The Official Pioneer 9G non-Elite KURO Owner's Discussion Thread - Page 366

This simplification is missing important factors that will come into play when displaying anything other than a completely black or completely white frame. A minor point is that if you actually attempted to get any plasma to turn on all the subpixels at 100% duty cycle you would hit the ABL and it would actually display something less than 100% white. However, you have deeper misconceptions about the way subfields work and how subfield weighting plays a factor. Please read this thread, focusing mainly on xrox's posts, in order to understand how plasma actually use the subfields:

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

Here is a quote that is important:


Two independent measurements of the PRO-111FD have confirmed the existence of an unmistakable frame rate frequency component to the display of normal program material (not pure black or pure white). My personal experience with my set, where I can see flicker on certain material at 60 Hz but not at 72Hz also confirms this.

My measurements are performed in near real-time (the spectrum is displayed every ~1s), and on normal material I can see the frequency peak move from 60Hz to 72Hz depending on the source or the settings on the display. There is a 100% correlation between the expected frame rate and the measured frame rate.

It seems clear that in reality we can perceive and measure the frame rate.

You can either continue to deny this or you can spend the time to understand the theory a bit better. If you do this I'm sure you will end up without a conflict between reality and theory. As a thought experiment, trying thinking about what happens when something other than pure black or pure white is displayed, say 50% brightness.

Personally I don't have a conflict between the measurements and theory, but that is because I understand it better and I'm always willing to learn more.

I understand that but in that case the settings choice is based more on convenience rather than purely on either accuracy or "what you like" which were the 2 choices under discussion.

FWIW although I find my calibrated movie mode setting best most of the time and acceptable almost all of the time there are occasions where I find an alternate less accurate setting simply looks better or just different in a way I like for a given broadcast (esp. with SD) or piece of content.

It may well be that the alternate setting is also more accurate in a certain respect for a given show or piece of content. Perhaps for instance the content is undersaturated and the less accurate setting compensates some or it's too dim and a brightness boost offsets etc.

I wrote about the odd dimness I found on the Hancock Blu-ray for instance although this rarely occurs with BD in my experience.

Getting one most accurate setting and sticking with it is more convenient no doubt and does guarantee excellent results in most cases and decent results in the vast majority.

If you ever get a chance to take the measurements on a Non-Elite then please post as that could confirm or refute the original question and assertion as it relates to this thread.

If anybody with a 5020/6020 in the New York City area is willing to have me do the refresh rate test with my photocell device, please send me a private message.

Your thoughts seem to be centering on the AC frequency the pixels operate at (called the sustain frequency) and has no bearing on the visible refresh at all. Sustain frequencies are usually in the kHz range.

Independent of the sustain frequency is the subfield frequency which is the number of subfields per second. Subfields are weighted time periods for the pixels to emit light. Typically 8-14 subfields per refresh are used meaning 480-840Hz frequency.

Then comes the actual visible and detectible refresh frequency which is essentially the combination of the panel refresh rate (usually 60Hz) and the repetitive weighted pattern of subfields causing a perceivable effective duty cycle. The weights of the subfields are in order from smallest to biggest. To simply describe it:

• Each frame is built up in brightness over time using increasing subfield weights

• This in general means the beginning of each frame is very dark and the end of each frame is very bright.

• Our eyes perceive the beginning of each frame as being dark and the end being very bright and as this pattern repeats a flicker can be perceived at the refresh frequency of the panel (usually 60Hz)

Plasmas have better motion properties because the pixels have no "lag" and no blanking is NEEDED... remember, the pixels can be turned on and off at the rate of 21,600 cycles per second. (360cycles/frame times 60 frames per second). Why would you need a blanking period if the pixels turn on and off that fast? You don't. The only thing that would make plasma motion better is if sources had 60 frames per second instead of 30p (or 60i) or 24p. If you can make an entire frame of pixels change from one frame to the next in 1/21,600th of a second, why on earth would you need blanking? (and the next generation of plasma panels will be modulating pixels much faster than that).

Plasmas have better motion properties because the pixels have no "lag" and no blanking is NEEDED... remember, the pixels can be turned on and off at the rate of 21,600 cycles per second. (360cycles/frame times 60 frames per second). Why would you need a blanking period if the pixels turn on and off that fast? You don't. The only thing that would make plasma motion better is if sources had 60 frames per second instead of 30p (or 60i) or 24p. If you can make an entire frame of pixels change from one frame to the next in 1/21,600th of a second, why on earth would you need blanking? (and the next generation of plasma panels will be modulating pixels much faster than that).

And no, blanking a panel between frames is NOT a good thing and should be avoided when it CAN be avoided. CRT technology REQUIRED blanking. Projecting film REQUIRES blanking so you don't see the film frame in motion. These are not ideal presentation formats. I don't believe DLP requires blanking either - the mirrors just instantaneously begin tilting at a new frequency for the next frame, you don't have to reset every mirror in the array between frames.

