Official Panasonic ST50 Series Discussion Thread [No Street Price Talk] - Page 255

I have even read articles on a couple of different sites claiming the slides can do damage to the new plasmas. I have no idea how credible that is.

This happens to me with my LCD HDTV and Panasonic plasma HDTV. It's obvious some feeds are SD or upconverted SD, especially on news programs. I don't think you can blame this particular problem on your set. As for the other problems, you may have a point.

So I went out yesterday & bought a ST50 65" coming on Monday afternoon & they are going to wall mount it for me. I have a 50G20 currently that has driven me nuts with Floating Blacks & the Risen Blacks so down it comes. At the store the guy was trying to get me to consider the GT50 & VT50. I knew the GT50 wouldn't bring much performance wise if any over the ST50. What impressed me about the ST 50 most was it was being played Avatar on the same loop as the VT50 & to me it looked just as good. Of course the sets are in torch mode but still I was impressed by it. So I'm just praying they can get this monster into my basement as I have stairwell with a 180 turn in it. They assured me they will get it down somehow so looking forward to running this badboy monday night.

Everything I have read says this is the best bang for the money plasma & D-Nice called it a Beast so.....

Cam

Good idea about the SPL.

Don't really see how that's possible. Do you have any links for these articles?

Running D-Nice slides and its weird sonetimes the picture shifts to the right a pixel line or 2 (so maybe 2-3 rows of black more on left side than right side). Is thay normal? Kinda freaking me out... also kind of wondering if I should do the slides. PQ does look insanely good as it is but scuurrred

Make sure the pixel orbiter is off under Menu>Setup>Anti image retention. It should say Disable.

For D Nices slides he says to leave on all defaults tho. Should I still turn that off?

The option is set at 60 but is dimmed out.

I just noticed it does it during regular cable viewing as well.

Thanks disabled it. Dnice didnt mention that! Thank you for pointing that out. No more shifting and all is well

So over the past month, I have noticed in the bottom middle of my screen 3 rows of grey rectangles, have no idea what movie or game could cause this? It looks like a burn-in. I watch TV for a few hours on Netflix or play games on my Xbox, and my Brother watches cable, that's it. I took a picture for you guys to see it, any way to get rid of it? It's a bit annoying and while currently as of now watching Breaking Bad, I can see it in some scenes...

I don't see anything but a moire pattern in that picture.

Right below the music, you see the grey rectangles?

Can anybody here please check for me if the ST50 has an option to ALWAYS output stereo PCM instead of Dolby from digital toslink audio out? If not in the standard menu, can you guys also please check the hidden service menu? Thanks.

Nope the ST50 does not have such an option, it can only output Dolby digital on the toslink audio output.
If you want to connect a headphone you need to get a optical to stereo RCA adaptor that accepts dolby digital format.

But how do you set the volume then? When optical out is used, standard volume controls on the TV do not work, do they?

Looks rather nasty, like burn in letters, but too high for subtitles. I have no idea what could cause this. Have you got orbiter turned on and to clean it with some pixel shifter?

My 55st50 has awful IR. I have over 150 hours on it and really babied it. I used the program guide which has big white letters at the top right. I mean you only use the guide a few minutes at a time, but I now have the word bell I can see with light colored background. It has faded but I am afraid to use the guide again for some time. I find any white lettering to really linger. I hope it gets better.

I have been using a pixel flipper and that seems to help the most. That built in scrubber does nothing for me.

Yeah, if you look closely, you can see about 4 rows of it, it doesn't look like it could be subtitles, the subtitles from Netflix are yellow. I bought the TV back in September too from Best Buy. And I don't know what an orbiter is or does? Is there a setting in the menu for calibration to turn it on? I have noticed some burn-in from like playing Borderlands back when it came out or on tv, but it always went away. This just seems to linger...

