LG 50PA6500 and LG 60PA6500 Plasmas - Page 40

Hi all,

I picked up a 60PA6500 two days ago, and the TV is great! I came from a Toshiba Regza 46" LCD, and the 60PA6500 works great in my room with controlled lighting. I do see some IR, but tends to go away quick and I don't foresee it being an issue in the future.

One minor problem - I just discovered a stuck pixel (in green) in the middle of the screen tonight after shutting off the PS3 on a completely blue background. It doesn't show on pure black. I've tried running a few fixes such as JScreenFix with no success. Currently running the Color Wash and plan to leave it on for a while. The set is quite heavy that I prefer not to move up and down my condo but should I exchange it? Are stuck pixels common on plasmas or bigger displays? I am afraid that I'll end up with another unit with even more stuck pixels.

Thanks!

I purchased my LG 60PA6500 just prior to Thanksgiving at H.H. Greg and had it delivered on 12/10/12.

The picture was absolutely gorgeous. I immediately adjusted all settings (down) for the first 100 hours however at about three weeks and 120 hours I noticed a (stuck) red pulsating pixel just right of center.

I attempted a number of fixes, including running the set orbiter and colorwash utilities, and assorted aftermarket stuck pixel repair tools, all without success.

The pixel was invisible for the most part, but very noticeable (especially when you're aware of it) on dark backgrounds (grey and dark). For a week I debated whether to keep the set or call H.H. Greg to determine what my options were. At the 30th day of ownership I decided to call H. H. Greg.

No one in the TV department appeared to be familiar with the terms "stuck or dead pixel," which wasn’t really surprising however since I was still within my 30 day purchase window they did agree to replace the set. They were initially going to charge me an additional $80 redelivery fee however after a word with a manager they forgave the charge.

The new set was delivered on 1/11/13. After they unpacked and set up the display I ran some color slides (red, green, blue, white and black) to determine if there were any dead or stuck pixels at the onset. Thus far, at 36 hours everything still looks good.

Although I was initially concerned with what I might end up with if I decided to exchange the first set I am happy with the outcome.

Best of luck with your decision.

I picked up a set during BF and it's been working great so far. However, last night I was watching tv and the brightness kept changing levels during various scenes. I'd prefer to leave the ECO settings on, but the brightness changes during the show were rather annoying. Is there a way to prevent this while keeping the ECO settings?

Thanks for your input!

I end up exchanging it. While it was a true pain in the butt to get it up and down the condo, three more times, and the time it took those best buy guys to check, the new unit is now flawless... So far
Edited by cy88 - 1/23/13 at 9:38am

Excellent, I hope the replacement works out for you!

I've recently become owner of LG 50PA5500. Happy with the purchase, 2 questions though (I couldn't find answers in manual, and this seems like a good place):

1. When playing a movie from USB and then stopping it sometimes remembers the position and allows resume, but not always so. Why?
2. Also when playing a movie from USB and freezing it unfreezes automatically after some time (about 5-10mins). Can this be changed?

Thanks

I'm not surprised by HHGregg. Before buying my 6500, I talked to a guy about the tvs, asking about the features, I mentioned things like IR and cinematic smoothing, the guy just went along with whatever and didn't really offer any information, which gave me the idea that he had no clue what I was talking about. I found out that guy was head of the tv or entertainment department, lol.

Anybody else experiencing this? Or did everyone turn off the eco setting?

Just turn off ECo, or put it to minimum.

Did some searching over the weekend. Seems like the 60 inchers are getting few and far between in terms of availability.

Greeting All,

Well it took me a while but I finally finished the wall treatment I began in late December after I decided to forgo purchasing commercial artwork to decorate the wall behind the new LG 60PA6500 display.

Instead, I decided to inexpensively and simply decorate the wall with film related photographs mounted in frames. Unfortunately, what began as a simple idea soon snowballed into a mini obsession.

Having worked in the film post production for more than 15 years during the 70’s and 80’s I came upon a great deal of film related items of interest online dating back to the early 1900’s which were public domain and printable. Prior to having prints made I cleaned up what I could using Adobe Photoshop.

I had difficulty limiting my print selection to the 14 photo frames I planned to mount around the display. Hence, I ended up decorating two additional walls, using a total of 27 frames. I have about two dozen remaining prints I would like to mount in frames and hang however thank goodness I’m out of available walls.

