Panasonic PZ80/PZ85 Calibration Thread (Updated first post) - Page 54

I am using this exact same setup as well except for tint which I have at 0. Negative settings net me to much red tint in white areas. I must say it is the best all around picture I have seen on this TV. Happy New Year!!

I just adjusted mine to this and I agree....the picture is great!! I have the same settings for SD and HD.

Anyone getting great results using black level: Dark?

Thanks Robert.. Now I'm break-in prepared.
Just read on a danish forum, that it didn't matter whether I breaked my tv in or not, and I should just use my prefered settings the first time I turned on the television - thats just nonsense

Benjamin

Is the fuse accessible without removing the rear panel? Where can I get/download the service manual?

I wouldn't say that.
The idea is to age the phosphors evenly.
As long as you zoom or strecth everything so no logos or aspect ratio bars are shown you are doing almost as good as the break-in disc, but enjoying the set the whole time.
There is no reason, in my opinion, to lower contrast or brightness during the initial 100-300 hours.....you are trying to exdcite ther phosphors and the lower your settings the longer that will take.

I use dark on football games in HD. Especially day games. There is not much if any shadow detail that needs to be seen in a football game imo. And the field, players, colors all look better/more saturated with dark. However, dark setting in any movie crushes black so much it really hurts the image quality.

There are a variety of opionions on the break-in issue. Even Panasonic gives conflicting advice. I've read that some manufacturers provide inverse images for letterbox and pillarbox content but even that may not account for non-uniform aging by color over thousands of hours. Phosphor aging is not charge based image retention (IR) though. The scrolling bar or having the display off for a while should take of that.

I think the bottom line is that you should expect to periodically re-calibrate if you care enough to do it in the first place. If you carefully calibrate at frequent intervals you may even observe changes in panel performance. Test and measure. The "S" in AVS.

Check the owners thread.

It doesn't appear there's easy access to the fuses. Matter of fact, without opening one up, I would assume they're possibly board mounted fuses.
The service guy being sent out may be bringing a new "A" Board with him since the 'blind code' specifically references that one.

How often do you think i should I re-calibrate it?

Benjamin

It is reccomended to do so on a yearly basis.
Good reason to make an investment in learning how to calibrate yourself and get the needed equipment. In the end, you'll be able to calibrate for life at a fraction of an ISF tech yearly or two visit cost.
That changes with the amount of panel hours used per day or week though.
I believe every 1,000-2,000 hours would be the ideal range.

If you believe that your panel needs breaking-in and/or that its performance will change during the first 1,000 hours of use then you might want to calibrate a few times during that window. Or wait until you think your panel is stable and calibrate it then and at intervals that are a function of the rate of change.

Or every year.

Those of you who are making SM changes are you just copying other peoples settings no matter that your default setting were different or are you using the formula of rd-4, gd same,bd-5 rc+7, gc same, bc+7 from your default this is for 86-80u ,800 were doing bd+10,rd-2,rc-1, bc+1.from default. Thanks

I agree - the picture is stunning with these settings. However, while these SM settings are identical to Elway's, keep in mind that his standard settings (color, picture, etc.) are Cinema after being reset with the only changes being made to color and tint (Elway said: "If you go into Cinema and reset it, all are the same except for color and tint. (44 and +2)").

Therefore I think there's probably a big difference in the end result between these settings and what Elway has on his TV. Anyway, thanks for looking into these settings - I'm very happy with them.

How do I change SM settings?

I've done both....the formula and just use the values no matter what my default were. However, all my values were the exact same as Elway except for 1.

I know, as I stated before, my TV is probably far from true calibration. But since I am the only one watching it then I might as well play around and see what looks best to me. And with Elways SM settings I have the best I have seen....YET! hehe.

I will always tinker and tweak...I have digital pics of all my original SM settings so if ever needed I can revert w/o issues.

I have never had a TV professionally calibrated, but have already started the process. Until then I will tweak till my hearts delight

I posted this earlier and I must say I like dark better for everything as it eliminates that sometimes 'faded' appearance. I constantly am switching between light (w/ lower pic and brightness settings) and dark but dark consistently provides me with a richer, deeper and more vibrant picture. If I turn up the brightness a bit in movies I know have a lot of dark scenes, I avoid crushing blacks but have a superior picture (IMO )

I have a 42pz85u and my settings are as follows (with no SM edits):

Picture: 62
Brightness: 63 - 78 (depending upon what I'm watching...~65 for most things but ~75 for movies/shows with dark scenes)
Color: 39
Tint : +3
Sharpness: 50
Temp: Warm
Color mgnt: Off
x.v.Color: Auto (I have a PS3)
Video NR: Off
MPEG NR: Off
Black Level: Dark


I encourage anyone who hasn't had professional calibration to give similar settings a shot and let us know what you think!

