Official Panasonic TC-PxxVT20/25 Owners Thread NO PRICE TALK!! - Page 335

Hi Zapper, sorry for the confusion. What I meant was the Panny unit cost about that (now only 8K ^^) so I was saying perhaps it's safer to get both a Plasma and a LCD, plasma for movies and sports channel( logo stuff) for LCD.. And thanks for the assurance..

I live in Malaysia, where as I think in US the markets are more competitive, so you guys will get a better deal in terms of pricing and warranties.. About 8k will be something like 2.5k..

Hi all,

I got a 58VT25 last week. As i stated in a previous post, this is the second 2010 Panasonic plasma my wife and i have purchased in the last year. The first was a 54g25, which we got last July as a extended warranty replacement to a Sony Grand Wega TV. My wife absolutely loves the G25, we were talking about it today and she says its the best picture quality she has seen on any TV we have owned. A couple of observations when comparing the brand new 4 day old VT25 to the G25.

The VT25 is darker, plain and simple. The screen itself and picture is overall darker. If i use my exact same picture settings on the VT that i have and love on the G i notice the difference. Now is that due to the fact that the VT has a darker screen or because the VT is not broken in yet? Just something to think about. My sister in law has a 65VT25 and whenever i watched it in the past i noticed hers was darker also. So i've concluded that The PQ on the VT is outstanding, but just darker overall then the G series.

Secondly, one thing that i noticed with the G25 is the TV's picture quality definitely improved with age. I don't think its a situation as my eyes adjusting to the plasma, the G25's image sharpened quite a bit and got a lot better once the TV got some significant hours on it over 2 months of heavy use. I did not run slides to break in the G25, and i wont do it with the VT25 either. Both will be used the exact same way. THX for movies and CUSTOM mode for TV viewing. I find THX is too dark for regular TV or daytime viewing. Both sets are mounted on the wall in rooms with large windows and glare isnt an issue for me.

Blurays on the VT25 are noticeably better then on the G25. I noticed it within 5 minutes of playing my first bluray.

While i have seen IR on the G25 once in awhile, its never been an issue and goes away almost immediately with regular viewing. The biggest cause for IR on my G25 has always been the PS3's menu screens. The white lettering on the black background. The IR was worse when the set was new, but is no longer a big issue. My young son plays PS3 games all the time on my G25 with the set at the default THX settings and IR is not an issue. As long as the set is in THX mode I don't even worry about it. We try to limit his gaming time to 2 hrs or so but sometimes we forget about him and he gets 3 hours of Star Wars Lego. There are some static health meters in the games he plays, and its not a problem in THX mode. I wont use the new VT25 to game for at least a month or so. I will be careful with it at the beginning.

I have two questions. Does the dithering improve as the VT ages? Now i realize the 58VT25 is a larger panel then the 54G25. I don't remember seeing as much dithering on the G25 as i do on the VT25. I am sitting 10 feet from the set and its mounted 37 inches off the floor.

Does anyone here have their panel brightness set to HIGH? I would like people to comment on this, i really like the colors to pop against the deep blacks and the HIGH setting does it nicely on this set. Would this setting hurt anything at this stage of breaking in the set? My G25 has been in MID brightness from the beginning with no issues at all.

Thanks for any and all responses.

Mike

If you have issues with noise that you can hear at more than 1m from the screen, you should read how I solved the issue

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...4#post20273014

regards,

Dom

Hey all.

Just wanted to post a link that i found on I.R. / Burn In. It was written around this time last year. The author in the link intentionally tries to burn in a Samsung plasma and then later a Panasonic Viera V10 and G15. He basically put the set in torch mode (contrast 100 / brightness 100) and left his website's homepage on the screen for 1 hour and checked the results and waited to see how long it took to go away. Then he did the same thing for 8 hours and checked the results and waited again. I'll let you read what happens but the Panny's did very well even with a guy trying to intentionally damage the screen on his set. The Samsung not so well.

http://www.digitalversus.com/plasma-...ticle-730.html

I don't think you can do worse to a plasma then these guys do to these sets. I am not for a second suggesting that the people who have recently posted about burn in on their sets are full of crap. What i do think is these people are definitely exceptions to the rule. If you burn in your 2010 Panasonic by watching PTI a few times or having a Denon receiver menu on the screen for 25 minutes, then i truly believe the sets were defective to begin with. My kid just played Paradise City on the PS3 for 2 plus hours in THX mode. For the purpose of writing this post i immediately switched the set to a blank grey screen after he was done. There was minimal IR from the gameplay. There was IR of the outline of the static street sign on the top center of the screen plus a fairly large box in the right hand corner. I immediately ran the scrolling bar for 5 minutes which is something i never do. Once the 5 minutes was completed i switched back to the grey screen and the IR was completely gone, not a trace of it. I read back in these posts that some guy put his newer plasma (150 hours) at 90 contrast and played Killzone 2 for six hours straight or something and got a brutal case of IR or burn in. To me that's a complete lack of common sense and asking for issues. It should still go away eventually according to everything ive read but it could take a long time.

