The Official Panasonic TC-PXXS1 Owner's Discussion Thread - Page 153

I got my 2-3 more clicks of brightness. I moved over to Standard, raised the contrast up to +88, brightness +50, color +50, tint -2, sharpness 0,color temp cool, cats off, v nr off, mpeg off, black level light.

There is a contrast setting in the service menu but I haven't tested it yet to see how it works but turning up your contrast to 100 will definitely raise overall peak brightness even if it's not perceptible by eye.

Perfect.

Thanks Bigham

Hello,
I have a 58" S1 that I purchased from Amazon and due to be delivered by Pilot Monday morning. I am excited, but at the same time anxious about an online purchase of something so big/expensive! What I am concerned about is whether the product is new and undamaged, and would really value advice on what to look for/check prior to signing the delivery acceptance form:

1. How should the box look? Should there be a factory seal of some sort on the box or internal packaging? I purchased Canon camera components in the past and found that Canon does not use factory seals on their boxes (to save $ on returns so that merchants can resell as new?). In addition, I have purchased computer equipment with factory seals on the electrical inputs to verify that the product has not been turned on by the store or a consumer. Was wondering what Panasonic uses?

2. A friend told me the Panasonic plasma he purchased (last year, prior series/800?) had a tag affixed to the box that, if dropped, turned red. This is an indicator of whether the product has been dropped. Do the S1 products have this on the boxes?

3. Pilot told me that the delivery includes setup and turn on. When the S1's are turned on, is there a solid color? If not, what is the best way to quickly check for dead pixels? For those who have purchased an S1 and checked, should I expect zero dead pixels?

4. Last, if anyone has any other advice on what to quickly check prior to signing the delivery form, that would be great info as well.

Thanks in advance and sorry for the non-technical/boring questions! I just want to make sure I get started on the right foot and don't end up with a used or damaged plasma!

TV is here, break-in slides downloaded to SD card, but how many of you wait the 120 hours of break-in before watching a 2.35:1 blu-ray, i.e., one with black bars top and bottom?

At some point automatic brightness limiting is going to turn on. After that, increasing contrast in either the service or user menu will do little. When ABL cuts in, BTW, it lowers gamma.

Larry

Let me know if you get into the SM and mess with the contrast. Or if you can guide me, than I would not mind trying it first. Once I moved over to Standard and raised the contrast to the same as my custom and game setting, I noticed (or I think I noticed) it was brighter than the other two. All three set to cool as well.


Thanks Larry and to be honest way over my head.

I've done a search on this but didn't find much. I got a new 65S1 last night, and so far it seems great.

However, a little while ago a box popped up in the lower left corner and said "Will shutdown in 3 minutes" for no apparent reason. Not a timer I set or anything.

Anybody know what this is? I went into the menu and poked around and randomly ran the anti-IR white bar, and exited the menu and the box was gone and the TV didn't power down, but still makes me a little nervous.

jvrobert,

Page 28 of the owner's manual.

Larry

I have finally finished calibrating my 54S1! I have added the primary and secondary color measurements and also tweaked the grayscale offsets a bit. First, here are my service and user menu settings:

Service menu Warm factory settings: 80/80/80/E1/F3/88
Offsets applied: -2/0/-1/-4/-31/0
Final Warm settings: 7E/80/7F/DD/D4/88

Mode: Cinema
Contrast: 68
Brightness: 63
Color: 28
Tint: +5
Sharpness: 0
Temperature: Warm
All NR: off
Black: light
Size: 2

Setup: PS3, AVSHD, HCFR Colorimeter SW, i2 Display LT meter.


- Resulting brightness is about 35 ftL. This seems to be a decent level that suits both day and night time viewing.

- Black level is about 0.014 ftL. I love the deep blacks!

- Grayscale is excellent across 20% to 100% IRE with all deltaE's below 3, many below 2. More on this below. For unknown reason, the red level has risen noticeably since last night. I had to lower RDRV by three ticks from my previously posted offsets to get a similar grayscale performance. Weird.

- I had used Droid's Color value of 39 in my last report. The primary color measurements tells me that it results in too much color saturation on my set. I think this was responsible for some scenes where faces are too red or grass field is too green. So I lowered the value to 28 where I saw the least amount of color errors. Even after this adjustment, primary color errors are substantial because S1's color space is much bigger than the Rec 709 color standard and lacks the Color Management System (CMS) control. This is where I wish I had the correct color space of Kuros, G10/V10's THX mode (are they really fixed?) or Samsung's CMS. I was used to seeing over-saturated colors so my initial reaction after this change was that the colors lacked 'pop'. But the measurement shows this is more accurate. Now that I have watched some BD and TV with this setting, I think I now understand what oversaturation was doing to some scenes of face and nature. If you are seeing red faces, you might try lowering the color a bit. It's interesting to note that I am the only one among S1 cal reports with the Color setting this low. Larry and D-Nice with X1's have theirs similar to mine though. Secondary colors are also impossible to calibrate properly due to lack of CMS. The tint setting is all we have and the value of 5 seems to be the optimum on my set. Again very similar to Larry's!