I have had a few 2012 panasonics. 1 vt50 that had bad blobs/ vertical bands and Panasonic replaced it. Next vt50 had a brighter dot on the screen and a vertical band on the right side. I went to an st50 now and it initially looked ok but now it looks like bad DSE or something. They are darker kind of vertical bands/smudges which extend out from the centre almost top to bottom. Anyone else have pretty bad DSE on their st50's?? I didn't see it right away but now seems to be all over the screen almost. I am getting tired of exchanging these things. Plus this one buzzes pretty good too. Can hear it from around 15ft away when whites are on the screen. Also has the trademark right side band too. It's kind of embarrassing having to keep exchanging these too cause the store starts to think your nuts or something. Thanks

What is DSE? Your not crazy l'm on my third.
Edited by Frank Spizzirri - 12/9/12 at 5:48pm

This is from another thread in this forum about what DSE is:

It can be caused by

1) Actual physical residue on the outer screen (clean it carefully)

2) Uneven phosphor uniformity (this will dramatically improve with time)

3) Uneven application of AR filter/residue on the inside of the screen (probably the most common causes, and sadly, there is no remedy short of a panel replacement)




For me it seems like the AR filter/coating but will see if it improves or gets worse.

Frank, what problems have you been running into with these Panasonic TV's??

Hmm I don't think I have DSE at least not yet. First set was a buzzer, I could hear for my kitchen 30 feet away. Next I had a bright spot 10 inches from the top at the middle. It was the size of a silver dollar and very noticeable. This one has stubborn quick set ir. Seems to be fading but I am still quite worried. I am pleased with the picture quality but not sure about quality control. I hope this baby settles soon because like you, I am starting to question my sanity.

hey could use a little info from an owner. thought I was sold on the gt 50 but since they are more or less equal in terms of PQ, i am exploring the ST. I think what drew me to the GT were the 2 THX modes: Bright and Cinema.

My question is, can I have 2 modes I use on an ST that I've configured for 'day time/bright' and another for cinema/night so I can easily switch between both? This is primarily why I was thinking gt so I can switch between the two THX modes easily and they stay in the system. will my settings persist on teh set so I can freely switch twice a day?

also, I presume that I can configure the ST for equal to or close to the THX modes for bright and cinema without a pro calibration?

Yes, good suggestion. But both my wife and daughter can hear the buzzing so that removes some of the variability in individual hearing differences. Also, regardless of what the Db is, it still bothers me. Again, not noticeable most of the time but when it is noticeable, like from a dark-to-bright scene transition and low or no sound (which does happen naturally in movies, not just by me turning the volume down), it is bothersome. I'm going to call Panasonic tomorrow to see if I can arrange for a tech to come and check it out.

The ST50 has presets of Vivid, Standard, Cinema, Game, and Custom. Of those, Custom is the only one that can be customized separately for each individual input. The rest exist across all inputs. So if you only plan to use 2 inputs, you could have a Custom setting for each, and then Perhaps use Standard as the alternate preset for one input and Cinema as the alternate preset on another. So it's certainly doable, but if you plan to use 3 or more inputs and want 2 presets for each, it's not going to work very well.

I hadn't considered input variations, purely only a day setting and a night setting, perhaps using blackops or dnice for night and a little brighter side for day.

How relevant is that on a 'per input' basis if I run everything through my AVR with a single HDMI?

Most people only use a MENU or (TV) GUIDE for a short period of time - at any one time: but these can be used Repeatedly during an evening of "normal TV viewing."

As appears to be the case with your set, that Repeated Usage of the (Uverse) GUIDE function left medium-duration IR on our 60ST50 - until the panel had aged PAST 400 hours usage.
(Change was gradual, not a "magical event" that took place at precisely 400 hours - that just happened to be about the usage where I first noticed an improvement in IR Onset / Duration.)

Haven't bothered to check hours of usage for a while, but would guess we are in the neighborhood of 1500 hours, and GUIDE usage no longer leaves visible IR (that I've noticed...).
Static Logos - ESPN, FOX Sports, History 2 Channel - will still leave IR (after sufficient on-screen time), but it is LESS visible than pre-400 hours, AND of Short-Duration, dissipating readily given normal program content, often in a matter of minutes.

Hopefully your set will follow this trend....

Hoping to get some feedback and suggestions before I pull the trigger. I've done a lot of research and am leaning heavily toward the TC-P50ST50 to replace my 2006 Sony KDL-40XBR2 that is starting to develop a blue cancer line, lol.

My ONLY concern is that the TV is in a very bright room (a lot of windows and light throughout the day). How does the TC-P50ST50 do in bright rooms? Should I avoid this set (and plasmas altogether) and find a comparable LCD set?

TIA