LG 50PA6500 and LG 60PA6500 Plasmas - Page 9

Why don't you just leave the game on and change the channel to the antenna or cable or whatever you have?

Well, if i change it to a channel it shows the black screen with moving LG logo and text saying 'not programmed' it's not a still image, it keeps rotating around and moves to other spots on the screen....i guess that's good enough. But i was more looking for a scrolling bar option.

I do the same (short brakes), and use the washing option in the menus.
What it does, it displays white and colorful squares that move around "washing" the screen and avoiding burn-in, and also it helps for the break-in.

You can put that, go do whatever you want for how long you want, come back, just push any button on the remote, and go back to whatever you were watching/playing.

It's in the metal suitcase menu when you hit "settings" on the remote, usually it's on "Normal".

Just got my New 50PA6500 in

Damn this screen looks green when turned off !!
my PK550 was more greyish (which was nicer)

Oh and I'll have to tune this PA6500 as well, I see absolutely no difference with my tuned 50PK550 (blacks , colors & dithering)

OK I picked up my LG 60PA6500 on Thursday 6/7/12. I paid $999.99 at a local store.

Out of the box I was blown away with its PQ on how vivid and sharp the colors were.

I then went and took the time to input the settings posted here on this thread and all
I can say is WOW!!!! What a huge difference that made.

I am so glad that I bought this TV because for the money it just can't get any better.

I have seen no IR at all.

The display is more than bright enough and again the colors are just amazing.

Using a HDMI cable from my HD cable box and the TV viewing is awesome in HD.

I have a Panasonic BM-BDT320 Blu Ray Player and the Blu Ray movies are breath taking.



I have a question for those of you that already have this Plasma TV.

The orbital shiftier that this display is suppose to have. Where do you find it in the setting so
I can make sure it is turned on?


Gerald

Could anyone confirm there is no headphone input? how are we supposed to plug in a headphone? cheers

Could you tell me these settings? And is it for movies only or gaming too?

I have in the ISM menu

Orbiter (not sure what this does, when i enable it...nothing happens)
Colour wash ( i think u mean this one,right? )


I tried some of the settings posted in this thread, but for both gaming and movies i'm not liking it. It actually ruins the black levels alot for me, making them waaaay too bright.

Also....

What does Intelligent Sensor mean exactly? And someone in this thread recommended me to disable energy saving, but wouldn't such a feature be recommended?
As for black levels, is there a way to improve them or wil it come down to prof. calibration?

Oh and i've put the contrast to 70 and brightness 50, like brody recommended. It was at 90 and i totally forgot to change that. But it's ok, i've only had the tv since yesterday. Also...what's 'better' 16:9 or just scan?
Edited by Moonwalker1982 - 6/9/12 at 3:30pm

The Intelligent Sensor is not intelligent, just makes the PQ worse.

The black levels can only be improves by tuning the pots inside.

Edited by travbedaman - 6/9/12 at 5:15pm

Oooh wait a minute, the orbiter is something that does it's thing while a movie is being played or a game is being played? I was expecting the screen to change into somehting totally different, like the screenwash did. So basically i can keep gaming/watching a movie while the orbiter is doing its job? Now that's really nice. I think my VT30 didn thave that option, i believe it had the scrolling bar and something else. But i'm not sure. So let's say i play GTA IV , a game that has the minimap shown constantly....if i enable the orbiter i dont have to worry so much about using the screenwash so much?

Yep!

That's awesome. And using the screenwash option when going for a break is a good idea then,right? Oh as for gamma, i have that on medium, low is ridiculously bright and medium seems to be fine.


While playing Skyrim alot this evening, i sometimes have to go to the quests screen, which shows alot of bright white letters. And soon i start to notice some slight IR on the screen, and the contrast has already been lowered. It's not a big deal, and as long as it always goes away its fine...but i do notice that now. Also while i was watching Rambo on Blu Ray on my PS3, i don't know why, but i did see noticeable juddering...could be the movie though, but it's not as smooth as i expected it to be there.
Edited by Moonwalker1982 - 6/9/12 at 6:06pm

LCD/LED sets are usually brighter and more vibrant. They may also give a "video tape" like picture quality. Watch "Avatar" on an LCD/LED and on a plasma. You should see the difference immediately. Plasmas are usually set to "Torch Mode" (Sports Mode) to crank up the colour and brightness. IMO, LCD/LEDs are usually for families who watch broadcast TV during the daytime and plasmas are for people who mostly watch films (theatre experience).

To me it's the Samsungs that are over priced.

