Official Panasonic 2011 TC-PxxVT30 Series Thread Discussion Thread [No Price Talk] - Page 165

Image retention happens in plasmas, but eventually goes away, usually fairly quickly. Burn in is what you need to be concerned about. Not really sure why youre getting so worked up about IR.

So after months of complaining about my vt30 and the picture quality, I finally narrowed it down to my Denon Receiver as the root of the problems. The HDMI on it sucks, so I swapped it out for a Yamaha 671 receiver the PQ is much much better.

I'm still trying to find the best gaming mode for xbox 360 and have fiddled with game mode and custom mode. I like custom with the pro setting color something set to wide. It seems to be sharper and clearer than game mode. Can someone tell me what that settings does exactly? It seems to make the colors for vibrant.

Mo

Which model receiver did you have?

I'm using a Denon 4311CI and an APC S15 and I have to say my picture looks better now then it did having Direct TV running straight to it.

Just out of curiosity. Did the original batch of VT's come with a different remote. I see pics and reviews that say the VT comes with a unique remote to the other models and it looks jet black in color with black buttons with a silver border around the edge of the remote that matches the TVs aluminum bezel look. The remote I received is the exact same one my friend who has a GT model received. It's black with white buttons that light up orange wit no aluminum border. I'm Just curious. Its possible production models ended up not getting this remote. Honestly it's a lot sleeker looking.

The one with black buttons is for the European version.

Yeah makes sense. I believe it was a European review that I had read. It's a lot nicer looking but it lacks a light button I believe. I want it though. Lol.

Yes there was ,but that is not for public consumption.I believe it was a beta version that you could try at your own risk.I think the results were mixed.I think if there is an actual finished version it will be avaliable as a download over the net direct to your tv.Or at least it should be.

I just finished running 100 hours of the slides and it was brutal. Now that I'm done with that I have a October build with a serial number that starts with LJ. I don't see D-Nice settings for a LJ. Which of his setting do I use?

I had the 1912. Switched to Yamaha 671 so much better it's night and day. Not to mention the denon died after 6 months and needed to be repaired

I agree--I think the Yamaha's in general have very good video processing. It is a little surprising that the Denon had trouble as some of the higher end Denon's also are no slouch in this department. I'm glad to hear you got this sorted.

(In my set up, I just let the Panasonic do all of the video processing)

I have the same as you -- October with LJ serial number.

I ran the slides for 100+/- hours and then used the latest post with settings from D-Nice which I think is LH.

He said he hasn't worked on an LJ yet, but will provide settings when available.

That's what I did. Thanks for the feedback.

Something else to consider with regards to PQ and other devices. The HDMI cord itself. I recently moved and have an old 65V10 in the family room. I've been relatively unhappy with the PQ and thought it was the room and ambient light. Yesterday I swapped out the HDMI cord to the cable box (was using cable company supplied HDMI cord) and viola my PQ improved noticeably. I wasn't swapping to try and fix this problem but switching what HDMI went to what input and it was easier to switch at the components rather than the TV.

My 65VT30 from Crutchfield arrived last Wednesday. The "bad" news is it's a June build. However, it's an MJ116..... serial number. Also, I can hear fan whirring at 13
ft., but only with the volume down low. End of bad news.

It's in perfect physical condition. No buzzing whatsoever, I can see no stuck or dead pixels - and don't intend to look harder for them. Most important, after approx. 70 hours I see no hint of FBr. FWIW, the Crutch rep. said they had a tech. come in after the FBr problem became known and had sets updated in the warehouse as appropriate. We shall see. Is Fbr something you see right out of the box or does it take time to develop?

Doing 100 hours or so on Zoom with varied content and the settings dialed down, but I have succumbed to temptation for a little programming at more viewable settings.

With three other sets in the house, all LCD's, I had gotten used to the qualities of that tech. The VT30 is different. After only 70 hours, the picture has improved noticably as compared to out-of-the-box. This picture has real depth, even without the 3D gimmickry. The colors are stunningly rich - and the set hasn't even been properly adjusted yet. Last weekend's football games using OTA HD looked fantastic. The set cries out for Blu-ray and I will answer the cry shortly. Can't wait!

