Official Panasonic 2011 TC-PxxVT30 Series Thread Discussion Thread [No Price Talk] - Page 100

Thanks for your advice. I am talking to Robert Zohn on the phone and he is suggesting I do the same thing. I am at work right now, so I don't know if my cable box has this option, but I will find out soon.

If I cannot fix this, then I don't know what I'm going to do. I can't justify spending 2.5k on a set & be confined to only Blu-rays and the occasional video game. Hopefully the native option works, but if not I will have no choice but to trade it out for a D8000...

Or get Direct TV



robertrobert,

That sounds like a lot of work just to watch TV. I have never had any of those problems with my DTV and I have only one dish.

I am also an owner of the 65vt30, upgraded from 50 inch 800u. I currently have uverse, but am leaning towards direct tv, as the bad uverse pixelation is only amplified with the bigger screen!

A buddy of mine owns just a mid range 2010 model 46" Samsung LCD and recently moved going from Uverse to cable and couldn't believe how much better the PQ improved. AT&T is always trying to get me to sign up, but I am relatively happy with the PQ of my cable (Time Warner) and I know Uverse would drive me nuts with their issues.

I really wish that I had Verizon Fios here in Wichita.

My history in a single post makes it sound like I've had a lot of headaches. It has been quite the opposite. I've had DISH for about 15 years and these two times were the only incidents over all that time. The HD boxes can be flakey for both DISH and DIRECT at least this is what the tech said that did installations for both. My PQ really exceeds expectations. Every time I look at many of my HD channels when a HD movie is playing, I can't believe the quality. I would swear it was being fed straight from a HD hard drive, it is that good.

Robert

I had the exact same problem last year after purchasing the VT25. I had Charter Cable and was very un happy with the HD quality after getting the VT25. I talked to my brother who had Directv for several years and he suggested I switched. I was worried about switching because living in Wisconsin, the weather can be pretty bad, and I always heard bad weather meant no signal, well I did switch and I am so happy that I did! No signal issues at all I now have the VT30 but the improvement from cable to Directv was night and day. I will NEVER go back to that over priced compressed garbage ever again! The quality of the HD stations on Directv compared to cables HD, is ridiculous. You will be wondering why you ever paid for cable. Make the switch!

And not to get into a Directv vs DISH battle, but go with Directv. You get so much more.

Good luck!

So today i went to best buy because i wanted to see the 65vt30 and look for some of the imperfections ive seen addressed in the forum. Honestly i could not see anything wrong. No color flashes when scenes changed quickly from light to dark, no blurring or color problems that i could see (i have 20/20 vision and i was looking very closely as the demo played out) I thought the display was awesome. Possibly a newer model that has those problems addressed? I asked if they could tell me the manufacture date but they didnt know and it wasnt possible to get to the back of the tv since it was connected as one of the demos. I do know that after seeing it, I want this tv!I do have one more observation. I was looking back and forth at a panny 55gt30 and a samsung led lcd und8000 55 that was right above it. Both seemed to have great pictures but for some reason the brighter crisper lcd led made scenes look fake! Maybe because its too bright? I dont know. I dont like the feeling that im watching a play, and that you can tell that the background in the scenes are made of cardboard on the lcd

So after some additional viewing, it looks like the right three or four inches are slightly brighter than the rest of the panel (using the slides and changing the picture mode there). I can't tell on regular content, but it's there on test patterns and slides...primarily noticeable in the mid-gray ones. It's not any sort of color, but it's apparent. Is this DSE? And aren't plasmas supposed to have near perfect uniformity?

I also have a scratch that I found on the bezel on the right side as well. It's very small, and I only noticed it as the light hit the screen perfectly when I was dusting the stand it sits on.

Anyway, I'm torn on what to do. I have a few more days before my return period is up.

Thoughts?

Hi All...I was in BB and found an open box 55" VT-30 for a decent price so I bought it. This is my first HD TV, had all CRT's up till now. While the HD channels look awesome, the standard channels look terrible. Do I have any options or am I just gonna have to live with it? Of course, I could also return it and crush my dreams.

I have Comcast cable going through a Tivo Premier with the cable card.

Thanks in advance for your help.

I would return it.

Why do you watch Standard Channels when you have the option to watch HD channels?

Remember that slogan, "You are what you eat"? Televisions are the same way.

Standard def television will always look comparatively terrible compared with HD television on ANY HDTV.

I wouldn't return it--you probably got a great deal. Just make sure you feed your VT30 with high quality stuff.

If it bugs you enough to post this, then you will never be happy with the flaws and will always be looking for them.

Best to return this, I would think.

