Official Panasonic ST50 Series Discussion Thread [No Street Price Talk] - Page 77

Sound advice. Much appreciated.

That's the kind of IR no one enjoys!

not sure. I have verozon fios.
are regular channels SD?

I will sit approximately 7 or 8 feet from my new tv.

Only thing I can think of is setting the HDMI Content Type = Graphics.
On the UT50, it made all modes, other than cinema, more accurate.

Let us know if it helps.

- Rich

Ditto.

Panasonic manual talks about using a mild dish soap - DILUTED 100:1 with water - for the panel, the bezel, AND the base....

And, as per Bull's prescription, that is only AFTER a Dry or Slightly Damp cloth has failed....


OOPS: Reading in order, and had not seen that Randy had already mentioned this - Apologies!

Define "Regular Channels."
Not certain about FIOS, but with Uverse MOST channels have both a SD and a HD version - but you do not get the HD version UNLESS you specifically pay a Premium for HD Service....

Also, even the "HD" channels are not all equal - and neither is the "HD" programming they offer.

FWIW, we sit 9ft from a 60" panel (ST50).
Blu-rays and HDDVDs look GREAT at that distance.

SOME "HD TV" programming, and SOME SD DVDs look Pretty Darn Good - but others look Distinctly Better from about 12 feet away (a secondary seating position in our 'home theater' area).

We do NOT watch SD channels on that panel: if something is on a SD-Only channel, we will watch it on our older 50" panel (at about 10 - 12 feet, depending upon chosen seat). In fact, we also watch MANY of the "HD TV" programs that we record (about 6 in an average week...) on the 50" set: it does a better job of HIDING the source flaws than the 60" panel....


Good luck with your choice!

I'm pretty sure actual SD material will look pretty yucky on a 55" screen. But keep in mind, if you're playing DVDs they should be upscaled to 1080p anyways with any descent DVD or blu-ray player, or receiver, so you wouldn't be watching DVDs as SD. While not true HD, an upscaled DVD, as long as it has a good bitrate and not too heavily compressed, will look pretty darn good.

Cable/satellite HD channels range from pretty good to pretty bad to awful. Depends on the channel. Some HD channels are more heavily compressed than others, and tend to show heavy compression during bright flashes especially. That's where I really notice how bad a channel looks. An over the air antenna will pull in local HD channels uncompressed if you're in an area that can receive local signals, and it should look better than cable or satellite. Of course for most channels though you're stuck with your cable/satellite company.

Myself, I'm still getting adjusted to going from my 50" D7000 to the 55" ST50. I haven't watched any upscaled DVD yet, so I can't give my opinion yet on how that looks on this set. On the D7000 it looked really good.

All flat panel displays must convert any lower resolution to the display's native resolution. If the native resolution of a display is 1080p then everything it displays must be 1080p or the set will have to convert to 1080p before the material reaches the screen for viewing. That does not mean that SD material is converted to HD level of detail. There is no more information in SD material after it's converted to 1080p. The conversion process just estimates what might have been there.

You are right that SD can look reasonably good if the device used to deinterlace and upscale from 480i to 1080p is good. For instance OPPO players do an outstanding job converting from 480i (SD) to 1080p (HD). No name dvd players that sell for $50 probably don't do as well.

SD TV material has less detail than SD DVDs so, as you said, SD TV is not good with big screen HD TV sets.


I agree, but even though it's deinterlaced and upscaled, DVD content is still SD. I'm being picky because it's easy for folks who are new to this brave new TV world to get confused by the vocabulary.


Absolutely.


Try the Superbit version of "The Fifth Element". It's an outstanding DVD transfer. In fact it's better than the first attempt at a Blu-ray version of the same movie. They got it right the second time around.

thanks guys for your excellent informative replies. I just checked what programming I get here. I had no idea that there is this much HD stuff. many channels have it. many movies have it. many do not. but a ton of them do.
also now getting a strong vibe that 50" is gonna be plenty big enough for my room.
thanks again. your replies have helped me a great deal.

Glad to hear, chas51.

Htwaits, you're completely correct about everything you said, and thanks for correcting me on terminology. Those superbit DVDs were great, I agree. Very high bitrate for DVD and they hold up very nicely. I remember the superbit version of Hollow Man looked amazing when I saw it years ago on my CRT.

More on the hockey "flicker". With two games on tonight, I have flipped between both. I have no "flicker" whatsoever while watching the Caps game. I noticed a little "flicker" here and there while watching the Nashville game, but not as bad as what i saw during the Flyers game last night. I would note that I am watching on custom mode using cnet's settings other than color warmth. I would also note that there is no fluctuating brightness whatsoever, just the "flicker".

I have been following this thread for about two months, so none of this is extremely new to anyone. But for those of us who love hockey, this issue is of some concern. The flicker is a little disappointing, but i can certainly live with it. However, whether someone else can will purely be a matter of preference. The rest of the positives with this awesome tv certainly outweigh this negative for me.

Another word on buzzing, I'm watching the Caps game right now, volume off and do not notice any buzzing whatsoever. However, the TV is rather warm. Nothing crazy, but noticeably warmer than my 46 inch sharp in suntan mode.

how is your tv's for being resistant to image retention? anyone had any issues with static logo's or letterbox bars?

"Another word on buzzing, I'm watching the Caps game right now, volume off and do not notice any buzzing whatsoever. However, the TV is rather warm. Nothing crazy, but noticeably warmer than my 46 inch sharp in suntan mode."


was at BB yesterday. strained to listen for buzz on 55" they have on display. it was completetely silent. it was warm. but not a deal breaker.

now that I've read people posting about gray white, I was looking for it and I certainly noticed it.
the 55ST50 at BB is right next to an LED that is brighter and whiter.
that bothers me not in the slightest after having read through most of the posts on this thread and at HDJ.
still just waiting on a sale. but now I know that I'm getting a 50".
looking forward to it. I know I'm gonna dig it.

