Official Panasonic 2011 TC-PxxS30 Thread - Page 14

No, not CATS. I have read that they have some type of, for a lack of a better word "governor" on the power consumption that makes them more eco friendly and that the overall brightness is the victim.

If I can get a brighter picture I don't care if it consumes more power.

I love my set, and while sometimes i think it could be brighter mostly it don't bother me, but id be interested to hear more about this

Service menu manipulation maybe? Honestly, I think you may be asking the impossible-- even my father's ST in full scorch (custom mode) is far from bright. Plus, who's to say that making it brighter wouldn't change other picture aspects... Perhaps to their detriment? No, I think if brighter is what you want the first step would be to try the ST-- after that: Samsung. The entirety of panasonic's 2011 lineup has been criticized for it's (lack of) brightness. From cnet to televisioninfo to hometheatermag...

I feel your pain, if this tv goes back it won't be because of green blobs or eff'd up gamma-- it'll be because it sits in front of my door wall and the days my GF is home and watches tv she doesn't want to have to close the blinds and at night she doesn't want to turn off the lights! Honestly, she shouldn't have to! My old 46" led me to believe that plasma could compete with a brightly lit room. My only reason to pause is that at night when I'm alone and sitting in front of this panel with my headphones on and a new bluray purring away in the PS3 I can hardly believe that I only spent six hundred for this thing! I want to keep this set and instal it in y man-cave... Only problem is I don't HAVE a man-cave and I'm not sure when I may have one! Lol!

This energy star "governor" is the source of the fbr that I have been experiencing Panasonic says that there is no way to eliminate it. I think that is really too bad, as it is causing far more problems than it is worth. How much energy would these things really consume without it?

Maybe I have super-human vision or an especially bright TV, but me and my wife watch this set in our living room wth what I would consider to be normal daytime illumination without an issue. The sun never shines directly on the set, but there is enough light to see reflections when the set is off. We also watch TV with the room lights on and shining into the set...same thing. My pick in the theater gallery was taken on a typical sunny day.

I'm starting to wonder if there isn't some variance between interations of this model to account for these varying impressions.

The display can get technically bright *enough to be watched during daylight hours but I find that the strange gamma issues in custom mode force some really weird looking skin tones when the contrast/brightness is set too high-- it's almost as if the faces are both pale AND ruddy all at once. Turning it down makes for a much more pleasant (and realistic) image-- but that image is leagues dimmer than my already-not-super-bright 2008 plasma and WAY dimmer than my dim-for-an-LCD Olevia panel in the office.

No, I don't think there are variances. I went to Costco to see this side-by-side with the ST30 and there is a significant difference in "reflection" on the S30 over the ST30. I ended up buying the VT30 which is seems better then both in terms of reflection to light.
I had an old VIZIO in the S30's place and going from that to the S30 I couldn't stand how much the S30 reflected light. I gave the TV to my brother who has a dimmer room with no windows opposite the TV and it's fine. The S30 also doesn't get the brightness that the ST30 and VT30 seem to get; that may be fine for many people but it wasn't for me.

Interesting Panasonic confirms that as the cause of the fbr. But how do they explain TV's that don't exhibit fbr like my P60S30.

For the record when and how did Panasonic say that?

Tom

Well, the ST/GT use an actual filter and the VT uses a better one so there will be less reflection. The higher end sets are also brighter in 2D mode, which is important to some people. All I know is that my set doesn't appear particularly bright, but it also doesn't appear particularly dim to me. But whatever makes you happy...which is really all that matters.

Mine doesn't have it either and I have actually been looking for it because so many people here claim that they all have it. I DID notice a subtle brightness flucuation when watching cable, but it happened on my old set (an RPTV), and my CRT. When I upgraded my cable box, it went away on the S30. I never saw it on blu-ray though. I just think people need to either stop obsessing or get a different TV. I'm happy with the set, it has a great picture for its price point, it only cost me $899 and if my niece puts a hole in it, I'll just run down to the store and get another. It ain't a Kuro folks...

