Official Panasonic TC-PxxVT20/25 Owners Thread NO PRICE TALK!! - Page 4

Approaching 72 hours of continuos non-stop operation of the VT20. No significant heat coming from the back of set. The entire back panel is cool to the touch. No signs of buzzing, popping or any other noises. Back again soon...

Are you seeing flicker on Blu-ray with the 96Hz setting?

The reason why I ask is because if you are seeing it on your broadcast system (Sky, Cable or whatever is equivalent in the US), this will be at 60Hz (ie NTSC) and this will be seen as 60Hz on the screen which quite a few people can see as flickering.

With my Pioneer plasma, I can see 60Hz flicker on US region 1 DVDs. Fortunately, the Pioneer has cadence detection which outputs these at 72Hz when enabled in the advanced menu. After this is done I can no longer see flicker and I am very sensitive to it.

What a brilliant thread by the way

The only way to get rid of lag is to play 1080p games on a 1080p set. This wont be a problem next Gen as the Wii2, PS4 and next Xbox will be pumping out 1080p games as the standard....The Wii2 better not skimp out and go 720p or I'll be very dissapointed as I'm a huge Nintendo nut

As for now, concerning HD owners who have 1024x768, 1366x768 and 1080p displays have to deal with it. Most PS3 and 360 games are 720p, while a few are actually 1080p. It really irks me that they don't make 1280x720 Plasma's...or any HDTV for that matter besides those aceint DLP sets. Anyways, Virtua Tennis 3 and Super Street Fighter II HD Remix are both 1080p for ex, and i suggest you 1080p HDTV owners give them a try and see for yourself if there's actually any lag, because there shouldn't be any. VT3 is downloadable online for the PS3, which is nice just so you can get a taste of what a 1080p game look like besides the 1080p dashboard, and 720p games being upscaled/blown up to fit 1080p

Unfortunately, modern display lag is primarily as result of general video processing, not scaling. This means that 1080p can easily lag 50, 80, or 100+ ms (as evidenced in a number of recent tests). TV's are actually getting slower and slower with each passing model year, so who knows where we'll be by the next round of consoles.

I talked to a sales rep who was at the Chicago Panasonic event today. Nothing too new to report but they're were told that the 65 inch will be mid - late May. That seems to fall in line with the other B&M report from earlier about 6/11.

It would be disappointing to hear that lag sucks on these sets.

-Nick

THE DREADED BLACK LEVEL INCREASE...

OK so I've ben interested in this TV but have been weary about the black level issues. Went to the local Magnolia and was greeted by a guy that looked a lot like "The Situation" from MTVs Jersey Shore. It was really tough to take this guy seriously given the way he looked, but I digress. So I asked him about the VT20 and he said it was good but I should wait till the 25 comes out since the 20 is an entry level TV. I thought about reminding him that the "V" is there to designate their flagship models but I bit my tongue... I asked him about the differences between the 25 and 20 and he said oh, the 25 is the flagship, but gave me zero specs. Moving on I asked him about the black level "situation" (pun intended) and he gave me a very technical response. "I heard that stuff too but it's kinda made up. There's no proof, units haven't been around long enough." Well... aside from the 2009 models being out for a year and the fact that Panny currently has a lawsuit against them, it looks like some units have had a problem; but he's the expert here so I remianed quiet. What I wanted to know is if they had improved their voltage issue and his reply was, "If you get your TV calibrated you won't have changes in black level like that." So I'm not feeling so hot about it at this point, but finally he gave me some real information. I asked if I bought the extended service plan for a couple hundred bucks, would that cover black level. He said it absolutely would. So.... in the longest way possible, if there is a fear about the rising black level it's worth inquiring with your local Best Buy if it's covered under their extended warranty. I plan on only keeping any first gen 3D TV for about 3 years so it might work out pretty well as a safegaurd if there are indeed issues with some of the units. Just some food for thought.

I'd get that in writing before I actually purchased the plan. Then your other problem would be getting the "official" documentation that your MLL rose. Sure you can have a meter and do it yourself, but I wouldn't bet the farm that they will take your own initial readings as a baseline. Sure, all of this isn't rocket science, but I think it seems too far out of the norm of what Best Buy would do.

