


Because they are not close to accurate based on my discussion with DNice. THX Night is the closest out of the box, but "closest" is not defined by the reviewers. THX Day leaves a lot to be desired in regards to accuracy. I have one mode with my 5020, which DNice calibrated about 4 years ago. The benefit of being able to go up and down makes a difference not only for the environment that you view in, but also the material you are viewing. Just my two cents and you are paying for it based on what you posted above - Day, Night & 3D.
I agree. DNice calibrated a night mode, a day mode and a 3D mode. They look great and it's nice to have that flexibility!
 
#3,035 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by smurraybhm  /t/1474480/official-zt60-owners-thread/3000#post_23708106


You may think you don't care but I highly recommend day and night - plus 3D. Until you have them you don't realize how they can all be of use. I also think its fair to say that 3D may benefit the most when having a pro calibration. I don't think they like doing it, but it makes a big difference. I am not a 3D fan, but I have to admit its pretty cool when done right with the display and source material. Plus you are paying for it - as for b/w, I don't see the benefit ($100) unless you are a fan of TMC.

Agree, the 3d cal is a must if you watch any 3d content at all. That mode suffers the worst out of the box.
 
#3,036 ·
Time for me to give back a little.


I've been a ZT60 owner for 7 weeks. Below is a subject-by-subject description of the whole buying/owning experience so far. Hopefully there is useful information in there somewhere for people researching a new TV.


Previous TV:






I wanted to replace my 10 year old Samsung DLP. It was a 46" 720p set. It served me well enough for 10 years, but there were things I was itching to improve: resolution ofcourse, and size, but especially black level and shadow detail. I game occasionally and have too often found myself creeping through dark caves and dungeons trying to discern treasure and enemies in the muddy picture produced by my DLP. DLP technology is great at many things, but blacks and shadow details are not amoung them. At least not in a 2003 TV.


Budget:






$2000 or less. At least, that's where it started...


Usage Profile:






As a family, we probably watch cable 60%, movies 20%, and gaming 20%. It's about 98% widescreen stuff, only 2% 4:3 stuff. Some movies are letterboxed.


Size:






I wanted as big as possible. For me that is 60" because the TV goes in a built-in bookcase / entertainment center. The built-in was designed to fit a 60" TV, max. The room is about 20' x 14'. My seating distance is about 12 feet. Most people on this forum would probably want something bigger than 60" for a 12' seating distance, but I have that hard limit (changing the built-in was not an option). I decided it must be 60", no more, no less.


Plasma or LCD?






Never owned a plasma or knew anyone who did. But I was intrigued by their deep blacks. I've always hated lousy blacks, even before I stumbled across avsforum and learned a lot of other people feel the same. Also, I wanted the the best motion handling, and I'm not a fan of the soap-opera-effect. From things I've read on avsforum, cnet, and elsewhere, it seemed plasma had the edge on LCD in motion. Also plasmas tended to be cheaper per inch than LCD. It is still not clear to me which technology has the best shadow detail, but I figured any mid to high end LCD or plasma would beat my old DLP in that regard.


I wanted good screen uniformity. My DLP was perfect.


I also considered brightness, which is LCD's big strong suite. The TV was going into a room with 4 windows (2 on the east wall, 2 on the north wall). But most of my TV watching is at night (after work). My daytime viewing is usually sports like golf and football. They tend to be well lit material. My wife only watches a little TV with me at night. The kids watch during the day, but they don't care. So I decided plasma would probably be bright enough for us.


I read about burn-in and IR, but decided it sounded like these were no longer big concerns. More on this later.


Factoring all that in, I was leaning pretty heavily towards plasma.



