The Official Panasonic TC-P50X1 and TC-P42X1 Owner's Discussion & Information Thread - Page 106

We moved to a Mediacom area and I have problems with the HDMI connection to the STB (whole house dvr, various Pace boxes here and there).

The video always works but the audio rarely does. I tried the latest firmware (v1.26) and no change. Panasonic tech support suggested unplugging it all, powering it all down, then turning it back on etc and seeing if that helped but of course it didn't. Tried swapping hdmi cables with no change.

So now I just watch cable over component rather than hdmi. Annoying but at least the audio works consistently.

I got the Spears & Munsil HD Benchmark Blu-ray Edition disc yesterday. I went through the calibration tests and found that when I got to the "Clipping" test I had to lower the Contrast down to 46 to make the smaller boxes appear within the larger boxes. This was mostly due to the red and green boxes. Pre-Spears & Munsil I had the contrast up in the 80's, which is where most people who have posted calibration settings have it pegged. The actual "Contrast" test did not show me anything to make me lower it that low (maybe I just missed the signs), but per the "Clipping" instructions, "If either of these [...patterns all are solid with no visible steps...some of the steps look wider than others...] occurs, try lowering the contrast control just until all levels are distinct and visible..." Does anyone have thoughts on what I found?

That sounds about right i have my contrast set to +50 below are my settings after calibration with spears and munsil:

Cinema
Cont: +50
bright: +60
color: +35
tint: +7
sharp: +55
color temp: normal
Cats: off
Video nr: off
Mpeg nr: off
Black level: light

Many people make the mistake of over doing it with their contrast settings thinking more is better Thas so not true. Seems like you are on the right track.

What exactly does "Color" do/control? I don't know if I have ever had a calibration tool (Spears & Munsil, AVC) which has a test for it.

Of course Spears and munsil has a calibration tool for this parameter its called the "color bars pattern" The Color control (sometimes called "Saturation") is used to adjust the relative balance between the chroma (color) channels and the luma (brightness) channel. If Color is set too high, the colors on screen will be oversaturated, and if it's set too low, the colors will be muted and washed out. The Tint control (sometimes called "Hue") is used to adjust the balance between the two chroma channels. If Tint isn't set correctly, all of the colors on the display will be wrong.

I recommend If you want to know how to use the Color Bars pattern to set Color and Tint, read this (copy paste link below):

http://www.spearsandmunsil.com/artic...orandtint.html

That's a great link. Thanks!

I've searched this thread and the forum in general and did not come up with anything, so if this somehow was missed in the search, I'm sorry but I tried.

Our P42X1 is just over 2 yrs old (out of coverage that I've got on the credit card that doubles mfg warranty). TV and all the related electronics are plugged into a decent surge protector -- but apparently, that did not help. We've gotten tons of storms lately and have had a ton of lightning. I'm thinking that caused a problem the surge strip didn't help prevent.

Picture is fine (great actually) -- but no sound whatsoever.

I have checked:
Mute
Volume
SAP
TV Speakers on

We tried to "reset" the TV, unplugged for an hour but it seemed to make no difference.

The only thing I noted of interest is that in the Audio menu, the RESET TO DEFAULTS option is grayed out!??? Why -- and why would lightning/power spike cause that to happen? Wouldn't unplugging for a hour drain the boards and cause everything to go back to factory defaults?

If anyone here can help lead me in the right direction, that would be terrific. I've read on a few "help fix things" sites that the main board is likely bad and would need to be replaced -- and that it's a pretty easy job to do it yourself.

Thanks

Did you check you "viera link settings" have you tried restoring those to default? I'm thinking after dong this step, you should be able to restore the factory settings again and get some sound, let me know, I'll keep running some tests on my 42x to see if I come up with anything else.

I did not see anything in Viera Link that was anything other than default settings. I'm confused -- is there something else that I'm missing here?

I was hoping one of the techs that frequent the forum might pop in and provide some insight.

What is your source -- antenna, cable/sat box. etc? Do you have this audio problem for all inputs?

Larry

Hi Larry,
The source is RCN cable box -- connected to the Panny via coax. This set is down at my daughter's apt at college so I have done all of the troubleshooting via the phone and text messaging (with images).

I originally set everything up for them -- pretty simple setup -- standard cable box hooked up to TV via coax. DVD player is not a blue ray, just an inexpensive one that has L/R audio in and 1 video in plug (3 RCA plugs).

I cannot get them to tell me whether the sound is out when using DVD because the DVD player has gone out.

The only thing that I thought was very weird was that the RESET AUDIO DEFAULTS option was grayed out -- so I had them unplug the set overnight and still grayed out today. I had tried walking them through all the options over the phone (I have the 58" Panny so I was walking them through the screens/options/etc and when we came across this Grayed out at the top of the Audio Menu, I thought it was very odd.

AFAIK, nothing was changed as far as setup options -- the girls have left it alone since I set it up and everything was working fine.

I'm trying to figure out/understand why the Audio Reset is grayed out -- if it was locked up/caused by a power spike even though it was in a good surge protector.

If the sound is out, I've read it's the main board -- and it is easy to replace yourself. If all I would have to do is find the right part, order it and put it in, I would do that. When I bought this set it was around $600 -- I know they're a bit less now but the picture is still great. Would hate to trash it yet wouldn't want to pay $200 or more to have it repaired either.

Any advice/suggestions you could provide would be most welcome.

Thanks!

Quick question. Does anyone know if you have speakers connected via optical out, if you can still control the volume from the tv?

