Panasonic 11G/12G/13G black levels have seemingly doubled overnight? - Page 100

Thank you very mush. Please schedule an appointment for me to come by and shoot your TV.

The King.

Is it really that bad? How many people will really notice this? And this took off after engadget decided it was "news".

Well I have to say I'm seriously bummed. I spent a lot of time searching on this forum when I was going to make my television purchase. I went with a 42" G10, I looked up some calibration numbers and I said my adieu's to the forum.

I'm a daily engadget reader though and now I know that my tv set is going to look pretty mediocre at some arbitrary point in the future. I am one of the few that views there set in a completely dark room, well at least at night I do.

I feel a bit like a sucker at this point, did Panasonic make an honest mistake? Or did they intentionally do this so they could advertise a contrast ratio and make us believe we were getting near Kuro blacks at an incredible price?

At this point, I'm wondering if in July of 2009 (when I bought my television) if this Panasonic (even if this issue was known then) if this would still have been a good purchase.

If we can say yes to that, then I think I can live with the fact that I still got the best tv for the money I could have at that point. If the answer is a clear no then I do feel like a sucker for falling for Panasonic.

I'm hoping Panasonic can come up with some type of firmware fix that will take care of this because I doubt they are going to issue any expensive hardware fixes.

You know what kills the Panasonic name for me as well? The fact that my Blu-ray BD60 player has a freezing issue that is WIDELY reported on these forums.

My previous dvd player stopped working after a year and ding ding you're right, it's a Panasonic.


I think it is news. Personally, after buying my tv and finding calibration numbers I was happy with, I saw no reason to hang around the tv forums. I'm not an enthusiasts, just a consumer looking to get the most for his money. For all we know, Panasonic knowingly did this to try to salvage their losing market share to LCDS. Hey look we can offer you near Kuro blacks and amazing prices! You can't let a company do something like that and let it get away with it.

because they probably posted the problem here like i did. i have a 42s1 and have the black level rise and the IR is getting worse

I don't understand why some people here are refusing to accept that this is a reality.

Before my black levels changed, I definitely believed that people were having issues. The day I woke up to find my black levels changed, I knew it was a bigger problem.

Like I said before. There are hundred of thousands if not millions of these TVs in peoples home. You can't expect the average consumer to notice or be knowledgeable enough to realize that there is a problem. Those who are a little more informed came on these forums and shared their experiences.

Panasonic itself just released a statement saying that black levels will rise. I don't understand how this being an actual problem is even being debated.

Cnet, Engadget, and now Gizmodo have all put stories on their sites. The word is spreading and hopefully Panasonic will do something to remedy the problem or from now on their TVs will always get reviewed with some fine print about black levels changing and adversely affecting image quality.

Just curious TheBigdaddye, what is the manufactorer date on the back of your panel?

thebigdaddye and Syed117,
Have you called Panny to report your problem and ask for repairs? What was the response? Do either of you have a light meter?

My 58" PZ800U definitely suffers from this issue. Initial measurements with my EyeOne showed a 0.008 ftL reading. 8 months later I'm getting a 0.015 ftL reading!

Image retention has also gotten worse.

How does one go about getting a panel replacement? I would love to get a new panel! I have an extended warranty from FutureShop. If I get the panel replaced 3 times I could get a new TV.

50px80u owner here. My set is admittedly a lot older (9th generation? Not too clear on the generations) but I have been experiencing this issue for the past 9 months. Of course the black levels were never too great to begin with, but that didn't make it any less disappointing. At the time I assumed, since there weren't many posts about it here, that the problem was either limited a few sets, or possibly just the lower end line.

Hopefully Panasonic will do something about it, even if just for the recent generations. I was looking forward to an upgrade sometime soon, but will have to hold off for now.

I've called Panasonic twice and was told that they are looking into the problem and will let me know once they themselves know more.

Your whole argument is flawed because the difference is night and day and anyone who is obsessive enough to post on these forums can tell the difference.