Thanks... I'm headed down stairs as soon as I sign off to purify that screen of any residue.

so for 10-12 feet distance and watching streaming hulu / netflix via xbox (i am not sure if they are all hd or sd) would a 55" or 60" work better? i would hate to get a bigger TV and then complain that picture looks grainy and so on.

i also play xbox 360 driving games but sit closer probably around 8 feet due to Fanatec steering wheel. i need the right size for that as well.

my dvd player is oppo hd 981.

thanks again. i just have hard time deciding between ST50 60" or GT50 55"

I would go with the 60inch for that viewing distance!

But again 60" at only 8" is rather close I would think. It depends if he's also planning on lots of DVD/SD viewing or strictly blu-ray.

Also, streaming video is not ideal, even HD streaming. The bitrate is much lower than blu-ray or even broadcast bitrate. Streaming video would certainly look better on the smaller set, or worse on larger, however you want to look at it.

Going through D-Nice's panel prep, over 50 hours in and I just realized I had my picture mode at "Standard" instead of "Custom" as per D-Nice's post.

Should I just leave it in "Standard" for consistency or switch to Custom?

I have had my 55ST50 for almost a full week now and thought I would post some thoughts on the set compared to the LG 55LW5600 LED I returned.

The LG had a very good detailed picture but the clouding, bleeding and flash lighting was driving me crazy. Letterbox movies being the worst. The final straw was when I was watching Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark and the dark scenes(which is half the movie) glowed around the edges like a frosted window which ruined the movie. I also noticed that movies like Rambo First Blood which I know are very grainy, the LG would smooth out all of the grain even in THX mode with all the enhancements off.
I set the Panasonic using Dnice's out of the box settings and have watched full screen video or run slides all week long. Tonight I finally popped in some bluray's and was blown away. Started with First Blood and it looked great, 35mm film grain and all. The cave scenes with the rats looked better than I have ever seen it, nice and dark with inky blacks. The letterbox bars seem to just disappear in to the bezel. The LG had ruined this scene with the flash lighting and fluctuating black bars. The next Bluray I popped in was Blade Runner the Final Cut and right from the opening scene I was blown away. Deep blacks and popping colors. This is my third Plasma and I never really noticed how red Sean Young's lipstick is before!

Next I tried a few 3D movies, first was Tangled and it looked good but the cross-talk was definatly there. The LG passive wins on this movie. Second was Tron Legacy and I think this looked better on the Panasonic. I could see no crosstalk and the extra resolution of active 3D showed itself here. It just looked more detailed and the LG had pretty bad flash lighting on this movie. I will need to rent Tin-Tin 3D again and compare it because it looked really good on the LG a few weeks ago. I am not sure yet on the 3d, I think I preferred the LG for 3d but the Panasonic's 3d is growing on me. It just seems that it takes longer in to a movie for my eyes to adjust to the 3d with the Panasonic where as the LG it felt comfortable right of the bat. That being said I probably will only watch 3D maybe 5 percent of the time and the Panasonic is so much better with 2D that I can live with it's 3D performance.

I watched some hockey during the week and did notice some weird flickering during some of the games. The weird thing is I only seen the flickering on the NBC sports networks games. When I watched the Blues game on Fox Sports Midwest I did not see any of the flickering. Maybe something different in the cameras or broadcast used by NBC? Either way it is not a deal breaker for me, I have not seen it in anything else including some scenes from a DVR recording I had of White Out with full white snow scenes.

I compared the build quality between the sets and I would have to give the upper hand to the Panasonic. The LG seemed cheap and flimsy when setting on the mount where as the Panasonic seemed solid and rigid. This is probably due more to the difference between Plasma screens and LCD but I thought it is worth mentioning. The build quality just seems better. The built in speakers on the LG were worse than my 5 year old work laptop where as the Panasonic speakers are actually not half bad. They are pretty good for watching the nightly network shows.

The smart TV features are pretty much a wash between the two sets. I like them both for different reasons but they are more alike than different here.
The one thing I wish the Panasonic had is the ability to turn off the screen when using an app such as Pandora. I really like Panasonic's interface on Pandora but I am not going to leave the still image on my screen while listening to it. The LG had an option to turn off the screen but leave everything else running. Not a huge deal since I have 5 other devices that can run Pandora but maybe something for them to think about.

Excellent set so far, the pluses far outway the minuses. Now to make time to re-watch my Bluray and HD-DVD collection!

Too Blue white balance/color temp will make whites appear "brighter/whiter" even though it's an optical illusion. This is why most toothpaste and laundry detergent is blue.

I used "The Fifth Element" for a year when I was shopping for our first DLP HDTV. I know parts of it by heart. There are scenes with amazing skin texture.

thanks alot WiFi-Spy.

I'm a dyed in the wool fanboy at this point. I've read a ton about this series of tv's.
I'm happy that I finally know what size I want for sure.

so many helpful people on this forum thread.

Could someone tell me if the pixel orbiter default settings are automatic or on because i don't know it and resetting setting doesn't seems to work.

Those official numbers for size of display and seating distance are a bit silly IMO. Use them as a guideline maybe but don't treat them as religion. Most people can't rebuild their rooms or rearrange furniture just to accommodate a chart.

You have apparently not experienced streaming video in 1080p. It's not quite BD quality but it's far better than you describe.

Where do you get your information?

Broadcast HD is the best HD there is. Cable and satellite HD is compressed and can look pretty bad, but it doesn't get any better than OTA PQ.

That is not true. Many television stations compress their signal. That compression can greatly affect picture quality.

Compression or not, broadcast HD is the best there is.