Official Panasonic ST50 Series Discussion Thread [No Street Price Talk] - Page 285

If it's line bleed I believe it is normal, although I'm not sure about the variation from display to display. My 55ST50 has more pronounced line bleed than my 6 year old Panasonic plasma.

Here are some pictures I took of line bleed:


Notice the horizontal lines that extend from Carl's glasses.


The bar light behind the kid goes through his face. The camera didn't pick it up as well.

after owning this set for almost a month, I am not sure I am going to keep it.

A few pages back I stated that there were no buzzing and no IR - well now after around 100 hours of viewing, both have started, and seemingly getting worse. The buzzing I can deal with by dialing back the contrast and brightness. The IR is the main issue. Before I could watch 4x3 content with logos and even pause for 5-10 minutes with no issues, now its more like 10 seconds - no exaggeration. Simply fiddling with the menu and I can get "menu" stuck on the screen. In fairness, the IR is very temporary, usually its a 1:1 ratio (watch a program with a logo for 1 hour, you will need 1 hour of something else to "wash" it off. Just bring up the menu for 10 seconds, its gone in 10 seconds. Also, for the most part, its not bad - you cant see it unless its on a white or light gray background. However, since its getting worse, I am a bit nervous since I only have about 4 days left to decide if I want to keep it. If it doesnt get any worse, and hopefully gets better after a longer "burn in period" its still fine.

However, this brings me to the next issue. I am not sure if the set developed some kind of strange uniformity or IR, but right where the 4x3 bars are - especially on the right side, there is a vertical line going down the screen. I never noticed it before but after seeing it on a few light scenes, its definitely there - and permanent. I thought at first it was IR since its right on the black bar line, but its also much more tapered, probably like 12-14px wide and not a hard line, its softens at the left and right sides. I thought maybe it was IR and softened because of the pixel orbiter, but no amount of scrolling bars or white washing (full white slides) has been able to rid it (ran scroll bar for a full 24 hours). Its been noticeable for a week now. If it is IR, then that's a problem because probably half of our viewing is 4x3 content (kids shows, old shows on netflix, etc.) and I just cant watch content with improper aspect ratios.

That said, I have yet to find anything that doesn't have deal breakers. LEDs all have uniformity issues, spotlighting, etc. which are probably just as bad if not worse, unless you want to pay twice as much. The samsung plasmas still have the same buzzing if not worse from what I hear as well, although not as many headaches with the IR. This panel has some DSE, nothing terrible, not sure where the samsung is on that front.

I have a few more days to think about it, but I am thinking I may swap for the E6500.

^^^

Sounds like the vertical banding that many, if not all, ST50's have to some degree. My 55ST50 has a feint band on the right side.

This photo shows the line on the right side. It is more apparent on the dark gray slide.



I assume your return window ends on January 31. If so, mine does as well. My 55ST50 has a few niggling issues, but I don't think I want exchange it.

I have no banding

That is not banding. Banding is something that you see while watching regular content. What you and rahabib have is a screen defect that is in nearly all STs. Mine has it. It is not noticeable during regular viewing and if you return it there is a very good chance the next one will also have it. If its any consolation mine has faded considerably since June. When I run the scrolling bar I can just make it out but probably wouldnt notice it if I didnt already know it was there.

Thanks for the clarification. MI6 will be proud. It's been a while since I read the talk surrounding the vertical bar issue. Mine is not noticeable during normal viewing, only on the gray slides.

What's the term for the vertical streaks I see when the camera pans across the field during a soccer match?

Okay well if it is normal then I won't worry too much. I really never noticed it until I started noticing it in the menu of my DVR, and now I've noticed it somewhat in other programs. I definitely noticed it in South Park, which has a lot of static background scenes.

I don't know if these have been brought up on here before, but I just came across these:

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=109&cp_id=10909&cs_id=1090902&p_id=9460&seq=1&format=2

A bit pricier than Amazon.

I have until the 25th (well really the 28th - but first payment is the 25th.)

Anyway, the streak I think is just the same uniformity issues everyone has, although I think mine is a bit brighter - but hard to tell via pictures. Its not deal breaking as I rarely see it except when there is a scene where its a light blue sky and since its feathered, its hardly noticeable. The DSE is really only annoying when watching bright scenes and its noisy to begin with (bad cable feed, etc.) Most people would only see the noise but its compounded with the DSE. I doubt any other plasma is going to be much better as this one isn't terrible. Really the only thing I worry about is the IR retention getting worse. If it was doing this from the beginning, I probably would expect it to get better, but since it just started, it makes be believe that it may only get worse. I read that people say this fades after 400 hours, but thats well beyond my 30 days and "stubborn" IR is not covered in the warranty. Maybe I can use the uniformity as an excuse, Ill have to read the return policy.

