Official Panasonic 2011 TC-PxxST30 Thread [No Price Talk] - Page 209

OOTB = Standard Picture Mode = Pretty Darn BAD...

(OOPS: probably misunderstood - was reading "cinema" as in "Watching Movies..." instead of "Cinema Picture Mode".)

Obvious Question, but assume you have your Cable STB set to HD?
What is connection between STB & TV? (HDMI or Component or Something Else?)

Passing video through an AVR or other switch box?

Our 60" ST30 is just 2 weeks old, & is our third Pan plasma. As with first two, we "aged" the set with a combination of Slides & Full Screen viewing (NO Letterbox bars), and although still tinkering with settings (Cinema or Custom, & tweaks therein) current PQ on HD material easily beats the other 2 sets.

Alas, there is at least one significant DISadvantage to having a 60" set: any FLAWS in the source material are blown up proportionally as compared to our other sets (50" & 42"). This is particularly noted when viewing SD content, but even some of the supposedly "HD" cable content is Not Really "HD," & glitches that can be ignored (or barely seen) on a smaller set become all-to-obvious when enlarged....

We sit about 9 feet from the set (same distance as with the 50"), and the best solution we've found to watching SD / poor broadcasts is to Move Back about 2 - 3 feet.... Not an ideal solution, but reasonably effective unless the original program material is of truly poor quality.

Duh - I just had to tab (arrow-up on remote) to the field and hit enter. I kept thinking I was already on the field when I wasn't.

Well, that's exactly what I have been doing--played several rounds of CoD4 online (pixel orbiter enabled) in the last few days. Nonetheless, if I can see an image of the CoD4 'Crossfire' map on my set when CoD4 is not running I believe that is a legit reason to be monitoring the situation on whatever content it is seen--in this case a green slide-- to see if it is clearing up.

Update on my 60ST30.

After almost 48 hours of the slides I looked at some content using the final settings. Looking at the darkest grey slide, I see two slightly more visible yellow bands near the centre of the screen, or maybe it's more like two bands of lighter area between the yellow. They are very faint and hard to make out the farther you are away from the screen. On the edges, the screen is very slightly tinted pink sometimes, on whiter material, and more so on the right. You can't see it on the white slides. Setting the panel brightness to low makes the yellow bands more obvious.

Watching a Black and White DVD like "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold" I found it almost impossible to see the faint yellow vertical/light alternating bands near the centre. I don't even really know if I saw them or was imagining them. On colour films I could see very slight pink tinting on the edges, more so on the right. Again, it is very faint to my eyes, and I wear glasses.

I am going to let the slides continue until the weekend and then see what the score is on Sunday. If it looks better than it stays, if not, I return it.

I am going to put the slides on another SD card in the meantime and visit some stores, and try the darkest gray slide on any 60ST30's I find and see what I see.

Here are my darkest grey slides in low and mid panel brightness. Ignore the video image noise of my Samsung cell phone camera and the horizontal scanning artifact which appears due to the "shutter" speed mismatch with the plasma panel refresh.

Look familiar? Is this bad? Average? Not so bad? Somebody who thinks their set is really good on the darkest grey slide in low panel brightness, can you post a screen shot?

cpc,

My 65ST30 has very similar bars or bands, as well. It seems to have almost the exact bars as your display especially on the far right and left hand sides of the screen. A few other members have mentioned this, as well. It also appears your display has some pink blotching on the sides? This is also true with my 65ST30 and it was worse on the 65VT30 I returned.

Thank-you for the feedback David.

Can't help but wonder....

Just how common is this ? What is normal?
Do all sets have the blotching and banding? Are some sets really good and others not so good?
Are some sets free of the issue?
If they all have it to some degree, does the severity vary alot from one set to another?

My display does have pink blotching on the sides, particularly on the right hand side of the screen. I just called it pink tinting.

The pictures I took were with D-nice settings for the "break-in" slides. I never thought to try his settings for viewing after the break-in when I took the picture, apart from using low panel brightness, which just makes it more noticeable. This setting is for use after the break-in. As I mentioned, when I plugged in my Sony S550 and used the D-nice post burn-in settings, the issues were less noticeable. I didn't use the settings for the slides when viewing content, he tells you not to do that.

It is possible that using mid panel brightness and the HDMI = PHOTO setting that some folks on here are toying with (and/or other tweaks to taste) may reduce the issues, but only if mid panel brightness doesn't screw up gamma, grey-scale and the darkest black level vs the low panel brightness setting.

