James Cameron's Preferred Settings for VT25 - Page 3

So you subscribe to the conspiracy-theory notion that Avatar is a thinly veiled attempt by Cameron to hypnotize viewers, (with bright lights and neon colors), into thinking it's actually entertaining?

Pretty much, it bored the heck outa me and most people I know...

That in no way means they're good.

For whatever it's worth (not a lot since I am not an expert), I installed 3.5 this morning on my 58VT25 without a hitch and I applied the JC settings. I then viewed Avatar in 3D and I thought it looked great. I have not viewed any other 3D features using the recommended settings. If the new settings don't cut it, I'll go back to what I was using before. I am not much of a risk taker but as my set was not proefessionally calibrated, I thought it was worth the risk. Also, on the one hand, I am disappointed with Panasonic as they could tell me absolutely nothing about the new firmware but I laud them for getting my copy of Avatar to me in time for Christmas.

I bit the bullet to this morning on my VT25. I installed 3.5 to see what the was going to happen. My VT is also not professionally calibrated. I do like what I see on 3D. My question is how do you read the firmware version in the Menu under About. I have this:

TV: 0100-5330
STAT 1: 01010-20202
STAT 2: 00000-00000
STAT 3: 0.11.0
HDAVI: 5

If you go to network settings and software update, you can confirm your firmware version.

Other than the 3D-Settings, are all the other "D-Nice" settings still good with this firmware or is it all kaput? This whole "D-Nice" discussion has me confused.

You should preface that statement with "IMO."

I am having problem downloading the 3.5 firmware using my Mac. My SD card is formatted to FAT16 and Panasonic's instructions say to format to FAT32. Does this matter. Also when I go to download I get a file but it is not named the SDDL.SEC

Can someone who uses a Mac please help me out on installing this firmware. Thanks.

For the record, you read every other number from right to left starting with the second number (0100-5330 from right to left is 0335-0010).

It's eye candy, I like watching it for that, but the movie sucks, but I will still watch it again

I imagine these settings help make his film look great. We all know there are plenty of films out there that are over-saturated, dull, or tint colors for artist affect...if that is what the director's intent was so be it.

Too bad the firmware is affecting the whole baseline. Glad to hear there are modes that can be calibrated properly as well on 3.5fw

I planned on doing a ISF calibration in 500 hrs but the picture is Fantastic and I can't see how it can look any better. The 3.5 firmware made the 3D excellent and 2D with DNICE SM and Picture adjustments and my tweaks for personal prev I am very happy camper.

Hurk

Can anyone comment on how good or bad the James Cameron 3D settings are on other 3D content (such as Christmas Carol 3D or Despicable Me 3D)?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...6#post19685536

Thanks!

You don't calibrate a display for one film and if you have to in order for it to look fantastic, the film sucks. I can't imagine that anyone would be disappointed with Avatar on a properly calibrated display. I guess I don't understand why you would get one of the present top of the line displays and then intentionally jack up the settings just for Mr. Cameron, even if you do love the crappy movie (yes it does look nice despite being a half-hearted re-hash of Dances with Wolves or Last Samurai but without any real culture).

Also, there's natural variation between sets and any calibrator will tell you that using any kind of "preferred settings" has limited scope. If you want the best picture, you have to calibrate your set yourself or have one of them do it if you're uncomfortable. Then you're assured that the PQ will be good.

or Pocahontas... despite the lack of new story-telling (as they say in the writing world, "There are no original ideas"), the movie is still visually stunning.

I thought the same thing when watching Grand Canyon Adventure in 3D. I thought the colors were way too hot. The reds were bleeding and were over saturated. Perhaps turning the panel brightness to Mid instead of High would help a bit. I will have to check it out. Gamma being at 2.4 might not be helping either. 2.2 could be better.

Yes, either step will be in the right direction. Gamma is a relative figure, so whatever works best with all your other settings is the right setting. Even with those adjustments, it's still not "right" and no where near the look of a true calibration. But there's no question that Cameron's settings are, well, BS.

I don't think the 3.5 firmware has much to do with the Cameron's settings. The firmware fixes bugs & flaws with the color rendering of this TV on engineering level. The Cameron's settings for Avatar you can use them or not, whatever.

Yeah, I have no idea how to calibrate 2D on this TV let alone 3D. I will have to come up with the money to have a pro calibration done sometime next year.

I was considering this as well. I did the 3.5 update but I may go back and use D-Nice's SM offsets and user settings. After I installed 3.5 I checked my SM settings for Cuts/Drvs and they did not change. I'm planning on an ISF calibration in late January.

This does not relate to the JC settings or anything, but I could not get an answer in the other thread, but are any of you getting a lot of banding? I don't see nearly as much banding on my Samsung LCD as I do with this Panasonic VT25.

D-Nice has recommended not to use his offsets with 3.5FW, he seems to know what has changed, but it is interesting that you did not notice any change, perhaps something else is at play here?

What refresh rate do you have selected? 96hz demonstrates more contouring (banding) than 60hz and 48hz.

I was using D-Nice's settings but before I did the 3.5 update I went into my SM and changed the Cuts/Drvs back to the factory defaults (I took photos of the original factory defaults). I reset THX, Custom & Custom 3D user settings back to defaults. I than updated to 3.5 and used the Cameron settings for 3D. I used the AVS 709HD test disc to calibrate for THX. I entered the SM yesterday to check the Cuts/Drvs and they are all still at factory defaults that I have recorded. I believe the 3.5 update fixed some issues/bugs with the VT series and the Cameron settings are indeed optional, meaning you can calibrate Custom 3D to whatever you want. The Pro Settings in Custom 3D, setup using Cameron's method is what counteracts with D-Nice's SM offsets I believe. I'm no expert but I have a hunch. In about 4 weeks I plan on having my VT ISF calibrated.

I have it set to 96hz. 24p is set to on for the BDT-100 Blu-ray player as well. I definitely want the benefit of 24p (one of many reasons I got the VT over the GT series). I guess I can play around with it and take a few select scenes and watch them one time at 96hz and another time at 60hz. If I set the TV to do 60hz, should I have the Blu-ray player 24p option set to on or off?

I may want to get my VT25 properly calibrated sometime in the spring in 2011. I understand that you do professional calibrations. Would a professional calibration even help with the banding/contouring at all? Out of the box settings are initially pretty good. The only thing I changed was Sharpness. I dialed it down from 75 to about 10.

After doing the JC 3.5 update, on my Panny 65VT25 and Panny 350 BluRay Player, I watched Cloudy with Chance of Meatballs just for a few minutes and it looked great. I got Clash of Titans 3D and Legend of the Guardians 3D (for Xmas) and just watch a few minutes, Titans not impressed. It seemed the there was a flicker where it would dim, then back to bright, did same on Lengend Guardians one, not so much Legends much better 3D. I went into menu and set Panel Brightness back to mid from full? (not right term?) and it seemed to correct issue. I also thought it might be the glasses? The dimming was very annoying.

Hurk

A calibrator should determine the ideal settings to reduce or eliminate any, and all, artifacts introduced in the video chain. As it is a calibration, and not a re-engineering of the components, elimination of some picture quality issues may not be possible.

It was the Panny Glasses, the 2nd generation ones. I changed glasses, fully charged and it Worked perfect. I put JC settings back to his original ones and great picture. Prior to that it looked like it was jumping in and out of 3D just for a brief millisecond. The glasses I was using I believe was low on power.

I just (Dec 26) purchased 2 more pairs, 2 of the three glasses still have the blur out of 3d issue, crap glasses. I will contacting Panasonic. Have already sent back original glasses as battery contact did not work without holding it.

Hurk