Official Panasonic 2011 TC-PxxST30 Thread [No Price Talk] - Page 188

Thanks for the info. My 60ST30 will be here by week's end... I'll let you guys know what I get when it shows up.

Now 72 hours into the running of slides (3 straight days). No blobs, no dead pixels, no buzzing (only time I can hear buzzing is if I put my ear about 1" above the top/back of the tv..even then it is really faint. Stand 2 feet away from it and can't hear anything). As noted in quote above was lucky enough to get an October build.

Can't wait for tomorrow night to get here so I can actually start enjoying the thing. Although the colored light show coming from the room has been nice and soothing.

Congrats. What model did you get?

Will an A board swap do anything besides update the firmware? Such as delete all saved settings, or affect the picture in any way that might throw off the D-nice settings post-slides?

55st30

bump...

I'm considering this one based on the number of reviews
http://www.monoprice.com/products/pr...seq=1&format=2

And are 90 or 270 HDMI connectors required?

It will change it all, like getting a new tv, I believe. Even the factory cal settings. Some say it looks better with the new board. If it were me I'd copy down the service menu rgb settings so if you need to revert to those you can.

So I just got back from exchanging my bad 42" ST30 for a better one. I went from a xx1124 to a xx1111 (this was the highest they had) which is a huge bummer once again...

I seriously hope this set doesn't have as much buzzing as my other one did, and I'm sure it will have FBr with it.

I don't even know if I want to run slides again.

I will report back in a few hours when it's all set up

On my 50in with the 2 270 degree hooked together the max height is about 3/4 of an inch off the back but dooable if wall clearance isn't too much of a factor. The 90's will turn into the tv, not usable. I will be mounting it soon so I don't know how I will set it up using a retractable mount. I also bought the 8" port savers in case I like it better. The port savers are just barely covered by the bezel, on the 60 I think you have more room.

Ah, I'm guessing I don't have to redo the 100 hours of slides right? Would assume the aging process isn't affected by a board swap.

So what is the thought behind having all of the HDMI connections, etc on the right side of the back panel instead of the center.

My 2008 Panny plasma it was all centered on the back so all cords hidden. Had to buy a new longer HDMI cable so it could reach now.

I'm considering buying a 42" ST30 but have had a few questions.

1) How is the buzz on the ST30's? I've heard the problem has improved in recent years. The problem is I'm living in Japan and will be buying from a Japanese store. Japan has ****** consumer protection laws and its pretty much impossible to return a product you aren't satisfied with if the box has been opened. So returning it later on if I don't like it is impossible. So I'd like to know the TV won't eventually end up being too much of a nuance. Note: I use to be able to hear/feel CRTs when they were on, and my parents have a giant 28" CRT that puts out a ear ringing buzz now and then.

2) My primary reason for buying is to use it as a computer monitor for casual use (browsing/email/programming) as well as gaming now and then and some TV watching. My computer can do 1080p fine so hardware isn't an issue. A lot of the posts I find about this topic are from 2010 and everyone was saying its a bad idea due to burn-in threat and IR tends to be a continual problem with plasmas. Is this really a problem for such a new TV like this? Should I just take the jump in price and get a 40"/42" LED instead, even though I can't get my favorite brand here in Japan (Samsung)? The deep blacks and uniformity are what attracted me to plasmas, but if IR is a constant problem I don't know if its worth the trade off.

Thanks.

The panel prep is just for aging the plasma cells. So no need for more aging after the A-board swap.

My 55ST30 arrived today, mine has an August build date.

I'm assuming thats late enough to supposedly not have the BFr problem.

I'm just watching a little now, unfortunately I have to leave in about 5 min, But everything seems perfect to me!!! I'll have to check it out more later tonight when I get home.

I read about some bluray titles where the BFr is more pronounced, but does anyone have one absolute "go to" title to test it out on????

How far, or how close, are 60ST30 owners sitting from their TV?

Anybody go for the 65ST30?

i sit 8' away.

on Friday I'll be 9.5 feet

just looked at the port savers... pretty cool idea, they seem to be the better idea for tight connections. Thanks for the tip on the 90's. Heck, everything is so cheap at monoprice, I'll probably buy a few of each just to be safe!

I will be 13' away. You guys make me feel like I'm sitting so far away, lol... That's the only way my living room works...