A fairer comparison would probably be the Panasonic 55UT50 at ~$1200 to the LG 60PA6500 at $1000 (rather than an $1800 Panasonic TC-P60UT50 vs the LG 60PA6500). The Panasonic has ARC, wired LAN, but only 2 HDMI inputs. Picture quality wise the Panasonic is probably better but it does not have the colour adjustment capabilities of the LG. It comes down to what you can live with. And/or cannot live without.

200 bucks is 200 bucks, especially these days.
Plus, you have 5 more inches on that 60PA6500, which is not negligible.

I don't think that's a "fair comparison", you're manipulating numbers.

For the same size and a much better PQ, you need to invest at least +1500$ for a Panasonic (50 inch wise).
And no, It is not a "fair comparison" to compare a 55" Panasonic price to a 60" LG price.

This is OVERLY EXPENSIVE for an old plasma tech, sorry to say this.

Depends on your revenues and pay check, but I'm sure 80% of costumers would agree with me to say Panasonic's are overrated and too expensive.

They wouldn't loose 10 billion because of their TV branch each year otherwise.
Edited by brody76 - 6/10/12 at 6:08am

I think everyone has set prices for everything. For me it's about $1200 for a TV set. So for me it's the LG PA6500 vs. the Pani 55UT50 which is going on sale for about $1200, the same $1200 that I was considering paying for the LG PA6500 a month ago. I auditioned both at Fry Electronics, watching "The Robinsons" cartoon movie. The Panasonic definitely had better highlights, easily seen when the son flies through the tunnels at the lake.

It has been asked, Is the Panasonic worth the money"? As a technician I can say that if they have superior capacitors then the answer is "Yes". I have replaced so many pop-corning capacitors on computer motherboards, power supplies and CRT monitors that it isn't funny. (Out of over 200 HP 17" CRT monitors that I had to fix only one was replaced under warranty. Total cost to fix? About $2 for a pair of high temp quality capacitors.) When I buy something the first thing I do is look at the warranty. In this case the LG gives an extra year on the display. That tells me that it has been engineered to last at least that long. (I say that HP computers, displays and All-In-One printers last a week past their warranty expiration. That's how close they engineer their tolerances. So now I refuse to buy an HP product. But then I also refuse to buy Sony products, other than the PlayStation, having worked in their store and seeing all the defective returns. I'm sure that everyone has product biases.)

Yes, it can be said that "$200 is $200," but there is also something to be said for buying quality. $200 is not $200 when one frivolously spends it on other things which aren't true necessities. My friend was paying $200 a month for satellite and $250 a month for his phone plan while he was losing his house. If money is an object one can buy a Vizio that will probably last a year then die on you, as it did a friend of mine. Worried about the electricity bill? Buy a LCD/LED TV. Yeah, I'm the guy who usually will buy extended warranties. Which is why I will probably only buy a TV set from Costco since they add an extra year to the warranty and supposedly another year if you buy it through their credit card, for a total of 3 years for about $50 (cost of membership).

So when I look at the LG PA6500 I want to know if I can do more than basic adjustments. And since it does I can only hope that it will be close to the Panisonic or Samsungs after it is adjusted to within an inch of its life. Would I pay $1600 for the Panasonic 60UT50? No. It's out of my price range. Add the extended warranty for $400 (Fry's Electronics, Best Buy) and 9% taxes and now I am paying about $2200. That's too rich for my blood.

I wouldn't say that the Panasonic has "old tech," not if the 2500HZ drive is to be taken into consideration. (If anything it's LG that has the old tech - and that's just fine with me, tyvm.) At the same time I am not impressed with Samsung's "Smart Motion" or anybody's 3D, passive or active, or apps. I look at TV apps as being vastly inferior. Netflix? I'm not impressed. And why in the world would I want to watch a "UTube" video on my 1080p HDTV? Yes, computers and TVs are merging but at a high cost called Internet bandwidth, the higher the bandwidth the more it costs. Now throw in throttling and IMO it isn't practical. (I have a friend who wants nothing to do with physical media. He streams everything from his server to his XBox360, for example. Then he has a backup server and a backup server for the backup server. His electricity bill is over $300 more a month than mine.)

I justify my price by not having cable or cell phones. If I want HD Cable it costs $75 a month. That's money I can put towards the TV. That's $800 right there. (In reality I put that money toward BD purchases). So I do OTA HD through amplified rabbit ears. But I adamantly refuse to pay more than $19.99 for a BD movie. Fry Electronics is still selling "Thor" and "Captain America" for $29.99 each. NTY. I'll pick them up when they get to $9.99.

As I said, everyone has their own price ceilings. Not everyone can afford $60 8 hour games, for example. I know I can't. (Well.... the one or two exceptions a year.) And you know what the game publishers are trying to do - make it illegal to buy used games, make all games down loadable, etc. Imagine not being able to audition at TV set because all the brick and mortar stores, which will eventually include WalMart, Costco, target, et. al., no longer exist.