I also appreciate the way the VT30's newest HDMI standard allows for seamless switching integration and shared control between the VT30 and my new Yamaha RX-A1010 receiver.

Thanks to everyone in this thread and to those in all the other threads going as far back as the Sony 70 SXRD's (yes, embarrassingly, I've been looking that long!) for the expertise you've provided.

I know it source dependent but what volume level do you consider low? For me with Comcast anything less than 15, I can hear the fans at 11 feet. I would also consider my fans less of a whir and more like a whine.

Strange, the 1912 doesnt do any video processing...

I don't know what to tell you, it was obvious to me and my wife. Same wires and everything.

Comcast here also. Yes - 15 or so here too, with signal fed through either the boxes or via QAM/direct wall outlet connection.

I've been keeping the room fairly cool while running the set steadily for the initial break-in time. It'll be interesting to see what happens to the fan sound when the room is warmer, e.g., during the summer before the a/c takes full effect.

The sound is not objectionable - not yet at least. I cannot envision listening to anything with the TV speakers alone and set at as low a level as 15.

To be honest though, I've been playing more with the new sound system/Yammy receiver so far. IOW, audio levels have mostly been set multi-channel LOUD and far above the fan level!

Saw the receiver issue mentioned above, so tried mine hooked direct, no difference. I'd put in the B-Nice settings and it looked pretty decent, but to my untrained eyes about the same as THX mode. Then I changed the color space to wide and turned motion smoothing to weak, voila that wow picture I've been looking for! I've gotten used to the faint soap opera effect, in weak it's quite tolerable for me and far better than some versions I've seen.

The picture is probably grossly inaccurate now to a true videophile, but I like it and others have commented too.

I have been watching my VT30 in THX mode since June, but it seems like Cinema mode has better motion processing with Comcast. My problem is that THX mode is ISF calibrated, and Cinema mode is not. Anyone else notice this? Am I just imagining it?

I just don't get it. I'm not a videophile by any means, but I'm looking for a real picture. My eyes if I'm looking around right now outside sees nice colors bright ness, definition.. that is how life is. When I got my tv calibrated it was all dark and dull, and everyone (including on this board) told me "well thats how its supposed to be! That is real life, you probably don't like a true picture". What the heck are they talking about.. it looks like crap, dull and dark, when in reality life isn't like that. Its full of colors, brightness. Right when you walk into a football game at a stadium you see green ass grass. Thats right, green! not blah grey and washed out. Anyways, frustrated me should never had started reading this board, otherwise I would have been fine.
Mo

Your right in regards to colors should be bright. Also, there are situations where colors should be dim, if that is what the director/producer intended. I could be wrong, but I think your frustration comes from seeing other tvs with their overly bright picture. Yes, it can look appealing because it is such a bright, colorful image. However (just like others have stated), that is not how the natural world looks.

TVs are are RGB based, which means they're composed of light to radiate color and value. The tv is a light source. So, if you were looking at a field of grass on tv, that field of grass would also be a source of light. The natural world is not based on objects of being origins of light sources. The real world world requires a light source (i.e. the sun) to reflect off an object (i.e. grass) to our eyes. So, what we are seeing is not necessarily the grass, but light reflecting off the grass. Thats why "black" looks so dark, it absorbs color without reflecting it back (in the natural world). This use of light of light to reflect off objects is a property of CMYK colors.

So, I completely understand your frustration. It is just very difficult for TVs or calibrators to create the illusion of real life properties from a device that is a light source. Conversely, that's why when people print out images from a computer and are disappointed with the results. The final result is going to a CMYK print (a smaller color spectrum) from RGB monitor (a larger color spectrum).

I think the ideal image is where the tv feels like a "window" and not a glowing box. Hope this helps your frustration.