Yes I agree. One thing though.....when you reset Cinema it puts picture/contrast @ 100. I would think he would have brought that down some but maybe not.

They are great settings so far...I'm sure by next week I will have tried something different and think they are the "ones" lol. OCD can be fun sometimes

Good advice indeed. I think everyone should try as many settings as they want. They will eventually find their optimum PQ! Thanks for your suggestions

Does anyone know how to change sm settings or can tell me the procedure.

Ok i've been trying as many of the settings here that i've had the patience to write down with the Dark City blu-ray disc. Most if not all of them left the faces too red for my liking. Problem is, sometimes in scenes the faces in the movie are red, while in others they are not. It seems i'm a little sensitive to it.

I stumbled upon these settings using Tom's settings as a starting point. I watched the entire movie over again and did not once notice any red push. The picture looked grand too. Here they are.

Cinema
Picture: 72
Brightness: 49 (changed to 53)
Color: 38
Tint: -3
Sharpness: 50
Warm

Black: Light
HD Size: 1

Everything else off.

Just to note, i did not do anything to my service menu.

Also, my brightness level might seem low because i was watching the movie at night in a dark room. I thought the brightness was fine, and that's saying something for a movie that basically takes place at night until the last 5 minutes. Day time viewing might see me bump that up a tad. We'll see...


**EDIT**

Played with the brightness just now, and realized that incremental increases don't really change the picture all that much. I paused the movie on a dark scene and settled on a brightness setting of 53 which made some of the subtleties in the scene a little more apparent.

Try this: Enter Service Menu: Hold Vol. - down on the TV while pressing the INFO button on the remote 3 times.

I totally agree, the dark mode is just such a rich picture. For some reason, it just gives everthing a more 3d look.

Im still trying to decide on warm vs normal. I adjust the SM for warm and the picture looks great, but I put in the break-in dvd to look at the white and it looked so dirty on warm.

A liitle help for you.
The reason you get the washed out look is because your brightness level is WAY too high.
Change back to light, as a 'dark' black level does nothing good for accuracy, then move your brihghtness down to 52 or lower(maybe down to as low as 46/47).
It will be dimmer but much more accurate and wont have the washed out look.

Same as what I said above but:
1. Use Warm for accuracy
2. Whites on a claibrated plasma will not be a true white...same for my older Sammy and 8g Kuro elite.

Thanks for the info. I just tried that quick change and I agree, much more accurate picture.

So with the new settings and my SM adjustments I've got a really good picture. I know Elwaylites using a 50pz85u, since mine is a 46pz80u the SM settings are the same right?

Yup, all the way through the 800u and 850u.
There are many more similarities all the way up the ladder than many might realize.

The Warm mode can be off-putting at first......especially if you are used to a cooler(blue) image, but once you get used to it you'll love the accuracy.

I am only at ~50 hours but am excitied to get into my SM next week to see if I can't fix the only downside to this set:
Ornage/red in skin tones on whites--green in skin tones on blacks, thereby helping with the oversaturated foliage shots.

Are you going to be adjusting it per Elwaylites settings? If not, Id be curious with what you end up with. Also, what set do you have?

I got the 80u.....at first it was a set to get me by until the next panny or pio collabortaed pdp(as I justy couldn't afford a kuro at this time), but if I can solve the last sentence of my first post it will make it hard to get rid of this.

The blacks are very resembling of my 8g kuro elite, which makes me think that if there is a difference in contrast between the 80u-85u-800u-850u, then the blacks would be even lower.
But why then has an 800u been tested at .007 and I am as sure as I can be without a light meter that my 80u is the same.
In my possibly ignorant opinion, I believe there is no IQ difference between the 80u and 85u.(and I don't need a pc input as I wouldn't use my plasma for a monitor anyway)

-jmo

When I do use light, I set my brightness at 48 and my picture at 60. People or the main areas of focus are not washed out with those settings, but it's the backgrounds that are just not as rich as I would like.

I have found that those lower pic and brightness settings w/ light and the higher pic and brightness settings w/ dark make the picture look almost identical but minus that faded look on backgrounds.