When I bought my TV I watched movies with dark scenes just to test my TV and I wasn't disappointed. The black level performance was the second biggest deciding factor for me.

I don't need a light meter when I put in the Dark Knight blu-ray and watch the same scenes that were extremely dark before and suddenly glowing gray after the change.

I posted in this very thread before the change and you can find my post somewhere in here. I said that my TV was performing perfectly and there was no change. I didn't expect this to happen to me, but when it did, I knew immediately.

The fact that image retention suddenly increased as well was enough for me to know that something was wrong. The first month before the change, I could play games or even leave the menus on for as long as they stayed on by themselves and there was absolutely no image retention. Now I play two rounds of modern warfare and my ammo count stays on the screen for hours. I go into the menu to change picture settings and that menu gets retained as well. That didn't happen before the change.

If it is that bad you should hound Panasonic until they do something. PENDRAG0ON says he received a full refund for the same problem you say you are having.

Okay ... in a nutshell ..., the voltage is increased to counter the aging/dimming of the phosphors ... this is likely an attempt at maintaining the brightness , but the blacks rise as a necessary evil by-product of keeping a bright panel.

Sounds like the 2010 panels could be upping the voltage from day one ... ie. but doing it much more gradually (so the viewing doesn't see a shocking "overnight" MLL rise) ... but nonetheless leaving you with the same poor black level at 500 hours ...

So why wouldn't ALL plasma panels need more voltage juice as they age ? ... AND why don't all makers (even Kuro's) of pdp's suffer the same black rise ?

Either there is something very specific about panny panels/phosphors (which I doubt) ... OR panny's approach (to ageing pdp's) is way different than the makers.

jls

a lot of people have...just read the first half of topic. The techs were basically looking visually at the sets and would state that the set was working normally. Or would say that the set needs to be put in Vivid mode.

PENDRAG0ON is a pretty special case as he had a pretty good relationship with his service tech. Plus his tech was actually a field service rep that worked for Panasonic directly. It sounds like most everyone else got techs from a third party that did service work on behalf of Panasonic.

Personally, I'd rather they let it degrade/dim naturally and just have to up the brightness every once in a while. The sets are plenty bright.

This post is going to be somewhat irrelevant to the issue concerning black levels. Even without a measurement a quite of few posters have noticed a significant change over night. So therefore, I fall in the crowd that definitely believes panny has a problem on there hands.

I am going to post some user settings for those of you who fall in the unsure category of changing black levels as I have found the television source material has a lot to do with the black bars that is suppose to match the black bezel. I realize this is unscientific and can only be used as a small reference guideline.

The Following settings will apply to Dish network only (and its crappy compressed signal...Bring Back C-band!!!)

TV TC-P46-S1

Picture Mode: Custom
Contrast+75
Brightness+65
Color+43
Tint-1
Sharpness+25

Color temp: Warm

Black levels are set to "Dark". This really helps filter out the grainy picture from Dish Network. (On dish network I definitely notice a rise in the black bars and overall black levels of the picture. And when the Black level is set to light it looks worse than my Sony LCD.


On blu-ray I calibrated my settings with the Spears and Munsil Blu-ray DVD.

Picture: Custom
Contrast+85
Brightness+48
Color+50
tint 0
Sharpness +30

Color Temp: Warm

Black levels set to light on Blu-ray source material.
I have very satisfactory blacks with these settings and using the light setting on black levels.

The source material certainly plays a role in black levels from my experience, but I know those of you with truly effected sets it won't matter.

I dunno, I had a Samsung 19" LCD TV/Monitor that had bad capacitors and also a 50 inch Samsung plasma that had audio break-up problems and needed a board replaced. They were both fixed under manufacturer's warranty, and it was relatively painless.

As a result of this automatic voltage adjustment, background brightness will increase from its initial value. After several years of typical use, the internal material characteristics will stabilize and no additional automatic voltage adjustments are required. The Black Level at this stabilized point will yield excellent picture performance.

The last line really caught my attention, I just wonder what pannys definition of a Stabilized Black is...

