The Official Pioneer 9G non-Elite KURO Owner's Discussion Thread - Page 365

It's not a photocell, it's a phototransistor.

Simply it will measure the amount of light coming off the panel over a reasonably small area, say 1" square given the distance I had it at. I sampled at 11kHz and did a spectrum analysis of the resulting data. There were a number of frequency components, but there is an obvious strong peak at the refresh rate. I could see the peak move between 60 Hz and 72 Hz when the PC mode was changed, or if left on Advance when the program material switched between 24p and 60i. I'm sure that the subfield frequency components are there, but I didn't go looking for them. However, my understanding of the Pioneer C.L.E.A.R. driving method would make me think that the frame rate will dominate the spectrum, with the other components (program material changes, dither) being much less significant with my methodology.

My data seems to exactly match what others (including D-Nice) have said about the Elite, so I'm not sure why you think my results are incorrect.

Have you actually looked at this or are you merely hypothesizing without data?
How would you measure the refresh rate?

I must say this sounds pretty legit to me. It's just like finding the natural frequency of a structure or material, you look for the peaks and that is exactly what you did. Now just import that data into Matlab and perform some nice analysis to prove your method.

After a lot of reading up on this subject, including a bunch of patent applications, available online for viewing, I'm not sure that the statement above is entirely accurate. It appears that most plasma displays, and Pioneers in particular, are designed to have an interval of 'blanking' that is in sync with the framerate. Given that with the PWM techniques that all plasmas use to modulate pixel brightness, why would they not provide for a blanking period? That is, use some of the subfields to modulate the brightness to zero ( or as close as it's capable of ) between frames. Isn't a blanking period between frames a good thing? Isn't this part of the reason why plasmas have better motion handling than LCD displays?

Mr. Blackburn, ptrunley has confirmed my photocell readings with a more sophisticated instrument. I have just built a duplicate of the photocell device I borrowed from the TV network I work at. If you are interested, I could ship it to you for your evaluation. It requires either an oscilloscope or a frequency counter that I assume you would have access to.


You are obviously picking a worst case scenario that probably would confuse the photocell device. If and when you borrow my device, use a fairly stable picture or test patterns for exact measurements.

And you don't seem to get it either because your opinion means nothing to me. AVS is more than a SCIENCE BOARD! It's an open forum where people are allowed to state their opinion, even if you don't agree with them. BTW, I'm not talking about Best Buy. I'm talking about high end electronic stores that show ISF calibrated TV's. So, just because I don't prefer an ISF calibrated TV (along with tons of other people), I don't get it? Give me a break Pat. I never ONCE said that those TV's aren't accurate. All I said I don't like the picture it gives off. DULL and FLAT. That's my opinion, and I never said it was a scientific fact.

So, "Mr. Scientist", instead of acting like your some high almighty TV God, why don't you just allow people to state their own opinions.

BTW, the only thing I don't get is why your even allowed to post.

Do you own an Elite or non-Elite? I'm looking for alternative settings after my 111FD has broken in.

Thanks!

I learned a bit from having my 50" Panny 85U brought in for service. First you need to make sure that whomever is moving your TV has a large enough truck/van/SUV, whatever. The TV needs to be covered in a thick "moving company" blanket to protect the screen (on the front) and inputs (on the back). Then, you need to make sure that you have a THICK piece of foam rubber to cover the front (make sure it's QUITE thick) and a thick piece of foam rubber to cover the back. Then it's just a matter of using latched belts to tighten and secure the display, so that it doesn't move. The foam rubber acts as a means to protect the display and to act as a shock absorber.

Short of using the original box, I think that this is an even more secure way of transporting your display, but you must have a moving truck that is equipped for this.

GOOD LUCK!

I found this thread to be very informative in helping me understand subfield refreshes:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...3#post15159223

And this graphic by xrox does more to illustrate the effective blanking between frames in plasma displays ( in comparison to CRTs and LCD panels ) than I could ever hope to do in words:

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...edutycycle.jpg

Am I misunderstanding how plasma displays work?