Hopefully, it doesn’t look too cluttered, although I must admit, sitting in the room gazing at some of the photos does bring back some fond memories of working in the business during that period in my life. My eventual goal is to relax one day and actually watch a movie!

If you’re wondering about the “Movie Admit One” ticket centered in the middle, it’s made of 16 gauge steel by a company called JNJ Metal Works, and painted a non-reflective flat black.

Sorry the photos aren’t better quality. It’s not the best camera and the lighting in the room is more conducive to home theater.






Edited by EAJ702 - 2/12/13 at 12:26pm

About a month ago I got a really good deal on a 60PA5500, and while it had decent black levels and good color overall, I ended returning it after a couple of weeks because it had terrible color banding issues. Pretty much any graduations in color were split in large, distinct bands of color. It was especially noticeable on peoples faces, loved everything else about the set, but couldn't see past the color banding.

I have a chance to get an equally good deal on a 60PA6500, and just wondered if anyone else has had problems with color banding on the 5500 series? I know most sources say there is no difference between the 5500 and 6500, but for $200-$300 more, I'm hoping that perhaps the 6500 has a filter or something that minimizes the color banding.

If it is exactly the same, I will probably just step down to a 50" and get a Panasonic Ut50 or ST50 series, I haven't heard of any bad color banding issues with those sets.

Did you have the APS turned off? The banding is especially bad when it is trying to save the most power, turn it to off or a setting other than maximum gets rid of it for me.

Yes, the first thing I did was to disable all the video processing settings. I assume that since I haven't seen a lot of other people complaining about the color banding, perhaps the set I had was defective.

I'm not sure if we are talking about the same thing. APS isn't disabling/enabling any video processing. It's the power setting.

Has anyone gotten a hold of a service manual for his set? I'm likely purchasing this set tonight and was trying to get my hands on a service manual but have yet to find a legit source for it.

Posting up a copy of the review I did on this set over at Amazon (even though I bought the set at Best Buy ) Also including updated settings after hitting the 200 hour mark.

This review is from: LG 60PA6500 60-Inch 1080p 600Hz Plasma HDTV (Electronics)
UPDATED INFO: I just wanted to share my post 100 hour calibration settings. After 200 hours they will change slightly again (primarily contrast and brightness) as I'm still keeping contrast fairly low until I reach the 200 hour mark. This is after much tweaking using the various tools noted in the LG 60PA6500 thread over at AVS Forums.

FINAL UPDATE: 12/12/2012 after 200 hour calibration:

Aspect Ratio: Just Scan / 16:9 / or even Set by Program - depends on source
Energy Saving: Off
Picture Mode: Expert 1 or 2
Contrast: 91
Brightness: 51
H. Sharp: 15
V. Sharp: 15
Color: 57
Tint: 0
Dynamic Contrast: Off
Noise Reduction: Off
Gamma: High
Black Level: Low
Color Gamut: Standard
Edge Enhancement: Off
Color Temp: Medium
Method: 2 Point
Pattern: Outer
Points: High
Red: 14
Green: -12
Blue: -10

No amount of tweaking using the "Warm" color temp setting yielded an overall picture I was happy with. The warm setting may calibrate perfectly with a colorimeter and calibration tools, but it always looks "too" fleshy and tinted to my eyes. Using the above settings I was able to get great whites (although still a little to the blue side), grayscale performance is awesome and almost zero banding. These settings were also a nice compromise on getting life like flesh tones.

