Disclaimer... The following has nothing to do with Tom Huffman or his calibration of this Panasonic PZ85U 50". I am simply showing screenshots he posted earier in this thread from his equipment testing a PZ85U that come close to mine in terms of the color data captured on his equipment. It is only intended to show that his data confirms or compares with mine to some extent and that is all.
My REAL reason for this post is that I think that the practice of evaluating color performance on the PZ85U using Rec 709 as a guideline might present a problem. Especially when trying to calibrate it.
I had seen shots of this Chromaticity chart at review sites as well when this TV is reviewed. They all (mine, Tom's and review sites) look the same in one major respect. The Red and Green seem WAY out from the Rec 709 standard with BLUE very close to correct. At least on the chart. Made me wonder why. Why do the measured points look visually so far off? I mean.. HEY! This is Rec 709 right?
Well I got my own software and probe and tried it myself and rendered the same overall result give or take a hair. Basically from the 2 Guides I studied for how to calibrate greyscale and color decoding, I learned how to use the ColorHCFR app with my probe. Basically set it to the correct probe and set it to calculate error and plot the recorded RGB and CYM points on the CIE (Chromaticity Chart) chart based on
THE REC 709 (HDTV Standard).
Looks to me comparing his to mine and to review sites they all use software that plots the RGBCYM points onto a REC 709 chart and use the REC 709 standard to check error (aka DeltaE). Sounds logical to me. Then why do the Red and Green look so far out and why are the errors so big looking.
While you can see my chart and numbers in my attached files at the end of this post you can see his below...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
TomHuffman /forum/post/14180286
The display is in Cinema mode and has had the grayscale calibrated, but is otherwise close to out-of-the-box performance.
ΔE (CIE94) Performance
CIE Chromaticity
Now. Look at the Green and Red points in his chart. The White Triangle is the Rec 709 HD color spec. The Black traingle is his from his reading overlayed on the chart to see how close to Rec 709 we get. Mine is like that to if you look at them. This looks way off.
Well. Here we are. Why is that. Someone correct me if I am headed in the wrong direction here. But check this out... This is from Tom's guide. It is some numbers he is showing for reference to proper xy coordinates of color in different specs...
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=852536
Look at Rec 709. That is what the software uses to make it's judgments...
Color Definitions
Rec. 709 (High Definition)
----x-------y--------Y
R---0.6400--0.3300---0.2126
G---0.3000--0.6000---0.7152
B---0.1500--0.0600---0.0722
Y---0.4193--0.5053---0.9278
C---0.2246--0.3287---0.7874
M---0.3209--0.1542---0.2848
W---0.3127--0.329----1.0
Digital Cinema (DCI)
----x-------y--------Y
R---0.6800--0.3200--0.2095
G---0.2650--0.6900--0.7216
B---0.1500--0.0600--0.0689
Y---0.4248--0.5476--0.9311
C---0.2048--0.3602--0.7905
M---0.3424--0.1544--0.2784
W---0.3140--0.3510--1.0
Looking at
Digital Cinema above and comparing to
Tom's numbers below... (but ignore the big Y number and only look at the little x and y numbers). Or even mine in my attachment which are simply out of the box default Cinema mode of the PZ85U plotted on ColorHCFR...
See a resemblance? Then I read this review of the PZ850 at HDGuru...
http://hdguru.com/panasonic-th-50pz8...st-review/249/
Specifically THIS quote...
"There are two color modes one can choose, either the HDTV broadcast color space called BT.709 (aka Rec. 709) or DCC for Digital Cinema Color. The latter is a color space standard for the Digital Cinema Initiative, which provides a wider color range at the green and red color points (and all colors that fall between)........ The DCC mode interpolates the picture data and widens the palette of colors on-screen.... Panasonic provides a more natural green, a redder red than the Pioneer. The blues are quite accurate in both plasmas. Below are the hard numbers expressed in x. y. coordinates for the Panasonic with Digital Cinema Color (DCC) ON/ DCC OFF and the industry standards for HDTV (Rec. 709) and the Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI) Standard (Panasonic calls it DCC).
DCI Stan Red x.680 y.320
Rec. 709 Red x .640 y.330
DCI Stan Green x .265 y.690
Rec. 709 Green x .300 y.600
DCI Stand Blue x.150 y.600
Rec. 709 Blue x.150 y.600
Anyone care to guess which mode on the PZ85 is the same as enabling DCI on a PZ850? Or more to the point, which mode is Panasonics DCC mode on the PZ85??? I am thinking.... Um.... Cinema perhaps?
Actually this is the only mode for the PZ85. Perhaps the often refered to as "Oversaturated Red and Green" of the PZ80/PZ85 series are simply because the red and green points land on the CIE chart within the spec of the DCI colorspace set that way by Panasonic on purpose? On the PZ850 you can switch between 709 and DCI apparently. Interresting.
I am also willing to wager that the reason people see red push in faces when watching HD Broadcast signals (rec 709 right) when in cinema mode is beacuse of this very thing. Cinema mode on the PZ85U is DCI mode and perhaps not optimum for viewing HD broadcast channels which are braodcast in "Broadcast Rec 709"? Is this quote a clue...
"the
HDTV broadcast color space called BT.709 (aka Rec. 709)" from that review? Are Bluerays mastered with Rec 709 in mind? Or DCI? Is Blueray Digital Cinema friendly? In Cinema mode, all blueray content I have watched is incredible on this set! Basic Digital TV in Cinema mode looks kinda ****e. Why? I have a theory beyond the quote above but it has to do with STANDARD mode on the TV seems to plot RGB more accurately on the CIE chart in ColorHCFR with my probe which is a 709 based CIE chart as that is how it is set in the preferences.
OK look at my last screen shot/attachment called DCI compared to Cinema. Might be kinda hard to see but the solid Circles for RGB are basically points I manually plotted using the Digital Cinema coordinates earlier in this post. The light colored X's that are almost right on top of them are the Default Cinema Mode WARM settings for the PZ85 layed right on top as they were read by my probe. Or the Grey triangle versus the white one. Ignore the black one which is 709. It's pretty much a match.
This begs the question. How can you calibrate or simply evaluate color performance for this TV when you are comparing it to Rec 709? When it more than likely is using DCI color gamut? Do I need sofware that allows me to actually choose DCI? Instead of Rec 709 to evaluate color performance in Cinema Mode? ColorHCFR does not include DCI Gamut in the preferences. Only 601, 709 and Pal.
This result does not change for Custom either. However, as I said before... Standard on the other hand seems to plot closer to Rec 709 HD Gamut. Almost like a Hybrid of the two. Might be why it looks better for some HD or Digital TV signals. I would not use Standard for Blueray players over HDMI though. Cinema wins that catagory hands down.
Apparently this is not the only TV like this...
http://www.hdtvexpert.com/pages_b/JVC_DLA-RS2.html
http://hdguru.com/panasonic-th-50pz8...st-review/249/
http://displaydaily.com/2008/09/08/b...ater-near-you/
http://www.hdforindies.com/2005/04/d...it-day-one-raw
PZ85U... simply a TV with oversaturated Green and Red? Or is this a forward thinking design and perhaps what the whole "Deep Color" specified in the literature for this TV is all about. I am no calibrator or Telecine operator and have no way of knowing what this is truely all about but I now have a better grasp of why my Red and Green points (and those of every other PZ80/85/850) are further out than the 709 color space.
C.