Official Panasonic ST50 Series Discussion Thread [No Street Price Talk] - Page 192

Good questions and I have been wondering the same thing. It seems that screen front surface in not real glass, or if it is, it has some soft coating on the glass. I have problem that one of my cats is scratching the screen by clawing it. So far I have tried to make sure she does not touch the screen but sometimes when I turn my back she manages do so. So far I cannot see scratches from the viewing distance. I was under the impression that plasma TV's have real glass screens.

Most do have real glass with an Anti-Reflective coating applied to the outer portion. Not sure about the ST50. Hope the cat isn't scratching THAT, since the only repair is replacing the whole plasma panel which is very expensive. You need to make sure about. Can you say shock collar

Distilled water when necessary and a smooth textured micro fiber cloth. I believe there is information in the manual regarding cleaning.

Firmware update is out today for all 50 series models. It says it only improves the browser, but we should check for other bugfixes anyway.

I will do this now thanks.

Then it must be Anti-Reflective coating that is scratching. It seems very delicate. I'm glad I did not buy the VT, even bigger loss once my cat has taken "care" of it. I don't how to prevent her from touching the screen. Luckily so far it seems that when the TV is turned off it does not draw her attention.

One way to take care of the cat is if you can carefully shoot a bb gun without hitting the screen......

That AR filter does have a soft plasticy kind of feel to it. Maybe a cat repellant or orange peels/red pepper/ deer urine, well maybe not the last one, spread around the area may help.

There's always that gorilla glass or a sheet of plexiglass.

http://animal.discovery.com/tv/my-cat-from-hell/

Yeah use deer urine. If you don't have any use your own. Spray it all over to be sure.

As an alternative, I've heard that lion sh1t is very effective for repelling cats. If the poster has a zoo nearby....

 

The AR coatings are fairly delicate on all plasma screens, so maybe getting the cat a dedicated scratching post and putting it nearby would be a better solution ;)

Thanks for the ideas. I consider my cats as a family members, so shooting or any other violence is out of the question. Positive thing is that my other cat has not been interested touching the plasma screen, she only tries to scratch my projection screen (which is fortunately a motorized roll down screen) and sharpening her claws on the cooling vent holes on the back side of the TV.

You could buy a VT 50 and put it beside it as a dedicated scratching post. They will go for the better one every time and save your TV from getting scratched up.

That is exactly the way they usually work.

I'm a UT50 owner and cross-posting this here as I'm assuming the same thing exists on the ST50's Smart Viera:

What the hell were Panasonic's engineers thinking with this "screensaver"? This is what happens if you let the TV idle in Smart Viera for a while (so if you let it sit during the Netflix app menu like my wife does sometimes). WHY would they choose a white background? The Viera logo moves around so I assume it's supposed to be a screen saver. This is really annoying and I wish I could figure out how to fix it. When my WDTV Live idles for 5 minutes it does a black background with floating WDTV logo, which is perfect. Is this supposed to be some kind of anti-IR measure? The power draw must be nuts and I can't imagine this helps panel life?

Hello all, I just got the 55 inch ST50 last week, and i've been enjoying it for the most part. However, after playing a few PS3 games.. i've been noticing a strange rainbow flickering thing that won't go away in some games. I think it has to do with the fact that the PS3 outputs to 720p with a lot of games, and my display doesn't like that. I get this effect: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU4je886fPY

I've tried messing with the PS3's display settings, but to no avail. Strange thing is, I get this effect occasionally with blu ray movies as well. Is it my display? The PS3? I have the PS3 connected through a Panasonic HTB20 soundbar. I don't really know a lot of plasmas, as this is my first large display purchase and i'm getting this effect.. what am I doing wrong?

It may be the "plainbow effect" (rainbow + plasma) that some see in plasma TVs. I see it when there is a bright white object against a black background. It's a millisecond flicker of a prism-like flash that occurs and repeats. Off center isn't as noticeable and not everyone sees it. Just Google "rainbow + plasma" and you'll find some post on the effect. Some say your eyes will adjust, I still notice it, but it doesn't freak me out like it use too. I watched "The Grey" the other day and it was obvious during the night scenes when they sitting around the fire.