Mine is also november and zero issues here...plenty bright also

Guess we have defective units them

Tom

I purchased this set three weeks ago and its a november build date and ZERO issues.I calibrated the set to the televisioninfo.com settings for cinema and picture is beautiful.Maybe a little on the dark side but you get used to it. I used avia to calibrate for gaming in game mode but I preferred the default setting for this.Does anybody have any good setting for gaming? please post it!

P60S30 has the fbr issue,
You'd have to play the right media to expose the problem.
Seek on this board, the media link has been posted many times.

In all honesty though during normal viewing I don't experience the fbr issue. And it doesn't bother me.

You need to understand, high dynamic range is not a true HDR, it's just a moving window to simulate or provide an artificial HDR.

I notice the fbr pretty frequently. Just noticed it tonight during walking dead on AMC-- there's a scene where the kid is talking to the prisoner in front of a closed barn door and it was sort of like the set couldn't decide if it wanted to raise the luminance or not... Noticeable but, honestly, doesn't bother me that much. I'll reserve judgement until this happens during a bluray.

I cannot remember when I bought my Toshiba DLP, its the RPDLP with a lamp that at first would barely last a year but the newer replacement ones seem better, but still they are over $125 each and have to be bought from Florida, and I am starting to get the early indications the lamp now must be about to pop. Must be my 6th one over the years now.

So I am thinking of getting this plasma, Sears doesn't carry any large plasmas anymore, just the newest LED TVs, and last year all they sold were 3D, a 2D had to be a special order, the salesmen there actually got all miffed when I wasn't buying into the 3D fad. And when I went in there yesterday they gave me evil looks when I wasn't interested in the latest LED TVs.

Anyway Walmart has this model, usually I won't buy from WM as they usually have shipping problems getting to Alaska, too much knocked and tossed about.
But anyway this one is marked down quite a bit, I may pick it up tomorrow morning, I bought another Panny a couple of years ago a 50" 720P model plasma for the wife and the kids, its been running almost non stop for over three years now, they leave it on almost all the time and the wife keeps it on when she even sleeps, go figure. Never a hiccup, its so bright I get blinded by it and it puts out enough heat during the winter I can actually turn down the wall thermostat! Nice during an Alaskan winter.

I don't have any HDTV satellite, just regular Dish, but I do have a hi end Panasonic Blu ray and a collection now of over 400 BD movies, I shop the bargain bins a lot. I am sorta spit about some issues with this but it appears as though plasmas are being phased out by nanny controls to me so maybe this is the last chance to get one, it might be different in the lower 49 where you have multiple places to buy a HDTV but not here in rural Alaska.

Even a trip to Anchorage and back would cost me over $50 in fuel, and shipping is out of the question, so I may take a leap and buy this one from WM and here is hoping its not a lemon like the other TVs I have bought from them, which were Sanyos BTW, I have since learned to steer well away from Sanyo.

I can see getting an ST is slightly better but its almost twice the price, maybe I should wait and see what the next shipments will be?

I'm having an aweful time playing back my DVD collection from my DLNA NAS. The same videos play back fine on my computer, they play back fine in XMBC, they play back fine on a Blu-ray player. So this is not a question about ripping DVD's to MP4 (I use Handbrake on a Mac).

When I try to play them on my P60S30, the initial list of movies in the movies folder appears, and I can go up and down that list quickly with the TV remote. But trying to scroll to the NEXT item after what appears on that initial page, takes 30 seconds to a minute.

The times listed in the right column are not representative of the movie duration at all. One title may say 9 minutes and 27 seconds, but when I select it, the left hand side window properly says it's 1 hour and 48 minutes.

Some titles play for a bit, and then I get an error that the movie file is in the wrong format.

Other titles play completely out of sync, audio either ahead by >5 seconds, or slightly behind. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it.

I called Panasonic and spoke with a representative who seemed to understand. She helped me with my networking issues. And after explaining several ties that it wasn't the server, it wasn't a Windows computer, it was a playback issue _in_the_TV_ that she tried to get assistance, and then told me that she would escalate this to a manager and they would get back to me.

