Panasonic PZ80/PZ85 Owners Thread [No Price Talk] - Page 299

Edited my original post to include the model of their TV.

a 32 inch tv will look sharper..and the xbr6 is Sony's top of line 32 inch tv..that being said my 32 inch sony s series in my bedroom looks great..of course i sit in bed in sweet spot and it has a swivel base..but i would never move it out to my living room to replace my panny plasma..no way in hell...

the smaller the tv screen= sharper picture

spend 2700 or more for a 52xbr6 and you will see the differences and issues that lcd's have

Yeah... That XBR is going to look fantastic vs. most TV's. Especially in a 32" size.

I guess then what I need to know is, what makes it look better? And why do I see alot of grain in my image, and why do movies not seem as fluid on my screen?

I have a PZ80U and a Sammy 750 series LCD in the house. I like them both. The LCD is brighter, and is a sharper picture, but the PZ80U has more natural and rich colors. Whites are better with the LCD, blacks are pretty much the same ( to me) , but the 750 series is known for its blacks and contrast. I think of the Panny as more movie like, the Sammy as more video like, partly due to the brightness I think. If the Sammy was a drink, it would be tequila, and the Panny would be a napoleon brandy. That make sense?

As for the grainyness, it probably has something to do with the advanced processing the XBR set uses.
And the Sony TV uses motionflow, and is also 24p cinema capable... Which gets rid of judder in films.

I would attribute it to size - the larger the display, the more it magnifies any imperfections in either the source material or the tv's processing.

Have you tried using the AVS 709 calibration disc to set up your tv? Using it made a large difference on my set.

No offense meant to the Panasonic, but yeah... That Sony is their top-of-the-line model in that size (or very near, anyway)and the pz80 is Panasonic's "entry level" 1080p set. Comparing a 32" set to a 42" set isn't really a fair comparison either, you're not going to notice the picture "defects" as much in a smaller display. If you haven't had your Panny for very long it does take a few hundred hours of viewing for it to really look great. I have 300 hours on my set and it looks way better now than it did after the 100 hour break-in. I've constantly tweaked my settings to get it just right, and I've found Cinema is by and far the best setting for accuracy and noise reduction.

Is there a timer on the TV that I can look at to see how many hours of activity I have like in projectors?

It's in the service menu.

[Insert the obvious warnings here about how you can mess up your TV by entering into the service menu here.]

Hold the Vol - button on the TV and press the Info key 3 times on the remote. Wait about 20-30 seconds and it will enter the service menu.

Press the 1 key 6 times, it will bring a menu that says SRV-Tool.

Push the OK button.

Press the down arrow until you get to the field that says "PICT:00.00.00.00.00" then press the right arrow. Hold the mute key until the timer pops up in the selected field.

To exit, hold down the power button on the TV for a few seconds until it turns off. It should turn back on in a few seconds.

I figured since there are 302 pages of posts in this Thread that it wouldn't hurt to have this info here again...

Edit: I added that you need to wait a few seconds for the service menu to show up...

All I can add to this is WOW! I have the TH-50PZ85U and here's my opinion thus far:

Finished my Burn-in last Wednesday at 5:00am but it kept going until I came wobbling down the stairs at about 9:00am. Picture looked great at the Burn-In settings...maybe just a tad to the Red side of life but totally watchable.

Left it that way until about an hour ago...just to be safe. Now I'm set to the same settings listed on the first page of either this thread or the Burn-In Thread (don't remember which as I copied them to a word document for archive purposes.

We've watched several Blu-rays, one or two SD-DVDs (Dream Theater Chaos in Motion is currently playing) and played some 360 games. I've only seen ONE very minor case if IR and it left in about 20 seconds. I've seen NO, NONE, NADA phosphor trail issues while gaming and my kids are nearly finished with Gears of War 2 and are working on COD5 now.

So far I'm very pleased with the TV...it makes the Hitachi look pretty blurry and weak in comparison (it's now in the Living Room as it came back from the repair shop Monday, December 22nd.). I'm well over the 100 hour mark and happy

I'm going to be connecting the PC to the Panny as soon as the cable arrives from Monoprice and I'm already using my new Bluetooth Keyboard and Mouse.

