Official Panasonic ST50 Series Discussion Thread [No Street Price Talk] - Page 166

My Cats did the same thing, but I did not get a photo. Very Creative! Thanks for sharing!

The VT50 has the single pane of glass vs all the other plasma's that have the standard two pieces.

The VT50 at my BB is sitting on a very low stand and standing up and looking at it I notice a slight change in the picture.....
I've been told this is due to he Louvre AR filter....My soon to be purchase will either be the VT50 or the ST50..Tv will also be
sitting on a 36'' stand so I wont be looking down at tv even standing up....

Question and it may be hard to answer...
Do plasma's work better with just one pane of glass??
Or is two as is normal provide a better viewing expereince??

Next question:
To those who have had their ST50 calibrated:
Its my understanding that they Calibrate the tvs for the best possible night time viewing....
The VT50 has two modes ISFday and ISFnight...The guy who will calibrate my tv says most people
rarely switch between the two and usually stick with the ISFnight setting for majority of viewing....

If you had your ST50 calibrated for optimal night viewing...How does it look in the daytime??

I'm thinking if I dont need the ISFday calibration then the ST50 will meet my needs........

Thanks

Did you ever talk to CEVA to confirm the Monday appointment?

Often the dates you see online aren't correct. The one you see from Amazon is generally the day it will be received by the delivery company. CEVA's dates aren't firm until you talk to someone and that is why I call them when it may get complicated. Also, if they try to reschedule after having verbally firmed the date, then call Amazon asap. Actually, call them whenever things just plain old line up. I went through a mess with my first order and canceled it as a result. Amazon gave me a nice credit on my account.

I find it difficult to be gentle to trolls.

Yeah, it depends on the color of the drink in the glass . . . Everybody know that!

Do you have the ECO settings off?

And like Micahel said, it is on the Disney Wow video you have.

An hour on a fuzzy pic recommended by Panasonic rep? OK, but I would be more proactive. Good luck.

As it is too far outside of our price range, haven't looked closely at the VT50, but had thought that it had a second glass panel that sits on top of the actual display panel.
This used to be fairly common, with the outer glass serving as a Protective - and sometimes Decorative - cover.

LG is advertising an outer protective glass panel on (at least some of) their plasma sets this year.

No. 1 Son has a slightly older Pan plasma with dual panes, and complains that - from certain viewing angles - it is possible to see a Reflection on the outer pane.

The louvred filter will create an apparent "shadow" on parts of the screen if viewed from either too high or too low of an angle. In actual usage, the only time this has been a bother (personally...) is when doing floor exercises Immediately in front of the TV, but if someone hung one high enough & did not bother to angle it downward toward the sitting position....

Suspect that your calibrator is probably right on switching modes - but then most people don't bother doing ANY "tuning" of the PQ beyond finding the pre-sets they like the best.
IF I were to have a set Professionally Calibrated, would want both a Day and Night setting - assuming the panel was in a location where Day viewing was going to take place.

We've adjusted the Cinema mode on our 60ST50 for blu-ray viewing - but this is now our primary "HT" set, and thus sits in our basement: We can light up the area rather well, but not even close to what our LR would be on a bright day!

It seems like most of the posts I've read have touted Custom mode on the ST50, but while Custom looks better than it appeared to on the ST30s, we still like the overall PQ on Cinema better for most viewing. Using the AVS HD709 disk, we made MINOR adjustments to the default Cinema settings. We've two other Pan plasmas in the house, both of which have been more extensively tweaked - and by someone with more experience at the task than I have - but if the ST50 is somehow "falling short" of those panels it is Very Difficult to see. (Of course, the wonderful blacks & improved contrast might hide some other flaws.)

If this panel were to ever move to our LR - our "secondary viewing location" - would expect to set up Custom for day time viewing. For now, sometimes play around with Custom whenever running up against some odd-ball source, but more the most part we (too...) are Lazy & it simply sits on Cinema....

