Panasonic 11G/12G/13G black levels have seemingly doubled overnight? - Page 278

It doesn't work Simon.

Pretty much looks like Im going to give a sony 60ex500 a shot. Bigger better black than the v5100 and the pansonic g10. Got a review measuring .08-.01 on it.
Also have people that own em saying better black than the v5100 and that is fine by me as that is a .009-.01.

for the record I believe pendragon is looking at the same set

I will not give panny more money, not for a phone, not for a bluray, not for a shaver, and certainly not for a tv.

I dont care if they make the holy grail of sets.

Thanks for the info Sonic,

By co-incidence i had d/loaded the 2007 (10th gen) and 2008 (11th gen) service manuals last night from a different source (Scribd), to have a look at anything interesting they may contain, hadn't looked at them until now.
I didn't realise that the various service processes for 2008 models would hold true for 2009/2010 models as well.

I'll give this backup to SD card a go, can't do any harm.

Does anyone have the Panasonic service manuals for 2009 (12gen) or 2010 (13gen) models? I would be very interested in having a good look at those as well.

Cheers, Mark.

(board replace backup to SD card)

Well... there goes another theory.
I'll keep looking.
Cheers, Mark.

Just to be clear, you were keeping your hours very low and the blacks still rose? Or you forgot to reset it and let too much time pass, and the blacks increased that way?

I've used the pluge patterns from Avia on both of them, so I am pretty confident that they are not crushing black. THey did end up with the same settings strangely enough for contrast and brightness. I t has been a while since I checked them though. And I definitely don;t expect mil spec toleraances, but the difference between them is hardly that small either. THough neither is really an issue for me at this point due to what I use these TVs for.

and own one of the affected plasma displays, please message me. I'm trying to gather some information regarding the black level problem. Thanks.

A couple of years back, one eagle-eyed member on this board noticed that approximately 8 minutes of "Pirates of the Caribbean" was misframed on the Blu-ray release. This news spread very quickly to other boards, and a little known company called Disney repressed the title and set up a trade-in program for defective copies already in the field. I know there is a world of difference between a little piece of plastic and a 4k plasma television, but the principle is the same. The point I am making is that, even though the problem was only acknowledged as such by a tiny minority of the AV consumer public (and that 99.9% of J6P did not even notice), a little PR pressure can go a long way. I have been thinking more about the THX facet of the black-level issue (and the fact that, although they do not advertise MLLs directly, they do quote contrast ratio… which is adversely affected). It may do no good, but I have penned the following letter to the general manager of THX concerning the issue, putting it in terms of their credibility in light of Panasonic's "it's a feature, not a bug" approach. I would suggest that everyone with an issue do the same, and maybe the heat will be turned up just a bit.

I just bought my 65V10, for $3700 (the best price I could get locally – I cannot barter worth a $@#^% - and I did not want to go online). It is less than a month old, and you could count the number of hours on it on your hands. Needless to say that I have not seen any problem yet (I just watched "Armageddon" last night, and was very pleased with the blacks). I did, however, call my credit card company this morning, and established that, should the MLL rise sharply after 300 hours (or whatever… there seems to be a wide range of numbers reported here and elsewhere), I can contest the charge based on quality issues. All I need is a second opinion, which I can get from a local calibrator after he takes a quantitative MLL measurement, and verifies the rise. The credit card would then go after Ultimate Electronics, and then Ultimate Electronics would have to go after Panasonic. The fact that Panny does not consider this a warranty issue is not a factor at this point. Anybody who bought their set on plastic might want to look into this.

Anyway, here is the letter. I have not sent it yet, so if anybody has any suggestions, please chime in.