Brand:






Well if you're going to buy a plasma, I always heard Panasonic is the first place you look. And wow, they had three highly rated models out this year! Samsung had some new high end model called the f8500 that was out of my price range. They also had a midrange f5500 model that was much more affordable. But my old DLP was a Samsung, and although it lasted 10 years, had a great picture for its time, and I got a lot of use out of it, it was not without quality related frustrations. First, the DVI input stopped working after about 4 years. I think it was the HDCP function that quit. So when blurays came out I was forced to connect through the component input. This was underwhelming. It is my understanding (thanks to avsforum) blu ray players down-res to standard def through their component output since it has no copy protection. Arrgh. Then the composite video inputs developed a noise problem at about 6 years, making our Wii look like an old CRT tuned to a weak station. And then over the last 4 years the TV developed an intermittent problem where the picture would freeze with each pixel either full on white or full off. Looked kinda cool actually, like a photograph negative. Problem was, the only way to unfreeze it was to power cycle the TV. Being a lamp based TV, a power cycle takes 2-3 minutes. Aargh. Sometimes the TV would go for months without such an incident, but a few times it happened 5 or 6 times in an evening until you just gave up and shut the TV off. All this happenend out of warranty, and I could have tried to get them fixed, but instead worked around them, looking forward to the eventual upgrade.


Another annoyance, and one I believe was a design flaw rather than a defect, was if you pressed the power button while the TV was in the process of powering-up or powering-down, it would enter a zombie-like state: neither dead or alive, neither on or off. But definately unusable. The only way to get it out of zombie state was to pull the power cord.


Anyways, I don't mean for this to be an anti-Samsung rant. I know there are a lot of happy Samsung customers out there, and Samsung is a successful company for a reason. But my personal experience left me wanting to try a different brand, if possible. So I was mostly interested in a Panasonic.


Model:






Here is where things got dicey. I wanted to keep the price under $2000. The clear choice seemed to be the 60ST60. Oh, but wait, what's this about the input lag? Bad for gaming? No, some people said, you'll never notice. Yes, some people said, they couldn't tolerate it. It's like trying to play through molasses. Well crap, what to do? Step up to the VT60? That's an extra $1000 just to shave 30 ms off the input lag. How about Samsung's midrange plasma, the f5500? Ok, but wait, the 60" model has a pentile screen, and people on avsforum say this hurts clarity. More research done on pentile displays. Best Buy doesn't carry the 60f5500 in store, so I find one at hhgregg. But I can't really compare clarity because hhgregg feeds all 80 of its hdtvs a 480p signal. WTF? Do they want to sell TVs or not? How are any of these supposed to look better than what is already in buyers' homes? Anyhow, I'm scared off by the pentile bogeyman. How about Panny's S60? Nope, too much glare for all the windows in my family room. How about the S64 which has an anti-glare filter? Nope, it doesn't come in 60" size. I'm unwilling to give up 5 inches on a TV I plan to watch for the next 10 years.


Ok, backtrack, what's the best LED I can get for $2000? Holy cow, every single one of these is edge lit. When did that happen? Surely by now most should be full array back lit? But for some reason they've all gone the other direction... Ok, whatever, the Samsung F7100 is probably my best bet. More research at the f7100 owners thread. Lotsa stuff in there about multiple firmware updates, dancing white dots in the letterboxes, clouding, and flashlighting. Hhmmm, I really wanted to try a plasma. How about last year's ST50? Amazon still has some in stock... for $100 more than the ST60. No, it would gall me to pay more for last year's model, especially with all the great reviews of this year's ST60. Maybe I should take my xbox into Best Buy and check out the ST60 input lag myself. Or just wait another year.


But wait! What's this? Amazon has a one day sale on the 60VT60 for $2000? Perfect! Oh crap, I missed the sale by 14 hours. I call Amazon and ask if they will honor their sale price from yesterday. I'm bumped up to a manager... the answer is no. Ah well, it was worth a try. So I start researching some of the other online places I could get a VT on the cheap (East Coast TVs, Abes of Maine, etc.). In the end, I decide I want a no-questions-asked return window. I'm going to buy from Best Buy or Amazon. So I try to get price matches, knowing others have gotten lucky. No dice for me.