Generally, this set looks fairly good and the black level is decent. The only other set I've had in this room was a Toshiba 46" LCD. To tell the truth, I am surprised at how comparable the performance is, but that's another story. I prefer the ST30.

I thought with a November build I was clear of the bigger issue of Fluctuating Brightness, even if there was a fix for it. I am getting sick of paying lot's of money for displays with significant imperfections. Buying widescreen TV's and projectors are stressful experiences. Firing up a flatscreen or projector for the first time almost makes me twitch....lol...It's always nice to know that the buying public is the QC and beta testers for the manufacturers these days. Too bad most average viewers don't know better and don't complain more, or the sets would have better QC overall.

As it stands, it is not ideal and I would prefer it was better. If I was forced to live with it for some reason, it isn't the end of world from what I've seen with the few things I quickly viewed, but, I'd like to know whether what I have is average or below average. An SD card of slides and a trip to some stores will give me some experience with that I hope. As of Sunday I will be done the 100 hour burn-in. I have 10 days to return it if I don't like it.

Has anybody had significant issues at first but found they have been reduced enough to satisfy them after viewing so many hours?
If so, what issues did you have, and how many hours did it take for things to get to improve enough that you are happy?

So David, where are you now in the process?
Did you run the break-in slides and then use D-nice settings?
Do you still have your 65ST30 and if so, how many hours are on it and how does it look now?

i had this on both of my 2 ST's, i still have the 2nd one. the pink seems to be fading some after 200 hours, i havent turned the set off since getting it. it is still there and can see it on black and white stuff and sometimes on color content.i really hopes it fades enough so dont have to return it as this is my 5th set total since sept.

the strange thing is that it seems worse after running the slides all night, but then after just watching regular tv it seems to lessen somewhat.

Last couple of guys that posted with the bands and purple like mine l, what are you build dates? Mine is november; the one I had before was a October build free of those issues but buzzed like crazy

2 Mays here, it doesnt seem to matter what the build date is...luck of the draw....

Starting to notice my set has full screen moving noise, is this common? If I get close I can see it really apparent and if I turn up the backlight it is even MORE apparent. Its like the scrambley white noise you get when you don't get a channel, but faint.

Any advice? Its on both component and hdmi and I have a 55st30.

Yes, if you get a BDT210 or higher with built-in wifi (or the 110 if it will be wired), you can then display it on any TV, either through a receiver or directly. Otherwise, what would be the point?

I bought a P46ST30 from Amazon on Black Sunday. It's a May build and the PDP EEP indicates that it had not been updated. I've completed the slides and calibrated it to D-Nice's settings.

The results: no blobs, no bars, no lines, no stuck pixels and no discernible Fbr. No problems at all. I guess I lucked out.

November build here.

Mark62, addict gamer, BarnacleBill and others,

Good or bad.....could you throw up a grey slide with the D-nice settings and take a pic on the low and mid panel brightness settings? I'd like to see other sets in a dark room so I can compare a little bit. Would be interesting to see some better or worse.

I noticed the pink during a short viewing of No Country For Old Men. In Empire Strikes Back, Shackelton, THX 1138 and the Spy Came in From the Cold, I didn't always see the vertical bands, but sometimes saw the pink tinting. I kept my dvd and BD pre-view as short as possible so as not to stray too far from the burn-in prep. Also tried to avoid watching anything wider than 16:9 for more than a minute or too. I took my pics of the darkest grey slide in a very dark room at night.

thanks again for the feedback folks,

cpc, in the end, it will not matter what the comparison is between the two panel settings you look at now. If you are like most, you will be trying and most likely living with the panel brightening settings for awhile. You will probably flip back and forth with the D-Nice settings. If you are demanding about your overall PQ, which from reading many of your post over the years I think you are, you will end up using "D"s recommended settings. My ST is a Oct. build and has shown none of the problems reported. It is a bedroom TV that is usually viewed in very low light or darkness. It is plenty bright in that situation. I sometimes turn in on in the day, with average daylight coming in the windows and I guess I've gotten use to the D-Nice settings because the PQ looks great all of the time now. If you read the Pro reviews, you will read that Cinema out of the box, or slightly tweaked, was about as good as it gets, which was great. D-Nice took that a step further, if only a small step, by calibrating the Custom mode for us. He made Custom a little bit better than Cinema. The mid panel and associated settings will look good for awhile but you will know from your experience, that things just are not right. The PQ will not be constant or predictable, every time you turn your set on or between program source. I say finish your break in procedures, plug in D-Nice's settings and enjoy. I and others have switched back and forth plenty of times for you already. Trust us, your ST will be the best it can be with "D"s settings. JMHO.