THX
1600 Los Gamos Dr.
RE: xxxxxxxx, General Manager
San Rafael, CA 94903

Dear Mr. xxxxxxxx,

Although I imagine that you are receiving a lot of these types of comments, I felt it necessary to add my voice to the cacophony. I recently purchased a Panasonic TC-P65V10 plasma TV, largely on the basis of its THX certification. This is my first plasma, and I chose it carefully due to both the reviews I had read, as well as the great black levels plasmas are known for. This, in addition to the extremely strict THX standards, I equated to a fantastic picture for several years to come. Then I found out about the rising black level problem being quantitatively measured in mature Panasonic plasmas (both 2009 and 2010 models - which now bring floating blacks to the party). In many cases, this has been observed to double or even triple the MLL output (and correspondingly decrease the contrast ratio) in just several hundred hours: the time it takes a plasma to just be comfortably broken in. I am hard pressed to believe that the THX standards are so slack as to allow for this significant of a change in picture quality, and still remain within THX specifications. Many owners of Panasonics, like me, view this as a “bait-and-switch”, where Panasonic promised one thing (which they did deliver on… out of the box), then change the specs drastically from those advertised within a few hundred hours use. The reputation of THX as being uncompromising is now being questioned, as is the value of being THX certified. Some are saying that the “THX Certified” stamp should include an expiration date, as Panasonic is also stating that the advertised specs are only accurate when the unit is new. While I do not agree with this point-of-view, I find that I am uncertain how much weight I should advise others to place in THX certification. It is my hope that you are investigating this issue further. Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter.

Excellent letter. I'd like to hear the THX response to that.

Outstanding.

If and when you receive a reply, perhaps you could post it under a new thread like "THX Replies Re: "Panasonic Black Level Changes" so it can be seen easily, as well as on the currently very looooong thread.

Second that - great letter

Right to the point, +10 on the letter.

Yes, but post a link to the thread here as well.

Thanks, guys! I just dropped it in the mail. We'll see...

Not getting an answer in the regular V10 thread and I know everybody here is tracking their hours, so....

My hour count in the SM was lower than 10 days ago.
Anybody seen this before?

On April 17th the timer read: 890/296 on April 27th it was 870/310
What's with the hour timer going backwards by 20 hours???

Very odd.

hey i am looking at a panny at london drugs in canada and it has 3600 hours on it the sale price was 1900 new and i can get the demo for 1300 plus tax which seems to be a great deal watch some bluray on it and it looks good but am wary of a demo what do you think ps i had a samsung 50 850 but returned it due to buzzing

Even 3 minutes of PS3 produces ghost images. Movie subtitles produce ghosting around the title area. Blacks now look greyish. This started 2-3 days ago. I came to AVS looking for an answer and I think I found it. Next stop, Panasonic. unfortunately I am past the warranty now.

I am getting on 3000+ on my set. I had been wondering if the aging of the pixels would catch up to the voltage adjustment settle back down the black level. This is actually what panasonics issued statement leads me to believe will happen. If that is going to happen at 3-5k I would be pretty happy actually. If it was gonna take till like 10-15k or more well or not at all...sigh. I guess only time will tell.

While I wait and decide what set to replace it with I guess all I can do is hope

I purchased a 50V10 about two weeks ago from Best Buy. Couldn't pass up the deal at 1350 floor model... Now I could live with a minor burn in issues that the TV had since the knuckleheads left the blueray main menu up for a while. I know that even pretty bad burn in will go away in time. And that's the case, I notice less burn in now after just under two weeks of ownership.

Now, I did notice one striking issue with the set and that is the pretty lackluter black levels. The fact that the it has poorer black levels then the 25 year old RCA 27" that it replaced is pretty sad.

I checked the service menu and found the TV had just over 2,000 hours of use. I've heard a few ideas on how to change this back to "0" hours and that maybe fixing the black level issues???

I might simply return it for a 46" Toshiba LED TV that they have on clearence for a darn good price. I'd just hate doing that though as this was THE TV I've had my eye on for a loooong time now. I'm just saddend that the TV is affected by the now gray black levels
...at least I got the extended warrenty

Panasonic prpomises 50% brightness loose in 100 000 hours. Now we have tripled MLLs . If you wait for natural panel diming - you will be waiting long time. 300% will halve at 100 000 hours and you have 150% bl fom initial at that time. I would not be any optimistic there.

What did you expect from the floor model? I am surprised that they will allow you to return it. You could have got a brand new S1 model for the same price you paid for a used V series. The burn in period makes no difference, I have a 58s1 with around 1200 hours and there is a slight black level rise. Build date is Nov 2009, so I am guessing Panasonic caught the problem and adjusted it so it wasn't so extreme as the G series or V series early 2009 models.

Return it and buy a new model, why waste your time with the floor model? Doesn't make any sense.

The main reason I got it was because it was the only plasma in my price range that could do 96hz on 24p content. 48hz looks HORRID. And as you may know that's the only mode that the 50g20 has

Whats sad is that 99.9% of all televisions available now will have poorer black levels than your 25 year old tv.

I have a Kuro and a G15, and both of them have incredible BL's, and much better than any other TV I've seen......and I've owned some good CRT TV's from the mid 70's on (and a Toshiba LED HDTV). That's got to make me wonder if some of these G10/G15's are just plain defective.

