Panasonic PZ80/PZ85 Calibration Thread (Updated first post) - Page 74

Well, I got the THX glasses today and now my color is spot on: neutral tint and just saturated enough. I'll take the pics tomorrow, but I can provide my settings now:

Service Menu

Adjust

000
42
00
7FD

WB Adjust

7D
80
7B
E4
FC
A0
80
FC

User Menu

Cinema, Warm, Color Management Off

Picture +50*
Brightness +58
Color +41
Tint 0
Sharpness +50

*Only Change in User Menu; Reset Cinema then lower Picture to +50

Are these settings using warm in the service menu as well?

Cinema is too washed out for video games. Try custom with these settings and let me know if you like them.

color temp - Normal

picture - 67-70
brightness - 42-49
color - 41-44
tint 0- -2
sharp - 50


*you should also have your RGB settings on your ps3 set to limited, not full.

Thanks bodosom. I forgot that this filter probably did age, just like any piece of film.

Any recommended readings regarding meters and adjusting white level? I was not really thinking about getting one since there seems to be little to do with it and this set, but I'm curious about this nonetheless.

GREYSCALE & COLOUR CALIBRATION FOR DUMMIES at Curt Palme. Specifically for HCFR which helps if you use HCFR. Setting white level (section four of that guide).

Tom Huffman's guide. General overview of calibration.

Given that you only want to set white level any cheap meter (Spyder) supported by the HCFR software will suffice.

Of course you also need a computer running Windows to run the software. I wouldn't recommend a light meter unless you have other uses for one.

Yes, Cinema and Warm are selected in both the service and user menus.

Here are some pics of my settings. I'm not too good with a camera, so the focus is kinda off, but keep in mind whatever you see looks significantly better on the actual TV. Also, there's a little glare from ambient light near the top right. The source is a Blu-ray movie, S.W.A.T.

If anyone can provide the default normal temp settings for custom mode in the service menu, it would be greatly appreciated. I understand panels vary slightly but i need a base to start with. Thanks.


42PZ85U

Hello everyone,

I purchased a 42PZ85U about a month ago and will be having it calibrated in the next two weeks.

I have been reading through this thread from the beginning and am somewhere around post 700, where members are talking about different stored service menu settings for SD and HD.

My question is: Will the calibrator know about this? I know the answer to that question is most likely "it depends on the calibrator," so what I'm really asking is : Is there any special steps I need to take to make sure my TV is "fully" calibrated for all sources?

I would greatly appreciate the answer as I would like to know as much as I can when then the calibration takes place. Also, if you guys have the link to the answer, I don't mind reading it myself as long as I find out somehow. I am a relatively new AVS member and have not yet found out how to search within a thread for things I want to find, so I am forced to read through them post by post.

Thanks a lot,

-Jay

WB adjust aka grayscale should be copied from hd to sd or sd to hd (it's the same for both the ntsc and atsc standards/dvd and blu-ray). The real difference is in the sd color matix vs the hd color matrix. DVD's and the like are in Rec. 601 while Blu-ray's and the like are in Rec. 709. These varying color standards are the primary difference in adjusting settings between hd and sd. You're refering to WB adjust (grayscale) which should be set the same for both sd and hd.

By the way, you'll want at least 100-200 hours on your set for break-in before calibration.

Okay, then what I still need to know is, (and forgive me, because when it comes to technical calibration terms, I am a newb), will it require separate steps to calibrate the Rec. 601 and Rec. 709, and if so, will most calibrators know this and take all neccessary steps without me having to tell them what you just told me... Basically, is this "common" calibrator knowledge, or is it something specific to this T.V.?

Furthermore, do you guys think that the grayscale for SD will be copied over to the HD settings by the calibrator, or is something I will have to request. Or is it something I will have to do myself? To be honest, I don't like the idea of getting into the service menu myself, because I don't know what I'm doing, but I do know how to follow directions and I can do it if need be.

Thanks in advance

-Jay

There's nothing you can adjust in the service menu beyond grayscale correction which is both limited and requires a meter and calibration software. In an ideal world there would be no difference in SD versus HD calibration and even in real-world conditions that difference is likely to be the least of your concerns. A "good" calibrator will explain to you what's going on and tell that there's little that can be done with a PZ given the extremely limited set of adjustments. Things like SD versus HD are distractions and if you hear them from a calibrator it's likely they're being less than forthcoming about their experience and skill-set.

You'll want to read this.

I'm currently reading the links you provided a few posts above (thanks for these by the way).

Tom was saying in post #12: "The only thing missing from this is a professional gray scale adjustment.". If I read you correctly, you are saying that grayscale correction is limited. I would like to know what is not present in the service menu to do a proper grayscale correction.

How would you describe the improvements once the grayscale correction is done on these sets? I vaguely remember reading a post claiming that the red push could be reduced via the service menu settings. Probably this was a perception resulting of a more neutral grayscale? Or maybe simply my sleep deprived-brain

It is a perception resulting of a more neutral grayscale since grayscale refers to the black and white portion of the video signal. Color (saturation) and tint (hue) are also in the service menu but offer no advantage over their user menu counterparts as they don't let you set individual colors separately. It is possible if you're grayscale is off significantly that red push may be exaggerated.

However, red push is not directly related to grayscale and so if your grayscale is right you can and will most likely still have some red push.

Just out of curiousity, how many people in this thread got their pz80 professionally calibrated? I'm only aware of JBrady and my settings are based on his.

I know there are quite a few pz85's professionally calibrated in this thread but that's not what I'm asking.

The PZ only supports two point grayscale adjustment. Ten is considered adequate. Twenty is good.