I am simply repeating the information provided by Pioneer engineers to someone who develops and manufactures spectroradiometers. The Pioneer engineers told him there was no blanking in plasma panels that was anything like what existed in CRTs. And they also provided the info about the switching rates of pixels that spectroradiometers need to be able to detect in order to lock on the pixels to make accurate readings.

Prior to getting that info a week ago or so, I thought that plasma panels operated with either a real or perceptual blanking interval also.

How does a plasma handle the sources that contain a blanking interval?

Get a Pioneer 600M monitor. Same 9G glass and a little thinner. It has more adjustments than the 6020 too, but no ISF menu. Just hope you don't get a broken one.

You are missing the "hold-type" component of display induced blur.

1 - Slow pixel response or lag as you put it
- blur is created on the screen

2 - Hold time of each frame (how long each frame is displayed)
- blur is created on your retina

Blanking periods or shorter duty cycles help reduce blur caused by #2 above. You should read up on this phenomenon as it is very interesting IMO. And as for Plasma displays, the effective duty cycle is ~ 35 - 50% and there is of course lag due to the phosphor decay which is much longer than CRT phosphors.

Based on my understanding, plasmas refresh each frame at the frame rate which in the US is mostly 60Hz and individual pixels are refreshed (pulsed) at a rate dependent on the # of subfields (480Hz to 840 Hz). Each frame is initiated with a reset and it is the transition from the peak brightness of an individual pixel in the previous frame, to the reset at the start of the next, that manifests itself as a flicker which is detectable by the eye (and instruments) as the refresh rate. It is also responsible for what is effective a blanking period. It is much shorter in duration than the real blanking in CRTs, but then CRTs are much more susceptible to flickering than even PDPs.

I do believe that some form of blanking is a good thing. It is why some of the newer LED backlit LCDs are starting to cycle the backlight at a multiple of the framerate.

That is good logic and knowledge but is not the cause of flicker. I will post a graphic from a paper I have that should get the point across about subfield weights causing flicker.




Yes, having a blanking period or short duty cycle reduces the time each frame is displayed on your retina. This reduces hold type blurring. Plasma displays have an effective duty cycle that is ~35% which is the main reason why they are considered excellent for motion relative to modern LCDs with short response times.

Hopefully this post ends the confusion and we can all understand why Plasma displays flicker and why the refresh can be easily measured and detected.

Plasma displays create/render frames by building up luminance information over time using subfields that get progressively larger (wider). Let’s take the case of a plasma display with 8 subfields (Panasonic pre Neo):

I’ve drawn up a prophetic example of CRT, PDP, and LCD displaying a full white screen at 48Hz for comparison.

• All three displays are displaying a full white screen in these examples

• The solid gray rectangles are the time the display emits light

• The dotted line is the amount of light reaching our retina (integrated by the retina)

• The Plasma display has 8 subfields of increasing widths where dark detail is always rendered in the beginning of each frame while bright detail is always rendered in the second half of the frame

Now in scientific papers the authors have described the same phenomenon by combining the subfield weight (width) and the light intensity created by each subfield. In other words the height of each rectangle here is the subfield width which describes the amount of light reaching our retina.

As you can easily see here, the display flickers strongly at 50Hz unless the subfields are arranged in a way that spreads the bright subfields around.




NOTE : To generate full white the display needs to use all 8 subfields. To generate a very dark scene the display needs only 1 or 2 subfields. Therefore flicker will be much more apparent on a full white screen than a dark scene due to the concept of effective duty cycle illustrated in the above graphics.

This entire thread is for the Non-Elite. Mine is the 5020FD.

OK, why bother chanigng any setting when the TV comes out of the box then? Just leave it alone and watch TV. If somebody likes those settings - they are OK to use by your logic. They may actually see 1 hour of TV out of every 1000 hours where those out-of-box settings are pretty good.


Yeah, and a somewhat inaccurate setting would also make more channels, on average, LESS accurate than having a setting closer to the best the TV is capable of. So what's more important? Having the smallest range of errors or misadjusting the TV to make 1 channel look a little better at the expense of more accuracy on 10 or 50 other channels and possibly less accuracy on Blu-ray also if there's just 1 input to the TV from an AVR?

If you are going to use SCIENCE (as in AVScience) to benefit your viewing, you need to do it right. If you're just going to twiddle controls until there's something you THINK is good... that's fine, but these AV-SCIENCE forums aren't much interested in your results. We want to know what you do to/with various displays to make them look the best they can. Some people do this with pro calibration or DIY calibration (and share their measurement results which often benefit other owners), some people decide to use a setup disc, others decide to copy recommended settings from somewhere... those approaches at least have a chance of making things better, on average, though copying settings is wildly variable from brand to brand and model to model. A hosed source is not a good target for calibration or setup by any logic.