I did notice a slight prices increase at the Big River...but nothing too earth shattering! I'd still buy it today at that price as it's a good bit cheaper than anything in the area as far as big box stores go.

Glad I bought it, glad it's here and if anyone has concerns...I say unless you're so OCD you can't stand the slightest imperfection on anything, you'd be fine with this purchase. I'd be happy to recommend it to anyone.

Its a great tv, and you'll notice it more once you get used to the panny and then watch tv at someone elses house. It does not do well with SD or crappy signals, but blurays and directv hd are gorgeous.

I don't understand why a TV has an optical out option when it downgrades the audio to 2.1? Why not get rid of the optical out altogether? It seems like such a waste, no? Is it that hard to output 5.1 minimum?

This isn't a complaint, more like a disappointment. It seems like an easy software fix.

I have been able to add analog channels manually by simply selecting them from a list 1-69. This saves me having to scan again if I am missing a channel and having my new channels overwrite the old ones.

if you do a scan it will add -1 index to channels it finds that are digital with same station no. as analog one. these are not in the list?? How can we manually add a digital channel if needed?

The IR was almost a deal breaker, but worrying about clouding/flashlighting/sparkles/bleeding would bug me even more. I think the technology that will knock both plasma and lcd down a notch will be the new laser tvs; they look very impressive from what i've seen online.

I notice the IR more on white screens then black...although the HUD is from gow2 which is black and white. After gaming play the break-in disc again and have a look at the white screen.

To the best of my knowledge, the optical out is there for the 5.1 signals delivered from the OTA DTV broadcasts you may receive with an antenna.

I really have no problem with that process...I'll just make sure that anything with true 5.1 audio is connected to my receiver versus my TV...which is the way it should work I guess...

Deleted for mis-information.

Personally? IMO I find the SD channels to be a lot nicer and less pixelated on my PZ80u than my 2 year old LG LCD. I think these sets get a bum rap when it comes to SD, it will look nasty of course but I've seen worse.


The viewing angles, the artificial look, the choppier motion and the hazy grayish blacks of my old LG LCD made me go and try plasma this time. In all of those complaints the Panasonic plasma has reversed things completely. Right now for me this minor IR and to a point some phosphor lag in specific games are the two problems for me but it just goes to show that with these two pieces of tech you need to take the good with the bad and accept that neither are perfect.

As for seeing IR I mainly notice it on an input that has no signal going to it, such as HDMI when I shut the 360 off to black. Even afterwards when I put it on an HD channel I saw an impression left from a phone number in a commercial that had been up. Heck even my TV's menu will give IR just changing some settings...They go away in seconds but the game HUD takes a bit longer I guess given the amount of time I spent playing (An hour).

Step two is a duplicate of step four and one should do one or the other but not both. For best perfomance I'd say do 1 3 4 rather than 1 2 3 since waiting for the overview page is good feedback.

By the way it's faster to just press {2} once rather than {1} six times after you enter service mode.

Time is hours:minutes on, Count is number of on/off cycles.

Yep my fault. After one press's the volume down and the info button, you have to WAIT until the service menu appears. Then proceed will the instructions.

I did NOT wait and just hit the 1 button 6 times.

Sorry,
Robert

P.S. Will just delete my post.

same boat man, same boat...the wait is killing me

does anyone use this tv with comcast hd? how is the signal?

