The Official 2010 Panasonic Settings/Issues Thread - Page 4

I think I can clarify some of this - having just gone through the break-in and SM offsets myself.

The "Photo" mode is only available when viewing photos (e.g. from an SD card). Go to Menu > Picture > Picture Mode while viewing your slideshow and "Photo" is one of the options. (You can then adjust the settings as per D-Nice's post.)

These service menu settings are "offsets" - meaning that they are adjustments from your factory default settings. As I understand it, each set gets "calibrated" at the factory so the settings on one G25 could be different from the settings on another. Very important - be sure to write down your original factory settings before applying any offsets. If you mess up, the "factory reset" option does NOT restore these values. The numbers in D-Nice's post are the number of times (up or down) to hit the vol+ or vol- button to apply the offsets.

You will need to apply the offsets once with an HD source and then again with an SD source. Select the picture mode 'Cinema' (THX) and the color temp Warm. (This applies to the Warm1 and Warm2 options on the G20/25.) Once you apply the offsets in the to HD/Cinema/Warm those offsets will carry over (and therefore do not need to be reentered) to the HD/Custom/Warm settings. (The same applies to the SD settings.)

I've been using the THX mode for night/dark room viewing and the Custom mode for day time/bright room viewing.

Hope this helps.

Yes it does! Thank you. I am sure other will find this response very helpful.

After reading you post, and some comment in last year thread and this thread. I completely understand the procedure now. my level of understand with calibration has increased greatly also. Thanks everyone for the informative post.

D-Nice, your information has been extremely helpful and educating,

Heads up guys:

I purchased a g20 from Best Buy on March 6th. I also purchased their new Panasonic Blue Ray player. The THX setting mode out of the box is gorgeous. But wait, there's more.. The first blue ray I viewed was the Matrix, 10th Anniversary Edition. I loved this G20 until I saw the gamma levels change 4 times during the scene when Trinity rolls down the stairway and aims her guns up at the window. I also noticed the same "lightening and darkening" of the screen while watching a scene from Pirates 3 between Keira and Orlando, set on the ship at night. I rewind and watch it over again and can see it every time. This drives me nuts.

What's frustrating is that the gamma/brightness shift is not simultaneous with the scene changing: the set takes a moment to adjust to the frame in the movie. A darker scene in the movie with more blacks causes the set to adjust and the blacks become "darker" a few moments later. It is so obvious that I am not able to watch blue rays in the dark at this time, and I'm even considering returning the set. Call me picky, fine. But I'm not happy about this issue. After tinkering, I realized that the shift is less evident when the set is watched on the "dark" setting found in the advanced menu. Also, on the "custom mode" set up, I can set the gamma to 2.6 on the pro menu and eliminate the problem. The downside with both these settings is I lose all grays and contrasts, unless I raise brightness to something like 100. Is this called crushing of blacks? Either way, it's pissing me off. I've been on the phone with Panasonic for several hours now 3 times. I know more about the problem than their techs, and I'm a novice. I've even inquired about whether "infinite black pro" will eliminate this issue. No one I've spoken with even knows the difference between infinite black and infinite black pro. Lovely.

My question: Is there any way to fix or lesson this change? The poster known as D-Nice seems incredibly knowledgeable, but I'm not even sure how to ask this question the right way, as I do not know enough about these issues. It seems this is the nature of the beast. What alternatives are there? Can anyone please help? I'm now seeing something earlier in the other thread by D-Nice about setting the brightness at 59 in THX mode. But I haven't run all these 100 hour set up slides, or done any changes to sub menus. I don't feel confident enough in myself to even try. I have no point of reference for what I would need to set my brightness at in this case.

-Picky guy in CA

Jeff: this must be the D-Nice quote you are talking about.

"The brightness control on these panels is interesting. If you set them to what a pluge pattern says it should be at, black levels can, and will, float with content. Did you make a compromise on the G25? I know my brightness settings is a compromise as the correct value should be 62 in THX mode (set with a Accupel 4000 and verified with AVS709 and S&M). 59 with my settings stops the floating blacks and minimizes the black crush between the 0 and 4% stimuli levels."


so in THX mode the blacks float with content when the brightness level is 60 or above?

The D-Nice THX reference setting for brightness is 56.... but 59 is closer to the correct value of 62 in THX mode.

I am wondering if I should return my new Viera S2.

I got it home, set it up, made sure it worked, and loaded up the break-in slides at the proper settings.

Later that day I noticed that when the blue slides were up, there was a strange 'bulge' in part of the screen. Hard to describe, but the dithering was creating a visual effect on a 6" x 6" part of the screen. It was driving me kinda nutty, because what should have been a perfect blue field was definitely not.

I switched to the anti-IR scroll bar and discovered a few wierd things. There are numerous light and dark spots, about the size of a dime, at almost equal intervals around the edge. One in each corner, and one in the middle of the top and middle of the bottom of the screen. In the place where I noticed the 'bulge', there is a red spot. Not clearly defined, more like someone was shining a weak red light on that part of the screen.

I ran the IR sweep 4 times and noticed no change in any of these artifacts. I checked the service menu and the set is brand new, only been alive for the 10 hours or so that I had it. Should I take it back to BB? Even with all the break in so far, as well as an hour+ anti-IR, there is no change in these artifacts, and the color splotch is now more noticable on other slides, but I think that's just because I know where to look.

I returned the S2 today and confirmed with the store tech that the panel in this S2 was indeed defective. It took them a minute to see the red spot but once they did there was no question. The also echoed my comment that the white and dark spots were oddly bright and dark respectively, and were suprised that they were not affected by the anti-IR.

