LG 50PA6500 and LG 60PA6500 Plasmas - Page 32

I do a lot of gaming on my 60PA6550 with both PS3, 360, and even some on original Xbox (which has nothing but static images). I've found the LG to be really good regarding IR and burn in. Much better than my 09 Panasonic. What concerns me about your situation is the 80-90% estimate of gaming time. I mix my viewing up greatly. Played the 360 tonight for under an hour and then watched about the same amount of time on Amazon Prime. My girlfriend watches hours of regular cable on the weekends and some on weeknights. We watch movies here and there throughout the week too. This varying of content is important with plasmas. Although, not totally necessary if you're willing to pay your dues. I mean by that: always keep the orbiter on, flip regularly from 16:9 to just scan, and run color wash and/or slides after a gaming session for a half hour or so. If you do all that, you shouldn't have a problem. Be sure though to run the slides for the first 100-150 hours with no gaming with static images at all during. Preferably none at all.

The above all sounds like a nagging mother-in-law or a royal pain in the a$$, but it's really not AND look at your alternatives. I had a Panasonic LED that they're still selling at Costco right now for about 3 weeks prior to getting the LG and I couldn't stand it. Motion issues, uneven back lighting, mediocre black levels, terrible off axis viewing angles, lip sync problems, etc. I have none of that with the LG. I was spoiled with the Panasonic. Plasmas are a little higher maintenance but worth the effort. In my opinion LED and LCD's are good for computer monitors where plasma is not even an option, but that's about it. Even GQ magazine recently described plasmas as "a radically better picture than their LED counterparts".

Lastly, permanent burn in never "creeps up on you". After gaming with static images for any length of time, I go to a medium grey full screen color slide on a USB stick that's always in the LG and look for remnants on the screen. If there are any, I run the color wash or slides until it's gone. Burn in takes a good 10+ hours at least, so if you know what you're up against, you can be prepared. Remember that turning the set off and coming back to the set the next day does nothing to combat IR or burn in. It's cumulative so follow what I've shared with you here.

Hey guys I have recently bought the 50PA6500 and I'm pleased with the image quality so far. I have calibrated it using the settings posted here, tweaked them a bit to my taste and I love it.

However two things somewhat concern me, although I can live with both.

1) Image retention. Although it goes away fast it gets there really fast too. For example just by having the TV's screensaver on for a few seconds I can tell it's leaving the logo and text in the background. I then use color wash and it goes away, however I'd really like if IR wasn't almost always there and so fast.

2) The whites. Do you guys get proper whites? Mine seem rather grey-ish. For example I'm running the slides at the moment and the first one that is supposed to be white simply isn't. To offer some perspective here basically there's little difference from the first slide to the second.

From http://www.imagebam.com/image/543fe1215469415

To http://www.imagebam.com/image/ff3e9a215469417

I'd guess it's just from plasmas in general?

Cheers guys!

I guess you could call it "discoloration." It doesn't really sound like they care too much what's wrong with the tv though, which is a little weird. If you had an "accident" that couldn't be repaired, they'd give you the full purchase price back, minus the ins. cost. Sounds pretty good I guess. On the other hand, it comes with 2 years, and cc gives it an extra year.

Are you getting it?

First time poster and although this is in the PA6500 thread, I have a question about my set, which is a 50PV400 series (there is a thread on it here but very little traffic and monitoring so thought I'd post here too in case this was happening to others).

Bought the LG PV400 less than a year ago from BB at a great price and I debated plasma vs. LCD/LED for a few months. It's currently in a bright room and the glare is pretty bad but at night and when the shades are drawn it's a dynamic set. My question is, has anyone else seen a bubbling or "tearing" phenomenon in their set? Not sure if this is the right terminology but every so often, about 2/3 of the way down the set, a horizontal line shows up, works its way up the screen and disappears. I liken this to tearing or bubbling. It doesn't happen all the time and when it does, lasts about 3 seconds. Seen it before? Recommendations? This is straight digital HD signal from a digital box, no home theathre. doesn't do it with movies.

OK, HERE'S THE HOLY GRAIL OF SETTINGS! (as someone requested).

I had earlier this year posted some settings that were pretty good, but after pursuit of perfection, I now stand pat on these...


Aspect Ratio: Just Scan
Energy Saving: Off
Picture Mode: STANDARD (User)
Contrast: 82
Brightness:60
Sharpness: 26
Color: 50
Tint: 0
Color Temp: W,7


Expert control

Dynamic Contrast: Off
Noise Reduction: Off
Gamma: Medium
Black Level: Low
Film Mode: Off
Color Gamut: Standard
Edge Enhancement: Off


Point is, this model is pretty much RIGHT ON without much adjusting.

And, BTW, whoever cut and pasted my earlier settings to the Amazon thread...please don't do it again.
Edited by KAB53 - 10/19/12 at 6:02am

Hi!

Thank You, I will testing your settings.