But then, Best Buy had a sale on ZT60s. I can get the 60ZT60 for the price of the 60VT60 ($2700). But that's $700 over my price goal! I begin to rationalize. Better input lag is not the only thing the ZT has over the ST. It has a better AR filter, combined with the gapless glass sandwhich. I do have a lot of windows. One thing I've never liked about plasmas when looking at them in a showroom, is when the lights are on and the TV is off, the screen looks greenish grey, not black. So I've always figured a plasma can't have good blacks in a well lit room. But the ZT is different. Even in high ambient light the blacks look good. Then there are the increased levels of gradations. Might this give me better shadow detail? (Cnet's review said they could not perceive a difference in PQ between ZT and ST due to more gradations on the ZT. I ignore this because it does not help my rationalization
). I figure it can't hurt. There are also the THX modes. Maybe they would give me good out-of-the-box PQ and I can save on a calibration.


I pitch it to my wife and get her buy in. Always one to press an advantage, she mentions something about new shoes and maybe a diamond. I better like this TV.


So I head to Best Buy and... wait for it... pull the trigger (sorry).


It coulda been a contenda:






When I bought the ZT, Samsung's 60" f8500 was still priced at about $3200, so it was not even a consideration. However, it went on sale the very next week for about what I paid for the ZT. Had the ZT and f8500 been priced equally at the time of my purchase, it would have been a tough decision. I was worried about brightness and the Samsung was definately brighter. It also seemed to have a little better clarity in the showroom, but I was not sure if this was just due to the brighter image. It may also have been a matter of picture settings. I don't really like the stand on the f8500, and think the ZT is a more handsome TV all around. Prices being equal, however, I might have gone with the f8500 just because I was worried about brightness (never owning a plasma before). As it turns out, the ZT is plenty bright for me and I'm very happy with it.


BTW, lately I have seen the f8500 for much less, even as low as $2300 recently at Best Buy (for the 60"). One of the Magnolias in my area has a great setup for comparing these sets: they have four TVs arranged in 2 rows. The top row is an f8500 and a VT60 right next to each other. Directly below them are a ZT60 and another f8500. The f8500s are diagonal to each other. All four run the same content from a bluray. The arrangement makes it easy to compare all three models, running the best source material possible. Well done Magnolia! It is as if you are trying to help people buy TVs.


Warranty:






I chose not to buy a warranty. I was already $700 over budget. And, although I had some trouble with my old TV, all those things happened after 4 years anyways. There is some risk here, but so be it. Looking back, I kinda wish I'ld at least gotten the Squaretrade warranty for $200, but too late now. I'm out of the 30 day buy period.


I'm actually more concerned about things not covered by a warranty, like accidental damage (I have 3 kids), or acts of God (lightning). Wacky idea: I wonder if you can get an insurance rider on a homeowners policy for that kind of thing. Afterall, I have a rider insuring my wife's wedding ring from loss. I need a wiimote-through-screen clause in my homeowner's policy.



Pick up:






Delivery was free but I chose to pick it up so I could get it 5 days sooner. This all went smooth, although there was one scary part. When I got the box home I realized there was a large crease up and down the side where the front of the TV should be. It was as if something compressed the box from the ends during shipment/storage, or something was pushed hard against the side at some point. I thought, oh no, if the screen is cracked, Best Buy might think I did it. So lesson learned: inspect the box and point out any weird damage when picking it up. I suppose this could include opening the top of the box and checking the screen. Ultimately everything was ok for me. I inspected the screen closely at home and found no hint of damage.


Assembly:






My wife and I assembled the stand. It can be done by two people. We never had to lay the panel horizontal. Instead we lowered it onto the stand vertically. There is a steel plate on the stand that slides up into a slot in the panel. The stand supported the panel's weight while I put in the screws. My wife just kept the panel steady so it wouldn't tip. I do not believe the screws are weight bearing.