You would use your Receiver that's my recommendation..turn you tv sets speakers to the "off" setting! Some people put their receiver on a volume setting which is comfortable and use their cable box to turn the volume up or down (on the box) if possible. Others may prefer to program their cable remote to control the TV (which would be basically to turn the set on), their receiver (to change between sources like tv,DVD,radio and adjust volume), and their cable box (to switch channels). This is what I do I control everything with my cable box remote which I programmed but I have my tv speakers off and I have my cable box connected to my receiver via optical, and my ps3 via coaxial on my receiver. On my cable box i have dolby digital as my default format output..I put the cable box volume to the max and locked that so no one messes with it and control my desired volume level on my receiver. You follow?

I'm trying to route the signal from the digital audio out of my TC-P42x1 into my Cambridge Audio DacMagic DAC so I can play the sound from my 2-channel stereo system. Does anybody know what signal is being sent from this output? My DacMagic can only accept a 2-channel PCM signal. It appears that is not the signal being sent by the TV. Does anybody know if I can change this setting to get a PCM signal? Does it matter the what the source of the signal is (DVD, antenna, etc)? FYI. I am not using an HT receiver. I should have paid more attention when I bought this set. Had I known there was no analog audio out, I would have gone with the Sammy.

So I would be able to have a receiver set at a volume and use either the tv or cable volume. The reason I ask is instead of buying a receiver I'm going to hook the tv up to a dac, but the dac only has analogue volume controls. I just wanted to make sure that the optical out doesn't bypass the tv's volume control cause I know sometimes it could.

I use a dac (with no volume controls) and my TV speakers stay on. You can control the volume on the TVs speakers using the volume control, but not the receiver's volume. You will need to control the receiver separately.

I'm glad I asked in that case haha. So if I have a dac connected to the audio out there is no way to control the volume that is coming from the tv to the dac, but I the tv volume controls would adjust the tv's speakers? Dang that is what I was afraid of. Looks like I need to get a receiver. I was really hoping that the tv would have variable audio out :/

I found the same problem after I applied dnices settings it was just too much everything was over blown in a way.. I consulted with another member and made some minor adjustments to my set with the spears and munsil disc and now everything is right as rain!

I had originally started following this tread back in early 2010 or late 2009 when I ordered my P50X1 as a cheap cost effective stop gap solution when our JVC HD-ILA 56FN97 started blowing bulbs much too fast and developed some dark patches that looked like finger prints right as it seamed everything was breaking all at once in our lives.

Truly had everything from reciever, two other older bedroom tv sets, tv stand, washer & dryer, microwave and car troubles all in a very short time period which was also the holiday season (which is also our three kids bday season to boot) and from this threads I chose this TV to be our hold us over display and our first plasma inspite of my wifes fears and our naive friends warnings of burnin and lower quality compared to LCD.

I know its late and now with this thread long since dormant nobody will likely see this but I would just love to say thank you so much for steering me towards this set and turning our family into a plasma family.

From day one we were blown away by the picture quality, colors, motion, black levels, etc but after all those things breaking so close together I was unwilling at the time to mess with the service menu. I found a used VT20 for an incredible deal back in Febuary of this year which free'd up the X1 for bedroom duty.

I then decieded that I was now willing to risk the service menu and went in and tweaked the picture using Dnice's offsets and just wow. Even now with the VT20 (also using his SM offsets and settings tweaked slightly for our enviorment) the picture on the X1 is just beautiful.

I have friends with far more expensive sets (newer ones too) who are just blown away by the 50X1 and even more so admittedly by the 50VT20 who would flip if they knew they had spent nearly if not more then 2X more then I did on the two sets combined for their lesser picture quality.

I know how floored I was going from a pretty pricey top of the line (at the time) JVC HD-ILA 56inch 1080P set to what I was expecting to be a budget 720P plasma for nearly a fourth of the price (hell it was damn near the same as the cost of the lamps we'd gone through in 30 months with the JVC) when we fired up that X1 the first time.

So just incase any of the regulars from back then ever still check out this thread, I wanted to say thank you so much. If only i'd been turned into a plasma guy in time to get in on the Kuro's life would be so much easier, that said i'm still loving my Panny's and i'm eyeing stepping up to a 55-65 incher this year.

I was able to procure atc-p50x1 from my brother for nothing. Only problem was the tinted screen played catch with his remote. It dropped it. Anyways, broken screen. Decided to replace with a piece of glass. Carefully disassembled the TV and finally made it to the broken piece of glass. Wasn't spending much so decided to replace it with a regular piece of window glass from the local glass co. $40 and some foam weather stripping and was good to go. Reassembled and now have a 50" plasma in my man town.

I'm looking for a stand. I just picked up one of these from Craigslist and it was mounted to the wall. The owner didn't save the stand, so I'm hoping someone in this thread will take pity on me and sell me theirs.

Thanks,
Paul

I have an Overscan issue with my TC-P50X1

I was hoping maybe in the history of this thread someone found a solution to this problem. Is it correct that this set has no way to turn Overscan off?
I was able to live with it for a few years but now that I plugged in my new Wii U I would like to find a way to get more of the space that is getting cut off.

Any Service Menu step by step tips?

I read someplace online change H Size 1 to Size 2 but this is always grayed out for me in HD can only change it with SD sources.

Since this is a 720p set, unless you are watching 480p or lower rez content, you can not.



Ian
Edited by mailiang - 12/30/12 at 9:19am

Well since this got bumped lol, I have a question: I've had a TC-p42x1 (came from Sam's Club) for around 3 years now (either 2 or 3). This TV didn't come with built in Netflix streaming,etc so is there any way to stream wirelessly from a laptop?

I do have an Xbox 360 hooked up but as far as I know, you have to pay MS for a stupid Live membership. I don't do online gaming and I hate the idea of paying more for streaming.

Is there any workaround this?

Thanks guys!