Official Panasonic ST50 Series Discussion Thread [No Street Price Talk] - Page 202

Here's my common sense non technical tips on calibration. If you are going to invest in a so-called "professional" calibration that costs between $250-600 depending who does it and where you live, WAIT till the set as at least 200 hours of use on it. Same applies if you try any of the several do it yourself DVD calibration disks.The big question is do you really need to do either method? Short answer: Depends on how good you results are doing the following. What follows is a non technical non instrutment method that should get your tv close to idea viewing settingx. Try the following in the ambient room lighting you normally watch tv. First let the set warm up for a good 30 minutes, Go to Custom mode. If you've already fiddled, you may want to reset to default factory settings first. In any case take a few minutes to write down the current settings you have, so if necessary you can reset them.

From custom mode go to advanced setting, page #2, then click on pro settings, and keep going until you find Gamma. Set to either 2.0 or 2.2. Gamma effects overall 'preceived' brightness as viewed by the human eye. This control also impacts overall black and white levels which should be set next. First, even since television caught on in the late 1940's two common controls have often been mislabled, resulting in much confussion and improper use by end users trying to adjust the picture. These are brightness and contrast.

Try to think of CONTRAST as the control that sets the WHITE LEVEL, (the brightness of whites) and thus it, not the brightness control determines how "bright" your picture will be. This control gives you a good deal of "wiggle room" in that you can safely bump it up quite a bit without messing things up too much. The ideal setting (without instruments) would be when whites are bright, but just a touch below where they tend to bleed out and lack any detail. A good test is just watch the refs in a US football game in close up shot of them giving calls. The whitness of the uniform should appear bright white but not to the point they almost become neon.

Next set the BLACK LEVEL. Right, that's the proper name for the Brightness control because that's what it really does, determine how black the blacks are which the ST50 series does probably better than any set except perhaps for the very expensive ultra high end LED's. One quick way to set black level without instruements or any dedicated calibration DVD is to just search Google (set to search just images) and find what's called "pluge pattern charts". There a whole bunch to pick from. This assumes you have a PC with a DVD or Blue Ray burner and what to "burn" your own custom calibration disk. For a jet black real world image, I suggest downloading NASA's "moon crater 302" or such similar photo. I just checked its RGB values in Photoshop and while the sky isn't R-0,G-0,B-0 every pixel in the sky background, it is mostly within the single digit range. If you want a ballpark figure the blackness settings should probably fall somewhere between 56-63. The Contrast setting proably should fall within the range of the high 50's up to 85, which is a pretty wide range.

If you use one of the pluge charts many have multiple bars, some at the extreme end are "super black" or as silly as it sounds blacker than black. Yes, the opposite is also true there is a super white, which is whiter than white. The idea is you should set black level to the point the two to three darkest bars just start to merge into one, then if you have a preference, maybe bump it up one or two numbers if you want a slightly brighter appearing picture.

Now set color level which controls the intensity or saturation of all colors. Best done with skin tones. The late night shows like Leno or Lettermen are good when they are sitting at their desk. A lot of pros go through a lot of trouble making them look good with spending lots of time on lighting so if they look cartoonish, pasty or just not natural chances are you need to turn down color intensity a few numbers. If you moved the tint control PUT IT BACK to zero. Same for the warm or cool settings. These really should never be touched. If you have fiddle here trying to make the colors look "better" chances are something is messed up with the set. Modern tv's even the cheaper ones do a very good job faithfully reproducing tint, don't mess with it, you'll just mess it up.

Sharpness is another often over adjusted control. Try adjusting to a still picture that isn't too busy, but still has detail like somebody wearing a sweater where you can see the knitting pattern or there's something in the foreground that has text. Sharpness like the brightness and contrast controls is misnamed and really doesn't sharpen anything. What this control really does is add artifical detail. Stil that can for some viewing result in a crisper "appearing" picture. Do just a little if you use any, a small amount of "sharpness" goes a long way. At most never push beyond 15 or 20 if you must because remember, it only adds artifacts. A tiny bit, if you're sitting eight feet or further away might give you a sharper appearing picture (factually it can't), but don't get carried away or you just ruin the natual fidelity of the picture.

At this point you should have a pretty decent looking picture. If you think it still could be a tad better under pro settings just below color tempature you can adjust the matrix for the prime colors. By default they are all set to zero. If you must fiddle without instruements, try bumping up the red and blue values in various combinations. You won't see much if any real change. Avoid changing the green.

That's about all you should change. Leave the rest of the settings to defaults or set to off.

Sitting down? While they pick up the phone fast, within a couple rings the 3 times I called them you do NOT get to talk to a actual tech unless and until you get past the call
screener who tries to solve the problem. I found out the hard way when I was discussing a technical issue, the person on the other end clearly was in over her head and just talking nonsense. I asked her point blank if she was a qualified tech and she replied no... I'll have one call you back. Never happened. Panasonic SHAME ON YOU! Come clean with your phony concierge BS.

While I'm in rant mode, I bought quite a fee new electronic toys in the past 6 weeks. I called Netgear about my 3700 router. That guy didn't have a clue either. A couple weeks ago I got one of the highly rated Qnap NAS servers. While the product is first rate, again the "tech" knew nothing and twice actually gave WRONG information. Samsung was guilty too. I had a couple questions about my Galaxy S3. Same kind of "service". Ditto for AT&T when I called hem (laughingly) to explain my first billing which no surprise they screwed up also. Tech service if you can even call it that, SUCKS.

See my much longer and more detailed answer higher up. Contrast controls white level, brightness controls black level. While you have considerable wiggle room setting white levels (what really impacts overall screen brightness which is actually the poorly named contrast control) the brightness control really has nothing to do with the brightness level, a cruel joke by tv manufactuers dumped on the public starting way back in 1948.

So knowing that, the black level, what the brightness setting really controls should fall within in a narrow range IF it is set correctly. Read my longer poster to a hint what that range is and how to set it. Without doing anything except watching the tv you can tell if your black level is correct by keeping a sharp eye for the fraction of a second the screen might go dark either between commericals or going into or out of them. The screen for that fracton of a second should be jet black. If you see any shade of gray you have the black level too high. You can "cheat" a bit and go maybe 2-3 clicks higher once you know where the true black level should be. If after adjusting to what it should be and the picture is still too dark for your tastes, trying bumping up gamma then contrast in that order, but just a bit.