Panasonic PZ80/PZ85 Owners Thread [No Price Talk] - Page 414

In terms of protecting uniform aging, is there any difference between using gray or dark gray side bars?

Not too sure on that one. I've always used black. I wonder if gray offers more chance or IR/burn in?

Gray is supposedly preferable for 4:3 display mode to minimize burn in, keeping the pixels at an average level instead of black which would cause the sides to eventually appear lighter from less use than the central area.
I used middle gray for the first year on my 46PZ80U and now use dark gray and haven't seen any visible variation with an all white screen for tests.

I would just use black since that's the only option for anamorphic widescreen found in most movies and it has posed no problem for me (currently just under 2,000 hrs of use). This assumes the TV is fully broken-in.

My friend has the th46pz80u, like mine and once in a while the tv shuts off by itself and restart immediately.

No red light blinking. Can some know the cause of this shut off and restart. tia

Heres my 42pz80u...

What do you think?

I have a Panasonic 50PZ85U plasma TV and a Philips DVD player connected through HDMI. The PZ85U isn't automatically switching to the DVD input anymore when a disc loads in the player. Audio and video passes fine. Everything was working fine until I unplugged the power center which the TV and DVD player are both connected to. Power was interrupted for a few minutes. Nothing was moved, and no other connections were altered. When I plugged the power center back in and turned the TV on, the TV prompted me to go through an initial set up all over, including channel scan, which I declined. No settings seem to have changed. But the TV will not automatically switch to the DVD input and go to full screen mode as it did before. I checked the DVD player settings, and found only one that might affect this under HDMI set up - Easy Link - Auto Wake up TV ... which was still set to on. Per the manual when any setting or connection may have been changed, I tried unplugging the HDMI cable, turning everything off, plugging HDMI cable back in, turning the DVD player on and then the TV, but still no good. Viera Link was set to "ON," but I noticed in the manual it states if "standard HDMI equipment is used, set Viera Link to "OFF." So I did that, went through the reconnection/power-up sequence, but still no automatic input switching.

So I called Panasonic and described the HDMI auto input switching situation. She asked me how do I get my TV signal. I said, "Uh, over the air." She began by telling me that when the power is interrupted for a few minutes, all the settings are lost, and I need to do a channel scan all over. I knew I was facing an uphill struggle when she said that. I told her all my settings and channels appear to have been retained just fine. She then put me on hold for ten minutes while she talked to "a level 2 tech and a senior tech." She said that none of Panasonic's TV's automatically switch input's (!), that the DVD player is switching the input. I said, "But it's the TV that senses the signal and does the actual switching of the TV input, not the DVD player." She was adamant that there was no way this could be a problem or a setting issue with the TV, so that was that as far as Panasonic concierge was concerned.

Was the concierge blowing smoke, as I suspect, that the TV has nothing to do with the actual switching of inputs? It completely baffled me how she could say that. As I see it, the TV is what switches itself to the DVD input once it senses the signal from the DVD player, so the problem could be either with the DVD player, or the TV, with the higher likelihood being the TV. But how could she say that no Panasonic TV will automatically switch inputs, when it's an HDMI CEC industry standard? My question to all you knowledgeable people, before I go out and buy another DVD player in frustration, is there a setting I may have missed on the TV that may need resetting to allow the TV to automatically switch to DVD input? Is there something I need to do in a certain sequence in order to reestablish the communication? Since I am hooked up by HDMI, but not Viera Link, should my Viera Link setting be set to "On" or "Off?" I want to exhaust all possibilities before I call Panasonic back. Thanks so much for taking the time to read this.

Hello there,

Here is my little story.

Bought a 42PZ85U in May. Made a lot of researches before doing so. Most people saying this was a very good set. I did choose PLasma over LCD mainly because of sport.

AT first, i only had my PS3 and Blu-Ray that comes with it (no HD signal). I was please with the games image quality and really liked the Blu-Ray too.