But be careful when you say that Panasonic "lost" $10BB in sales. It's that they didn't make the same as they had the year previous. For example, "losing money" hasn't prevented MS' XBox360 or Sony's PS3 from being sales successes. (I hated that Sony ignored gaming while pushing BD. Which was just fine with MS... But they won the HD wars by pushing cheaper priced media than HD-DVD.) Yes, it could be that they lost a majority of their sales to Samsung. But I find Samsung to be at about the same prices. I mean, really, $3500 for a 60" TV with a one year warranty? If my previous plasma showed me anything it is that the TV set will probably last about 3 years. That's about when my 42" Pani started to go. Then it was stolen. And what did I pay for that 42" Pani 3 years ago? $1200. But if something is really good I'd be willing to go as high as $1500, $1600 tops. But I don't need no stinkin' 3D. But that's just me. ymmv.

Been using the PA6500 alot this weekend and unfortunetely i've started noticing a few things, but as people always say...no tv is perfect and its really true. I was playing Skyrim yesterday and while looking into the sky, i notice things on the screen, that weren't the game's. It seems like some slight vertical banding. Just now i was playing Tomb Raider Underworld, in a level where you are at sea and when i look into the sky or i dive underwater, i see the banding again. Quite unfortunete cause this was among the reasons why i brought the Panasonic VT30 back, but it also had the horrible green tinge problem and lets just hope i won't see that here. And sure i coud return the PA6500 now and save money for the Samsung..but i bet that tv has its own little 'problems' as well.

It could be IR that i'm seeing but i doubt it...these are lines.

Cheers mate for your infos:)

Thanks for the update Moonwalker. I keep hearing about all the issues with these plasma tvs. I was wanting to sell my big DLP and upgrade but since my '09 65" Mitsubishi has no issues I'm now leaning towards hanging on to it.

Yeah it's quite unfortunete, but i'm just gonna have to accept it. I've had a Samsung PS50C91 years ago, didn't notice any problems, but then again..maybe i didn't pay any attention to it back then. Then i got the VT30 and the problems started to show up, it's very possible that from there on i notice it much quicker now if something is not right. And it certainly ain't like i'm going back to LCD .....ever again. I've been testing out several other games now, like Mass Effect 3 and Dead Space 2 and the motion is just unmatched, it was horrible on the LCD and great on the plasma. I'm surprised how great the black levels in Dead Space 2 are, i was afraid the blacks would look too dark-grey, but not at all. Which is a HUGE plus too. Nope they still aren't Panasonic blacks but it's damn fine nonetheless.

Okay, can people provide some insight on exactly how bad the reflection/glare is with this set? It is basically the one and only concern of whether I go with this television or a similar LCD.

Where my television is currently located, there is a large window on the left side, and I usually have a light on during the evening on the right side (although so far to the right it would not be directly in the view of the television. While I usually watch most of my content in the late afternoon or early evening, I'm not a big fan of watching content in complete darkness.

People keep saying "reasonable light control" but I honestly don't know whether my living room even fits the bill.

I originally considered plasma because I almost always watch film and occasionally play games so it seemed to be the most ideal choice, but now all this talk about glare has me wondering if it won't work out. I cannot get this model locally so it will be a real bitch to return if it turns out being a problem.

Yeah I have that on my 60PM6700 as well. Its only noticeable on a very light background, white or light grays. At first I was mildly disappointed and was going to exchange it for another one, but I went to some stores and brought a usb with break in image slides and ran them on a few different LG plasma models. They all had some form of banding. From what I understand its the anti reflective filter that is applied and its not the pixels themselves and most other plasmas have this issue as well. So I just decided to live with it, its not a huge deal and 98% of the time I dont notice it.

There have been some people that said theres doesnt have and screen defects but I would be willing to bet if I looked at their tv with a pure white or light background I could point it out to them.

If you are bothered by glare you probably do not want any of the LG plasmas besides the PM9700 that has a matte screen. When there picture is on I dont notice the glare from my windows but some people are highly annoyed by it, I prefer a glossy screen because it makes for a better saturated picture verses a matte screen. To each his own though.

It's like dithering, banding is affecting every plasma to some extend.
You can reduce them by playing around with the settings, can't remember exactly what I did but now I rarely see any.

wallijohn > when I say "old plasma tech" I'm talking about all the plasmas (Panasonic included), plasma tech is old now, adding 250hz or processors to it won't change that fact.
Until OLED shows up unfortunately plasma is the only thing that comes close enough to a real TV, and kinda affordable.

LG cuts a lot of corners to lower the price as much as they can, it's their goal.
Panasonic doesn't care to raise the price to propose a better quality product, that's the difference between these two.