Black level on the V10 can be improved by the sets adjustments/settings. See the V10 settings thread. I have a 54V10 with 2500 to 3000 hours and the blacks are excellent. Much better than my Toshiba CRT that resides in my garage.

Maybe true, (the best CRT's could do close to a true black), but in about every other measure any decent new set will blow away that 25 year old model..plus they are way bigger, and cost the same or less when adjusted for inflation. I sure as heck don't want my 1994 RCA 25 inch set back that I paid about $700.00 for.

Hi,
over weeks ago i take some pictures with the same preferences (dark room, ISO100, 1sec exposure, same tv settings ect, more infos
you can see in the EXIF Infos).


Date: 11.02.2010

Date: 19.02.2010

Date: 14.03.2010

Date: 25.03.2010

Date: 03.04.2010

Date: 17.04.2010

Date: 01.05.2010
Picture: 1

Date: 01.05.2010
Picture: 2

My TV (42S10E-EU Version) never shows a black screen and i cant see a great difference about my first picture from the 11.02.2010
and the Picture: 1 from the 01.05.2010.
Yesterday i take a deep black paper and put it on the frontglass of the TV to compare the black in it and now you can see how grey
the picture really is. This comparison is picture 1+2 from the 01.05.2010.
Some in my forum say that they can see a massiv difference about the screens (Date: 11.02.2010 to 01.05.2010/Picture 1),
for example when they show them over an CRT. I cant see that and have no CRT at my home not anymore.
Can you see a massiv rising here?

Here are the EXIF information about the pictures:



Yesterday there was StarTrek day in TV (DVB-T -> SD television) an there i take another comparison with the black bars and
the black paper on the front. Here you can see the differences:
Date: 01.05.2010
Picture: 3

Date: 01.05.2010
Picture: 4

When i look HD stuff on my tv the bars are grey too.

No, none at all.
There is no discernible difference between those two dates (11/02 - 01/05).

Keep in mind that these mll rises aren't subtle. You won't have to get the camera/meter out to confirm it, you will spot it with your eyes when it happens.

The black card only confirms what you already know. These TVs are never absolute black, even when new. How many hours on the TV?

I've been a lawyer for 18 years and I can tell you that joining a class action lawsuit will not solve this problem. In fact, it will probably cause the problem to be fixed in concrete for us to live with forever. Here's why:

Class action lawyers are not paid based on the outcome they achieve for their clients. In fact, whether they get a poor outcome or a great outcome, they are paid the same! The reason for this is that they are not paid by a percentage of what they recover. They are paid for the hours they work on the case, multiplied by a factor of between approximately 0.8 and 2.0 depending on the risk undertaken by the lawyers and the public benefit to the case.

This is how it typically works, applied to the issue at hand: an enterprising law firm spots this issue as a potential class action. They look into it. They talk to their experts. If they decide it has merit, they find one or more well-suited plaintiffs. In this case, the plantiffs would be purchasers who have not violated the warranties on their sets and who have experienced a significant jump in black level. Then they put several lawyers hard at work on the case and contact all purchasers of these models regardless of their black levels to invite them to be part of the class. They fight with Panasonic tooth-and-nail and run up their fees. Then they reach a settlement with Panasonic on behalf of all the class members. Would this settlement be the replacement of the panels with a new panel? Or maybe the refund of the customers' money? Gosh no. It would be a coupon for $100 or $150 for the customers to use in purchasing new Panasonic products. Or maybe a refund of $100 or $150 if the lawyers were really good. Whatever...it doesn't matter because the lawyers still get paid! All they have to do is have the court approve the settlement which includes their attorneys' fees -- and is often more money going to the attorneys than all the class members together, especially since only some class members actually take advantage of the settlement offer.

So a class action here will let Panasonic off the hook without ever solving our problem! Be warned! Before you join a class action, have the attorneys demonstrate the settlements they have achieved which actually resulted in 100% money back or a replacement for a new item! I'd be very surprised if they could satisfy you with their answer if they were truthful and you were persistent and penetrating with your questioning.

Personally, I believe that the best way to get results is to give Panasonic a massive PR black eye. I have been considering several possibilities to do just that, including alerting the local media to this problem. Each of the local news stations here has a consumer hotline, and if they deem the story of legitimate concern, they will cover the story on the evening news. I would be willing to bet that most other local news stations have something similar. There are even more consumer watchdogs on the radio (including some that have national coverage via syndication). Just a thought.