Panasonic 11G/12G/13G black levels have seemingly doubled overnight? - Page 115

I got a new 65S1. With 4 hours of usage, the black level was measured at 0.005 ftL with an i1LT. That's right in line with what D-nice said about 58 and 65" panels. I will not run the break-in slides this time. Will check the number time to time. My 400 hrs old 54S1 has been at 0.014 ftL since about 200 hrs old when I got the meter. I'm guessing it started at sub 0.010 level too. I do find it interesting that the severe black/IR problem seems relatively infrequent among s1 owners.

Perhaps, just maybe, that after many hours, we get our blacks back. One poster who had over 1,000 hours, who had the grey blacks, said one day, his blacks became darker again. He had well over 1,000 hours if I recall.

That could be good (pressure from BB). The general problem with huge retailers is that they frequently put price point requirements on their suppliers to begin with. That forces the supplier to skimp a bit on all of design, production and quality control to contain costs and turn an acceptable supplier profit. (I'm aware of several instances of this, for example, with regard to Home Depot distributed name brands.)

I'm still inclined to rely on theoretically unbiased consumer research and mainstream news outlets for real business pressure.

Other people have reported experiencing the problem with their S1 units.

So you don't think people posting on Toyota enthusiast forums caused more people to file complaints with the government, which made Toyota, after at least 3 years of putting this off, finally admit there's something wrong?

Yes, this plasma problem won't kill you. But according to Toyota, for the last 3 years, their problem wasn't a problem either. It sure seems to be now though once the media started to run with it.

Maybe this plasma issue will see something similar if enough people read here AND complain.

I own an S1, and I THINK I have have the issue. I don't have any measuring equipment, so I can't rule out the possibility that this is in my head. I'm not going to lie that maybe this is in my head. It seems like I'm the only one with an S1 who has this problem. It seems to be much more prevalent with the G10 models, and maybe the V10. The G10 models seem to have the most problems overall.

Those of you who have an inconsistent infinite black feature are probably experiencing the same issue that I am. Black-levels during the first 30 minutes to an hour on the set are poor, but as the set continues to heat up, the black-levels deepens and looks as good as it did when I first purchased the set.

Infinite Black works only whenever my set is in its "good black" stage.

So, yeah...the next time I have friends over for a movie night, I'll be sure to let my set "warm up" for an hour beforehand.

I've decided just to wait until I rack up several hundred more hours and see how things look then - especially since I'm only at 600ish. If Panasonic doesn't provide a firmware and nothing stabilizes at an acceptable level, I'll most likely exercise my service plan with Best Buy just to see if I'm able to get anywhere.

In other words the damn thing is malfunctioning in an erratic manner. No thanks. That fits my description of expensive gold-plated crap!

They won't come completely back. They are in between. There seems to be a real bad patch between like 300 to 900 hours, or this could just be my tv.

Exactly, it is completely unacceptable, but what can we do at this point? If we plan on keeping our sets, which I haven't decided yet, we have to hope for the best.

Maybe the blacks will return. However, what I read in Panasonic's response is, after a certain number of hours, the panel will not require the extra voltage to fire. So at some point, your panel will not become worse that it is at that particular time. No where do I read that it will return to black or get any better. Simply won't get any worse.

Panasonic has lost one loyal customer and all of the customers that have been steered their way by people like me who have believed in their product and value for years.

One thing I noticed is that neither Frys nor BB in my area has any S1/G10/V10 models on the floor (for long long time) except for 58 and 65" v10's in the BB Magnolia. It seemed like someone doesn't want to put them on displays for some reason. Maybe it has to do the heavy green push and possible black rise.

Something tells me you will not be on your own in jumping the Panasonic ship, this has been handled very poorly indeed. I'm guessing the number crunchers at Panasonic are calling the shots due to the cost of implementing a fix. Hope they factor in people like yourself! personally I feel it will cost the brand a fortune & could take years to regain trust

LOL!!!, good one!

I just want to add a little perspective on those that are ready to jump ship to Samsung. I had to take my Hitachi in for repair and the gentleman working there said that many of the Samsungs are dead out of the box, and he repairs a lot of them. My brothers' friend got a big phat 58" around Christmas and I could here the buzz that is often talked about. I don't know about everyone else, but that would grind on my nerves fast. My old PS3 60GIG constantly fires up the fans when, and when I'm trying to listen to something at a low volume it ruins the experience. There are also sites dedicating to documenting all of the problems with Samsung TVs.