That's all I got...

Question: I've been tweaking my 50ST50 using the "WOW" disk and I still have some minor issues I'm trying to work out. There seems to be a bit of digital video noise no matter if it's the PS3 (Blu-Ray) or the Dish HD receiver. Basically the background of dark scenes look undefined. Not sure if there is anything in the Custom setting that can clear that up? Also, not sure if this is ABL or not, but sometimes the picture quality looks phenomenal and then it may flatten out for awhile like someone played with the settings. Any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks

Just got the firmware update and came here to see what others are reporting.
the volume status indicator is a small yellow ball instead of a blue rectangle,
anyone else notice any differences?

raywin

I just checked (9:10PM MDT) and it loaded 1.230. No explanation or description, I went to Panasonic's website and it says the latest firmware is 1.19. Hopefully they'll update their product support page soon and include a description.
Edited by KaufmanD - 9/18/12 at 8:31pm

I purchase a new TV about every 7 years. Each time, I do crazy amounts of research for months in advance. For this go around, it was between the 60ST50 and the Sammy PNE6500. It was really a tough decision; but ultimately I went with the panny for 4 reasons. First and foremost the reported edge in picture quality. Second was I trust Panasonic as a manufacturer and with so many people who already own this line it was easy to see what kind of issues users were having, and what I should be cognizant of. The samsung has good feedback as well but not from as many people. Also seems like more complaints about buzzing on the Sammy. Third, aesthetics, I'm not a fan of the samsung octopus pedestal, though i think I prefer the sammy's bezel. Fourth, The Viera iOS app is convenient for me. Don't get it twisted though, In the end it was about picture quality. I understand that Panny doesn't process as well at the 6500 but I plan to remedy this by running it through a receiver.

New 60ST50 arrived yesterday to replace a ISF calibrated Sony KDS-60A2020 who's optical block went bad. So what do I think so far? Well it's only been a day... Though I took a home office day to accept delivery and get acquainted. Man, people were not lying about the black level. Picture is very good and I haven't even had it professionally calibrated yet. I am seeing colors in material that I'm very familiar with that i didn't even notice before. This is my first plasma and I love the black level, and the screen uniformity. If I have anything negative to say about this set, is the red power light is distracting when the lights are off. I know thats nitpicking but I'm seriously considering covering it with a piece of tape. I have not noticed any IR or buzzing thus far (knock on wood). I have been running full pixel content on it all day and will run the slides overnight. Just want to get it broken in faster so I can play some video games. Anyway my point for this, is for anybody who's on the fence and reading this. Yes, the picture is all that and a bag of chips. Don't be scared away by what you read in forums. Just because one person has reported an issue with their unit doesn't mean that yours will have the same problem. My only regret so far is that with the size of the actual TV being so much thinner and smaller than the SXRD it was replacing, I wish I could have gone bigger. Ultimately though, I couldn't justify paying the uptick for the 65PST50 and just 5 more inches.
Edited by Chew13 - 9/19/12 at 1:02am

For the gamers with a PS3 or Xbox 360. Have you left "picture noise reduction" ON or OFF as well as "intelligent frame creation" ON or OFF? when playing games.

And what have you found looks better?

I'm trying to figure out if it's best to leave these settings ON or OFF when playing games.

If you turn the smoother on during a 30fps game, it makes it look 60fps with some artifacts.. which is pretty cool.

Otherwise, I always keep them off or use game mode.

Thanks for the info KaufmanD.

I wish they'd give us some kind of changelog and a place to make feature requests for firmware.

The only thing that bothers me about the ST50 is how the red power indicator light is on when the screen is on, and off when the screen is off,
it seems like it should be reversed. That is, I know the panel has power when the screen is on, and I want to know it is in standby when the screen is off.

Hopefully this is fixable in firmware, otherwise I am going to have to get one of these http://lightdims.com/
to remove the distraction when watching at night.