My wallet says thank you to LG, otherwise I wouldn't be able to afford such a big screen.
There is no way I could pay 1500$ for a Pana, I just can't afford it (and I'm not the only one).

I don't know if you realize, but 10 billion is enormous. They will have to fire some employees or close some divisions to catch up with this amount of money.
Things are looking really bad for them (Sony is much bigger, they can always catch up with the looses on the other branches, Panasonic can't afford that).

By now japanese brands will have to team up to face the Chinese and Korean competition (this is why Sony and Panasonic team up for OLED), or face a bitter defeat.
Most important factor in majority of costumers head in 2012 : the price.

The average Joe won't care if the blacks are 0.002 lower, he doesn't care to have 10000 different settings in his TV, he want's it to be the cheapest possible and the biggest possible.
This is what LG is doing, and this is why LG is selling so much despite their sets being inferior in overall quality compared to Panasonic.

1500$ for a normal household is a bit of money, especially for a TV set (we're not talking about a house, nor a car here, but a TV set, and that is some money for a TV).

Be affordable is the most important on the market these days, wealthy costumers are getting rare.
Edited by brody76 - 6/11/12 at 7:42am

Ok, that's really good to know, that there are more people with vertical banding. Cause for a minute i was afraid it was my set, but it can't be..there's just not that kind of unluck...not sure that's a word, but ah well. Yeah exactly, it;s only visible on very light backgrounds and in my case the skies in Skyrim and Tomb Raider, i see it right away when i rotate the camera around. Or also when i'm underwater, i see it right away, i must learn to accept it cause i really want to stay with 60 inch, i love that size and i never want to leave plasma again I'm not gonna mess around with the settings to much, so if someone finds out which setting reduces the banding a bit...please do tell .

Right now the contrast in game mode is at 70, but after those hours of usage.....it's save to put the game mode setting at default again? (which is 90 for contrast). Also...what picture setting is mostly recommended for movie watching? Both blu ray movies/dvd or from PC/USB. What is the best setting for that in your opinions?


I was just watching Battlestar Galactica DVD on my Xbox 360 and i was shocked by how juddery it was but also how that vertical banding during scenes where they showed the sky, was incredible noticeable, like really bad....damn. On second glance....it might be the dvd itself, the scenes a glass building and the sky could be seen through it..but now it looks like it was jjust one the windows..i'm starting to see things now.

What is the best way to check for banding and IR? Just some white/grey break-in slides?
Edited by Moonwalker1982 - 6/11/12 at 10:31am

90 contrast is too much, you will crush the blacks.
70-75 at max in my opinion.

DVD's are not HD, on that type of big screen defects pop up easier on low-res content.
I feel the same when I watch a 720p TV series and 1080p movies.

You need to increase your distance if you're going to watch SD content.

For the judder 80% of the time it's because the player's not synchronized with the TV.
Try playing around with your DVD player, go from 60hz to 24hz and check the judder.

I have a lot of judder when I play TV series on 60hz, but when I change to 24hz it's smooth.

Really? Cause at default the game mode is at 90...ah well, 70 is fine enough already really. I don't have any other dvd players other than the Xbox 360 and PS3. It DID seem to run less juddery on the PS3 though, i had enabled the 24p option in the video menu there. Don't believe the Xbox 360 has this though. But i'm not sure that's the option you mean...i will check the Xbox 360 and PS3 settings later today again. A friend of mine has the Samsung E8000 and says he doesn't say anything like banding and things like that. But like someone here said...practically any tv has its own defects/faults.


Ok, i checked on PS3 just now

In the video settings menu i have something called 1080p 24Hz output (HDMI) , it's enabled. Is this it?
There's also a 50hz video output.

I am sorry
but I need to say i am very very dissapointed in my new 50PA6500 (compared to my 50PK550 from 2010)

- screen is greenish when turned off (ugly)
- blacks are way worse , grey even ! (+tuning pots was only a very little bit possible , but still worse than my tuned PK550)
- glare is worse than the PK550
- jidder is visible !
- the razor frame border is fake there is also a 1 cm black border on the tv visible , which makes it almost the same as the PK550 border

the only thing that seems better is the bleeding (no line bleeding anymore) and the colors (more vivid)
I'm glad I bought it at a good price

on the PK550 I managed to turn the xvYCC mode to off , but on this one I can't change it
I remember it changed the blacks a lot (lower)
does anyone know how to force this off (it's now on automatic and I can't change it)

Yes this is it, if the hz are synchronized with the content you have no judder at all.
Since I properly did this I didn't notice any judder at all on my TV.

Video game consoles are not good players, you should either switch to a good box or a good BR/DVD player to watch your medias.
It seems like nothing, but the player plays a big role in the quality displayed.