HI, AND A hAPPY HDTV NEW YEAR!. i HAVE DONE ALOT OF HOMEWORK BETWEEN BOTH LCD AND PLASMA. aND THEN BETWEEN SAMSUNG AND PANASONIC. eVERYTIME FOR SOME ODD REASON I'VE BEEN DIRECTED BACK TO THE PANASONIC, NOW SINCE I'M NOT THE CEO OF EITHER I HAD TO WATCH THE $$$$. i UNDERSTAND THERE IS A CONCIERGE WITH THE PANASONIC( I'M INTERESTED IN THE 46PZ85U), WOULD THIS CONCIERGE BE HELPFUL IN BOTH PICTURE AND AUDIO CALIBRATION?? I'VE DOWNLOADED WITH A COUPLE OF SITES 2 DIFFERENT CALIBRATIONS, BUT NOW AM CONFUSED. WHAT CALIBRATION IS BEST FOR WELL LIT ROOM?? THANK YOU FOR THE CONTIENTIOUS POSTINGS I HAVE READ SO FAR. ANY ADVISE IS WELL TAKEN

OK, just got my PZ85 hooked up and am running the break-in CD recommended by many in these threads. Have the settings on break-in settings, and all appears to be running smoothly.

2 things I'm noticing, both not great:

1) There appears to be a pixel-sized black speck of dirt on the inside of the glass. When I get up close to the screen an look down at it, it appears to be something on the glass and not in the picture itself (hopefully my ignorance isn't showing here..) This is going to bug me....

2) As I'm running the break-in CD, I see a 6" x 6" square-ish shadow/glow about 10" up from bottom and 16" from the right, so I don't think it's IR from a station logo or anything (I haven't even had it on any stations for more than a minute or so since powering it up) Should I expect this to go away? It's not brightpretty subtle, but againthis is going to bug me....

I purchased this directly from Panasonic and their delivery people unpackaged it and got it on the stand for me, so I expect this TV is brand new out of the box. I can't explain the glow, though...if I'd bought it from some 3rd party seller, I might be suspicious, but if it came directly from Panasonic...?

Any thoughts on the above irritations?

who sits an inch away....who cares if you can only see it that close

Hi, i just bought the 85U today. I am using a Direct TV DVR receiver. The picture seems pretty good, I notice graininess while watching HD channels which I was surprised to see. Blu-ray movies was nice and the animated movies were even better but I am thinking about exchanging it for a Sammy 650 series due to its 120hz technology with fluid motion but it is a few hundreds more, but worth it since I will have this set for at least 10 years and being placed in my bedroom. Can anyone tell me if I should keep or exchange it. I have a Pioneer 5070 1080i set in my living room and I do not see any graininess while watching the same channels as i did with the 85U and my Pioneer is 2 years old. I guess that shows how well the Pioneers are built. I just think the Sammy with its 120hz technology will be better for a few hundred dollars more. I dont think that a break-in period is necessary with these new sets since they have anti-rentention built in. I believe that is obsolete nowadays.

I have a Directv HR22 sending the tv 1080i all the time, and in cinema mode, the D* HD pic looks outstanding.

I've been lurking here for a month or two as I researched the Panasonic plasmas for my first HDTV purchase and gathered as much info and wisdom as possible. Big big thanks to everyone who has made this thread and this forum so helpful. My ever-patient and techno-phobe wife and I sprung for the 50" 85u and have been enjoying it for a couple of days now. Still in break-in mode, but we absolutely love it! No dead pixels, no IR whatsoever, and no buzzing or flicker.

It's hooked up via HDMI to a Yamaha AVR, a PS3 and lowly s-video to the DirecTV box (still SD unfortunately ). While Blu-Ray obviously looks incredible, what stands out to me is that even standard DVDs look fantastic when played through the PS3. I was dreading having to replace my DVD collection with BDs, and now I don't think it'll be necessary except for a few key titles.

SD content from DTV looked atrocious at first until I realized the STB was set to output at 4:3. After changing it to output 16:9, the picture improved to acceptable status. Not ideal by any means, but I don't feel the need to smash the STB to pieces anymore ala Office Space.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I couldn't be happier with my purchase and I wanted to thank you all for steering me in the right direction.

Cheers and happy viewing,

J

I wanted to bump this and add a little clarification on the above: the glow seems to be the most noticeable during the break-in "slideshow" when it's on the lighter gray screens. The glow is green-ish.

well, the sd dvd on the ps3 is probably more credit to the ps3, as it does a terrific job of up converting dvds