ORIGINAL REVIEW: Although I didn't buy the 60PA6500 from Amazon, I did purchase the same unit with a BB price match offer. I spent a week here at Amazon and on other websites reading the reviews and feedback. The new TV purchase was a necessity after my four year old Samsung Plasma bit the dust when three capacitors on the power board blew out. As others have mentioned, the LG has possibly the worst picture quality when viewing the display and comparing it to others at your local BB or other TV merchant. And par for the course, three different sales people tried to up-sell me on a Panasonic or Samsung, but after all my research, I was pretty set on what I intended to buy when I walked into the store. I didn't need a Smart TV, and while 3D is cool I just didn't see us using the technology to any great extent. We took the TV home around 9PM and I spent until around midnight calibrating colors and setting the advanced display options. For the first 100 hours I'm keeping the contrast below 65 and brightness below 55 to allow for a proper burn-in. But I can already tell that this plasma is going to have a beautiful picture. Even with the power off, this is a pleasing unit to look at. It won't win any awards for ground breaking aesthetics, but it should work well with about any decor. The bezel is nice and thin, and you'll be impressed with the thin depth of the unit overall. The stand is top notch in design, looks, functionality and it does swivel (kudos to LG for not skimping with the stand on an entry level TV). The firmware on the unit I purchased from BB was outdated, so I downloaded the latest FW from LG and flashed that the next day. Then re-entered my picture settings from the previous evening. After 100 hours I'll re-calibrate again. Honestly though, the color accuracy out of the box is pretty darned close if you set the TV to Standard mode, turn off most of the post processing options - and MOST IMPORTANTLY - make sure that energy savings is disabled. I've found that Standard Mode and Expert Mode are both very close to perfect color wise. Again, the most important thing is to disable the post processing features and energy savings. After I get my 100 hour burn-in complete I'll come back and post my full settings.

My best advice - DO NOT let the poor PQ in the store sway you from purchasing this TV. I can't believe that LG doesn't insist that the merchants turn off the energy saving feature, at least for customer demo purposes. This TV can be adjusted to picture quality levels that will rival units costing much, much more.

Pros:
Price
Menu Options for picture control and calibration
Very good color accuracy using standard or expert modes with little if any color tweaking required
Stand is EXCELLENT and swivels
Design / Appearance
3 HDMI inputs
Firmware updates are painless - just download the firmware update, unzip the file to a USB stick, plug the stick into the USB port on the TV. At that point the TV auto detects the USB stick and the firware update, written prompts are easy to follow.

Cons:
On my set there is some jitter when watching fast moving content from my HTPC. This is a high end HTPC running a dual core Intel processor, 8Gb memory and HD5850 using a resolution of 1920x1080 @ 60Hz. All video connections to players, cable box and HTPC are via HDMI cables. It's worse on streaming content than if watching DVD or Bluray media. There isn't an option to enable "Film Mode" when viewing @60Hz, and I couldn't find any other tweaks to help eliminate it. With that being said, it would not affect my purchase decision one bit and I would buy the same set again.

Just entered these setting last night, and am really impressed. Definitely the best my 60" has ever looked. Thanks!

After thoroughly reading this thread and my local Sams having this TV for $768, I want to pull the trigger but have some questions...

We occasionally watch a movie here and there.. Light xbox gaming a few times a week.. Mainly watching HD TV a few hours a day, oh and hockey a few times a week.

For my needs I would think this TV would be perfect, but I think Ill have one big issue, glare. The TV will be right infront of two windows, with pretty good blinds on them, but about 15-20 feet behind the tv is our sliding glass door to the backyard. Usually my son is out there playing so I like to keep the shades open just to keep a eye on him, and in the summer it stays light until 8-8:30pm.

So I started to compare it with a LED, which the blacks will be lighter but thats not a big issue for me really as I'm not a videophile, but watching sports worries me.

I attached a very crappy 5 second paint drawing kinda showing the just of my layout, do you guys think glare will be a issue?

Yeah, I think you'd have a pretty serious glare problem with that setup, unless you had super-thick curtains drawn over the sliding door.

As mentioned you can cover the windows to deflect glare however I would be somewhat concerned with the viewing angle while utilizing the couch to the right of the screen. Generally, viewing angle isn’t an issue with Plasma displays but it can be an issue with so called LED and LCD displays as discussed below.

Most so-called LED displays are, in fact, LCD screens with LED backlights instead of less efficient and shorter-lived Cold Cathode Fluorescent (CCFL) tubes. The only true LED screens are relatively new Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) displays, made up of millions of individual LEDs. These can be made incredibly thin, have a similar viewing angles to CRTs and plasma screens and consume less power but at the moment they are significantly more expensive to manufacture.

In theory using LEDs instead of CCFLs to backlight an LCD panel shouldn’t adversely affect the viewing angle. Manufacturers are now using a variety of clever techniques to reduce the thickness of their displays and improve color accuracy, contrast and uniformity of illumination by manipulating the brightness of the individual LEDs. It’s possible that this is what makes the viewing angle appear narrower on some screens. All LCDs are at their best when viewed head-on, but compared with CCFL-lit screens the so-called sweet spot can be smaller and from further away the reduction in picture quality becomes more apparent.