I wonder how to explain the fact that many people see flicker when viewing Panasonic plasmas that display 24Hz content at a 48Hz refresh rate whereas the Pioneer 72Hz rate doesn't have people complaining? What could be causing this?

I'm very sensitive to refresh rate and I can easily see flicker on my Pioneer when it is refreshing at 60 Hz, but not at 72 Hz. If there is no theoretical difference why can I perceive (and measure) a difference?

DUH!!! Sorry..posted on the wrong thread. Will look for the Elite thread.

How should i set my PS3 for Blu-ray movie viewing? I noticed theres a few options about video in there.

Then report my posts and see where it gets you. Honestly I find it ironic you're talking about free speech and then want my posts deleted because it makes you hot and bothered.

You like your TV like that? Great let's move on.

Checkout the PS3 FAQ Master Thread, here. It will tell you all you need to know and maybe more.

report your posts? Why would I do that? Never once did I say your posts should be deleted??? And I'm not HOT and BOTHERED. I'm simply stating that everyone is entitled to their opinions. You need to relax and allow people to express how they feel, without having to get a smartass response out of you. I respect your opinion whether I agree or don't agree with you. One thing we do agree on is lets move on.

Doug posted on the 48hz flicker question here.



You're referring to the elite model which you measured?

Which completely contradicts his statement that there is no inter-frame blanking on plasma displays.

Regarding your question, my measurements and observations are all on my PRO-111FD.

I was out of town for 5 days and when I returned home I discovered fingerprints on my 5020 screen even though I was very emphatic with the family about how no one should ever touch the screen.
I tried wiping them off with the cloth that came with the TV and they didn't completely come off. I then moistened the cloth with a bit of Invisible Glass and although the smudges came off, the prints are still visible as a different color on the screen. They're only visible from certain angles but they appear blue while the rest of the screen has a purplish tint.
Has anyone else experienced this and is there any way to get rid of it? It's not visible when the TV is turned on but it's still a little disconcerting that mere fingerprints would become permanent on a TV screen.

Hello All,
I just bought the 5020 kuro. I live in montreal and could not find a new box. I had to settle with the display unit with a 5 year warranty it had no Burn in or IR. I have a couple of questions:

1) My panel buzzes and it is high pitched. I understand that this is normal but I think mine is above normal. I read the 9G threat on the buzz. My noise is from the power supply. Has anyone managed to get it replaced under warranty. The store is sending me a technician to check the noise.

2) My blacks are not really blacks. When there is no light in the room, I can see the black bars on an HD cable movie.
It is not hard at all. However when I put a backlight i have to concentrate to see the bars but I still see them. My movie mode makes the black look less black than the optimum mode. ( perception plays a role )
In the menu, I can also clearly see the plasma emitting light( nearly dark room)
I attached an image. The camera usually darkens the black. In real life the difference is more pronounced.
could my set have abnormal blacks? If I calibrate professionally the Tv can the black level be changed ?

Thank you very much.

#1 - Never said it was. HOWEVER, for any given display... in the case of this particular thread we are talking about the 5020/6020 and maybe the non-Elite monitors. And within that group, there are some very specific things that make the displays BETTER. These displays don't have all the controls you need to make everything "perfect" but you can strive to make these displays the best they can be within their adjustment capabilities. I assume that everybody is on-board with this line of thinking since nobody has built the "perfect" video display yet (though a Kuro driven by a Lumagen Radiance video processor is getting damn close to perfect! LOL! $5000-$6000 video processor with much less expensive (now at least) panels).

#2 - Television... broadcast, cable, or satellite, is like shooting at an archery target with a shotgun loaded with birdshot. You aim at the bullseye, but the individual pellets hit the target in a pretty wide pattern if you are at 25 yards or so. A few pellets may hit the bullseye, but probably not too many. So you're looking at this target with this "spray" of holes sort of centered on the bullseye. And if you were going to "score" your shot, perhaps one way of doing it would be measuring the distance of every hole to the center of the target, then dividing by the number of holes to get your "average" miss distance. If your "average" miss distance is "0" then you had a perfect shot.