So after trying to trying to diagnose the problem, I think the PS3 may be the culprit. I bypassed the soundbar and tried a different HDMI port, and also a different cable, and the problem got worse, actually. When I bypassed the soundbar(which is connected through the ARC port), the sound flickers on and off with the rainbow video flicker effect. I also used an older Apple TV model which outputs 720p only via HDMI, and I had no problems at all with video or sound through those same HDMI ports.

I guess i'll go try buying a new PS3 and check it out to see if the problem persists. My PS3 is still a phat model from 2008, so this may be the way of telling me it's slowly dying. The strange this is that it was playing just fine on my previous LCD 720p TV just a few days ago. Oh well, hope for the best.

Thanks for the info. Coincidentally, I use an older PS3 (Phat) with my ST50 and a newer PS3 (Slim) with my 40" LCD Sammy down in the "man-cave."
I'll try switching them around and see if I still get the rainbow effect. I'm at work and can post my results later tonight (I'm MDT)

Update: Same results with the "slim." On very rare occasion I see it on broadcast TV (Dish) but it's evident when watching movies off the PS3. The PS3s are my only option for Blu-Ray unless I get the classic Toshiba HD DVD player out of storage and watch the "Bourne Trilogy."
Edited by KaufmanD - 9/19/12 at 7:38pm

I use the THX Cinema Mode. To get a greyscale without red i habe to adjustier both Reds to -8
What so you have???

Hey guys, anyone know how to change the picture format/aspect ratio when watching Netflix? The format button doesn't work when watching shows with bars on the side, and we all know what happens with that.

Got my 55" ST50 in today from Amazon and I'm really disappointed. There's a big fat band of purple and black pixels stretching the entire width of the screen, and a solid line of discolored pixels running through the middle of that.

http://cl.ly/image/0N2X1B0F1r0U

http://cl.ly/image/0m030u3F2j3v

http://cl.ly/image/333P0J0H1H3u

http://cl.ly/image/0Y0Y010n2F0b

If I let the TV run for 20 minutes or so, most (but not all) of the pixels will clear up, but the solid line never goes away. And as soon as you change inputs or turn the TV off and back on, the whole thing comes back. This is my first plasma, but I'm preeeeetty sure this is not normal behavior, right?

On top of that, my receiver only takes analog audio inputs, but this TV only has an optical audio output, so I got one of these audio converters:

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10423&cs_id=1042302&p_id=6884&seq=1&format=1#largeimage

The audio from the Xbox and PS3 through that box is scratchy with a ton of hiss behind it, and changes to an awful high-pitched tone as soon as it stops getting any sound (i.e. dropping from a game back to the dashboard). Meanwhile broadcast HD channels aren't passing any sound through at all. My guess is that the converter box doesn't like the audio format the TV is passing to it, but the TV's audio settings are so bare bones there doesn't seem to be anything I can change to help that, and both consoles are set to output simple 2ch stereo already anyway. Does anyone have any other advice on this audio issue besides buying a new receiver? The one I have works great and does exactly what I need, it's just that the ST50 can't send an analog signal to it.

I was planning to initiate the return process with Amazon and hopefully get them to send me another TV right away while they arrange to pick up this one, but if it turns out I'm gonna have to spend another $300 on a new receiver just to make up for the lack of one common output, I may just send it back and look for something else. I went for this model because of the value and picture quality (the picture does look fantastic, other than the defect, and you can't beat the price) but with this much hassle involved just to make it work right, it's losing a lot of its appeal. Any advice appreciated.

^^^Just so you know, virtually all mfgs have eliminated analog audio outputs from their larger sets.
Analog audio output was a given a few years ago, no longer. Get your set replaced for the obvious picture defect but don't expect to find anything comparable with analog audio out.

Well, it's not that I'd hope to find another set with analog outs so much as one that would at least let me tweak enough settings to use a converter. Maybe that box needs to go back to Monoprice, too. Seems like I've got a lot of customer service to deal with in the near future.