Official Panasonic 2011 TC-PxxVT30 Series Thread Discussion Thread [No Price Talk] - Page 14

BillP said to stretch it to fit the entire screen! The first 100-200 hours are the most critical period and content should fill the entire screen with no side bars, the phosphors are more prone to burn-in this early in there life!! The phosphors need to be aged evenly during this critical period, burn-in/image retention will be less likely as the set ages, set you contrast and brightness to half or 50 for this period!

Techlord

If you're going to try THX make sure turn brightness down a couple clicks.

Just curious, you would think Panasonic would put that in the manual if the first 100-200 hours is that critical?

I tried the THX mode.. its still ok. I'll wait till I get my tv stand to make the final judgement. There is just something I don't like about it that I can't put my finger on. I have an old 42PX500U panny, and thats what the new vt30 replaced, and I think the PQ was better on that. My 42" is like 7-8 years old and I thought by now they wouldn't have burn in limited hour on brightness like on the old plasmas. The sales rep told me plasmas and burn in is a thing of the past. He lied?

What Panasonic will do is tell you that you abused your set if there happens to be image retention that won't go away in a reasonable amount of viewing time. All the other manufacturers will tell you the same thing.

With simple common sense, any modern plasma shouldn't have serious image retention problems. After the early hours (100-500) of a display's life, it's still a good idea to vary the kinds of material that is watched. Leaving a plasma on CNN (ticker at the bottom of the screen), The History Channel (extremely bright high contrast logo), or the same game for days at a time is not good for any display.

Common sense and good judgment are good things, or plenty of money to replace damaged plasma displays.

I think some people are overly worry about the burn in. I have a 2003 Sony KDL plasma(freaking heavy) and i never had any problem with burn in.

I'm "sure" that he meant to say that burn in was much less likely to happen with today's plasmas. You can still do it if you try hard enough.

Thanks everyone that replayed to my question and it makes sense I'll just watch these movies in the zoom option on the TV for awhile. Better to be safe then sorry.

Get a good calibration disk and try that with THX mode. Then watch a good movie known for it's picture quality. Movies are made using a common standard.

On the other hand, calibrating for spending most of your time watching TV won't get the same results, because what you're seen isn't consistent from channel to channel, or program to program on the same channel.


Expectations can be tricky. For instance, Your old display is 42" and your new one is 55". Based on screen size alone, the smaller screen will have a "sharpness" advantage. That's true of all displays.

Another tricky thing can be the distance you are from a 42" or a 55" display. Each screen size will have it's own optimum viewing distance.

Brightness and vivid colors can also be tricky. There are those that want their displays to wow them, and others who want their displays to look as natural as possible.

I'm most interested in movies, and football. For movies I want to see details in dark scenes, and most important, I want to see faces with natural skin tones. If those things are right, then most everything else should be geed enough.

Even so, I know that when I watch the newer release of "Siing'n In The Rain" there will be no natural skin tones, because back in 1950s anyone who made a musical also used a lot of pancake makeup on the principal actors.

I keep sharpness turned off because it can distort the images. Anyone who is used to watching displays with sharpness turned way up might think that something was missing when it's turned off.

We all "grew up" with CRT displays that were always set to wow the viewer, much like LCD now. Getting used to a natural look can take some time, but getting used to a natural look isn't required. To each his own.

Oh but they do they just use different wording like avoid still images for prolonged periods of time and stretch to fit when possible, why on earth would they say this if there's no chance of having a permanent burn-in? Its all about how you word it, if a manufacturer tells you to avoid having still or stationary images for prolonged periods of time than what do you think their message is to you? My Samsung LCD when I first got it had image retention (temporary) after I left a still image on screen for 45 minutes in "Factory Torch" mode (Vivid mode), yet was completely gone by the next morning. This is an LCD I'm taking about here, not a plasma.

While its probably much more common to get image retention than it would be to get image burn-in, it doesn't mean that you can't get burn-in otherwise there wouldn't be any need for manufacturers to mention anything about still images or having black bars on screen. Can one imagine if plasma manufactures actually word it like the reviewer's in the operating manual?! How long do you think it would take Johny to return his plasma he just purchased at the local BB? Burn-in is still possible but unlikely if contrast and brightness settings are reduced to at least 60-705%. I'm not trying to cause drama here I'm only telling you that its still possible to get burn-in in any plasma if abused enough!

Techlord

Home Theater Magazine

You can also watch HDTV channels that don't have bright logos, or if you rent movies, look for some with aspect ratios of 1.77 to 1. They will fill the screen (16/9).

You can also get movies with a 1.85 to 1 aspect ratio. They have very small black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. If you use full mode instead of dot by dot mode, there won't be any black bars. Full mode on most displays will cause a small amount of over scan which will remove the black bars. It's like a mini zoom.

In general comedies and dramas, that aren't block buster type movies, come in those aspect ratios.

Enjoy.

What 3D modes does the VT30 support (resolution, frame rate, and type - side by side, top bottom, frame packed)?

Michael

Hi,

Yesterday I was looking Batman Dark Knight.In one scene the whole screen changed from deep black to dark grey.Is this "floating Blacks".

Full mode IS dot by dot mode provided hd size 2 is selected. You are referring to hd size 1 for the 95% mode which is a mini zoom(5% overscan)

Yes I have the mount attached to studs and checked what my mount (Sanus LF-228) was rated for. It's rated for 135lbs so I'm good to go. One more day until delivery

They can do frame sequential, side by side, and top and bottom and are selectable. There's also an eye swap and diagonal line filter option too. You may want to visit the 3D sections for more specific answers.