That's why we calibrate with a signal generator for TV... it will put the TV as close to the center of the bullseye as it is being capable of being adjusted. The 200 or more channels will "spray" around the bullseye. Some channels will very close to the bullseye - in fact, some programs on some channels may be close and the next program on the same channel may be out in the spray pattern somewhere. Since dealing with almost every channel being off in some way is impossible to avoid, all you can do is calibrate for the bullseye and try to ignore the errors in the channels farthest out in the "spray" pattern.

Everybody is working to either NSTC or HDTV targets, but some are better at hitting the sweet spot than others.

Either way (cell or transistor), the device is looking at transitions.

What were you displaying on the screen while taking readings?

If it was a stationary pattern, there would be no "frames" to detect because the pixels would flicker at the same rate, constantly.

If you used a random movie or TV show, there may or may not be a visible frame transition in the 1" area the transistor was looking at.

I've never tried to measure refresh rate of a plasma with a photocell or phototransistor - and I would be highly skeptical of the results based on how plasma panels display images.

If you were to create a test pattern on a 24p disc where you interleaved black frames and white frames (12 white and 12 black frames per second... alternating), you would have a pretty good chance of detecting the difference between 60Hz and 72Hz. The alternating black/white method would give a positive ID of the presence or absence of 3:2 pulldown when you change the output mode of the player between 24p and 60p. If you were looking at the output of the phototransistor on an oscilloscope, you'd see a symmetrical square wave (or close to a square wave) for 72Hz but 60Hz would have repeating "double-wide" "steps" in the square wave from 3:2 pulldown duplicating frames.

If I was going to measure plasma refresh rate, I'd use a spectroradiometer that is able to sync to the sub-frame frequency.

The frequency the pixels operate at is 360Hz per frame (at least at 60Hz, not sure if this remains at 360Hz for 72Hz refresh rate or drops to a lower rate because of the higher frame rate)... so lets say frame number 1 you are looking at is black... for 360 pixel cycles, all pixels are "off". Now... let's say the next frame is white... there's no need to "blank" the panel. The pixels are perfectly capable of turning off or on in a single "cycle"... if there are 60 frames per second and pixels are operating at 360 flashes per frame, that means there are 21,600 pixel flashes per second... so if your first frame is black... you have your 360 "off" cycles, and if your next frame is white, you are going to have 360 "on" cycles... that means for the second beginning with the first black frame, you have 360 off signals to the pixels and for cycle 361 (first "flicker" in the next frame, white in the case of this example), the pixel is simply turned on. This is what happens 360 times every frame. The entire next frame is already in a buffer before it is displayed, so there's no delay. A manufacturer of spectroradiometers has confirmed this after discussing the matter with Pioneer engineers. No blanking. When you "scan" a CRT with an electron beam, blanking is inescapable. There is no blanking in plasmas because it is not necessary. Pixels are instructed to turn on or off 21,600 times a second and each 360 cycles is 1 frame (this all assumes 60Hz refresh rate of course). There is no need for a pause every 360 pixel cycles.

All of a sudden, I started having issues with my Wii not displaying on my 6020. It is running through an Onkyo SR706 that is translating the component to an HDMI out. The same HDMI is used to carry signals from all of my other components which are displaying fine.

The Wii screen will load for a second, then the TV goes into an infinite loop between a blue screen and a black screen. It looks as if it might be an HDMI handshake issue but why all of a sudden.

Any ideas?

Panasonic broke their panel when they implemented the 48Hz mode - the flicker they have is much worse than the flicker of a movie projector operating the shutter at 48fps. I don't know what they did, but whatever it was, it was wrong. If I had to guess, my guess would be that they simply show each 48p frame for the same amount of time they show a 60p frame and leave the pixels off the rest of the time... 1/48th of a sec = .0208 sec. while 1/60th of a second = .0167. The difference is .0041sec. So if my guess is right, they leave the pixels off for .0041 sec for each frame. I don't have an easy way of inserting that much of a gap between frames, but I suspect it would be visible, especially if the pixels were to go black instead of a middle-gray during that interval.