I have the same type of room but with the window being to the right of the tv. During the day I just swivel the tv to the left a bit to avoid the rear glass doors. With blinds I get no glare from the windows. I have no complaints.

KAB53, I wanted to thank you for posting your Holy Grail of Settings, and for the time you took to come up with them! I'd been using the CNET calibration settings for my LG 50PA6500 since I bought it just before Christmas at Sears, then I tried your settings yesterday, along with another posted here recently. Needless to say, I have been blown away by the beauty of the picture. The picture is now less dark, sharper, and more alive than ever before. I can't image a better picture from any brand than this bargain priced tv is giving with your recommended settings!

Hi, I was wondering what the difference between 'just scan' and 'original' is? They seem to change my aspect ratio. I mostly watch content via a WDTV Live media player (either SD/720p/1080P files) or Xbox 360. Which is the best setting? Thanks.

Has anyone owning the 60PA65XX or 50PA65XX done the black level/ MLL tweaks put out in this thread http://www.avsforum.com/t/1372479/lg-plasma-panel-tweaks-for-better-blacks. I own the 60PA6550 purchased from costco and cant find a ton of info on this set. I'm curious to hear about results and if anyone has a copy to the training manual for this particular set, as all the links seem to be broken. I'm going to try out making some adjustments this weekend so any tips or experiences anyone else has had would be greatly appreciated.

Do you find the black levels unsatisfying on this set? Personally, I think the black levels are very good. Certainly good enough not to fool around with all that business myself.

Black level seems fine during the day time, but at night blacks are pretty bright. I also have some other concerns, IR being the biggest one, pulling up a menu, to say, adjust picture or sound options, the outlines from the menus will remain visible, especially if on a full white or full black test screen. Another issue I've noticed that's harder to explain, is if viewing a letter boxed movie where dark portions of the picture come close to, or touch the top black bar, will make the black bar pull down towards the dark portion of the picture. So the top letterbox bar is irregular not a rectangular bar. This black distortion is also very black darker than the letterbox bars themselves making it all the more distracting, and leading me to believe blacks on this set aren't what their supposed to be.

Has anyone noticed anything similar to this, if not I may make a service call to have it checked out. Maybe tonight I'll try to get some pictures up as it's rather hard to describe.

Hi all, I'm new here, but looking into 50PA5500 too. My biggest concern is about light levels in my room. Just moved in, currently using an old 32" LCD samsung and even that looks quite grey during the brightest hours of the day (esp. spring, the sun is moving closer to the ground, so room is really bright). Windows are in the same wall to both sides of the TV, no light sources in front, but the room is painted all white and we never watch tv in complete darkness. Btw, i've read almost all the topic, also about how plasmas look dull in stores etc. I'm on a verge of skipping this great deal and settling for smaller 42" LED LCD just because of that light issue. And it's not the reflectiveness that bugs me, but how plasmas seem to absorb the ambient light better than LCDs. I'd really love someone to show me a picture or confirming of this LG performing nicely during the day, in a room filled with sunshine

Hi all, I'm new here, but looking into 50PA5500 too. My biggest concern is about light levels in my room. Just moved in, currently using an old 32" LCD samsung and even that looks quite grey during the brightest hours of the day (esp. spring, the sun is moving closer to the ground, so room is really bright). Windows are in the same wall to both sides of the TV, no light sources in front, but the room is painted all white and we never watch tv in complete darkness. Btw, i've read almost all the topic, also about how plasmas look dull in stores etc. I'm on a verge of skipping this great deal and settling for smaller 42" LED LCD just because of that light issue. And it's not the reflectiveness that bugs me, but how plasmas seem to absorb the ambient light better than LCDs. I'd really love someone to show me a picture or confirming of this LG performing nicely during the day, in a room filled with sunshine

If you say reflections aren't a concern then you should be fine, the TV gets plenty bright enough for daytime viewing . I have only blinds on the window in the room where my set is, no curtains to completely shut out light, so during the day my viewing room can be quite bright. Reflections do bug the hell out of me and do seem quite noticeable with this set. To be fair I'm coming from a CRT RPTV with no protector screen (AKA non-reflective)