cpc,

I still have the 65ST30 am still running the slides when I am not watching the TV. I will keep doing both until I reach about 250-300 hours. I am using my own settings partially done with a calibration disc, however, I am using Cinema mode as is supposedly has the most accurate grayscale out of the box to my undertstanding. If all goes well, I'll get the set ISF'd next month. I would say the picture looks excellent, overall. The contrast can be striking on some material. The color looks natural and should only improve with proper grayscale calibration.

This set is not perfect as I have the slight bands, pink spots especially on the right hand side, some temporary image retention, and might notice occasional phosphor lag, but none of those are showstoppers at this time. The bands and pink spots aren't really too noticeable with real content except maybe very occasionally. All is of this FAR more preferred compared to the horrid fluctuating brightness on the Samsung 64D8000 I had. Trust me, these problems are nothing compared to that.

If anyone is looking to grab some glasses, I found that Sears Online has the twin pack (TY-EW3D3MPK2) currently available for a very good price (and try coupon code ELEC05 for an additional 5% off). I ordered yesterday and they got shipped today

Dirk

first post time:

I picked up a 60" last night, and I'm very happy with it out of the box so far. I did notice some FBr issues when I was watching hockey last night on the 'standard' (I think, its the lowest brightness stock setting). When I switched it over to 'cinema' (slightly brighter) there were no issues at all.

I remember reading something in here saying that hockey is the worst for it because of the white background??

I suppose my question is two fold:

1. assuming I have a FBr issue, how do I go about getting Panasonic to come out? Is it just calling their support number and let them know? Is there a specific 'code word' to use when calling other than, "I need the A-board replaced"?

2. I've been digging through this thread for a while now and can't seem to find an answer to decoding the build date in the serial number.

All I've found so far is that xx1213xxx = july 2011 and xx1214xxx = august 2011, but xx1307xxx is nov 2011????






EDIT: found this link. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=20799695

Cross-posting from the settings thread due to some urgency (if the solution is a new tv, I have return window consideration).

50 inch st30 here and am trying out dnice's settings (btw thanks), and my daughter has been experiencing some eye strain fairly quickly while playing Skylanders on the PS3. We will be experimenting with room lighting, and perhaps bias lighting, but I wanted to ask the question if any of the settings (contrast perhaps) might be relatively aggressive from this standpoint. 7 year old child sitting about 8 feet away without any problems (recently been to eye doctor) until this tv, though the tv is in a different room than before. Previously had a 42 inch edtv sitting 11 feet away.

Any ideas? The room wasn't very dark, though the light is primarily sconces behind the seating position. And I believe Dnice's settings are reasonable from a brightness and contrast standpoint. I've read a little bit about the use of bias lighting, but there seem to be lots of folks who attribute eye strain to other things like plasma flicker and getting used to a larger, higher resolution display.

Myself, I think it is a beautiful picture.

Apologies if this has been addressed earlier in the thread, but I don't know what the word is for this issue. I have a 2011 46" ST30, and have broken it in with the color slides and all that.

This is very hard to explain, but... in scenes dominated by what should be subtle gradations of darkness (e.g., a shot of the sky at twilight, or a dimly-lit interior), there's a "patchy" effect, where you can see definite borders between adjacent areas of the screen. The effect is almost like a topographic map, if that makes any sense. What is this called, and more important, is there anything I can do about it? My mid-range Philips plasma from 6 years ago had the same issue, but to a degree that I could easily live with. On the Panasonic, it's noticeable enough to be very distracting.

I got my 50 ST30 recently, have completed the D-Nice slideshow and settings, and wanted to report back, mainly because practically every step of this process was influenced by these AVS forums. I'm completely happy with my TV, and want to thank all the people who post and answer questions so patiently. In case other non-geeks are just starting this process, here's how it played out for me.