That previous post was written before I learned the information about the operation of plasma panels from the spectroradiometer developer/manufacturer who has been communicating with engineers at Pioneer about plasma imaging. Before I learned this new information, I assumed there was a blanking interval with plasmas.

I'm simply passing on what the spectroradiometer developer/manufacturer told me about the operation of plasma panels after discussing (last year) with Pioneer engineers. He has to know in order to get is instruments to sync with the pixels for accurate measurements of the panels.

Folks, I need your advice I have an anthem statement D2 processor and was planning to buy an the non-elite 60" from Pioneer. Now I read in the forum that I need the Elite if I want the signals to pass through with out being processed by TV's scaler.

As far I am concerned, I want to use obviously the D2's scaler and have the display not do anything to the signal it receives. For this someone mentioned, there was something called the just scan mode in Samsung? What's the equivalent of that in Pioneer plasma's and is it only available in the elite series??

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Right, so then back in the real world 99% of everyone is watching something less than perfectly accurate with respect to standards.

My point was that the range of "inaccurate" settings is so large that the "what you like" setting could represent a great deal of different images, some much closer to accurate in different respects than others. No wonder then that some may find them usable in different scenarios.


Given your analogy, a slightly inaccurate setting which moves the bullseye offcenter a bit could actually be more accurate for a specific channel or broadcast if a user can visually detect the improvement. So then the marginally "inaccurate" alternate setting could be useful on a case by case basis.

Sounds like you're looking for "Pure" mode to turn off all built-in video processing. This mode is on the Kuro Elite models and Monitor models only.
You can disable all video processing on the NE Kuro using the hdmi PC signal type modes however your black level rise a little bit, closer to a Kuro 8G model, Pure Cinema options are not available and you would probably want to control color adjustments from your external device.

I'm sure external scaling would work fine with this model since it won't rescale your signal if it's already scaled to native res. On the other hand if you will use an external processor that costs as much or more than the display you might want to spring a bit more cash and get the Elite model.

I've never heard the typical buzz described as "high pitched". You may have another issue.



Have you simply tried adjusting contrast and brightness?

The type of bars you see depends on the settings. (Going from memory), there are two different Side Mask (bars) detection modes, and it can be off or on, or set to Auto Size-Natural. Mode 1 makes the bars black all the time. Mode 2 is dynamic and detects black bars, and according to program material shows side mask illustrations where available. Then it can also be set to Fixed or Auto. Auto is dynamic and changes the Side Mask brightness according to program content.

It "should" be set to On, Natural, Auto, and Mode 2 because these settings give the screen phosphors/pixels dynamic content, whereas if they are black all the time can cause BI (burn in) around them. You can also eliminate them entirely by using the Wide modes, although that will screw up the aspect ratio of what you're watching. See section 4:3 on pages 59 & 60 in the manual for details.

Each AV mode has a different color temperature setting, and different default contrast and brightness settings (which you can change). So, the side bars could look different in each AV mode.


Even with my monitor's brightness all the way up all I see is solid black all around the HMG menu. I had to paste the image into IrfanView and crank the gamma up to 4 before I could even see the screen area. A photo is of course going to expose for bright areas, not dark. I don't know if you're talking about plasma leakage or something else. Many have said they can see leakage around the bottom of the screen. I'm not near mine now, but I seem to remember the background of the HMG not being totally black, but some kind of very dark gray and "textured dark gray" in some areas which is normal.

Professional or DIY, calibration is mostly grayscale. If your GS is rather off, it may be possible that adjustment could alter the black levels. (I'm not sure about that area).

...but who wants to go to the trouble of changing settings all the time?

If you're on cable and are experiencing a lot of variations in picture, I had the same thing with my local cable provider. When I switched to Dish satellite and OTA antenna, a lot of those variences went away. My cable company claims that they don't alter the signal. They may not be intentionally altering the signal, but the end result through there system was an altered signal.

My point is that you do a lot better starting off with a good signal than trying to figure out a multitude of alternate settings that are due to poor signals.