Official Panasonic 2011 TC-PxxVT30 Series Thread Discussion Thread [No Price Talk] - Page 208

Originally Posted by yonip_15

Hello everybody! I'm a Soldier just barely getting back from playing in the sand box my past 6 months deployed came quick because of the time I spent reading and doing research on TVs so that I'll be prepared when I get back. I'm finally here and I'm now as confused as ever. I have about $2800 to spend and if you're given a chance, would you pick a 65VT30 or wait for a 65GT50? How would the price difference compare? I'm not an obsessed HD guy but I want the best PQ when watching sports and movies. I won't be playing games on this set. My viewing distance is about 12 to 13 feet. My living room is between bright and dark. How's 3D and SD viewing on on the VT30? I saw an uncalibrated VT30 at BB and it was excellent. Please help me!

Originally Posted by N8shon

Should I get the upcoming Panasonic VT Plasma or the WT LED LCD if I'm planning on spending about 30-40% of my time on it gaming? My Sharp Aquos just died after 4 years and I am considering getting one of these two new Panasonic sets. Any and all advice is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Originally Posted by PeterUbers

So I've run this "snow" pattern and continued the slides overnight -- 8 hours a night -

the ghosted image (IR) is less by about 50%,but still there. I'm pretty sure over time this will go away hopefully, but may need a few months.

Will continue to post -- distressing that so little would cause persistent image retention.

Originally Posted by OmegaR3D

I went ahead and bought the VT30 65 and it's a beauty! I'm amazed at how good the picture quality is with just THX settings. It's gonna be hard to convince myself to get this professionally calibrated when it already looks perfect. QUOTE]

I thought THX looked great as well. But eventually I used D-Nice's settings for Custom and liked the PQ even better that way than THX. Try it for yourself.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...5#post21184215

Originally Posted by reevis

I just bought a 65VT30 and I think it might have a problem.
When I play a DVD the black letter box bars have an appearance of green static
noise. This is only seen at a very close distance as the green "static" is very small but throughout the entire letterbox. This does not happen with a letterbox cable program. I have tried two different DVD players and different DVDS.
I have an older Pioneer elite PRO940 that does not display this behavior when using the same player. Please advise.

Originally Posted by BillP


Thanks, I bookmarked that for down the line after a 100 hours or so. This is actually my first plasma I don't feel the need to break in with color slides as I haven't seen any IR yet. My Samsung would still get more IR on menus after a year and a half than this does on Day 1.

My panel is August 2011, should I update the firmware? I didn't see any fixes that looked important.

Originally Posted by terzaghi

My understanding is that The main purpose of using the slides is to get the best results out of using D-nice's settings, not to help prevent IR

Originally Posted by reevis

I just bought a 65VT30 and I think it might have a problem.
When I play a DVD the black letter box bars have an appearance of green static
noise. This is only seen at a very close distance as the green "static" is very small but throughout the entire letterbox. This does not happen with a letterbox cable program. I have tried two different DVD players and different DVDS.
I have an older Pioneer elite PRO940 that does not display this behavior when using the same player. Please advise.

Originally Posted by JuiceRocket

I've had my VT30 for a decent amount of time now, and am loving it, and wanted to share a few observations. These all may be moot points once it's professionally calibrated, but it's what I've found after my own very basic setting modifications. This is a comparison to two older Panasonic Plasma's I own and still use, a 42" PWD6UY and a TCP42C2.

The biggest item about my VT30 driving me nuts - the bizarre rainbow flash I get if I move my eyes quickly across the screen. I can easily repeat this, simply by moving my eyes back and forth quickly. I don't have this issue on either of my old plasmas.

The second issue - the VT30 is dim. Compared to both of my old sets, it's a challenge to get the VT30 to be - or even feel - anywhere as bright as my other two sets.

What I do like is the black levels. They're easily deeper than both of my older sets, which makes sense given both their age and technology.

I can't wait to get my VT30 calibrated. As much as I like it, I know I'm missing the overall picture quality that this device can put out. Shows and movies feel flat and dull, and when I try to tweak it myself, they look unrealistic.

These are simply my personal observations. Again, I'll post once I get the VT30 calibrated. I keep hearing how incredible the PQ is once it's calibrated, I'm very excited to see it!