- I tried to get the grayscale deltaE's all under 1.0 like in Droid's cal report but I don't think that's possible. Droid used CalMan and I used the HCFR software and they seem to employee different methods to compute the deltaE. Droid's RGB plot shows a similar or more amount of flunctuation as mine but CalMan's reported deltaE is about 1/3 of my numbers. I think CalMan is applying some sort of averaging across the three colors while HCFR's number is more or less the worst offender among the three errors. Maybe this is well-known among experts here. Well, the bottom line is that I think the grayscale I have is just about as best it can get with this set. According to the cal procedures I've read, it's considered extremely good if all deltaE's (HCFR version) are below 3.0 which is basically what I got.

- I am attaching four measurements: 1) My post-cal, 2) pre-cal all factory default, 3) with Ruiz's offset and UM, 4) with Droid's offset and UM. All are for Cinema+Warm mode. It shows that Ruiz's setting is an improvement over the default but nowhere near as good as Droid's or mine. Droid's setting gives very good grayscale but primary and secondary color errors are way higher than mine. Of course, this is for *MY* 54S1 and may or may not apply to others units. You probably know where I stand with this issue.

- I commented last week that it may be a good idea to eyeball the grayscale with the 10% step grayscale test screen from AVSHD. I now want to take back that statement. If one tries to make it a uniform color (target is grey, of course) across the scale, I think it's very easy to favor one of the rgb colors by mistake. I think it's almost better if you see a very slight color variation from bar to bar. That means each of the three rgb levels are very close to each other rather than one dominating the other two. My post-cal grayscale picture shows this trend. Something to think about if you are trying to calibrate the grayscale with your eyes.

Finally, I want to thank all other posters here who helped me understand things better, especially Larry who also pointed out the i2 meter and opened up the possibility of DIY calibration for me. I am glad I went thru the process. I am one of those people who need to get to the bottom of things and I can finally sit back and just enjoy the TV! But if you have any tips of improving the measurements further, let me know!

 

mmoh00.pdf 423.2314453125k . file

 

HCFR data files.zip 4.474609375k . file

 

droid.pdf 423.25390625k . file

 

ruiz.pdf 432.6162109375k . file

 

Default.pdf 430.3935546875k . file

Good work mmoh00! I'll be trying these out shortly on my 54s1. From what I've read I should just use offsets no matter what but I wonder since our factory defaults were so close if maybe I should try for hex values in this instance, or is that a complete no-no?

mmoh00,

Nice work. It's also nice too see a convert to proper color saturation. Makes a world of difference.

Enjoy.

BTW, the tint control adjusts the secondary colors. But yours look fine as they are.

Larry

I would suggest the offsets but if your factory values are very similar to mine, it shouldn't make a big difference either way.

Thanks. Like I added at the end, if you see any room for improvement, let me know!

For 'reference' content viewing after changing TV settings, I have been using the National Geographic's program titled "Nature's Greatest Defender" currently available on Comcast free On-Demand. I have posted some shots a while back. It's on the NG channel tonight if anyone is interested. This 45 minute program has easily the best HDTV picture quality I have seen so far. Details and clarity are simply stunning. It has lots of face, animal and nature scenes from which you can judge your TV's performance. It should look good no matter what your settings are but I am amazed at how it looks more and more natural as I have been tuning my TV. The content is very interesting too.

I also ordered from Amazon and had Pilot deliver a 58S1 last Monday. Everything went perfectly.

The box should be upright and not have any holes or damage. If it does, I's either insist the driver wait until I opened the box to check the contents, or I would note the dame on the shipping paperwork (that the driver will require you to sign). I'd also note that the driver was unwilling to wait for me to inspect the product (if there is visible damge to the box).

FWIW - mine came last Monday in great condition and I did not need to ask the driver to wait until I inspected it.

Mine did not have this tag.


My delivery was supposed to be threshold delivery.
If it is cold where you live (below 32 degrees) you might want to wait a couple of hours for the TV to warm up before turning it on. (there is a post on this page concerning this)

I just bought the TC-P42S1, after months of research. As i was researching i have came across cnet's and droid's settings. I always noted the words "grayed out" on certain selections. As i went to use cnet's settings in cinema mode on regular tv. I noticed certain titles like "HD size" "Black level" are in fact grayed out when they are suppose to be able to be toggled. In theory i am going to go ahead and assume that the issue lays in the type on connection. I currently do not have my xbox 360 hooked up via HDMI, or any of the connections. Therefore i think it's safe to say those setting can't be adjust until the HDMI connection is made. Unfortunately, i would like to get at least 150+ hours on my TV before i even use it for viewing or gaming.