I recently went into my local TV dealer and was talking to the head manager in there. He has been in business for years and told me he has had more issues with people burning in LCD sets then he has plasma's. This store has been there forever and he said he has only permanently damaged one Panasonic plasma. A couple years ago he was running an HD loop with a static logo for basically 6 months in Vivid mode. The logo was permanently burned into the set. He told me his personal experience was plasma owners are more aware of IR and burn in, so they are generally more careful. LCD owners tend to think their sets are unburnable and abuse them with video games only to find out later that they can be burned in and damaged also.

After researching this issue to death and owning two plasmas, i feel comfortable concluding that unless your set is defective, common sense should prevent any permanent damage to your plasma. They should be tough to burn in with regular use unless defective. The million dollar question is how do you know if you have a defective panel before its burned in?

Cheers.

Mike

I'd lay off the shibby... and wouldn't go to that store ever again.
You can't burn a LCD, ever. It is physically impossible. (And you should know simply by checking that the windows' bar at the bottom of your lcd monitor is not there when you watch a movie or check the LCD of a World of Warcraft addict that spend over 10000 hours showing the same user interface).

Old cheap CCFL holders used to make LCDs look brownish in areas. Not a burn issue.
LCD panels may be defective and have darker stripes EXACTLY where a 4:3 image would end on both sides. Not a burn issue (and happens instantly, not gradually).
And I could keep going for a while with all the issues LCDs can have. I repair TVs for a living. I see more LCDs in a week than most will in a lifetime. You just can't.

Potx4> hi there, what you had said make sense. I had never read about LCD having a burn in issue..

Looks like it's a stalemate for me.. Plasma better PQ than LCD vs LCD having better reliability than plasma..

Oh well.. I will get to see both this weekend..

http://hdguru.com/lcd-hdtv-%E2%80%9C...retention/151/

Read the comments too.

Have a 65VT25 and occassionally, never on HD broadcasts, mostly during SD commercials or SD videos being broadcast during the news I get about a 1/4" high line of scattered white boxes above the SD picture. It's kind of hard to describe. Not always, not on same shows either. Sometimes they are completely static and don't move around and sometimes they change and bounce all over within this 1/4" high space.

I've also noticed on several occasions a solid white line, maybe 1/8th across going vertical up the far left side of the screen. Complete from top to bottom.
This happened only a few times.

It's almost like I need to adjust the old fasioned vertical and horizontal placement of the picture.

Could this be a panasonic issue or could it be something with my Dish DVR722?

Sorry, but we burned-in LCD monitor here at work,on a tool which left a menu bar at bottom, in less than one year of use. And it had a screensaver.
Has to do with pixels left in a partially twisted state for too long. Nothing at all to do with backlight or anything else. Damage was permanent and not reversible. It can happen.

This is a part of the incoming signal - can be teletext such as close captioning. Been around forever, but is usually zoomed off the display area on older TV's. Can be adjusted out at the consequence of losing picture accuracy, by adjusting Size 1 to Size 2, or vice versa.

Will drop your resolution from 1080 to somewhere south of 900. Also will get rainbow effects from the loss of 1 to 1 mapping.

I just swapped out my Samsung 58C590 for a 54VT25. A local electronics store went out of business and was liquidating their stock and I couldn't pass up the price. Like, a completely ridiculous price for a new in the box VT.

I just wanted to say...what the hell? Why didn't anyone tell me? I can't
believe the pq on this sucker. Some of the differences I've noticed:

OMG THE BUZZ IS GONE. Maybe it buzzes a bit but I can't confirm that from my couch. This may be the most substantial improvement. My Sammy buzzed like crazy.

The pop. Wow, things look quite a bit, I don't know, deeper I guess. Maybe due to the better blacks I suppose.

THX is my new best friend. I want to buy it dinner.

It's 4 inches smaller, but I sit only about 9 feet away so it kind of fits the room better. I liked the extra size but the 54 fits the decor a bit better. Not so overwhelming as this is a multipurpose room.

Line Bleed. Still a bit of line bleeding detectable on certain content (movie preview screen etc) but it's not as bad as it was on the samsung. I was hoping to be rid of it but it's just one of those things.

Also, the whites look a lot cleaner I think. Clear maybe. And those blacks. Loving it.

It's only been a couple of hours on the wall but man, part of my tax return well spent. Now just to sell the Sammy and the 3D glasses.

I think i read the Samsung 3D glasses will work on the VT25. You might want to try it before you sell them.

Mike

I've seen burned in LCD's. Look up "Image Persistence" I am not suggesting plasma's are less likely to burn in then LCD's, but you can damage an LCD set also. This store manager has no reason to lie to me, i wasn't buying a TV and he had a lot more LCD's in his shop then plasma's.

If you fix TV's for a living, do you repair a lot of plasma's? Which technology has better reliability from your experience? LCD or Plasma?

Thanks.

Mike.

I would be shocked!

I just pull the trigger and buy a brand new 54VT25. We were upgrading from a very good Toshiba DLP 10 years old HDTV and the difference was huge!

My 1st listening was UP Blu-ray: was absolutely magnificient in THX mode!