Negligible unless your display has a visible tint. "Red push" (whatever that's meaning at the moment) is a defect in displaying the color red, it does not mean that shades of gray look like shades of red. The PZ also tends to have green out of gamut (which makes grass look "better"). That is also unrelated to the grayscale adjustment.

Do any current Panasonic Plasmas have 10 or 20 point grayscale adjustment?
What about individual color controls for red, green, and blue?

I don't know. But looking in the 2009 threads may yield some information. I'd be surprised though since that's not how Panasonic rolls.

I'd be very surprised unless it was the professional or very top of the line models. This does frustrate me about Panasonics. My parents-in-law bought a cheapo Sharp LCD, and it has a CMS in the user menu. The picture isn't anywhere near as good as my 85U, but it as far more settings in the user menu to tweak the color.

Honestly, most people throw their sets on VIVID, and don't mess with anything else. I guess that's who Panny is selling to.

Well actually on the new pannys you almost dont need 10 point. The processor actually helps flatten itself out somewhat. Its easier to get a flat grey than on previous models.

The grayscale on the PZ is not so bad. I think most of us are ready for better black levels on the processor/panel side and a nicer anti-glare/anti-reflection layout on the mechanical side. Without paying Kuro Elite prices.

Understood and I agree.


I got my meter out and decided to give the Curt Palme calibration guide for dummies and colorHCFR a go. The grayscale showed a rather constant red at about 110% across all intensities. Green was also very constant at about 97%. Blue was a bit more in sawtooth pattern between 97 and 105%.

I decided to adjust the red and green drives and cuts to bring both to around 100% and tried to adjust what I can on the blue. What I thought was described by "red push" was simply too high red values in general on my tv.

Measuring the primaries I saw that the blue is very close to target, red is a little beyond the red target and the green is beyond green target and going towards blue. So is that "redder than red" primary what is described as the "red push"?

I noticed that I would need to use very different values of tint to get all values on target. Yellow needs +9, cyan -7 and magenta -10. I don't know what to think about this. I'm trying to find a tint value that minimizes the error for all three; should I instead favor one?

My new user menu settings after the calibration produce a 40 ft/L 100 IRE window and go like this:

Mode: Cinema
Picture: +55
Brightness: +52
Color: +42
Tint: -3
Color Temp: Warm

The overall result is a color temperature closer to 6500K than it was and a notable improvement in general, even more so on skin color rendition. The improvement was worth every second spent reading this thread and Bodosom's links. I benefited from everyone's contribution and am very grateful for this. And special thanks to Bodosom. I will be happy to further improve my settings but now feel that they would be subtle. I have nothing wrong with that!

Thanks for the explanation. It looks like my tv had a too warm grayscale, but now that this has been improved there are still a few cases where I feel there is too much red. I think I can live with that.

I decided to test out the following settings on my PZ80U from a post in the owner's thread.

User Menu Settings

Custom Picture
Pic - 80
Brightness - 56*
Colour - 47*
Tint - -1*
Sharpness - 50
Colour Temp - NORMAL

Service Menu Settings - numbers in () are original
Custom PIC Mode
Normal Temp

Contrast - 000
Color - 38*
Tint - 00*
Sub-Bright - 815 (800)

R Cut - 6E (80)
G Cut - 6E (80)
B Cut - 6E (80)
ALL-CUT - 6E (80)

R DRV - DE (FC)
G DRV - D7 (F1)
B DRV - D4 (E7)
ALL-DRV - DE (FC)

WB METHOD SELECT - 00 (03)

The settings with the asterisk I adjusted myself via test patterns. One thing became quite apparent and that was at a Pic setting of 80, the panel gave off so much light it hurt my eyes. I lowered it to 65 and am much happier with the result.

I think gamma is to blame for the overly intense image (so high that that white shimmered and created a glare-like effect). Am I right about this and is there anything else I could have done to avoid eye strain?

PlasmaPZ80U, I tried those settings for giggles, and they looked terrible on my 85U. Very noisy, just as I expected for Custom Mode. I don't think gamma is to blame for the "intense" image. My limited understanding is that in Custom, you can push the light output up higher with the Picture Control than you can in Cinema. In Cinema, it appears to stop getting much brighter around the mid-60's.

Good point, but I did find that the settings were pretty good on my 80u after lowering the pic setting to 65. Since I'd did adjust some parameters myself, I think the overall look of the picture is good enough for me to try it for a couple weeks to see if I can get used to it. Noise is somewhat of an issue, but the overall color temp seems to mirror daylight and colors are pretty accurate after I used a blue filter to make color and tint adjustments. I left sub-brightness at 815 but did adjust brightness myself.

Two quick questions:

- did you see a difference when changing the WB METHOD from 03 to 00? I tried it in Cinema mode and am wondering what effect this setting has. Didn't seem to change anything in Cinema mode.

- what is the purpose of Sub-Bright?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...0#post16251330

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...0#post16267540

Read the first link and the following posts on that page (402) and then read the second link. I don't have a green filter to prove what WB method does in 00 versus 03, but I believe what ineedsocks said.

I have a quick question regarding the picture level in the user menu. When I decrease the picture level, do any other settings get affected like brightness or color/tint.

I don't think that is the case since when I lowered it in custom mode from 80 to 65, nothing else changed according to the test patterns; however, I want to lower the control down further and want to know if I should even bother checking the other settings.

I'm having a hell of a time trying to calibrate my TV. I have CalMan Home, a Spyder 3 Elite and the AVS Forum pattern disk (AVCHD). I've calibrated my computer monitors for a few years, but this is confusing to me. Can anybody direct me to some kind of a walk-through for calibrating? I guess I am unsure of what settings to change at what time, and what patterns to display when.

I have the 80, BTW