First one "failed" at 250 hours, second one at 100 hours and the third one here in my living room just "failed" yesterday after 164 hours of use.

Guess you should just give up on the Panny plasmas then

So how about you take a visit or give them a call? You have a chance of proving that this is a wide-spread problem but instead you (and many others, who may not even have a Panasonic plasma) just shout acquisitions how Panasonic screwed up badly. This is getting ridiculous. Yes, we know Panasonic implemented this voltage adjustment into panel to help the aging process (and surely they spent months or years finding the value in the lab, not just picking the numbers like in lottery), and there are many people who reported no changed blacks. Yes, there are people, who got bad set and the change was dramatic and ruined the screen (even though some of those still say, the picture is excellent and still better than LCD). If Panasonic is a respectable company, they will fix the problem or exchange the sets. If they are not, they will just state the set is fine. Time will tell, but this tread is becoming more of which hunt.

I was going to post something very similar. BTW, I am literally days away from making my first HDTV purchase, and I was dead set on getting the G10. I now have major reservations in making that purchase.

So is this voltage increase to preserve the fidelity of aging components not standard with all manufacturers of plasma? Do Panasonic panels have a longer rated life, at 100,000 hrs. until half brightness, than other plasma brands? If not, why would Panasonic need to integrate such maintenance. As someone else mentioned, is "background brightness" referring to the emptiness of picture activity, where letterbox / black bars exist, or is this pertaining to blacks that are displayed to create the viewable image?

The official response is peculiar and vague. Are they saying that the issue with the current panels is black levels are accelerated by approximately 2 years in as little as 1000 hrs.? If components need to "stabilize" as they put it, why would this process need to take several years? When they said the 2010 models would implement a gradual increase, are they telling me that the "true black level" of my Panasonic will not be realized until 2 years later? In that respect, I feel the black level is initially deceiving, as what one experiences in the beginning is not the product's actual representation or intention. This is ESPECIALLY true if other Plasma manufacturers do not employ this method and their blacks remain consistent from day 1.

If the blacks really do rise that much in as little as 2 years to stabilize (their preferred method according to Panasonic), and even more unfortunate for those who have this happen in only 1000 hrs., maybe I should just purchase the b650? Besides, I would rather KNOW what I'm buying (again, assuming other plasma's black levels remain relatively consistent). After this level increase, it would appear that Samsung's plasmas have better blacks??? The set I plan to INVEST in may need to last me 5 years. Even if I waited for the 2010's, I wouldn't want a product that would look superior to other plasma brands for a few years, only to have to spend the next 3-5 years or more with an inferior display. I would prefer consistency if available.

I have a hard time believing Panasonic was / is trying to pull some skulduggery and give the impression to customers and professional reviewers alike that their blacks were indeed superior over others, only to have some voltage increase over time added to preserve the panel's life to industry standard, but something isn't adding up to me.

I mean heck, here I was ready to purchase one of their TV's based on the reputation and knowledge base I have gathered in the last few weeks regarding the Panasonic brand. This forum and CNET......both places I have utilized in order to make the best purchasing decision I can with what money I have.

Right now, I'm not so sure. Just when I thought things were becoming clear, a fog of doubt has rolled in and obscured my judgment.

this thread is containing less and less useful info and more and more rantings.

upgrade your firmware. FW 2.2 released about 2 months ago fixed the freezing issue.

To the many people recently joining the discussion....

The root cause of the issue has been well-discussed earlier in this thread. Search for the word "patent" and I suspect you'll find it.

Here's the basic-basic explanation, apologies if this over-simplifies the situation for some people's tastes:

The plasma cells continuously undergo a repeated cycle in order to control their intensity. First step: they are initialized. A small voltage activates the cells and prepares them for the next step. Then, step two: they are addressed. This step determines which cells will be illuminated in the third step. Third step, they are sustained. Voltage is applied to the panel to keep the addressed cells bright for the cycle. The the sustain ends, and we return to step 1 to prep the cells for the next addressing. This happens at 480 Hz on the 12G panels, and 600Hz for THX mode. (higher frequency increases color accuracy)

The issue we're discussing deals with the initialization voltage. The lower the voltage, the darker the black level of the panel. The problem is.... if the voltage is too low, and cells don't get initialized, they can't be addressed, and then can't be sustained. (they will not light up when asked to)

So... if the voltage drops below a certain threshold, the cells will misfire. This is a bad, bad situation.