-JR

Originally Posted by OmegaR3D

Thanks for the info guys, I went ahead and bought the VT30 65 and it's a beauty! I bought a wall mount but chickened out at the thought of doing that so I just put it on my stand. I love this thing! No buzzing (only if I put my ear to the tv) and I absolutely love the 24fps /96hz playback that was always messed up on my Samsung plasma. Went ahead and bought a 2nd pair of 3D glasses too. I'm amazed at how good the picture quality is with just THX settings. It's gonna be hard to convince myself to get this professionally calibrated when it already looks perfect. Only part that sucks about putting it on the stand is there's no room for my center speaker, have to get a floor stand for that.

I took a lot of heat from everyone I know for buying this big a TV but when they see it suddenly they understand why I wanted to go 65

Here's some pics:

OLD SETUP



NEW SETUP

Originally Posted by wcmartin

Have you tried D-Nice settings? Wondering what you think if you have. Would be nice to be able to compare calibration set-up to his. I am using D-nice settings. I have nothing to compare them too unless I get a calibration guy to come in. Just wondering as I have not taken that step yet. I'm just coming up to 200 hrs. I like D-nice settings. I don't believe I will ever see the perfect picture because of all the variables. Good to hear what others try.

Originally Posted by RaggedEdge

@JuiceRocket:

Wanted to share my experience after having the set for 3 months. Mine had a 150 hr break in using D-Nice's setting and then was professionally calibrated.

Bottom Line, I love this set, but I agree with JuiceRocket, it requires a dark room to fully appreciate just how good this set can look. Fortunately, I have a dedicated viewing room for this set and light control is not an issue. I would not put this set in my living room. But, in my HT room, I love the black levels and detail that this set provides. I'm coming from a Toshiba DLP set and my wife and I are both in awe every time we watch a show or movie.

Originally Posted by JuiceRocket

Thanks for sharing. Ours is in our family room - so during the day it's fairly washed out. Even at night, with the lights down, it still looks fairly washed out unless it's showing "extreme" content, like Tron. Otherwise things look "dim" or "dull" (color/light wise).

I'll definitely share an update once it's calibrated. Maybe I'll make a "day" mode and a "evening/night" mode for watching content.

-JR

Originally Posted by OmegaR3D

Decided I will run D-Nice slides on the weekend while I'm around, power usage is cheaper than so I'll leave it running a good 48 hours straight, after a couple weekends it should be at 100 hours broken in

Originally Posted by Tom Riddle

Just curious how long you have had your set and what settings you are running? I run mine mostly in THX and sometimes in custom and it looks great even in the daytime. Mine was a bit dim to my preference at first but with age it seems to have brightened the picture. I prefer it over my Samsung C8000 led in my bedroom even in a bright room.

Originally Posted by JuiceRocket


Hi Tom,

I received my set March 8th, ran the "slides" on it for a little over 100 hours, and have been using D-Nice's custom settings ever since. I did try to mess with it using Rich Harkness' technique, but I'm still not entirely pleased with the result. I don't know how many hours are on the set now.

The best example I can give is watching Red Sox baseball. I used to watch Red Sox baseball and the color was very realistic, and natural. I loved night games, since it really gave it that "holy crow - that looks REAL!" as if you were looking through a window. The shadows, highlights from the overhead lights, and detail was perfect.

With my VT30 the detail is there, along with the shadows, but everything is dull. It's almost like the range of brightness and darkness doesn't stretch far enough apart to give it any sort of pop. I'm not talking unrealistic pop, I'm talking realistic dark/light/color pop.

Even though the set looks great at night with the lights dim, it still seems - dull. I've tried to mess with the settings, jack up the brightness, etc., but when I do it begins to look unrealistic, and I loose details on light colored textures.

I'm happy to try other users settings, I suppose I should look back through this thread and the Settings thread to see if I can find other settings that may work. I do plan to have the set professionally calibrated...maybe this will all be corrected once that happens.

-JR

Originally Posted by Tom Riddle

Hmmm. I wonder why it looks so dull. Mine pops on almost everything. I watch a lot of baseball in custom mode - not using d-nice's settings - with contrast around 84 and the agc set to 0 in the pro menu. I found d-nice's settings very good for blu-ray's but too dull for normal tv viewing for my tastes. I hope you can find some good settings to get that wow factor you are looking for.

Originally Posted by jconjason

You have C.A.T.S. Turned off, right?