Krisz

Does anyone have a fix for the Panel turning off when the brightness is set below 50?? For me the perfect brightness is 48 but when watching planet earth Ocean it turns on and off like 5 times and really ruins the experience :|

Truth be told, this problem is starting to really worry me. It's been getting worse and worse for me.

The panel flips off at random moments for me now, it's not just really dark scenes anymore. I've really tried everything. My brightness is above 50/55. Someone said it doesn't effect them when their black level is set to high. This is also not true for me.

It happens maybe 2-3 times a week for me (and I only watch a few hours a day, sometimes more on the weekends). Could it be a handshake issue with HDMI? I've never had this problem when playing my 360 over component cables (though, I can't say with 100% confidence that it doesn't happen while connected with component cables, I haven't tested it enough).

Thoughts?

Is the 360 set to wide gamut, you know 0-255 vs 16-235? Interesting that it doesn't happen with component.

Indeed. Is it possible to set up your tv source using component and test for a while? This might be as simple as a faulty HDMI cable.

Just picked up a 60PA6500 60PA6500 from Costco yesterday for $799. It's a huge upgrade from our previous TV: a 32" HP LCD. Picture looks great with the settings on this page, and updated to the latest firmware, although I don't see any changes.

Thanks for all the great advice in this thread!

EDIT: Also, I bought the $60 SquareTrade warranty, so it's covered for the next five years.

Hello everyone. Newbie here and even newer to the world of Plasma, but learning a lot from these threads. Thanks for that.

Just picked up the 50PA5500 at Best Buy for $599. (I price matched a similar model and they gave it to me for that price) Haven't seen much on that model specifically, but am looking for anyone's advice that has had this set.

Just some more info: I was at Best Buy looking for a set with similar specs that I saw at Costco and the salesman said he'd give me the LG for the price I saw that set for, which was $599.
It gets delivered on Tuesday the 23rd and I will be trying to apply settings suggestions. My question is, will the settings posted here apply to the 50PA5500 model as well as the other models here?
I also bought an Apple TV device.
*was looking for a monster cable to hook up to the ipad when I realized I could AirPlay with all of my apple devices for $99. Not a bad deal.

So I'm still reading as much as I can here and will hopefully learn more fast. I am planning on a another purchase soon for my sons room, but his will be more for gaming. I'm also reading more about that here.

Thanks everyone.
Also, I may start a new thread to see if anyone has experience with this specific set.

Did anyone manage to get their PC's to actually output 1080p to this plasma? Because I can't. The edges are black, it's like the plasma zoomed out or something. I was thinking of building myself an HTPC but if it's going to display like this then I don't like it. With my ps3 and wdtv live it works fine and uses every single pixel. What's with the zoomed out thingy in PC's?

Hello everyone,

I just got the 50PA5500 last week and am still in the break-in process. I saw some of the settings listed here, and was wondering if anyone had success using these for an Xbox 360 using VGA. I recall hearing about some problems with the way the black levels are set with the XBox 360 on VGA, but am not sure if that even applies here. My TV will be almost exclusively be used for Xbox, so I just want to make sure I get it right!

Thanks!

I just got the LG 60PA6550 this past weekend at Sam's club for $798.99. What a great deal for such an awesome TV! A couple of thoughts... No fault of the TV, but I have my Sony receiver connected via optical and the TV via HDMI and there is an audio sync issue due to the slower processing speed of the stereo. I doubt I can do anything about it but if somebody knows a work-around other than muting the TV, please let me know. (My receiver is an old STR-DE895). Also, as far as video settings, I found that one of the last posts from the user that calibrated using Disney's WOW disc looks stunning. I tried "The Holy Grail" settings and the picture lacked depth and looked washed out in my opinion. I updated to the latest firmware and it couldn't have been easier (took about 2 minutes). Here's a photo of my setup with a 28" LCD monitor on top for my "Picture in Picture".

I have mine hooked up to my PC and what you are experiencing is underscan. (Or overscan if the image is too large). You can correct this by going into your video card's settings. I have an ATI video card, and I go to the ATI catalyst control center to zoom it in or out correctly. Once the underscan / overscan is corrected, you can go into XBMC and fine-tune the size of the screen under the video settings. Hope this helps.

Hi!

I've the same problem. My receiver is an old Pioneer VSX-515, and i use the optical out with the Asus multimedia player. The HDP-R1 is contact to the tv with a HDMI cable.
There is a half second audio syncron problem on the tv, and ond the amp.
Ok, i'm using the receiver's sound on a Jamo set, but i don't know, how I stop this problem.

A faster / High Speed HDMi cable is good key for thi problem?


Another problem. I can't change tha Black Level and Gamma level, when I want to change the settings. I probe on Expert 1 or 2., but these 2 settings row is light grey, i cant change.

Sorry for my english, i'm not using in Hungary.