And they should be worried. Be very careful with the Panny. Especially early on. No static images. I would not recommend gaming for several hundred hours and even then I'd be very careful.
I have a vt25 and still have a faint image of the Madden 2011 scoreboard on mine.

Thanks for the info. Is there a chart of the showing all the modes? I looked at the ST30 manual (couldn't find the VT30 manual online), but it didn't have one.

Michael

Now that's a good joke after the horrible Panasonic Plasmas of the year 2010.

Once they start with their beautiful MLL rise game, heavy IR will be every days business and burned images are not uncommon either.


CRTs were able to display natural images.

20 hours of gaming should be enough.


I won't watch cinemascopemovies for 200 hours instead of zooming them! Zooming destroys your movieexperience completely.


G14 don't have floating blacks.

I don't have access to these displays so I should have made it clear that I was using "full" generically. Thanks for clearing that up.

The number that actually did, over the life span of color CRT as the dominant technology, was tiny. Even with today's plasma and LCD displays, very few of them are set up to be natural.

I have one more question. I have a ps3 that is my primary 3d blu ray player and I get some really bad ghosting when watching 3d movies is that because the ps3 is not really good at displaying 3d movies? Some movies are so bad I can't watch them and I gets even worse when I mess with the 3d effect. Could this be caused by the ps3 it self or my hdmi cord and would a panny blue ray player handle these movies better and maybe clean up the crosstalk/ghosting? I read a review that tangled was suppose to be a fantastic movie in 3d with little to non ghosting and I went out bought it and seen a lot while watching the film? so like my original question do you think its the ps3 its a FAT 60gb one?

The fact that the PS3 does not do lossless audio.. it's game over for it as my 3D player of choice... I'd go dedicated if I were you.

So my father finally got a TC-P65VT30 installed today. He was gonna get the VT 25 several months back then heard about this one coming out. With the problems with rising and floating black and stuff with the 25, he figured hed wait on this one and give it a shot.

One thing though. Dont plasmas have a burn in period? A period where your suposed to not really play games or do anything with really bright or high variation in picture for a little while? I could have sworn i remembered hearing about that, but when i flip through the manual i see no mention of a wear in period or anything. The only metnion is a warning over watching 4:3 programing. Whats the deal? Is there anything he should do or avoid for a little while and if so for how many hours? Im really not familiar with plastmas at all

2ndary question. I thought newer plasmas took care of the burn in from 4:3 viewing and stuff? He willl probably be using it for that from time to time, should he be concerned about burn in? What can be done to avoid it? This was always the biggest drawback to plasmas for him, and for me too i think.

tnx. I wonder if they finally fixed the rising/floating black issues in this line, and if its an improvment over the VT25. I had heard the VT25 actually had pretty bad input lag for gaming. How is that on this model?

The first 100-200 hours is most important as the phosphors need to age evenly during this critical time! Its best to reduce the contrast and brightness settings to half or 50-60% during this time! While you are more likely to get image retention (temporary) than image burn-in, image retention if ignored can lead to image burn-in over time and even then Panasonic has a white wash feature to remove image burn-in.


Home Theater Magazine

Yes.

While plasmas have gotten a lot better with regards to burn-in saying that burn-in isn't possible anymore is ignorance on his part! Burn-in can and will happen if someone is careless with regards to leaving those stock market scrolling bars or by leaving a set in "Factory Torch" mode or Vivid mode. It would have been more responsible of the salesman to say that burn-in is a lot less likely to occur when reducing the brightness and contrast settings to reasonable levels (25% lower levels of Luma)

Techlord

I've been watching in THX mode, which has great PQ out of the box, and contrast/brightness in the 50-60% range. I watch very little 4:3, but would stretch it to avoid problems. I have watched movies with black bars on the top and bottom, though. IMO, as long as you vary your viewing (don't only watch with black bars or static logos), you should be fine. I have not seen any image retention so far.

If you are expecting your plasma to be super bright and overly sharp right out of the box, then you probably should go LCD or LED. If you want to brighten your colors and the plasma set in general, then switch it to Custom Mode not THX mode. In pro settings switch the Gamma to 2.0 and set the AGC to 0. You can also play around with panel brightness level. I leave mine on MID. The AGC was the big one for me, it has to be set to 0 and not 7. Then set your contrast to around 68 and your brightness to around 57. Now i know all the calibrators in here are cringing at those settings, but everyone has a different opinion on what looks good to them. It is worth noting that the picture WILL get better as it ages. After 200 hours you will notice a better picture then you do now. I have two 2010 model plasma's and both took a bit of time to get the great picture they have now, i also prefer a brighter picture. The only thing i havent been able to get used to is the full field whites. When watching a hockey game the ice seems a bit duller then LCD, but other then that these flagship model plasma's are incredible.

Now, with the brighter settings, be mindful how long you have static logos on the screen for the sets first 200 hours or so. After that just enjoy the TV. I have one i purchased last July and i see retention on it the odd time, but nothing that doesn't go away in 20 minutes of alternate viewing. Image retention isn't a big problem if common sense is used. If you plan on leaving the set on CNN for 6 hours at a time with bright picture settings, eventually it could damage the set. I haven't had any issues at all with this. Any retention i have gotten has been temporary.

My two young sons play PS3 LEGO games with static scoreboards and health meters and we have never had an issue. We just make sure he games in the dimmer THX mode and keep it under 3 hours a day. Any retention that happens is gone soon after we switch to something else.

Try the above picture settings and see if it helps. Most stores have a 30 - 45 day return policy. So just watch the heck out of it, and get it broken in.

Hope this helps.

Mike