Or...i could be completely wrong, thank you for your insight -- roy

- Am i suppose to be able to adjust black levels on regular SD viewing through a cable wire?
- how can i adjust color temp offsets?

Good stuff mmoh00. The lower color setting ( 30 or even a notch under) seems to work really well on my 50 s1 as well. I'll give your offsets a try but I think either way between these or droid's, the set looks good. Thanks again. Definitely at a point where without measurement tools, it's just eye preference at this point.

I just put these offsets in also, for after the break in period. Unfortunatley i have no clue how to adjust the "color temp offsets" if someone could give me a hand also... thanks again

Those offsets you have listed are Droid6's old original settings. Here are his most current ones that are tweaked a little bit more.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...postcount=3064

Well, finally got my 58S1 today. So now, after a few hours of careful work it's on the wall with my Monoprice (MLB43) bracket. The bracket works great, it's kind of hard to tighten up the tilt knobs on it though because it hugs the TV so closely to the wall that it's hard to reach back there and tighten them. Other than that the bracket is a sweet deal at just under $17 bucks.

But forget the bracket. Right out of the box the set performance is amazing. I've not adjusted a thing (yet) and it looks phenomenal!!!! I stuck in a "Corpse Bride" Blu-Ray Disc first thing and got my socks blown off!. I've got no "hum", no dead pixels so far. I'm so pleased. Can't wait to see how it looks when I get it fine tuned. This is the best $1479.00 I've ever spent! I ended up sitting about 11 feet from the set and this size is just perfect for me.

I've not hooked up the surround sound yet and even the internal speakers are pretty decent, much more so than I expected. I will do the sound system and some fine tuning tomorrow, and maybe post some pictures.

So should I try Droid's settings? Is getting into the service menu easy and recommended? How do I do it? Via notebook computer?

Later!!

B.S.

Hmm- if I hit the format button it will go to "Just" but will not stretch the picture on sd channels- there are still black bars on the side. 'Just' seems to make the bars slightly smaller, but only....just.

"just" will stretch certain hd feeds like nbc hd and fsn but EVERY sd channel has black bars no matter how many times I hit format so I am still concerned about IR and BI for those channels.

That's odd. On mine SD channels viewed with 'just' work fine and fill the screen nicely. I don't usually do it that way and just use the 'partial zoom' of my HDDVR from Dish as it seems to do just as well, and when watching the satellite, I only need the sat remote to operate everything.

Ah, one thing that might make a difference. My Sat DVR brings everything in at 1080i or 720p depending on which connection I'm using.

I will start off by saying that I will have to post the SM offsets and other settings tomorrow, because I left the changes at my brothers.. My bro ran his TV through the slides last week and has been viewing since. I brought the i1 Pro over to my parents to calibrate his tv tonight and get more practice with what the adjustments do. His setup is PS3 into Onkyo reciever via HDMI and into the TV. The settings were done in Cinema mode, warm color temp.

Is there a link or writeup to understand gamma? I have near a .312,.329 value at 80% IRE, but the gamma is 2.39 at this point. I know I have seen flat Gamma curves in the 12g series, so I would like to know what I am not doing that could help me achieve this.

I also compared the CIE from the S1 cinema to my G10 custom mode and the charts are very close. THX is by far the best option for G/V users for tracking on the CIE chart, if only panny would fix the green decoding issue it would be near perfect out of the box.

 

TC-P42S1 Before_After.zip 49.16015625k . file

Question regarding the whites. When I watch hockey or use the scrolling bar, I notice somewhat of a cloudyness to some of the white on the tv? I guess I call it that, because I dont really know what else to call it? I only really notice it in motion though. Any clue?

How do I remove the green overtones that are on Warm setting?

Will Video Essentials (bluray) along with the RGB filters allow me to calibrate the green out?

Picking up a 46S1 plasma and BD60 player today. Couldn't pass up the combo price. Currently have a panny 42PX75U which I've been very pleased with, but youngest daughter needs a tv.

Looking forward to the S1, hopefully it will be an upgrade to my existing plasma. I've read a lot of the posts in this thread and will update with my impressions of the 46S1.

That is how you adjust the "warm, cool, normal" settings for those who are asking.

Could someone tell me how to adjust my "black level" and "HD size" on regular SD tv viewing if possible?

Thanks

Roy