My first assumption was that I'd get a 46 LCD like most people I know. But I wanted the best set for watching movies, so the attractions of the plasma were obvious. However the same forums that swayed me toward plasma introduced a host of fears: is my room too bright, will my kids' gaming (and the black bars at the sides of all the 4:3 DVDs we own) induce image retention? What's this about buzzing? Green blobs? And of course, fluctuating brightness. Contented that Amazon's return policy is good, and finally realizing that the only way to know about room brightness and PQ and anything else is to see a set in your home, I ordered from Amazon at an insanely good price.

Since I ordered on October 28 I hoped to get an August or later build so I wouldn't have to worry about fluctuating brightness, but got an April build. CEVA delivered it, with only one guy which wasn't good, but he was very nice and set it up for me. I had saved copies of all the posts about how to run the slideshow and what settings to use before and after, and it went without a hitch. Then I brought it into my living room (facing windows which get afternoon sun), and turned it on.

And it's all good. Coming from a 9 year old 27 CRT, the ST30's plenty bright on D-Nice's settings. If I want to cut down reflection, I block the window with a folding $20 pattern cutting board, which cuts light and reflections to zero but can be removed and stored away otherwise. After a week or so of being hyper cautious I let the kids game away, and have seen no IR. I rented The Dark Knight and Casino Royale on Blu-ray and watched the fluctuating brightness scenes over and over again, and had others watch, and no one can see any fluctuation. I don't think I'll put in for an A-board replacement, as I'm worried about going into the service menu to record settings.

Did I mention the picture quality? Incredible. Jaw-dropping. Especially Blu-rays and over-the-air HD. I am 100% pleased. The only disappointment was the fact that the set doesn't pull in over-the-air stations as well as the cheapo digital / analog converter box I'd been using on my old CRT. However I hung a big Clearstream 2 indoor/outdoor antenna on my wall and it works great, including on UHF channels (which it isn't supposed to support).

So for me, I did a lot of sweating unnecessarily. Maybe I just got lucky and got a remarkably good set, but for any prospective purchasers who are worried about all the things that can go wrong, here's proof that it can be simple and satisfying. Thanks again to all you patient posters.

It may just be a matter of adjusting to the TV. My eyes hurt going from a 27" to 50", and then 50" to 65", but everything was fine after I got used to it. I definitely recommend bias lighting for any viewing in dark environments. My wife and I always watch in the dark and the bias light does wonders for reducing eye strain.

FYI, you don't need to touch the service menu at all to get the A-Board replacement.

Thanks for the good news about the ST series. I have been looking through this forum for a month and primarily see complaints about blobs, wrong colors and other supposed imperfections. It's nice to see someone just flat out state that these are great devices. I hope to get one through Amazon soon.

It is actually comforting to hear that someone had a similar experience but adjusted. In any case, we have ordered a Ideal Lume panel light as it seems to have quite a following. My wife reported that watching a few minutes of "Dinosaur Train" (cartoon) earlier today did not cause eye strain, but hypothesizes that it wasn't nearly a bright as the PS3 game content, to which I would add that it also doesn't force my daughter to concentrate real closely like a game would. I would still welcome any other comments or like experiences. Thanks.

If you can put up the darkest grey slide and not see what I'm seeing, I am jealous.

Yes, I am fairly picky when it comes to image quality. Mostly physical artifacts and issues. After owning a 32" D-series JVC CRT TV I cut my widescreen teeth on the Panasonic AE100/200 and the Hitachi TX100/200. I spent a good four years going from the AE100 to the TX200. I remember vertical banding, peak-a-boo scan lines, colour non-uniformity, convergence issues, dust blobs and high black levels/low contrast. I think it's the non-uniform issues that are the worst. LCD projectors always had screendoor and a weird silkscreen haze over the image, but both were very uniform and easy to ignore. Screendoor was gone with a very precise de-focus, and once we moved away from 480p...lol...screendoor was not a big concern unless you sat too close. Later with the Epson 1080UB Pro I saw more colour non-uniformity and a strange (for a 1080P projector)...softening of the picture, and the odd rainbow text. I lived with imperfect image quality for a long time. Many of us did, despite our desire for better. Although we critically viewed our displays, we still got many hours of enjoyment from them, particularly due to the huge size. Anyhow, for now I will use a flat widescreen panel. I like the sharpness of plasma and lcd panels, so that is a bonus.

I would be ok to live with the Cinema or D-nice calibrated custom settings in terms of brightness. I am not a brightness fanatic, and I am willing to reduce lighting in my living room during the day. You don't have to make it completely dark. My thoughts about the MID-panel brightness setting was only to reduce the visibility of the issues on that one grey slide, but, then again, as you mention, I may not like other characteristics of the MID panel setting.