I was thinking off-hand that maybe it would be good to take a very hard informal survey, separating into those that can measure with a light meter, and hours, then a standardized settings and a given still of a certain scene in a movie; called it the "Dark Knight Shot", that would visually provide proof of the problem. In there somewhere can be the person that says they notice the difference; but you have to understand that that is simple a matter of opinion and really not measurable, and that won't be enough to get a lot of TV's fixed, hard data will. I don't have this problem, but we're all in this together and I wouldn't wish for anyone to pay $1000-$3500 on something that performs for 1-6 months before being no better than their previous model.

Maybe they don't have many in stock. Or maybe it is because they are using them in the calibration demo like mine does.

Best buy claiming to have problems is like a hooker calling someone a slut.

Another thing to keep in perspective, if you were a huge company, would you want to readily admit before the Super Bowl(today) that you have faulty sets out there; Hell No!! That's damage control and their trying to minimize it during a potential huge buying time; hopefully they'll come down to Earth after the super bowl and before their new models come out, because if they don't, that would be a grave decision on their part.

Just throwing this out there...is it possible that those who ran break-in slides with Contrast at 100 have aged their panels quicker and THAT is the reason the black levels are rising prematurely?

There is so much discrepancy between the number of hours and when black level rise is noticed that perhaps the rise is not based on time but rather something internal that senses how "aged" the phosphors are?

Any thoughts?

Oh boy, Scott Wilkinson editor of UltimateAV and Home Theater mag just talked about this Panasonic problem on Leo Laporte's Tech show minutes ago. He described the issue and is proposing a test with Panasonic to get to the bottom of the issue. I doubt the company will participate though.

This is seriously snowballing.

What sort of test did he propose?

audio or video to it?

Also the Winter Olympics are just around the corner. Lots of people, especially women, love to watch the Ice Skating and Ice Dancing events.

However; if that was their thinking, then they should have just left their original response: "we are looking into it" hang out there, instead of saying that the power acceleration was set too aggressively, and now saying that the case is closed, and we are not going to do anything about it.

It's crazy how a panel's greatest strength can become it's greatest weakness. That's like saying color accuracy gets less accurate on a Samsung plasma over time. LOL

For both consumer AND Panasonic's sake, I hope they do get to the bottom of this. Until they come out with a fix or quantify the expected MLL rise clearly so perspective buyers know what to expect, every 11G/12G and 13G panel reviews should have a HUGE asterisk. Like Cnet's DK said, a reviewer simply cannot properly access the Panny plasma TV performance currently knowing the black level will likely rise substantially by unknown margin only after 100 or 1000 hrs.

Agreed. Huge buying time...

It will be interesting to see if:

a) The voltages or a change can EVEN BE implimented through firmware

b) The problem is really reduced in the 2010 models. It just sounds like the voltage increases are made in smaller doses and more often... so the change simply isn't as noticable each time it happens... but the net effect is the same at a given hours of "system-on" time.

Yeah, either way, whoever is in their PR office might be getting his packing papers.

If I was a reviewer & found out that the sets were set up optimally in a period where a review would occur & no where else I'd be ticked. What needs to happen with tv's is long term evaluations like some reviewers do with cars. It would help limit cherry picking for good reviews.

I hope the proposed test can get to the bottom of this. I'm curious what it is too.

Camster,

have you tried leaving/using your set on for an hour or so then trying the IB test? My unit passed the IB test after an hour of use(warmed up), prior to this I only tried the IB test on power up of the unit(cold state) in which it didn't work.

No I haven't yet but I will. I'm pretty sure my set was on for a while when I did it but I'm not sure. I'll do it in the dark & report back.

Shouldn't it be the opposite? The way I understand it is that panny increases the voltage in anticipation of plasma cells aging. So if the panel becomes lighter wouldn't it be because the increased voltage happened too soon and that the plasma cell hasn't "deteriorated" enough? So I would think that people who aged their panels quicker would actually be less affected by the increased voltage?

how exactly would he test the issue though?

he would have to pick up a set from someone who is known to have severe changes to their black levels.

It's entirely unproven if all sets are affected the same. Perhaps some panels/hardware are being affected more drastically than others in terms of the voltage changes.

That's what I don't get with Panasonic. They aren't even open to the idea that a small number of sets may be behaving incorrectly. And now forum members are being stonewalled by the CSRs with that same CNET reply. I feel really bad for people who are legitimately affected as that reply to CNET only made this issue more difficult to get resolved.