The next day, I got a DLNA 101 generic e-mail that explains what DLNA is, how different devices can connect, and how to enable it on my Windows computer, which I don't have. So I called back a second time and spoke to a less informed rep who continued to try and help me understand what DLNA is and how certain Windows computers do it differently... and after a half hour of talking, he seemed to insist that my files were made incorrectly. I asked him how to make them and he just read off the file formats supported (MPEG-2, MPEG-4...)

Now I understand it may be an encoding issue, but these files play perfectly everywhere else. No other media manager has a problem parsing the run time of the movies. No other player has an audio sync issue or horrible lag time when scrolling through the list. So I'm quite certain it's the TV.

The Panasonic support rep gave me the number of an authorized repair center but cautioned that if the technician could not find fault with the TV, then I would be responsible for covering the cost of the service call. Given that it seems to be quite difficult to prove that it's a TV issue, and that I'm sure there's Pressure from Panasonic to _not_ find fault with the TVs or get your "authorized" service number revoked... I'm hesitant to call.

But dammit I want what I paid for.

Who else has DLNA playback issues?
Who else rips DVDs with Handbrake?
Who else has different times listed in the DLNA Movies selection page?
If you had problems, how did you resolve them?
Help!

@MR D. I know there was a question in there but I'm not sure what it was. Lol!

@ANTHONYBEME My suggestion: buy a box to stream your movies and don't rely on the Panasonic.

is there a way to get rid of the "screen" effect in cinema?

Sorry way too early in the morning, I was debating to buy the last P60S30 in Alaska from Walmart. No replies were coming so I rationalized first off its from WM, second its only 900 lines, it has a record of batches of lemons.

So I passed. I'll just keep buying more lamps for my Toshiba DLP.

900 lines? I assume you're talking about the moving resolution? Hate to say it but your toshiba is probably around 100-200! No joke! Also, the S30 actually has 1080 lines of moving resolution (hdtvtest.co.uk proved it) and believe me: detail and handling of motion are two things NO one can complain about with this set. In fact, televisioninfo.com found that the S handled motion better than any of panasonic's other 2011 models! Lastly, the "lemons" you mentioned are most likely the sets that have the green/pink blobs? Well, ALL of panasonics 2011 models are affected by this issue-- from the S to the VT.

I have my reservations recommending this set due to it's lackluster processing and dimmer-than-usual picture. But I guarantee it will run circles around your rear projection unit. Not saying you should buy one just pointing out my observations...

[quote=Also, the S30 actually has 1080 lines of moving resolution (hdtvtest.co.uk proved it) [/QUOTE]

Do you have a link to that test?

Well, it doesn't matter where a set is purchased anymore than it matters what faucet you drink out of in your house. It's all the same...

As for the "only" 900 lines...lol. Motion resolution is pretty irrelevant. A Kuro 150 is only rated at 900, but I don't see people tossing them into the trash to get the latest VT30. You won't notice the difference and if you do, its the higher level panasonics that perform worse in this area. It is simply marketing at its best.

And all panasonics are have the same issues, which have all been resolved for the most part in the latest models.

Sure! This is for the "b" (british plug version). Skip to the "motion" section.

http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/panas...e=Performance#

You could try taking it off warm2? I really think what you're seeing is the ambient light of your room reflecting on the panel. Cinema simply isn't bright enough to watch in a lit room-- it's intended for dark viewing.

Color is on normal and room is completely dark.

Lol! Then I think you're out of luck... I notice what you're talking about when the lights are on-- the panel glass is noticeable 'in-front' of the image. it's not dissimilar from what I used to notice on the old rptv with the lights on. When I shut the lights off, though, I'm literally BLOWN away by how good this set looks on bluray. It's the only reason I haven't returned it! Unfortunately this is a fairly narrow purpose for a display: watching movies in the dark.

Well, I am glad that you don't fbr, cuz it sucks. I see it more frequently on blu ray than I do watching tv. I also see the banding that others have talked about on here, and that didn't seem to appear until after the 200 hour mark. So, needless to say, I have more than one "feature" that these sets exhibit. I will still say that I think the tv has overall outstanding performance for the price point, I just wish that it's faults weren't so noticeable.

I agree completely. However, I must be lucky with the level of light in my house because I find Cinema to be bright enough during the day that I just leave it on that setting all the time.