Panasonic ST30 DIY Calibration and Settings Thread - Page 3

How about one more on those d-nice settings. Thanks

Ive setup quite a few panasonic plasmas brightness settings, 60u, 85u, G10, S1, GT25, and an S2...

Most people would instruct you to adjust brightness with any calibration disc as follows: Move the brightness control up until video black dithers, and then down until it stops dithering. This way all shadow detail down to 1% above black will be as bright as it can be.

I found this method to fail on every single set I have done it on. Once finished with the above method, I found that based on content, even content being used on the same device calibrated, video black may still dither.

In fact, if you setup your set this way, with the contrast at a low setting, and then boost the contrast up to 100, your set's video blacks will most likely dither.

I find it much more effective to setup brightness as DVE HD instructs: by lowering/raising brightness until the 2% above video black bar in the pluge pattern is barely visible. This may sacrifice the 1% above video black information, but there is really nothing to see there. All the plasma will display at 1% above black is green dithering dots. Despite what anyone says, I have run across more then one blu ray that needed the brightness set down a tick or two or it would dither in black (even though other blu rays did not).

Play it safe and stay a few ticks lower, just ensure you can see 2% above video black, don't worry about 1%. It's too close.

getting dark blacks isn't a concern. it's getting dark blacks while maintaining shadow detail that's sometimes a challenge.

i don't have a HD DVE disc, so i can't tell if my brightness is set at 1% or 2% above video black. nor do i really know what this means as i've never seen an HD DVE calibration disc.

i have it on Cinema, and i lower it one or two notches till the green dithering dots go away in the black bars. i think it's only like 1 or 2 clicks from Cinema default, so i end up at like 53 or 54.

i can lower it, but then i lose shadow detail a bit, and i really don't know how much shadow detail i should have, so i just eyeball it.

^Do a google search, or PM.

Hi all, Recently purchased an ST30 60" and have some general settings questions.

1. What if one didn't follow D-Nice's prep, but rather just watched low contrast-low brightness-full screen stuff for a few weeks first and then tried D-Nice's settings. (which we are strongly warned against doing.) What tragic consequences to my television might occur?

2. If these settings aren't ideal without the 100 hour slide prep, what settings would be?

3. Anyone else having issues with Netflix playback (say compared to Hulu) looking pretty terrible at times?

4. Finally, I have noticed, on rare occasions, some "brightness fluctuations" but to me it looks more like the tv is randomly switching between warm and cool settings. Again this has happened twice in 100s of hours of watching. Okay, this last one if more of a statement than a question, but anyway.

Just bought this set yesterday...did a full i1 calibration (Custom Mid-Panel)...at work now, but will post my prelim settings when I get home tonight. These are pre-break in if you believe in that (which I don't)

@D-Nice

Tried to shoot you a PM, but it looks like you are no longer accepting...anyway quick question for you:

I'm running into a gamma snag during my calibration...for some reason I am seeing a severe drop off starting at 60IRE (down as far as 1). I'm still averaging out around 2.2 overall, but I'm losing detail in lighter shadows.

Was thinking it had something to do with my initial 100IRE level settings...I was shooting for 30ftl @ 100 which works out to .738 @ 10IRE. Is that going to be too low, should I aim more for the 40 ftl range?

I remember doing a couple S2s last year and don't recall this being an issue...anyway any advice would be greatly appreciated.

He's never posted in this thread, and probably never checks it.

Figured he may search his own user name from time to time...seems like a rational thing to do if you don't let people PM you. Anyway...I'll take my questions to the standard calibration threads

i'm not sure he visits this forum any more. he's moved onto another one.

*(copy + pasted this from Display Calibration thread, because I was told it blongs here...)*

Trying to do my own calibration with my new 50" ST30. When I got the TV, I immediately searched to find D-Nice's settings, and used them until my Disney WOW disc came in. Well, I tried using that to calibrate last night, and am having some trouble with it (I am just referring to the "basic 5" settings for this discussion).

D-Nice's settings I found were as follows:
CUSTOM MODE
Contrast - 78
Brightness - 54
Color - 45
Tint - 0
Sharpness - 0

My settings after Disney WOW:
CUSTOM MODE
Contrast - 95
Brightness - 56
Color - 45
Tint - (-2)
Sharpness - 25

I used the above settings, but turned Panel Brightness to "Mid" (D-Nice had it at "Low") and turned C.A.T.S. "On" (D-Nice had it "Off"). All the Pro Settings I left as D-Nice suggested. My picture now seems to be pretty good, but I feel like it can be better. Contrast obviously seems to be VERY high, and Brightness seems high especially considering I have Panel Brightness at "Mid"...which is why I turned C.A.T.S. "On" --> this gave a very nice brightness level, but I am afraid that I lose detail on certain scenes.