Now, one week ago i finally got my HD Signal. HD movies and series are quite good...but sports are UGLY! Main reason why i choose plasma!

I was watching football and hockey and it seems that the players are blurred when the camera from the press box (full field view) is playing. Also, the white lines on the field look jagged at times. The closeup shots don't look so bad. Edges look fuzzy at times (very visible on text bars (scores)).
Hockey is the worst (in fact, i feel that WHITE is the worst color on my set). The ice is fuzzy.

I tried many pictures settings from various hd websites forum and it just didn't help.

I feel stupid because i didn't want to pay for HD channel from the start (it was summer time) and the 30 days is now well over past...

I'm on component (tried HDMI cable with no difference). 720p or 1080i won't change a thing. It looks like there is some kind of "pulse noise" but only on sports...

Now i know the word that will come to you experts first: calibration.
No, the set was not calibrate by an expert. I just tried playing with the settings myself. All "auto-correction" things are OFF. As soon as i got the box i lower the brightness and contrast as adviced on all HD forums (in store setting being way too high).

Believe me guys, if you can convince me that a pro calibration can fix this, i will pay. I just don't believe yet it could make that much of a difference. Was watching hockey yesterday and couldn't barely stop complaining (every 30 seconds) in my head...

I'M really disapointed.

I'm a french canadian so forgive the not so good english.

Try these settings or something close to this before giving up on the TV. If you're using vivid, custom, or even standard that could be the issue.

"Tom's Settings - Keep in mind he has adjusted his service menu (if you live in the Baltimore/DC area you should hire him to come out!)

Cinema
Picture: 60
Brightness: 52
Color: 41
Tint: -2
Sharpness: 50
Color Temp: Warm
Black Level: Light"

Your TV is doing the best it can with the signal it has, many sports broadcasts don't have great smooth shots, especially when things are moving fast unfortunately. I used to sell LCD and Plasma TVs (up until very recently) and would watch games on both, I own the same TV you do. Calibrating will help a bit but again it is just the crap signal coming in sometimes that makes it look bad, you are aware of this obviously due to your PS3 looking great.

I tried everything before coming to this forum. No any picture settings will fix what i am seeing. Yesterday i watched baseball and i found the picture to be pretty good...with brightness (30) and sharpness (18) to be especially low...


Yeah you are probably right. But from what i remember, watching hockey at some friends place did look way better with the same signal provider...

Yeah, no fussiness or blurring at all on the ps3...Fight Night Round 4 is jaw dropping.
Almost had a heart attack when i watched The Dark Knight (Blu-Ray)

Is it me or Plasma television have some problem providing a clean clear white?

Thanks to you guys for taking the time trying to help.

funny, sports on my set are awesome, i have the 46, i have direct tv hd through hdmi cable and comcast philadelphia through hd component....both the flyers, phillies and eagles sparkle....now if youre talking about the whites on the hockey ice, if you notice the white jerseys look fine, hockey ice isnt a sparkling white, it also depends on the lighting of the building and how it reflects off the ice.....and even the channel sometimes, i notice the ice on verses is a shade darker than comcast sports net......my set is NOT calibrated

+ 1. Sports look incredible on my 46".

If the tv looks bad using Tom's setting, then there are 3 possibilities:

Bad signal

Bad Tv

Bad Eyes

Granted my tv has been ISF calibrated twice, but OTA coll fbal on CBS is pure heaven right now.

yeah the bama ole miss game does look great

i understand this post is more than a year old now, but the above link no longer works... anybody have an updated link for panasonic's official break-in info?

go here http://www.eaprogramming.com/

download the images the a memory card, and run them for 100 hours, thats what i and many others here did, and i have never had any problems with IR or burn in


go to the downloads section and the option should be right there

well actually one of our panasonic plasma's is now a year old and was never burned in, and has absolutely no problems. i am looking for official burn-in info from panasonic.. if you've got a link that would be great, thanks.