What if he was to get a good avr to upconvert standard def video? Would that make it look better?

I'd return it for a new one if possible. I've got the 55VT30 and even though I didn't use 'burn in slides' 8 don't have any color uniformity issues or any other oddities. When my AVR is on but no signal is going through there's just a light grey backround and its all even. The scratch and image uniformity would bother me enough to return it.

Good luck.

Justin209,

These forums can be a little (actually sometimes A LOT) intimidating for prospective buyers of any product including the VT30. You have to keep in mind that most people who post on these forums are very much enthusiasts (some are outright fanatics) and as such are highly critical of these higher end displays. They will and do post every flaw they encounter whether its a relatively minor flaw or a major one. Every TV out there regardless of cost or brand name is flawed in one way or another. There is no perfect product in ANY category and theres no perfect TV. The VT30 placed 2nd in a very competetive shootout and ONLY lost to a TV that costs over $3,000 more that it does.

In my opinion the top three finishers (1-Sharp "ELITE" 2) Panasonic 65VT30, 3) Samsung PND8000) are all excellent, top shelf TVs in their own respective ways and each of them have their own set of 'POTENTIAL' problems. Key word obviously is potential. You really can't go wrong with either of those sets, it all depends on what your TV viewing priorities are and how much you can afford to spend etc...

I have a 55VT30 and haven't had any problems.

thanks for the reply. I guess all the reading had me kinda nervous about spending lotsa $ on the vt30 but when i think of it like you put it and actually seeing the tv at BB, i doubt id have any complaints. Now if i got the samsung and the screen filter started peeling off id flip! lol

Not everyone will see them if they exist. If you watch your (fairly calibrated display) in a dark environment, you're more likely to see color uniformity issues if they exist. On my 65VT30, if I watch black and white content, I can see the pink and green blotches even though they are faint. I can see them on certain light and darker areas in colored content as well. You are not going to see them on a Best Buy display that is on Vivid mode in a bright store. Now, I happened to be able to check out a 55VT30 at Magnolia in one of the fairly dark rooms with my calibration disc and spotted the issue on their display. On any rate, I've called Amazon for a return and am just waiting to hear from the shipping company. I am deciding if I want to try another, or just wait for a 2012 model which is supposedly using a different driving mechanism.

Panasonic actually does their own video processing in house and is generally very good. (For example, their upcoding in their blu-ray players is top notch). I don't think you'd see a huge difference unless the video processor of the AVR was really high end.

Even with really high quality video processing, with TV's of this size, standard quality just doesn't look all that great, especially when compared with true HD.


The other thing I was going to suggest for the other person with problems with their cable signal is to consider using a high quality signal amp. (Cable signals can degrade rapidly if you split them too much depending how "hot" the signal is coming into the home). I have 3 displays and I have to use a Monster cable amp/splitter--it really makes a huge difference in signal quality.

+1000 Well said! (especially that part about fanatics!)

There are flaws with every display ever made (or will be made)--we all want the "best", but buying a higher end set is really just a series of compromises and deciding what you can live with and afford.

Your feelings are certainly understandable because it's a lot of dough--but if you like what you see, just go for it, don't obsess, and enjoy the TV!

It's very hard to get a true idea of what a TV has to offer in any store. You really need to get it home and have the time to play with it a little to see what it has and don't have to offer and what you are willing to live with. I went to Paul's TV and they had there signal spit a good thirty ways and I didn't think any of them look good. Say you decide you don't want the TV and want to wait to see what next years TV's will offer the places like Paul's TV and Best Buy all charge a 15% restocking fee. I went with Amazon to get my 65TV30 because it was 1000 less then the local stores and no sales tax plus free returns with in 30 days if there was any problem with it.

What you might be seeing in the LCD is what they call the "Soap Opera effect" where everything looks so fake and you clearly can tell that a green screen was used. I had this on the Vizio I borrowed from Wally Word and it was just awful!

I'm going to have to respectively disagree with you on this.

The way it's suppose to work is that the higher end sets have higher end electronics with fewer problems....not just different problems.

I don't think the shootout was indicative of the way it should have worked. In my somewhat twisted way of judging displays, I don't think any of them should have been given first place. Fix the Elite, then yes...it should get first but how can you give first to a display that can't do color right.

With that said, I do understand that the attendees voted it first but have to ask what would have happened if there was an option where they could have said that none should be first?

Hi, Jim:
Your good point is very well taken. I should have been more clear: I guess I just meant that nothing is perfect in the sense of all the various display technologies have their strengths and weaknesses and there is some compromise (however small) in which strengths and weaknesses are important to us.