Connections:






I connect my three sources (cable, bluray, xbox 360) to the TV using Redmere HDMI cables. I chose Redmere because they are light, flexible, and minimize strain on the HDMI sockets. Was so easy to route the wires. Much better than all the thick heavy component cables I was replacing.


My AVR is 8 years old, so has no hdmi switching capability. So sound is routed from sources to AVR via optical and digital coax connections. There is no connection between TV and AVR. My TV volume is at 0.


Break-in:






No slides for me. I watch almost entirely 16:9 material, I naturally do a lot of channel flipping, and I don't plan on a calibration in the near future. I was careful not to watch letterbox blurays for the first 100 hours. I have not played xbox for more than an hour at time. But that is because I don't have a game I am obsessed with at the moment. I estimate I am at about 200 hours on the TV.


PQ:






Well, obviously, this was quite a jump up from my 720p DLP. It felt like Christmas when I got the ZT home and set it up for the first time. With the increase in resolution, increase in size, better blacks, hdmi instead of component, it was a shocking difference. It may have been even more impressive than when I went from a standard def CRT to the high def DLP 10 years ago. Ofcourse, I lost something in blacks when I did that. Blurays showed the biggest improvement, since I had been getting essentially DVD quality over the component connection to the DLP. But 1080i cable channels also looked so much better. I was stunned how good shows on SCIHD suddenly looked, like How its Made. Detail and clarity were much improved over my old TV. I find myself watching shows and channels I would not normally, just because they look so good. I've mentioned America's got Talent in a previous post, but I've also been watching more CNN and "adult swim" cartoons on TOONHD. Cartoons look amazing on this TV, the colors are just so deep. Lately I've been streaming remastered HD versions of Star Trek (TOS) from Amazon. I get a kick out of watching those childhood favorites presented better than they ever looked before. Colors really pop, and the blackness of space scenes is great. Looking forward to the NFL season too.


This TV definately highlights the difference in quality of source material. The best stuff can look so good, you easily notice when material falls short. I experienced the same thing when I got my DLP. It is just more so now.


The ZT has turned out to be plenty bright for me (see eyestrain below). The only limitation is dark material on a bright sunny day. In that case, there are some window reflections that can be annoying. But this is a small fraction of how we use the TV. And hey, we can always get some curtains. Bright material like sports is no problem, however. So I'm not sure the f8500 would have been better for me. I'll never know.


Off angle viewing is great. My old DLP was pretty good, but the ZT is darn near perfect. For our seating arrangement, there is no severe off-angle viewing. But the entry way to our family room puts people at about 80 degrees off angle as they walk into the room. I enjoy watching people be taken by surprise by how bright and clear the picture is as they walk in. Even my wife commented on it.


Screen uniformity is a strong suit of DLPs, they are generally perfect. So the ZT had a lot to live up to in this regard. It has not disappointed me. I have not noticed any non-uniformities.


I have found no dead pixels.


Motion Handling:






Motion handling is the one area that I do not see any improvement over my old DLP. In fact, I think I notice more motion blur with the new ZT. Maybe DLPs are just exceptional at motion, or maybe it just looked better because it was on a smaller screen (kinda like standard def material looks better on a smaller screen).


3D:






Yawn. Never been impressed with 3D in theatres either. At least on the TV I can crank up the constrast so the picture isn't dim. In the theatres you are stuck watching a dark 3D picture. I guess I'ld rather watch a great 2D picture than a mediocre 3D picture. Also, don't like wearing clunky glasses over my existing glasses.


I was anticipating having to referree fights between my 3 kids over the 2 pairs of glasses. Turns out not to be a problem. I showed my 12 year old a few scenes of Avatar in 3D. She sorta shrugged and walked away. Yeah, that's what I thought too, sweetheart.


Gaming:






I game with an xbox 360. We also have a Wii hooked up to the ZT for the kids.


Input lag is not a problem for me with game mode on (see details about input lag below). Cnet said it is 45 ms (game mode on), this is apparantly good enough for me. And really that seems about typical for most new flat panels these days (judging by displaylag.com numbers), unless you go to a dedicated gaming monitor.