Hey all,

I've owned a 42" PZ85U since last Spring and been more than happy with it from day 1. I've used this site to learn about burn-in, settings, etc. (thanks by the way) so I was hoping someone might be able to answer a quesion for me. I have comcast HD cable. I recently noticed that in Advanced Picture I can no longer access the HD Size option (it's greyed out). This has me worried because it's my understanding that if the TV is displaying 1080 that option should be available (it is, for example, if i use my DVD player). The cable box (a Motorola DCH3416) is showing the format as 1080i. I went through the set-up menu and everything looks normal, according to the Motorola box manual. Of course my eyes now are telling me something is wrong too, but i can't tell if it's in my head. Has anyone else ever experienced this and would a call to Comcast be in order?

Thanks in advance for any help.

EDIT: Just realized I had inadventantly hit the 'Format' button. I knew something was off. Glad to know i'm not crazy, but sorry to waste all your time.

You may want to try HD sports through over-the-air antenna. If that's good, then the problem is with cable or sat.

OTA HD is non existant in Canada

Toronto has a bunch. Doesn't go very far though.

As an ISF certified calibrator with a TH-42PZ85U TV, I can tell you that the signal quality issue you're having is 100% the signal coming into your TV, not the TV. Quit moving the picture adjustments on your TV!!!!!!! It doesn't fix the picture! You need to have your settings at approximately: pic-70, bright-58, color-42, tint-0, sharpness-(doesn't matter, 0-max look the same on Panasonics). Don't change them every time the picture gets bad, it's the box, not the TV. Garbage in, garbage out; no degree of tweaking will fix that.
I'm assuming you're using a cable provider? Cable boxes are THE WORST broadcast TV picture quality out there, you will almost always get motion blur when using them. It's a very highly compressed, low grade video signal coming through them (I believe approx. 9.6 mb/s, vs. satellite at approx. 12.4 mb/s), the pixels will always blur, jitter, and flutter to some degree. If it really, really bothers you, get a satellite or fiber optic TV provider, both of those types are approximately 30% less compressed and are much smoother. Broadcast TV will never be prefect but cable providers are selling absolutely garbage product. Also, calibrations are great for Panasonics, but it won't fix your picture quality, it primarily has to do with color and grey scale accuracy.

Anamorphic DVDs and anamorphic SD content from blu-rays are not automatically stretched by my 42PZ85U. I have to manually set it to full mode. How is a widescreen tv released without this feature this is ridiculous.

Well guys, its been fun but I'm gonna retire from the thread soon. 50" 85u is being sold next week, and I'm moving.

Gonna buy either a 65" V10 or a 55" Sammy LED 8500 in January.

Hello Everyone,
I purchased my 50PZ85 last year and may shortly have to return to europe. My question is, aside from the voltage... which i can take care of with a step down transformer, is ther any way I can activate(by firmware reflash/upgrade or in engineer menu) the PAL decoding that i know this panel is capable of.

Any guidance would be hugely appreciated.

Thanks\\
Mark

I found this question somewhere in this thread but not the answer?

I would really appreciate if somebody could answer this.

I bought a new yamaha rx-v3900 reciever and cannot make auto lipsync work with my th46py85p. The thing is that in the shop reciever automaticaly adjusted lipsync to 80 ms with Philips LCD it was hooked up with. I used the same source video and player, only TV is different.

So, the conclusion would be that panasonic doesn't support this feature, although I am sure I saw it somewhere when I was researching to buy TV. Maybe there is an option to enable it? Or a firmware update?

I decided to measure the gamma of each pic mode using my calibrated warm preset and turning off CM and x.v.Color. Only Cinema mode had the basic settings adjusted (simply brightness at +53 instead of default +58).

Below is absolute proof why all other modes than Cinema are nowhere near accurate, despite using the calibrated (global) warm preset.

My TH50PZ has a major audio issue, turning it up above 50% causes bad distortion, the higher you go the worst it gets. Any help will be much appreciated.

Check the advanced audio menu and turn everything off except for speaker output. Some audio "enhancements" can add increased noise/distortion to the actual audio signal.