Chris

Does anybody use SimpLink with this TV? I have a DirecTV HR23, DVD player, computer, and a PS3 connected to the 60pa6500 and SimpLink doesn't work with any of my devices. Not sure if they need to be branded by LG or what? I have HDMI control turned on the PS3 and it still doesn't work. Any help would be appreciated.

So I may have found a difference in the 5500 and 6500 models. First the 6500 has a different design on the bottom of the frame or bezel of the tv. Not a big deal but the 6500 does look a little nicer. Second, I noticed on the 5500 the actual display panel area has a solid black border around it. I did not notice this on the 6500. Can anyone confirm this ? My original 6500 died and I had to exchange for a 5500 which appears to be identical but I do not remember the 6500 having the display panel border.

Thanks...

I purchased the LG 60PA6550 from Costco about a month ago. I'm not sure how I didn't notice this earlier, but the tv makes a very annoying hissing / buzzing / whistling sound ... now here's the strange part... when the green component cable is plugged in. It's not the blue or red... only the green component cable. I tried plugging it in to the other component input, but as soon as I plug the green cable in, the whistling begins. As soon as I unplug the green cable, it stops. The majority of the time its fine as you can't hear it over the audio coming from the tv but it is very annoying when you pause what you are doing (watching a movie, playing a game etc...).

After some troubleshooting, I found that the whistling/buzzing gets louder, the higher the volume is set to.

Has anyone else experienced this issue with this tv?
Edited by ATJaguarX - 10/26/12 at 5:12pm

@LD1313: My 6500 50" does have a 1/2" wide black "inner" border when the screen is active. The narrow physical border around the set looks good compared to most other large tv's but technically speaking this is closer to a 59" television than a 50". Not to quibble since who can argue over the quality of the picture.

Picked up the 60PA6550 from Costco a few weeks ago, just finally had a chance to unpack it and set it up a couple of days ago. I've been running the break in slides for a couple of days, had a chance to do a little viewing last night...I can't say I'm impressed. The picture just looks horribly noisy to me. Definitely a major step down in picture quality from the low-end Sony lcd it's replacing. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the remainder of the break in period makes some huge difference. Oh well, at least Costco has a good return policy.

@fairwood - thank you for your response I can relax now . I was concerned because I had to return a 6500 and they were out of them so I took a 5500 for $50 less. This was something that concerned me because I liked the aesthetics of the 6500 a bit more. I had a feeling that was why I noticed the panel border on the 5500. I was a bit obsessed I may loose some quality but the picture is amazing on both.

Are there any disadvantages to always keeping the orbiter on? What's the "just scan" setting and why would I want to switch to that from 16:9 and are there any disadvantages to it?

Does sound like a bit of hassle, particularly having to run the color wash and/or slides after gaming, when I probably just want to turn it off and go to bed but then again, I really don't want an inferior LCD either so I don't really have any choice.

Pixel orbiter moves picture every once in a while to prevent burn in .Just scan improves resolution as it shrinks picture to size of screen on hd.

There is absolutely no detriment to leaving the orbiter on at all times, regardless of what you're doing with the set. I like the fact that you can see the screen actually shift with this set. I was never able to actually see it with my panasonic.

Regarding flipping from 16:9 to Just Scan, it's a wise idea if there are constant static images on the game you're playing, because it's like the orbiter on steroids. The orbiter may not be a significant enough of a shift to move the static pixels completely off of themselves. Going from 16:9 to Just will almost always be substantial enough to move the static image into a completely different area of the screen. I just glance at the clock every so often and change the ratio roughly every half hour if static images are always on, particularly white ones.

I only run slides or color wash if I see a clearly visible image on a darker grey slide I bring up after gaming where the static image was. 15 minutes of the color wash is usually plenty. Most of the time it's not even necessary. In lieu of this, another strategy I use is having a PS3 game and a 360 game that I alternate playing. Right now I'm into Uncharted on PS3 and Resident Evil on Xbox. This way, the static images vary obviously on each game, so playing one erases any retention from the other.

Again, this might sound like some work at first, but by adhering to these principles, I never ever have to be uptight about burn in. This tiny amount of effort for that peace of mind is a no brainer. Again, the threat of burn in is the only drawback to plasma, and I have given you a formula to avoid the threat.

Thanks for explaining those features. It does sound like a hassle but I guess at least having a Plasma will dissuade me from leaving my TV on showing the EPG in Mediaportal as I tend to do at the moment, so will save me some electricity

It will take a little getting used to, but with the right settings you should have nice whites with plasma. It's not the bluish-white of LCD/LEDs but it should be a truer white. For "better" whites try setting the colour temp to cold instead of normal or warm. I find myself preferring cold temp colour when watching sci-fi films, warm when watching period piece BDs, and normal for TV viewing and drama BDs. {Watching tonights NFL game I could detect at least 6 different shades of white.

Your brightness is probably set too high. Or your cables need replacing.

Obviously try reseating the cable at the other end. If that doesn't fix it - replace your cable, chances are the ground is cut.