Wow, you are going to run the slides for quite a lot longer. Another 4 to 8 days of slides (and/or content like you say, in between slides).

Do you figure your pink issues the same as mine, not as bad, or a little worse?
I'll try and post a picture of some content on the weekend.

Is there a fix coming for the Samsung plasma's? It is a never ending quest.

I wonder if there is any correlation to panel size with regards to banding and blotches/tinting? So far it seems build date doesn't correlate.

Just found a spare SD card. Going to visit a view stores and a couple of friends places this weekend. Whatever the case may be, I have to go through this comparison trouble-shooting to see what I see. After running the slides, I will watch a good deal of 16:9 content for quite a few hours and see if I notice any change.

I guess I have to decide whether or not my set is ok or not. The bottom line is, I have to view lot's of content after the burn-in in order to know whether I am happy or not. The two variables I don't know is whether, over time, it will get better or worse than it is now and what I would end up with if I returned this one and tried another. I have until Friday in terms of return/exchange with the store, after that, it means dealing with Panasonic directly. It's a lottery.

thanks again for the feedback folks,

cpc,

There have been reports of somewhat faster grayscale shifting still around the 130-150 hour mark. In addition, I haven't been happy with the temporary image retention on the Panasonics at this early stage in terms of the 100 hour mark or less which is supposed to improve with hours. I just want to "burn" through the first few hundred hours to have a little better peace of mind in terms of preventing/minimizing image retention and when I get my set pro-cal'd so there will not be any significant grayscale shifting. In addition, it further assures no new issues crop up.

It's hard to tell by the pics if my pink is the same, but I have it a bit more prominently on the right hand side. It was definitely worse on my 65VT30 and kept getting worse up to the 100 hour mark which prompted me to return it. My VT30 also had a few green blobs which I'm not really seeing at this point on my ST30. By tonight, I will be around the 100 hour mark and will take a close look at everything.

There is no evidence a fix is coming from Samsung regarding the fb; they refuse to even seriously acknowledge the issue. However, some have speculated the fb was a purposeful design in the set.

I too have a similar story and similar outcome, except I bought from Best Buy and drove home with my new 50ST30. Ran the Slides and am now using D-Nice's settings...OMG what a beautiful picture. I have no blobs, no pink, just a great image.

Same deal with my set too. I have an april build 50ST30 and I didn't even run slides but still use D-Nice settings and it looks amazing anyway! The only time i've seen fbr is when my girlfriend watches soap operas but never on a game or blu-ray. The only thing that is a con of my set is that I didn't buy a 55 or 60 lol

Gotcha. Interesting that you went from a 65VT30 to a 65ST30. My main reason for going with the 60ST30 was that it appears to be the best value for picture quality, black levels and size. The money I save will go towards a future PJ.

How do you find the black level on the ST30 vs the VT30? From what I understand they should be similar in the 60 and 65".

Just extra frustrated because I thought I dodged the fb and plasma's were supposed to have better colour uniformity than this. I thought lcd's were worse for this.

When you check things out, you use the final settings, right?

If you see anything in particular, let me know in what film/movie. I noticed the pink on the right on NCFOM. Oddly, I thought my B and W dvd of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold would show all the banding and lot's of colour uniformity issues, but surprisingly it was mostly ok. I was blown away with a few close ups. So sharp and detailed it looks better than some poor BD transfers.

Our 60" ST30 is a bit over 2 weeks old - with well in excess of 100 hours of slides, in addition to a fair amount of other viewing (we've gone out of our way to rack up hours...).

Our "only" disappointment thus far is its handling of SD material - much worse than on our 50" (Pan plasma). Part of this is no doubt simply the Larger Size, but your comments about "sharp & detailed" are echoed in other reviews.

Would like to ask what DVD player you are using for SD material, what settings you use (particularly output resolution), and whether or not you engage / disengage any particular settings on the ST - ??

Alas, our play time with the set has been minimal thus far, but one thing that I noticed - much to my surprise - is that our "old" HD DVD player provides a much nicer picture on the ST (with SD DVDs) than our newer Pan Blu-ray player does. This is Precisely Opposite of our experience when we first purchased the Blu-ray player (along with the 50" plasma), and leads me to GUESS than there is some "setting incompatibility" between the player & the ST...