What sources would those be? VHS tape?

Does anyone know if there is a way to see how much the TV has been used? I am thinking of buying a used TV and need a way to make sure the time the TV was on was not more than what the seller says. Is there a way to reset that?

the total time the panel is plugged in and the total hours it is actually turned on are in the service menu. you would need a software program like ControlCal or have access to a Pioneer factory service remote to gain access to that feature on the 9g pioneers. I do not think you can reset the timers. maybe if the firmware was reloaded but thats a guess and never heard of that.

with 8g and older pioneers there is a remote code sequence to enter the menu. you can find it on page 2 post 58 of the 8g settings thread. it does not work on the 9g though as pioneer changed it.

Don't know about resetting that...there shouldn't be a way. You can see the panel hours when using ControlCal in the calibration process.

Thanks GrandMasterJ and dssturbo1! So I need to either find out how to use ContralCal or get my hands on this special remote.

like others have said: controlcal, but there's also an option to clear panel hours in the service menu. didn't try it but i remember seeing it.

what panel are you considering buying?? the latest Pioneers have a half life expectancy of ~60,000 hours.

sounds like you really don't trust the guy your looking to buy from.

You must be simply skimming my posts because you clearly are not quoting "my logic" based on a careful reading. You're responding as though I indicated an inaccurate choice is just as good an accurate one which is far off the mark of what I posted:


After all this display most and displays are capable of multiple adjusted settings. Again, I appreciate your guardianship of image accuracy, but please take note again of what I posted.



I would contend in fact that my position is more scientific than yours with respect to "what you do to/with various displays to make them look the best they can.". You essentially seem to be suggesting that we set the display to the most accurate setting and then live as best we can with results of the "scatter shooting" from various forms of "inaccurate" content.

I'm saying you also have the option of getting that most accurate setting as your bullseye for most cases but also using alternate settings that shift the bullseye a bit for specific cases where the content is wide of the mark for "accuracy". This actually involves taking more time and energy out to achieve the best possible images rather than simply settling for stationary bullseye in every case.



Again, you're quite wide of the mark as it relates to my comments. I'm afraid your posts might be in a cable broadcast mode rather than Blu-ray at the moment.

I have several displays that are pro calibrated. I use those settings most of the time. I appreciate the results of accurate content esp. when used with sources that are accurate to the same standard. Image quality can be simply stunning.

On the other hand because I use a wide range of content, I'm not simply a blu-ray watcher ( even though my collection is sizeable ). You actually made my point with your "bullseye" example which is that the accurate setting is "accurate" only to the extent the content is conforming to standards.

For specific content cases the ability to use alternate settings is not a lack of appreciation for visual science but IMO a superior application of that science.

It makes perfect sense to me.

I can easily detect flicker below 85Hz on any screen by eye.

This is correct insofar as CRTs and a plasmas operate on different principles, but it doesn't mean that there is no detectable refresh rate on plasmas. I hope that now you've had a chance to read xrox's very clear explanation that your doubts about being able to perceive and measure plasma refresh rates have been put to bed.

Surely someone must have had fingerprints on their screen?

Nope, turns out you're the only one and screwed now...

Just kidding of course. I posted not because I have fingerprints on my screen, but because I relate to your frustration for how to clean a screen that you can't use any sort of cleaner on. Only wispers of distilled water or your own breath. I was surprised to read recently though, maybe in another Kuro thread about someone recommending Invisible Glass for another cleaning problem, which I found shocking since up until that time any kind of cleaner was a supposed big no no. What's a Kuro owner to do!?!

That would really tick me off.

I'm sure you saw all the posts on this. But to make a long story short: Pioneer says nothing wet under any circumstances can be used on the screen. If there is something on the screen that will not come off after a lot of rubbing with the microfiber cloth, use a drop(s) of distilled or filtered water and the cloth. The water cannot have any minerals, impurities, particulates, etc., in it. The key really is the cloth and its unusual cleaning properties, but you have to know when enough rubbing is enough, not to damage the coating.

Citrus cleaners are great for removing just about anything, including oil residue left from latent prints. But I don't know how the acidic content would react on the screen. As a last resort, I'd find one that has nothing in it but citrus (orange, or maybe lemon), use a SLIGHT amount because they really "creep" a lot, and then go over it a lot with the distilled or filtered water repeatedly over and over and with the cloth because that stuff is very hard to rinse off with water. It WILL leave a residue and there's no telling what affect that residue will have once the screen heats up to ~110°.

I've only really cleaned mine once in 6 months and it was a nightmare of going over the same spot over and over and over without pressing too hard. What the hell was Pioneer thinking with this screen. I did end up using dabs of distilled water on the cloth. In the end it came out well but an hour to clean a screen is ridiculous.