All said and done you have invested over 3K on this TV. If you are frustrated with the results then you should go ahead and tweak the settings to your liking to make you happy. After all it is your TV (until you decide to throw it out of your window). IMO, calibration can only make the TV to perform to satisfy the room and lighting conditions. Taste is subjective. Either you develop to satisfy the calibration or you don't. Looks like you don't, which is still OK because you can tweak to your liking and still have the best TV to your eyes, better than a calibrated one. There are friends who use to watch my old calibrated RPTV and say what C#$% is this. Whereas, I still feel I should have held on to that TV.
At least you have control over this to make you feel happy. In grand scheme of things there are so many things out of your control to make you unhappy. You don't want to add to that.
phew! made it heavy sounding

Ditto on this. Good call. I recently installed a new Bose V25media center which accepts HDMI inputs from my Verizon FIOS box and blu ray player. The Bose V25 system connects directly to HDMI #1 on the VT30. I use Monster 1000 cables on my FIOS and Blu Ray. The Bose system came with its own HDMI cable to connect to the TV. I was not happy with the picture quality. It lacked a little sharpness and sometimes a little grainy. I thought I was losing some db in FIOS signal strength because of routing through the Bose before going into the VT30. Last night I swapped the Bose supplied HDMI cable for a Monster 1000 matching my others. Hot damn, that was the problem. The picture has significant improvement, very sharp, crisp and has depth to it. Now for the color decoding and luminance issues.....

What you're describing sounds great but it doesn't fit the known profile of HDMI cable problems. The improvements you describe sound more like I would expect with an analog path -- not digital. I certainly can't explain it.

Yes that was what I thought - however recently I bought 2 additional ROKU LT boxes (for second and third TVs) and cheap HDMI cables from Amazon.

Both ROKU's had real problems connecting to both TV's with the cheap the HDMI cables (intermittent connections or VERY noisy pictures). For the heck of it I swapped the HDMI cable that came with the DirecTV box connected to one of the TVs. The ROKU connected without a problem - as did the DirecTV box with the new cheap HDMI cable (that didn't work with the ROKU).
Same thing worked on the other TV - swapping the HDMI cables between the ROKU and DirecTV box made the ROKU and DirecTV box happy. I have no idea what was hapenning here - but the ROKU and cheap HDMI clearly didn't want to get on with each other. Nothing should have been very stressed - the connection for the ROKU's and DirecTV boxes were 720P (both TVs were 720P TVs).

A little off topic I know - but sometimes it might be the HDMI cable that is causing the issue. Always worth checking if you have another HDMI cable to try. (Note I am not saying get expensive Monster HDMI cables - the ones that came with the DirecTV boxes were clearly nothing special).

1+ The OP is the one who has to live with the TV, not us, nor the calibrator--so the only thing that is "right" for him/her is what he/she wants.

OTOH, assuming the problem is not a suboptimal calibration and/or a suboptimal lighting situation, the fact is that it takes most people time to appreciate a truly calibrated set after years and years of watching inaccurate televisions and images. (There was a nice article on this by Russ Hershelmann back in the day).

It's very much like any high end hobby--it can take time to appreciate the subtleties of whatever obsession you choose to pursue. I've got friends/relatives who claim one golf ball is superior to another and that they can play better with it. I, being a tyro, am trying so hard just to hit the silly thing, that all of the finer aspects of the ball are yet lost to me.

That said, there is no snobbery intended in this message--just watch what you want, with whatever you want, and however you want. Whatever floats your boat is cool--even on AVS.

PS: if vivid is what you are after--have you considered trading the VT30 for one of the better LCDs--the Sony 929 may have an image more pleasing to you.

If you mean sparkles by what you call noise, those are some of the expected effects of poor HDMI connections. All the cables I use for myself and for people I've helped are the 28 gage Monoprice (cheap) cables. I use 28 gage cables to reduce stress on the connections. If HDMI used computer type connectors with positive locks, there wouldn't be this type of problem. Any small movement in a connection, anywhere in the HDMI chain, can cause sparkles, interrupted signals, and handshake problem.

I think that in the second case you had a better connection match than you did with the cables suplied with the device.