I love gaming with these deep blacks and the shadow detail is much improved over my old DLP (that's a low bar though). The caves in Skyrim are much more navigable and I notice lotsa loot I had been missing. Too bad I'm pretty sick of Skyrim at this point. I'm trying to find a new game that hooks me and I can get obsessed about. I've gone back and started playing older games I had skipped because they were just too muddy. For example, I've started playing Alan Wake and Dead Space, both look great now. I also bought Batman Arkham City and it looks phenominal.


Input Lag:






Well this is what started all my turmoil over what model to buy. After all that, I suspect I would have been OK gaming on the ST60. Here's why: When I first got the ZT I started gaming without using game mode. For one game (an arcade style shoot em up called Geometry Wars) it seemed ever so slightly sluggish. For RPG games like Skyrim and Fallout, input lag was unnoticeable to me. Eventually I switched on game mode and was happy with Geometry Wars responsiveness. So, what is the ZT input lag without game mode? I don't have a hard number, but based on a crude measurement using the Disney WOW disk it was over 100 ms. So, 45 ms was good. Something over 100 ms was slightly noticeable to me with 1 game. The ST60 input lag is 76 ms. That probably would have been good enough for me. YMMV. I'm not a hardcore competitive gamer.


So do I regret spending the extra dough for a ZT? Heck no, not now that I have one. I'm really enjoying this TV. It's the best TV I could buy, and while it can't match the price/performance of the ST60, I did manage to get it on sale. Besides, I tend to buy a TV once a decade. It should make me happy, with as few compromises as possible.


Smart Features:






I don't use them. My TV is essentially setup as a monitor. I use the smart features in my bluray player (Sony S5100).


Sound:






I don't use the TV's sound. Volume is at 0.


Calibration:






Never had one but am really curious about it. Would like to see this TV at its best. Will have to wait a while, as money is a little tight right now. In the meantime I use THX Cinema mode with the contrast at 50. Color temperature is set at normal. Brightness, Color, and Tint were tweaked using Disney's WOW disk. This made skin tones in bluray look spot on. All the extra processing stuff is turned off, except motion smoothing is at weak. I tried the cnet settings, but they didn't look as good as THX modes.


Fan noise:






I can hear it. But it is not any louder than my old DLP's spinning color wheel. So I guess I'm used to it. My family doesn't seem to mind. I agree with those who say a flagship TV, and one this expensive, should not have such a design flaw. Especially one that is easily avoidable. But for me, I can live with it. Maybe I'll get the fix eventually before my Panasonic warranty runs out. I'll let the dust settle and see if people are really happy with the fix.


My TV sits in a nook of the built-in (see photo below). This probably amplifies the fan noise. I might try putting some acoustic foam on the wall in the nook behind the TV to absorb some of the sound.


Buzzing:






One evening, for about 2 minutes, I heard buzzing on bright content at my 12 foot seating distance. I changed the channel a few times and it went away. Other than those 2 weird minutes I have heard no buzzing. Nada. Not even standing right in front of the screen with bright content.


Eye Strain:






My wife and I experienced eyestrain during the first week of owning the set. I think because I had the contrast too high. It was just too bright in a dark room until I lowered contrast to 50. Since then no eyestrain. I think the bigger size also took some getting used to. I also set up some bias lighting above my built-in.


I noticed flicker in the showroom. But oddly, I never notice it at home.


Rainbows:






Yep, I see them. I saw them on my DLP too. Guess I'm just one of the unlucky ones. Didn't even know plasmas had the rainbow effect until I got the ZT in my home. Since then I've gone back to the showrooms and tried to induce them. It is very difficult to see them in a showroom, probably too much ambient light. But I've been able to do it on the VT, ZT, and Samsung f8500. Because of the difficulty, I've been unable to determine if one brand or model is better for me than another. Bottom line is, people may not realize they are susceptible until they get their plasma home.