I tried some gaming with my PS3 (no more than 30 minutes in the same game to be sure I did not hit the TV so hard at this early stage).
- Uncharted 3 OMG!, my teen was completely amazed with those splendid graphics:
- Black Ops: I went 18-7 in my 1st online game, no lag at all, everything was fast and fluid and it seem that I can now play on par with the best players (no lag = faster responses time and better results)
- Rock Band 3 (only 3 songs because this kind of game have lot of static image) and try to callibrate my instrument and my lag was 3ms! With my last set it was around 55ms....

I know this set will have floating black with specific movie (saw some example on Youtube) but I can live with that issue... I prefered to live with floating black sometimes rather than have to deal with other issue of other brand (bad IR, horrible input lag, Buzzing)

Question: I notice game mode on this set have contrats set at 100, is it too high for this tv? Do I need to lower down this parameters to protect the set and, if yes, what is the max setting I should user for contrats?

Thanks!:

I wouldn't use the Game Mode for Gaming especially when the set is brand-new. I use THX Mode with calibrated* settings for XBOX 360 gaming. You can check out my settings on Page 333. Keep in mind I'm using D-Nice's Service Menu Offsets and also have Firmware 3.5 installed.


*Calibrated with the Disney WOW Blu-Ray

I am having an issue with 3D playback. My setup includes of a 50 inch VT25, Panasonic BDT-100 Blu-ray player and an Onkyo HT-S3300 1.4 receiver. I get some weird handshake issue during 3D playback. Whenever in the middle of watching a Blu-ray 3D disc there are these annoying intermittent drop outs for a split second where you can see digital snow. It all happens very quick, so quick in fact if you blink you will totally miss it. This happens about 3-4 times every 15 minutes. Its extremely annoying and I am very upset. This never happens during 2D playback such as if I am either watching the 2D version on the same disc or just a regular stand alone 2D Blu-ray disc. Anyone have any suggestions and/or tips to resolve this issue or am I basically screwed?

This tells you that HDMI sucks ballz and we're frickin' stuck with the p.o.s. format.

This could be due to a dodgy HDMI cable. Replace both the cables, to and from the AVR. The fact that it only does this with 3D suggests the cable does not allow enough bandwidth.

How far are you seated from TV. Should be no more than 10' for 3D glasses to work properly.

I thought that for a 50inches the optimum is around 10-12 feet?!! Sorry, newbie here. Just bought a ph50vt20 but i have not collected it.. It's still sitting at the store.. Am waiting for my new house for completion.. (>_<)

Cable problems can cause that kind of symptom. Are your cables Ultra-high-speed? You might try connecting the HDMI from the BDT-100 directly to the TV to rule out handshake problems involving the Onkyo. 3D Blu-ray needs "ultra high speed HDMI cables" for greater capacity in carrying twice the video information than was necessary for standard 1080P 2D Blu-ray.

If you find it is your cables, any Ultra-high-speed HDMI cable like: Mediabridge Ultra Series - High Speed HDMI Cable with Ethernet - Category 2 Certified - Supports 3D & Audio Return Channel [Latest HDMI Version Available] - (6 Feet) should work.

Paul

Sorry to hear the problem. I have seen lots of people post on here the same problem with Onkyo receivers. Some say that they have opened trouble reports with Panasonic and Onkyo technical service. They are trying to determine what the problem is.

I'm using the STR-DA5600ES from Sony and all is well!!

I think you should also take this up with Panasonic. The more that alert them to the problem, the more likely a solution. Let us know what happens.

I'm pretty sure the cable is good enough. I bought the HDMI cables from monoprice.com. These are the ones I bought...
http://www.monoprice.com/products/pr...seq=1&format=2
In the description it says its Cat certified and is capable of passing along 3D.


I am right around 8-10 feet away. I am sitting where I always have been sitting. The first Blu-ray 3D I watched after connecting everything to the Onkyo receiver worked fine, but now I am noticing issues.


The HDMI cables I bought are from Monoprice. I have the link above. I would think these would be good enough. I will try swapping out the HDMI cable and then I will connect it to a different HDMI port on the receiver and see if that helps.


Thanks for the information. I will report this to Panasonic if it still exists after swapping out cables and what not.

Dude, HDMI handshake problems are unavoidable, I have the same problem with my Denon AVR-2310ci, it's just the nature of the design. Panasonic won't be able to help you and so do all the various different HDMI cables. Maybe a different brand of receiver helps but to an extent and they'll always have their distinct little hiccups with HDMI.

I would connect the BDT-100 straight to the TV with HDMI and use the optical audio out straight to the receiver.

Btw, I also have the Monoprice HDMI cables and have no problems with them (same TV/Blu-Ray player)... it's not the cables unless they are physically damaged or longer than 6 ft. The problem seems to be with the receiver's (in)ability to properly pass the 3D signal.

Optical TOSLINK cable from Monoprice

I am using Monoprice cables (the one from my receiver to TV is 15 ft.), a PS3 for 3D Blu-Ray, and a Marantz sr7005, and I've had ZERO handshake/dropping issues with any content including 3D.