(LR set is a 50" and we use "Cinema" for evening viewing, and "Standard" for day time viewing - we've "pumped up" the Standard mode.)
Have fun with your decision - and new panel!

I'm happy to see you still take no prisoners

This will be my lighting conditions....
If I go for the ST50 I think afer calibration it will look great in day viewing and night viewing.....

Currently have a 42'' 2008 plasma, looking forward to a 55'' sitting on the stand

As soon as i got my ST50, i had every light on in my house, including a dining room light directly in front of the TV. You could only see a glare if you were actually trying to find it and even then it was minimal. I was pleasantly surprised at how well the ST50 holds off the glare. Brightness is not an issue either, mine is plenty bright for the room and i may have to tone mine down some. Excellent picture and i'm extremely happy i went an exchanged my Aquos for this one

I finished breaking in my 55ST50 using D-Nice's slides. I then used his recommended settings and noticed them to be a bit dark. Is this common for those that tried out his settings? I switched it over to Cinema mode and that is a bit brighter. I have 3 windows in my living area that are left of the tv. I have blinds and curtains and light only gets in during the mornings.

Hey guys. Been searching the forums and other sites, but haven't found what I'm looking for. I recently bought a 50" ST50 and it's great except for one thing. I still watch a lot of standard def analog cable with no intentions of subscribing to a digital/HD cable/satellite receiver. The picture quality when viewing analog cable is pretty darn noisy. I have the Video NR set to 'strong' but it doesn't help. My cable signal is actually very good and quite clean. I have 2 other TVs in the house (a Samsung LCD and an old Sony CRT)...both are crystal clear when watching cable...so clear in fact that it almost looks digital. I can't understand why the ST50 is so bad. I'm not even sure it's video noise I'm seeing. It looks like colorful snow artifacts in various parts of the screen...not even all over. It's most evident in bright colors like whites etc. HD sources like blu-ray etc. look outstanding and clean, although when I turn up the brightness to anything past 55, I get some pretty crazy dithering noise. Anyway, has anyone else watching analog video sources noticed this? Has anyone heard of the Samsung E6500 performing any better with analog sources? Any assistance at all will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

EDIT: Should've mentioned that I've adjusted the picture settings to my liking using the Custom pic mode...so it's not the "out of the box" settings. Nevertheless, this noise is present regardless of what settings I choose. I don't think this has anything to do with video settings/calibration...it just looks very dirty/noisy. I've even attempted to pass my cable line through a Monster clean power surge protector, and run the line directly to the TV bypassing all splitters...no change whatsoever.
Edited by toolcube - 8/13/12 at 3:46pm

Nothing you can do. You're seein standArd def in all it's inferior glory. No reason to buy a fancy TV for standard def. Looks better on a CRT.

I get that but this is abnormally noisy. My Dad has a 50" Sammy B530 plasma and it looks outstanding (very clean) on his standard def analog cable source (same cable provider). Also, his cable signal isn't quite as good as mine, which makes my issue even more concerning.

Would the standard def. signal look any better passed through Qdeo on a Pioneer Elite?

The best way I can describe it is like a lot of glitter/sparkles across various parts of the screen...not your standard "snow" artifacts. Anybody out there with an ST50 and access to an analog standard def source they can test?

I have standard def coming in via my Fios box. My daughter watches Disney Junior which is only SD. My onkyo 818 is set to upscale everything to 1080P. Dis Junior looks OK. I have some HiDef versions of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on my Apple TV coming out in 1080p. That looks EXCELLENT.

I just don't think this set was meant for users going the SD route. I think it may be one of the sets weaknesses based on the numerous complaints here. I have my Wii coming in through the 818 and that still looks like trash,

Try turning brightness down one tick at a time until the sparkles stop. There will be dithering which is more apparent and active on some content than others but sparkles are a little different.