So why didn't I return the ZT and get an LCD? I thought about it, certainly. Actually, anguished-over it, would be a better term. But I had been through this before with my DLP, and eventually I stopped noticing rainbows on it. In fact, it has been years since I saw a rainbow on my DLP. Either my eyes/brain adjusted to the DLP, or the bulb got dim enough I could no longer detect them. But I think my eyes adjusted, because I changed my DLP's bulb a few years ago and did not suddenly start seeing rainbows again. So I am assuming my eyes will eventually adjust to the plasma. I decided to give it a year and re-assess next summer. In the meantime I'm going to enjoy my TV. This is sort of an experiment for me. In 12 months I'll let you all know how it turned out.


Also, I think I would have a lot of regrets if I had switched to an LCD from this year's crop. I have too much fun with the ZT marvelling at the picture. I find myself re-watching things (like movies) on the ZT just to see how much better they look than they did when I watched them on my old TV. I don't think I'ld be doing much of that with an edge-lit LCD.


For those who see rainbows, I've found 3 things you can do to reduce them:

1) increase ambient light (add bias light, turn on a lamp, etc.)

2) lower contrast setting

3) during problematic scenes keep eyes still on the center of the screen


Two situations where I never see rainbows: daytime viewing because of the high ambient light, or low contrast material like sports (nice!). For content that is rainbow prone (dark scenes with small bright objects), I have minimized them with the above measures.


Line bleed:






Notice this occasionally with some of the xbox 360 dashboard screens/menus. Very faint.


Image Retention:






Wow, lot of talk about this in the thread. Fortunately, I don't have much to say. I haven't noticed any. Ever. Sometimes I wonder if it is because I set my contrast low (50). I suspect most people crank it up. Might be that I don't tend to watch any channel for more than an hour. I've watched several letterbox movies and haven't noticed IR. NFL season is starting, we'll see how that goes. Maybe I just got lucky with this panel. Also, I don't go looking for it. If it can't be seen watching normal content from my usual seating distance, I'll never notice it.


UPDATE: I have noticed minor IR from channel logos and some XBOX 360 games. Generally it is only noticeable when running the screen wipe, not with normal content. It eventually fades, but sometimes can be stubborn. I have found the pixel flipper on the Disney WOW disk works better than the screen wipe. The type of IR I notice is a darkened image (like a logo) on a bright background (like the solid white of the screen wipe).

Photo:






Here's a photo of my setup. You can see the 60" TV just fits in the nook of the built-in. To the left is one of the east windows with sun streaming in. North windows are behind the camera. Sun never hits the screen. Sometimes there is an annoying reflection from the north windows when seated on the couch (photo was taken while standing).


You can see the bias lights are above the built-in. They shine up towards the white ceiling. They were not effective behind the TV because of the nook-like structure of the built-in.

 
#3,037 ·
Nice review. BTW, the rainbow effect that I see is only flashes of green hue, and it only seems to be happening around skin colors like faces and arms. It is like green pixels are not updating fast enough for next frame.
 
#3,038 ·
Yes, just green flashes for me too. I call them rainbows because others on avsforum seem to. And they happen in the exact same type of scenes as on a DLP (which actually are multi-colored flashes).


I'm hoping the green phosphors speed up with age. But I have no technical knowledge about that.
 
#3,040 ·
Just got the ZT calibrated. Sound system too. Jeff Meier is one thorough guy. And I got to just sit around shooting the breeze with him for 6 hours. It was a quite an educational experience.


An A/B comparison of THX Cinema makes it clear how the picture quality has improved. That much I expected. What really surprised me is how much audio could be improved. Jeff smoothed things out & addressed a null I hadn't been aware of. Everything sounds better--dialogue is more intelligible and the low end is doing what it should do.


It's exciting to be getting the full potential from my system. Although its not cheap, full proper calibration is money well spent on a good TV or after the upgraditis is cured & you're where you want to be.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top