The guy fed you BS one the rest of your questions so why trust him on the protection plan statements.

Soooo... No good for gaming then I guess? :s I'm doutbing to go for a vt20, but the black level issue combined with the input lag, which 'll be probably even a lot worse in 3D, which renders 3D gaming to a big nono kinda set me off...

Not necessarily. Laptops are not an ideal test case, and mech has no point of reference for his. His values could either be accurate or off by full frames (16+ ms) one way or the other. I wouldn't draw any final conclusions until someone tests it against a CRT or can do a cross reference with the laptop they use (e.g. compare it to a CRT or a different display with known values).

it's around 32ms lag in game mode

a typical lcd monitor will give you around 16ms - so you're not much slower with the vt20/vt25.

The bigger deal will be if 1080p 3D is limited to 24fps...

Which eliminates most of the appeal for this monitor, as you can get much cheaper displays that are less laggy in 2D.

-scheherazade

Just like everything else he was wrong or lying about, he also lied to you about the warranty. Panasonic considers this issue to be occuring as designed and not a defect and they are not entertaining requests for it to be repaired. Since it is not considered a defect by Panasonic, there is no way in hell that BB's warranty will cover it.

I think you might have gotten the wrong impression.

I'm behind reading the thread and have not seen every single post (very busy, two jobs) but here is what I can tell you, as a gamer who plays every day. Currently my main games are NHL10, Battlefield BAD COMPANY 2 and CODMW2. I play a lot more games, of all types and genres, but those of the ones I'm currently involved with that have an organized team, league or clan.

In my house, there is everything from CRT to DLP, LED, LCD and Plasma.

For the past couple weeks, before the V20, I've been primarily using the Samsung 8500 LED local-dimming LCD. For the most part, everyone in the house likes the TV, but we have not yet decided if we're keeping it. The VT20 will likely play a role in that decision.

I love the look of the 8500 when gaming. I loved it so much that I quit playing on most other TVs in the house the past couple weeks. However, the lag without Game mode activated was horrible. It did not take any instruments to detect that. So using the Game mode is a 'must' on the 8500.

Even with Game mode activated on the 8500, I could still detect lag but it was not enough to seriously affect my gameplay. Or at least that's what I thought. Over the years I've played on every type of monitor, Internet connection, network, etc... so I guess I have become accustomed to 'adjusting' to it.

When playing the same games on the VT20, I can tell there is less lag. And it was noticeable right from the start. Certain moves in NHL10 requiring multiple button presses or half-circle turns with the stick (similar to a fighting game) were quicker and more responsive. In BC2 and MW2 my aiming, quick turns and jumping felt the same way. There is simply no doubt in my mind the VT20 is faster than the 8500's game mode.

Perhaps when I originally said... "wow the VT20 is fast"... it would have been more accurate to say... "wow the 8500 is slow".

So please forgive me if I made the VT20 sound faster than it is. I had become accustomed to the Samsung, and it felt like my system had been given a boost when I switched to the VT20. So to me, things did feel 'fast'. At least by comparison.

The bottom line: I have no complaints about lag on this TV, and I think it's great for gaming. Things feel quick, accurate and responsive. And games LOOK excellent too. I appreciate having game graphics look as nice as possible without having to dial everything down. Of course with online multiplayer you need every edge you can get, but when I'm playing a single player game by myself, I want to fully enjoy the visuals.

I consider myself a fairly hard-core gamer, but I admit I'm not the type guy to worry about a few extra milliseconds, as long as the lag is not particularly awful to begin with. And in no way do I think the lag on this TV would fall into that category.

Hahaha... shut up.

OK, you see, I have no idea why I said that. Initially the sound just threw me off when I was recording... so I thought I better say something... and I got nervous because I knew everybody would be watching... and that's what came out of my mouth. No idea why. And trust me, if I knew how to edit video that would have never been there.

VT20 is also a 3D model.

If you guys want the "new and improved" input lag test is goes like so:

1) Take a video at 60fps or faster of you performing an action in a game with your console hooked to a CRT. The standard is to use Street Fighter 4, go to training mode, select Ryu, and have him jab the dummy. Make SURE the video captures both your finger pressing the button and the screen.