The buzzing seems to have gone down a bit, and may have been an issue only because I turned up the contrast a bit and forgot to set it back to 85. Also the TV had been on for 24 hours straight running slides and that may have contributed because even when I set it higher it doesn't buzz nearly as loud as it was the other day.

To complicate matters worse, the Sammy e6500 isn't carried there, I would have to get it at Best Buy or Amazon. The e550 is there, but the glare may be an larger irritation than IR :P. The last resort is to simply try a new st50 and hope that the IR isnt as bad - it also buys me another 30 days, but then I have to go through all the burn in slides to really compare.

I have this stripes on the left side Maybe they turnd the display the other way round in my TV


Nokia 808 distortion Panasonic STW50 uniformity by m1.m1., on Flickr

My understanding is that they don't work as well as the Panasonic glasses either. They also are not rechargeable like the Pan glasses.

What are the rest of your settings? It's possible that the high settings that are effecting the buzzing are also what are increasing your IR.

I dont think my settings are high:
contrast 85
brightness 72
color: 48
tint: 0
sharpness: 0

color temp: normal
in adv. settings: blue +4

I didn't like the yellowish/brown look from warm 2.

I was just referring to whatever settings you had it on when "The buzzing seems to have gone down a bit, and may have been an issue only because I turned up the contrast a bit and forgot to set it back to 85." happened. That's probably a bit rough on IR early on in the panel's life. Right or wrong, a lot of people dial back their settings a bit for the first 100-200 hours.

For me the most bothersome issues with my 55ST50 are the buzzing and the vertical streaks I see when the camera pans during a soccer match.

I don't know if the buzzing has gotten worse or if I just hear it more now that I know it's there. I have been running "Up" and "Toy Story 3" throughout the day without any sound and it's very apparent on any light colored scene or scene with a large solid light color. What bothers me the most is the on/off nature of it. During certain scenes it's like zzzzz...silent...zzz...silent...zzzzzzzzz...silent, etc. I've gone back and watched those movies with the sound on and most of the buzzing scenes are inaudible, but there are quite a few that are when the sound in the movie is low. I have two other plasmas and I don't hear the buzzing like this one.

As far as the vertical streaks I plan on watching more soccer than I have up to this point during the next week. If it proves to be really bothersome I may end up exchanging my set, although I don't want to go through the whole process.

I would only recommend that you use one of the available free tests disks and check that brightness setting. While some settings may be up to personal preference, the brightness control might be something you'll like set correctly.

I have a 51 inch Samsung E7000 and my return period is up in about a week. I am generally very happy with the set, but had been considering exchanging it for the 55 inch ST50 (which will actually wind up costing about $300 more than I paid for the Samsung and then I would need to buy 3D glasses). I was also thinking about the UT50 which would cost about $100 less than I paid for the E7000 (before glasses). Anyway, I was considering this because I thought the larger screen size might be nice and I understand the Panasonic has better blacks and maybe a little better contrast. On the other hand, it's a pain to go through an exchange and I am concerned that I might be trading a few little and fairly inconsequential issues for other potential problems. I also am not sure 4 inches of screen real estate is worth $300 (and a 60 inch set, which would be significantly larger is just too big for the space). FWIW, the viewing distance is about 8 - 8 1/2 feet from the screen and this is my first plasma, coming from a 42 inch rear projection LCD.

A couple of questions to help in my decision:

(1) I watch mostly movies. How is the IR with black bar movies? On my Samsung during a complete black screen (e.g., transition between scenes) the bars appear lighter after watching for a little while.

(2) I understand that the Samsung has a reputation for having better video processing and supposedly looks somewhat better with non1080P content. I do a reasonable amount of streaming and we also don't have an HD TV signal because we watch very little broadcast television. How does the ST50 do with lesser quality content?

Any other general thoughts are welcome as well.
Thanks.