I did not mean to imply that we should have to compromise in terms of quality control, and I do agree that the bugs should be worked out before they ask us to fork over the cash. (Unfortunately, I think the software industry is largely to blame for the now common expectation that we will need patches to fix the problems of essentially flawed products).

I think what is even more problematic with the shootout is what D-Nice pointed out--i.e. the Panasonic competed with a firmware that's not even available (yet).

Mvp2005fan, Jim,

I agree with mvp2005fan's above statement completely as its what I attempted to say in my earlier post (reply) as well.

You are absolutely right about the way it should be with higher end electronics but the shootout unfortunately prooved that manufacturers aren't taking the time to get the kinks out at the factory. As mvp2005fan stated, they're too reliant on firmware updates etc. and I think they rush a lot of (unfinished/incomplete) products to market so that they're never caught late to the party while their competitors eat up early sales by getting their own product out there first. Most if not all of todays manufacterers are guilty of thay poor practice and that seems to be very common these days.

You make a good point, at these prices and with these sets being the top of their brand's respective ranges they should be performing better, have much less issues/problems and higher quality control at the factory. Sadly this doesn't seem to be the case however.

I wanted to provide my experience with the PRO settings in case it could help others.

Disclaimer: I want to point out this is my experience on my 55" VT30 so not saying in anyway this will be what others have or will experience. With this said, below is my experience.

I finally decided to try the D-nice settings for my MJ beginning s/n display since others have posted very positive results. I did this Wednesday night so wanted to wait until I viewed several more hours of HD content last night to make sure my thoughts haven't changed.

Once I had all the settings entered, I decided to switch back and forth between the Custom and THX modes since I've been using THX for watching all content. The HD movie of the first Lord of the Rings was ON while I did this. It was on the scene when they were underground fighting the Orcs, with the Elves and later in the final chapters in the woods. Maybe it was the luck of being on the darker scenes in the beginning that I noticed a definite BLUE push to the PQ. The colors of the cloths with leather, blue and red were more realistic in THX mode even though I like the added detail in the background probably due to the higher setting on the brightness and contrast in Custom mode.

For the heck of it and not knowing what it would do, I decided to change the BLUE on the 10 IRE setting from -4 to -50 (max negative). I was really surprised to see how much the PQ improved. So much so, the definite BLUE push looked to be gone. The PQ in Custom now to my eyes looked better than THX for the very first time since I've owned my display. I watched many different HD channels and noticed there was too much color so I changed the Color setting from 36 to 33. Everything looked really pretty darn good at this point but I felt maybe there was slightly too much RED. I went to the same 10 IRE setting and changed the RED more negative. It was originally set to -5. Last night, I made final tweaks to the BLUE and RED under the 10 IRE line. I ended up with the BLUE at -23 and the RED at -17 with the Color at 33 and all other settings including all PRO settings remaining the same.

I know there are many IRE levels, 20 through 100 actually besides the 10 IRE. I'm not a professional calibrator obviously so didn't want to mess with those. I simply decided to change the two I mentioned under the 10 IRE to see how it would help the BLUE push I was noticing.

I watched several hours of HD content last night including normal HD news and other normal HD viewing besides various movies, cable HD and STARZ. I was really impressed with the settings especially the skin tones which is most critical of all colors. It might be hard to tell if a car is not the true red it should be but pretty easy to see if faces look accurate or not. I am really please with the overall improvement. The original THX setting at times has a slight YELLOW push to the colors especially on facial skin tones via various programming. It is a little hard to see but more obvious especially after having the Custom mode set up. The facial skin tones now look so accurate that I can see all the details in the faces. Definitely leaving me in a better place to enjoy my 55" VT30 even more.

Anyway I thought I would post if others are wondering where to put the PRO settings. The PQ is clearly better to my eyes than THX which I thought was darn good for a provided setting. Clearly the new Custom setting is easily good enough PQ until I get my display calibrated. Seems such an improvement that I'm not in a hurry while waiting to see how Gotchaa reports back regarding the code testing. Maybe Panasonic will or won't address the color / luminous issue. If not, I'll have my display calibrated once I get more hours on it. Easy to wait and see how this pans out.

Cheers!

Robert

Thanks Robert. Might give that a try.

By the way, does anyone understand why Panasonic would have a "standard" picture mode that looks as bad as it does? Like looking through mud. Seriously, who would choose such a setting in any condition? Aren't the trying to sell TV's? Where would this setting ever look good? Maybe it's just me but I just don't get it. Why not have a pleasant looking "standard" mode?

Standard mode is the way it is so that Panasonic can pass Energy Star ratings. It's like that for all manufacturers.