2) Do the same thing with the console hooked up to your HDTV

3) Compare the two videos frame by frame. Count the number of frames from when you press the button to when Ryu jabs and hits the dummy for both the CRT video and the HDTV video. Then multiply the difference in frames by 16.67 and that's your lag in milliseconds.

Note that you can use ANY game for this as long as there's a discrete point you can reference for the action happening, like the hit graphic effect in the above example, or for something easier to visualize, 8-Bit Mario going from standing to jumping.

It might sound kind of unscientific but with the right camera angle it's very easy to see when the button's been pressed.

I'm going back and forth tonight! Will tell you what I think ASAP.

By the way, some people don't believe me when I tell them how good the Mitsubishi DLP is for gaming. Apparently years ago DLP had a bad reputation for being laggy and it's still having trouble living it down. But these current DLP's are great. Very underrated, in many ways, not just gaming.

I know several other people have asked me questions that I haven't got to answer yet. I apologize. I'm not ignoring you or being rude. I just have a crazy schedule (home/work) right now, and usually pop in the forum for 5 minutes at a time. I hope to be caught up soon.

I have a Smsung DLP HL-S5687W and it does not lag.

is it the latest generation? (xx737 or xx837, iirc)
did you ever do any input lag tests on it?

-scheherazade

VGA Port Input Lag on the VT20
As requested, I did a lag input test using the VGA port of my VT20. The results can be seen on vimeo here:

vimeo.com/10250990
(Sorry its not a link. Forum still won't let me post urls yet)

Sampling a few frames, it is clear that the VGA port has the same lag as the HDMI ports. I see an input lag of ~30 milliseconds. Same as my HDMI "Game Mode" test result.

SD Broadcast quality
I spent some time today watching various SD broadcast content on the VT20 as well. I have Verizon Fios cable service which I think has very good picture quality compared to my previous providers, Time Warner Cable and RCN.

IMO the SD broadcasts look acceptable, all things considered. They are a bit "soft" which is to be expected given that they are being scaled up from 480i to 1080p. The quality is highly dependent on the original source material. An SD broadcast of CSI:NY will look significantly better on the VT20 than a crappy reality show for example.

Here are some photos of various SD broadcast material:








I would say that if you don't have access to a lot of HD TV channels, the VT20 is kinda overkill unless you plan to watch a lot of blu-ray movies or play a lot of console games. There is no particular feature of the VT20 that will improve the picture quality of SD sources that isn't also available in a G20/G25.

Hope this is useful.

Well, seems like SD doesn't look bad at all..
Thanks for info and pictures, Mechashiva.

hey @mechashiva2k

Please post pictures of your plasma from a side and back. Those pics a very hard to find in internet

THX
Josh

I don't think you are going to find a LCD in the VT's size and picture quality with the 16ms you quoted. I know the Sharp Aquos has been mentioned as not being too laggy, but are you willing to sacrifice that much for just 14ms?

http://hdguru.com/panasonic-tc-p50vt...t-review/1391/

Do any new owners of the VT series agree with the bolded statement from HDGuru? For owners who've noiced the yellow/green trails on previous plasma models, do you still see this artifact on your VT20? Is it a "significant reduction" compared to say, a Pioneer 8/9G? I ask since visible phosphor lag on Kuros is frequently noticable to me, and the V10 was an improvement over the 9Gs in this regard, but still not there...

(I already know what D-Nice and Xrox's take is....)

What were Dnice test results for phosphor lag?

good prelim comparison video for the Panny vt vs Sammy.

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/v...1/72326491001/

He had given me a snide remark that I had no business looking at any of the '10 since he believes that they will not measure up to "my" standards - i.e. I'd still have a problem with phosphor lag, brightness limiting, and dithering artifacts on the VT series. Basically, he doesn't want me to state any of the issues I have with PDPs I've considered purchasing... So, I'm extremely curious to see one myself, and hear others experiences with this new series!

EDIT:


While videos such as this are not for PQ (also said by uploader), these videos can demonstrate phosphor lag. Watching this video it seems that the yellow/blue phosphor lag seems to be almost eliminated on this set! The user mentioned seeing "flickering" in light areas, but seems like a nice set.

Has anyone seen a VT25 start showing up anywhere yet?