I decided to go for the G20 on the exchange. So far, just based on the crispness of the menus, the higher quality is evident. I did a check with some additional test frames and the anti-IR to confirm the panel is good, and the break-in frames are already running.

Question: I'm running the break-in frames through the G20 USB port. I am leaving town for this weekend and would like to leave it going while gone. Is there any real chance of the TV/USB crashing for the 48 hours or so I won't be here? I understand the basic risk, but in my mind the TV probably isn't going to crash or decide to freeze on an image. (Batteries will be removed from remote before leaving.)

Thanks again to the great folks here. Just as informative as 5-6 years ago with my last TV purchase.

Just make sure the 'screen saver' or watever is disable. not sure how to do it but you want to make sure the slides are running. I personal would wait until im with the TV. Even though being gone is a perfect opportunity.

FYI - The screensaver came on for me only once. I never actually turned it off. It just hasn't come on since that first time for whatever reason. My tv has been running the slides for almost 48 hours straight with no problems after that little screen saver incident. I'd say you're ok.

Seems like it only comes on during idle screens. makes sense.

Hey guys,

Can somebody please remind me how to enter a Panasonic service menu and check the hours?

I want to verify I'm past 100 on the new VT20 before moving on to increased settings.

Thank you.

here ya go.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...1128487&page=7

Look at LeM22 post, it should be the same for this years models.

The reading is a bit different between the 2009 and 2010 models for the time. For the 2010 G20 you take whatever the counter, before the colon, and divide that number by 256. For some reason Panasonic decided to make it so that the counter goes up by 256/hr instead of just counting the actual number of hours.

I don't believe my screen was idle when it came on the first time. Of course, I wasn't watching at that moment, but the break in slides should have been running from the SD card.

IceCold1906 and KiDFuZioN,

Thanks for the information guys. I'm at 122 hours. About time to start turning up the settings and see what this thing can really do!

Ahh thanks for the info!

Hey are DNice's G20/25 reference settings optimized for the "floating blacks"?

This post covers your question. It's helpful to read the whole thread rather than skip to the end

I tried, and they still occured.

Nevermind!

I am afraid to go into the service menus. Is there a chance i could ruin my TV? I looked at all the buttons you have to press to get to it. I just want to see if i can get rid of my floating blacks becasue i used all of the calibration info, but i want to try the service menu as well

Just copy down your default service menu settings in case you mess something up.

There is nothing in the service menu that will help with that issue.

Larry

All i wanted to know...thanks...if i turn my brightness down to 20 it somewhat goes away..but i am not watching movies like this

I did a quick break in my break-in to watch some videos last night. Running through the essentials tuning for a quick setup before I started, I did notice the floating blacks while watching, but D-Nice's recommendation cleared it up amazingly well.

Then it was back to the break-in slides after doing a anti-IR sweep. I know it's not recommended to show anything else, but I had to get a feel for the black level and I did have it zoomed so there were no bars. Now that I'm about to leave town, it will have the next 60+ hours no interuptions.

That little taste sure looked great. The black level on this G20 is better than the G20 I returned, and equal to the S2 I returned, but oddly not the first S2 I returned. I don't have a meter, just some good eyes and the shared opinions of others, not all these Viera's are equal. This is my 4th Viera in 3 weeks and I'm happy to say I am keeping this one, but they were not all equal.

First S2 - Seemed to have a great black level and very uniform phosphors when viewing the anti-IR sweep. The only reason I returned it was I wanted to try the G20 thinking it would have a drastically better black level.

First G20 - Instantly annoyingly higher black level but very uniform look in Anti-IR sweep. Even after break-in the black level was just too much, and had a gray look to it that drove me nuts. Returned after a week of being annoyed whenever I looked at the TV.

Second S2 - Good black level, but not quite as good as the first S2. Horrible view in anti-IR sweep, hard bright and dark spots as well as a large redish area capable of being seen in break-in slides if you knew where to look. Didn't even keep this one long enough to break-in and the guy at the store agreed it was defective.

Second G20 - Black level seems lower than first G20, more on par with the second S2. No wierd colors in the anti-IR and break-in has been going for 30 hours with one full screen content break to appraise black level. Did not experience annoyance with black level like I did with first G20.

I know I don't have a meter, so these are just opinions. I do have a pitch-black viewing enviorment even during the day. This TV will probably never see the sun.

Lucky you. Dont know why mine still sucks and i followed the same set of rules.


4 in 3 weeks?

It's the only reason I go to best buy for certain things. 30 days exchange and no re-stocking fee on TVs makes it easy to get the one you want. I went through a similar process with my KV-HS420 several years ago.

You might have got a bad set. The second S2 I had was definitely defective, and I think the first G20 I got was defective compared to the current one I have. No complaints this time.

Nvm

Maybe i did, but its too small of an issue to justify bringing it back and having to deal with the first 100 hours again...and again...and again. Becasue in the end you can always find a slight defect in your TV if you are picky...i am not about to go through 3 TV's just becasue i think a pixel looks bad or maybe my floating blacks are just a tad worse.

I'm going to be doing this later today, so I'm setting up everything I have to do.

After I adjust the offsets in Cinema/Mode in the SM, do i need to switch cinema to Custom and adjust those offsets as well while still being on the definition signal? There's no reason to adjust any other 'temperature' setting besides Warm2 on my G20, right?

Thanks

EDIT: Also, I wasn't able to change color temp to Warm2. The only options were Cool, Norm, and Warm. I assume Warm applies the SM settings to Warm2 as well?

If you didn't use the service menu setting, did you did not use D-Nice calibration.