Grabbed a 55st30 from Target on Saturday. Called 4 Target's around here and got the highest build but still not high enough xx1159xx June.
One Target even sent my call to loss prevention, I guess asking for a serial number is a crime. After I convinced him I wasnt trying to scam them, he even made up a fake serial, and swore that was the right one, haha.

Happy so far, pretty much the same as offdee, no blobs, dead pixels or buzzing

Its on the 2nd day of slides, but Ive used it for some short gaming sessions here and there.
Will do a FBr check on Wed after the slides are done. The PDP showed 63.52, so I guess the update is not in place.

Check your PDP EEP as shown here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...postcount=3775

I can hear most CRTs too. I didn't notice the buzz on my ST30 at first, except on really dim content (e.g. when switching between inputs). Then, after running slides for a while, I started noticing it on brighter images too.

However, it's completely unnoticeable when there is any sound on the speakers or in the room. Even the swishing of my clothing drowns it out when I shift positions on the couch.

Some in the thread have heard louder buzzes though...so it's probably a bit of a gamble with the ST30 or any other plasma. If it's a HUGE issue it might not be worth the risk, but I'm sensitive to the sound and barely notice it on my non-flawed one, so I'm relatively confident that you'd be ok.

I'm extremely sensitive to trails, and yes, on my set they are noticeable when gaming.

Maybe someone can chime in and tell me if it's normal. On games, when I turn quickly, it becomes a yellowish-brown blur. Not blatantly, but there is that subtle blur if I look for it. On movies, I am constantly seeing flashes of yellow in high contrast areas during movement.

I saw giant rainbows on DLP TVs, but never really noticed this with plasmas in stores or in bars. So maybe it gets better with the TV's age as some people claim. A lot of people also claim to get used to it over time.

To be honest, I'm considering returning the ST30 and getting an LCD purely because of my eyes' betrayal in the phosphor trail department. My advice for you, WaveBoy, would be to try a game (or Sin City) on a plasma in a store, on a bright setting. If you see any trails or yellowish flashes at all, and think it'll bug you, play it safe and save up for a comparable LCD.

As for brightness, I find that it's more than bright enough for most scenes. But for dark movies, especially if in crappy SD format, shadow detail gets lost a lot. Probably no more than most other TVs though. I'm using D-Nice's settings, so it could definitely get a bit brighter if I wanted it to.

Hope that helps.

I thought I read lots of people have good luck gaming with this set?

Just checked, I have the post PDP EEP number, so yippee!!!!!!

It's my first plasma so I don't have much frame of reference. It might be a good one for gaming, but I do still see phosphor trails.

It's certainly better than the blur and screen door effect on my old rear projection LCD at least.

My 46" is 42.5c, seems nobody has reported that one yet.
Both 46" listings showed the pre-fix as 42.5b, and the post fix as 42.5d. Guess I'll just have to look for it after slides are done to see if the c version is post fix or not.

Thanks for the reply!!

Ah this is good to hear. I'm only mildly worried about the buzzing since I'll be using headphones a lot with it so I don't think it'll be too much of an issue.

The computer use thing though worries me some though. There is a lot of content on a computer that does not change often such as the start bar, task bar, parts of a browser window which may not change much. So this has me a little worried about burn-in.

After the set is sufficiently broken in, it should be pretty tough to get any actual burn in. As long as you don't browse the web or sit on the desktop for 10 hours at a time.
I've seen people report that 6-8 hours of static image is definitely safe (after break in, in the early hours you still have to be fairly careful). Just make sure regularly look for
any image retention and wash it away with 30-60 minutes of video or a good screen saver can do the job as well while you aren't there.

So I've decided to just go ahead and run the 100 hour slides again with my replacement 42ST30 (went from a May build to an April build) but this set has no buzzing at all which I'm happy about.

Not much else I can say.

To those who ran 100 hours of slides, did you leave your TV on the entire 4 days and 4 hours? Or did you give it breaks by turning it off once in a while?

On my last one I left it on the whole 100 hours and my room would often get hot (from the TV) and the TV itself was pretty warm. I don't know if that's really healthy for it.

Also, did you ever take a break from slides for maybe a gaming session or maybe a blu-ray or DVD? I read over at HDJ that if you want to get D-Nice's settings to a "T" you should ONLY run 100 hours of slides and nothing else.

Edit: oh sweet, found my first dead pixel! how exciting..