Official Panasonic 2011 TC-PxxVT30 Series Thread Discussion Thread [No Price Talk] - Page 70

Great call -- had no idea you could get this even if you did NOT buy from costco -- i returned my Amazon square trade 3 year ($219.00) and will be buying the $99 3yr from costco -- thanks for saving me money hodges69!

That's what she said........

Do you have info on the costco warranty and is it reliable?

I will PM you my address ..when can I expect the commission

It is a Square Trade warranty policy, sold through Costco. So it is also just as reliable as any other place you would buy a Square Trade policy from. The only difference is, Costco sells it for a much better price than anyone else, including even if you bought a policy direct from Square Trade with one of their own discount offers.

My latest news: panasonic reopened the case but rather than swapping they want to send the third party repair place here again to take the tv away this time to be evaluated. I'm not crazy about the idea if them taking the set. I foresee a situation like panasonic still refusing to replace it and claiming it's within spec and getting it back with yet another thing wrong with it and both companies denying responsibility. I worry about this only because of these recent experiences.

Any thoughts?

Not sure if this has been posted and answered. Just got my 65VT30 MJ series with build date of August 2011. Is it advisable to do a panel prep by running the EPROMM slides for about 100-150 HRS? I am sooo confused and would appreciate your time answering this for me. I am not a professional nor pretend to be. I am just a regular consumer who got this as a "welcome home" gift for serving in Afghanistan for a year. Please advise and thanks for your time. I just want to make sure I do this right the first time before enjoying this set for years to come.

55AMG....run patterns for 150 hrs.

Is this the 20 different color slides by EPROMM?? I have it loaded on an SD card and ready to go. therefore I assume this is necessary for a 65VT30 panel with build date of Aug 2011? Is this accurate? Thanks again.

It looks as though you chose to do the panel aging process. Therefore you can load them onto a USB stick or an SD card and play them in a slideshow for around 150 hours. It is not necessary to do these unless you chose to follow D-nices procedure to the T for the desired results. It is a calibration procedure.

The concern about the build date is for Fluctuating Brightness. If you have a panel that's produced in August or later, the FBr patch has been applied to the tv from the factory, so no further update is necessary. If you want to be sure that you have the patch installed, you can carefully go into the service menu and check the EEPROM version as it's on the first screen you come to, then just power down the tv to leave.

It sounds like you were unsure of these things so maybe this will help.

tfoltz was kind enough to compile a post on how to check for the FBr patch. If you're curious, here's a link to that post.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...postcount=3775

55 AMG

The idea of running the burn in slides is so that the screen shifts in color(ages) equally early in use when it shifts the most. This is especially important for those who intend to have their display professionally calibrated but also has value for those who don't.

It has nothing to do with when your set was built as they all will do this.

Well what do you know? A board is on back order 2 to 3 weeks according to Panasonic and 4 to 6 according to the tech...In the meantime TV is going back and time to play some EEPROM lotto until I get what I need...Hopefully my seller is willing to look for a specific serial...Otherwise I'll just keep returning or the A board gets here...Whatever happens first.

Hi, haven't followed the thread for weeks, since I bought one. Very happy with it. I'm just wondering if there's been any important news about the set in the last 2 or 3 months?

Also, can I assume it's safe to update the firmware without messing up my awesome D-Nice calibration?

So now that these TVs have been out a while, any new information on the black levels and stability compared to previous models.

Anyone else not satisfied with the VT30's black levels? Black bars for instance or just a static black screen, look dark grey to me and no amount of lowering the brightness will change it. My Samsung 8500 has inky blacks and blows this away. I was expecting much more out of this set. Is something wrong with my VT30 perhaps? Also I'm noticing a lot of flickering.

Well I just finished talking to Crutchfield and they are replacing the TV and will guarantee me a serial xx1215 or higher. In fact the tech said before they shipped the TV he needs to OK the shipment and will double check the serial. He will also warn his supervisor of this and look into replacing existing inventory containing a lower serial.
The way I see it, Panasonic should just recalled any existing inventory and update the software as well as software updates for all owners whether they see FBR or not. It just didn't seem right to have the TV repaired when its brand new plus the price paid for it....Anyway I'll go to sleep now

D-Nice:
you calibrated two pioneer 60" 9G Elite's about a year ago in Manhattan.I now have a 141 Elite monitor that needs calibration that is in Pittsburgh,Pa.Would you be interested in calibrating it?
Dave Wargo
dwargo@wargoco.com
917-699-9066 mobile

I recently had my TV and home theater sound system calibrated by Chad B. While my TV picture looks awesome, as I expected it would, I was most impressed by the audio improvement. Chad performed an advanced audio calibration and the sound is unbelievably better. He took painstaking care, over several hours, to get the room equalization just right. I strongly recommend getting in touch with Chad for calibration needs, and particularly audio ones. (I have a Panasonic 65VT30 TV, a Yamaha RX-Z7 receiver and Paradigm Reference Studio speakers.)

I'm so pumped! Went looking for a haggled down price for a GT30 55" and ended up with an open box VT30 55" for a little more than I was willing to pay for the GT30. It's an April 11 build but so far have not seen any issues (burn-in or FBr) while demo'ing it at BB.

Just fyi, both BB and Fry's were willing to match the Panasonic EPP pricing on either TV and I got the VT for even less b/c it was an open box.

I'm going to watch it in THX mode initially and if I don't like it, I'll follow D-Nice's settings. I figure my eye is not trained enough to notice the difference.

I'm also not planning on running the break-in slides since it was on/off for 3 months in BB already or should I.?

Had my 65 vt30 a few days now. Been running slides for 40 hours now, i think. Just got my new receiver hooked up so I thought I would finally test the 3D out and some 2D material and I gotta say I am pretty impressed w/ the picture.

The set to look at is a beauty on the wall. THe slides show not stuck or dead pixels. No loud buzzing that is sometimes associated w/ a plasma this size.

Great looking black level...colors seem fine to me but will be even better after a Dnice calibration.

Just thought I would give my impressions.

Thanks

My vt30 has a dark grey screen. How can the blacks go deep if the screen isn't even black with the unit turned off? I'm very unimpressed with this set.

My G9 kuro does not have a dark screen when it's off and has the best blacks money can buy.

Interesting. I figured a tv would be at its darkest when it's turned off. In either case the black levels suck on the vt30.

Are you viewing in a dark room?

It's in the living room. There's no windows or anything, just mild ambient light.

I've never seen a living room without windows.

It's well known this display has great black levels. It's obvious your set isn't calibrated properly, and/or a lighting issue.

I saw my first 65VT30 in the flesh this past week at a Bestbuy, and it looked washed out. Then again it was in a bright part of the store so i can't judge it in a fair way.

My G9 Kuro is in my bedroom and it's only used about 2 hours and only after dark.

You cannot judge any TV at Best Buy. None of them are calibrated properly, but that only matters to a small percentage of the people on this forum.