So, it's easy: make sure the initialization voltage isn't too high, or too low.

Where the issue gets tricky is that that threshold is a moving target. As the plasma cells age, the voltage required for initialization increases. If the panel anticipates and matches this need properly, the black levels should not experience much rise. The point is to just tip the cells over their initialization threshold, no further.

With the Panasonic panels, it appears that the initialization voltage driver over-compensates for the rise and increases the MLL of the panel.

Basically, using bogus numbers:

Perhaps cells wanted 12V to be initialized when the panel was new. After 500 hours, now it's more like 13.5V. If you hit that 13.5 dead-on, they'll be primed, without negative effects on black level. If you hit them with 14V, you'll increase the black level for no good reason. That's basically what's happening here.

From what we've been able to learn, it sounds like the panel won't "catch up" with the voltage over time, because (based on Panny's patent information), eventually the necessity for voltage increases ends. The cells do not experience much further wear. (the voltage climb flatlines) Based on the patent, this may happen around 1000 hours, but it certainly depends on the specific panel design.

If at this point (1000 hours?) the initialization voltage is too high, it will likely ALWAYS be too high, even if it stops increasing.

Hope that clarifies the situation for some of the newcomers. If I've made any mistakes/errors/omissions, please feel free to correct/comment.

Bdemers, very nice explanation to folks, who just thought that the voltage incrementation is just Panasonic's goof to irritate users and ruin the plasmas. Hopefully this can stop the madness and we can return back to a reasonable discussion.

But the point you did not mention is that this voltage rise will not affect unusable black level on all panels, but probably only on some defective ones. It is yet to be investigated, what percentage it is.

If bdemers theory is true than it seems many of us may hit safe ground after a certain number of hours. So now I'm wondering if I should try clocking in more hours before the warranty expiration date? Regardless, I feel much better after reading his explanation.

That does a nice job explaining the process.

What remains my concern is from Panasonic's recent statement, where I derive nothing in terms of the company reassuring customers that the 2009 models will be corrected, especially if there is an overcompensation resulting in black levels higher than expected after stabilization.

Does all plasma technology incorporate some method of voltage regulation to the cells and a subsequent rise (albeit low) in black levels? Or is this a specific patent owned by Panasonic as hinted? If it is specific to Panasonic, maybe Samsung and LG have superior methods that might result in a more consistent picture display? When I get time, I'll search for that patent subject.

So, the process shouldn't cause that much of a rise in black levels. Sounds good, unfortunately Panasonic isn't making me feel too confident about purchasing a G10. All they can point to is the improvement in the 2010 panels, which I am not buying / waiting for.

Thanks for putting shedding some light on the subject for us newbies.

I tried to indicate in my post that the panel will NOT "catch up." At some point, the panel no longer ages at the same rate. If the panel reaches that point and the initialization voltage is too high, it will ALWAYS be too high.

Again, I'll repeat: If the voltage driver properly matches the changing needs of the cells, the black level should remain "good."

THIS IS NOT THE CASE. It appears Panasonic has not properly anticipated/tracked the needed voltage. They over-compensate and ensure that the cells at 0% are brighter than they need to be to function properly.

Disclaimer: I am not an expert on this issue, I've been reading here, trying to learn like the rest of us. I've tried to pull together this summary from the many experts here who have been generous enough to share their knowledge.

How are you people checking your hours of use?

EDIT: And is there any of you who simply haven't had the black levels double yet?

This is taken from the official S1 thread. I think it works for all 12g panels but not sure.

I have 4400 hours on my S1 and notice no change so if my black level did change it is not noticeable, to me anyway.