I would get a copy of digital video essentials or better yet, spears and munsil. Two discs that are used more often by professionals. I've used both, and they're great. In fact, cnet reviewed all the calibration discs out there and spears and munsil came out on top, i believe.

One suggestion, try gamma at different levels, lower your contrast - because you have to be clipping white on the high end, and turn c.a.t.s. off - it changes your settings on the fly based on room lighting. Not recommended.

Well I tried all the suggested settings from this thread, and came back to D-Nice's but turned the Black Level Extender to +4. Picture looks fine to me, so I think I may just say "screw it" and leave it where it is. Now I'm just kind of pissed that I spent $30 on the Disney WOW disc when I didn't really even use it...

Ok, so I just got done with some more tinkering and found some "happy" settings. Here they are:

CUSTOM MODE
Contrast: 78
Brightness: 55
Color: 49
Tint: -2
Sharpness: 15
Color Temp: Warm 2
CATS: Off
Video NR: Off

PRO SETTINGS
Color Space: Normal
W/B high R: 10
W/B high G: 0
W/B high B: 10
W/B low R: 2
W/B low G: 0
W/B low B: -8
Black extension: +4
Gamma adjustment: 2.2
Panel brightness: Mid
Contour emphasis: Off
AGC: 0

Any input/comments on these settings is appreciated!!!

Can somebody PM me D-Nice's setting please? Also do I have to break-in my plasma?

They are exactly what I listed, except his Black Extension is at 0.

From what I've read on this forum, breaking in your Plasma is not something you "need" to do - it is something that will happen. After ~100 or so running time of your TV, the plasma will "settle" and become permanent, but until then your TV is slightly changing its picture. The reason it is recommended to break-in the TV using full screen pictures is so that the entire screen settles evenly.

...

D-Nice posted that you shouldn't post his settings on any site, which includes AVS, without his permission. Why not respect his request?

i did not know that. i edited the post.

Some of us value the contribitions and requests of others, especially those who provide useful information.

Here are my mid settings and to my eyes they look pretty good.

Custom
Contrast +75
Brightness +59
Color +36
Tint and Sharpness 0
Color Temp Normal
CATS and Video NR OFF
Color space (all defaults)
Black Extension +3
Gamma 2.2
Panel Mid
Contour Off
AGC 0

Hope this helps.

I gave the CNET settings a shot, and they are honestly not bad at all if you're looking for a daytime setting. Though sadly, I can't seem to get the flesh tones to look right with the cinema setting, so I have to manual enter the CNET or D-nice settings if I want to switch between them.

Has anyone anywhere released Cinema mode calibration settings, or gotten into the Service Menu?

Since a board replacement blew out my original calibration and I'm waiting to get it redone, I've been playing around in Custom mode. Has anyone experimented with a mid panel brightness and a Gamma of 2.0 in Custom mode? I did the other day and after knocking my brightness down to around 54-55 (contrast at 75) and taking the Black extender to 4/5 with some color and tint (+8) adjustments, I was surprised at the result. Some of the reddish ruddiness in skin tones dissipated a bit and the overall image looked pretty good. I've been fooling with the White Balance settings and am running a variation of the HDGuru values:
HR +10
HG +2
HB +8
LB +7
LG 0
LB +2

I gave the CNET settings a shot today, they are not that bad. I like watching baseball, the Red Sox and the white uniform looked good.

Thanks to D-Nice and Cal1981 I went with these settings and so far I've been happy:

Custom
Contrast 78
Brightness 54
Color 34
Tint +8
Sharpness 0
Color Warm1

Color space Normal
(D-Nice settings)
Gamma 2.2
Panel Brightness: Mid
Black ext 0
AGC 0

Even in the darkest conditions settings the panel brightness to Low is too dark for me.

I've gotten used to it. I hated it and tried to make MID panel brightness work. Then I left it on D-Nice settings and the set looks great to me now all the time.

I guess it's the video equivalent of speaker break-in. In reality, you just get used to it.