Just got mine Tuesday and have it up and running. I am extremely impressed with this set. I was worried about brightness, but with every light on in my house during the brightest part of the day i had minimal glare. And with the lights on how they normally are, no glare what so ever. I'm so glad i returned the Sharp Aquos for this set. I do have one question though. When it came in i let it run for just a few days without adjusting anything, then i made some tweaks in custom mode because it was really tough to watch with everything set at 50. Do i really need to run it for 100 hours at the default settings or can i leave it how i have it?

Eta....Also, i have my PS3 and Cable Receiver running to a Sony HT Soundbar receiver(ARC) and then out to the TV. I was told because the receiver doesn't support 3D, that i need to switch those cables and run straight PS3 to Tv, Cable to TV, and optical from the Sony Soundbar to the optical on the TV. Can someone confirm this for me?

That is probably accurate. However, without a model # it's hard to give you a straight answer.

So there is some improvement, good.
Thanks for the reply.

Oops Tc-p60st50 and sony htct550w soundbar. So do I need to go back to the standard 50 settings for a while or can I leave what I have and just adjust if I see a difference?
I'm thinking I shouldn't run anything through the receiver and just straight hdmi everything and optical the receiver

A few people have mentioned that they found his settings to be a bit too dark. I recall a few changing their gamma to 2.4 and a few other minor changes. You can always alter them slightly to something closer to your choosing. I think the largest benefit of D-Nice's slides are the white balance settings since you need a professional calibration in order to adjust those settings.

Nope, I guess I got real lucky with my first shipment from CEVA. I never contacted them and they showed up on the schedule delivery date I set up with Amazon on time. They might only be on time in those scenarios though.

I will give them a call tomorrow as the TV shipped earlier this afternoon.

Looks like Frankie is a nightmare for Amazon too. Chaos just seems to be his M.O. He gets a bad set then after 1000 hours of everyones time has been wasted orders a replacement. Then when it is hrs away from being delivered he decides he wants a bigger one so he calls Amazon and haggles a price match that he really should not have gotten. Now Amazon has to bring back the replacement that was nearly on his doorstep and price match a bigger one with white glove that is not included in the price that he insisted that they match. A true testament to Amazon customer service and I bet they are praying that Frankie is either happy with the replacement or just kills over so they can be done with this nightmare. Cant wait till he gets the replacement to see if he tries to hijack the forum for another 2 weeks over something else. He will have everybody unhooking and hooking their stuff up different over some other anomaly in order to test his theories.
Edited by Bond 007 - 8/14/12 at 4:01am

I'm trying to decide on a blu-ray player. The Panasonic 220 blu-ray player has issues with it's wonky Netflix feature.


I read that the ST50 does not have HDMI 5.1 Audio Return Channel, and will only return 2 channel audio back to the reciever... is this true? Any solutions to stream Netflix from the TV with 5.1 surround?

Do I need to use the DIGITAL AUDIO OUT port on the TV with an optical cable?
Edited by whoisyuri - 8/14/12 at 6:28am

 

ARC channel is 2.0 only. To use things like Netflix and get 5.1 sound you need to connect, as you guessed, an optical digital cable from the Digital Output of the ST50 and into one of the optical inputs on your AVR. Then select that AVR input for sound while you are watching Netflix on the TV.

Just took delivery of a 65ST50...help! Things look so good so far from viewing distance, but when 2 feet from the display, I get black crawl. Is this noise in the blacks (even when receiving no input) inherent of plasmas? Or from 2 feet should I see the black bars be solid black? (as opposed to dancing gray dots among the black bars)
Edited by IntotheBlue - 8/14/12 at 7:40am

What monoprice Optical Digital Cable will work? Also, do I need to manually switch the Audio Input on the receiver as I switch between devices (TV Netflix, and blu-ray player)? I have the new Denon 1713.

Thanks for your help.

I turned down contrast to 50 and that seems to have hidden the problem. That'll have to do for now until I put some life on the tv and calibrate it.

It's probably in Torch mode. Get it set up first and then examine the PQ. Put it into Cinema mode or something, turn the brightness, contrast, colour down, turn sharpening to zero. Then have another look - the 'black crawl' will have gone.