I just received the BDT220 yesterday and tried to hook it up. The TV didn't recognize the input. What am I doing wrong - is there some setup I need to do? All I did was hook up the HDMI cable from the back of the BDT220 and to HDMI2 on the set and turned the power on and went to HDMI2 input and it said it wasn't getting a signal. I switched it to HDMI1 (where the cable is normally hooked to and working) and nothing was shown. The display on the 220 says "setup". I realize I probably should be going to the BDT220 support, but I thought I'd ask here first if there was some set up I needed to do on the TV. I am not an experienced electronics person.

Try turning the tv and bdp on and off a couple of times in different orders. Maybe the tv just doesnt recognize the bdp.

The buzz is gone. I am 99% sure it was from being on for so long. I just watched 4 hours of TV tonight with no buzzing at all.
Brightness is at 62 not 72. sorry - going off memory earlier. I did download the 709 mp4 and will calibrate it to that and see the difference.

ST GT or VT??

I looked at the UT, did not like it any where near as much as the ST, betweent the ST, GT & VT I could not see the difference.

Can you really see it?

(This is the ST thread, so will assume the ST will come out great)

Is the BUzz that bad??

Would you wait a bit for the ST60, and buy that, or buy a discounted ST50?

I am currently seeing no reason to return my 55ST50 to Amazon by Jan 31.
I have slight buzzing but nothing audible away from set, similar or less buzz to old style CRT TV.
Rahabib- I was curious about 4x3 IR bars, I guess you explained that you like to watch that way but I like to use ZOOM, FULL, JUST as appropraite to expand to full. If you pick the best "zoom" method for your program content, I prefer that. Ironically my cheaper Panny LCD 32" set had a much more detailed manual explaining a little better which zoom technique for each situation, letterbox etc.
The power consumption at 300-watts is higher than I hoped, but in the winter the family room is too cold so it helps a little actually. In the summer I can go to standard out-of-box contrast settings and get it down to 75-140 watts if I feel like I need lower power.

Definitely the ST because I'm a cheapskate and there were no significant improvements as far as I can tell. You may be lucky to find one though if you wait much longer. I think that people that were waiting to see the 2013 models are going to snatch up the few remaining STs quickly.

I went GT for convenience and to be honest the PQ is supposed to be the same. I found that with the GT the THX was going to be something I would use so I could use 'Custom' mode for night viewing and THX Bright for day time viewing. I've found I don't need to switch out of the 'custom' mode using the posted settings since it looks fine during the day.

If I had to do it again I'd just get the ST, but I got a good price on the 55GT - only $50 more than the 55ST using the Pauls discount.

For $50 more I would do it again and again and again. It also has a dual core processor which could be helpful at times.

actually I found out I am stuck with the panel regardless. The salesman told me I had 30 days to evaluate it, but then last night I talked to them and they said I had only 2 weeks - I wish I had got that in writing. Oh well, the panel is still good. buzzing is gone now. The IR isnt a problem during normal viewing. For 4x3 shows, I cant stand it on anything but the actual proper aspect ratio - but I did start putting it on stretch for the kids shows (they dont care). Also, I think bar was just uniformity with a tad of IR that brightened it up. Today after not watching anything 4x3 (except the commercials) I couldn't see it hardly at all unless I was right up next to the screen.

The power consumption is a bit high, but it does keep the downstairs nice and warm at least :P Ill have to see my electricity bill to see how much it goes up. We watch 2-4 hours of TV a day (combined not individually) and that can add up. However, I had a 8 year old 34" CRT before, so it shouldn't be much higher than that.

I went from a 47" full led which uses probably the least of any kind of tv to a 60" plasma which probably uses the most of any kind of tv and didn't notice anything significant on my electric bill. And I have a pretty small bill in this apt.

Wondering if I could get some help with my new Panasonic TC-P65ST50.

After i set it up and used the settings I found on CNET's forums the picture looked awesome and I didn't notice anything wrong with the overall quality of the screen. Today though, while playing some games on my Xbox 360 and PS3 I noticed some jittering in the motion in some parts of the games. For example if I swiveled the camera around my character the background parts would jitter. It's not a huge jitter though and maybe if I don't focus on it I wouldn't even notice it, but unfortunately I have. I did try putting the motion smoothing on strong to see if it would fix it and it did but i wouldntt keep it on since it makes motion look too weird for me. So, I was wondering if this is normal for these newer plasma TVs or is there something that can reduce the effect?

Not sure if you know about the optional gray side bars when watching 4:3 content. When the tv receives a 480i/p signal that's 4:3 it can automatically turn on the side bars if you want. In the setup>anti image retention area you can turn it on and it has a few brightness settings. This may help with aging the unused pixels and minimize the sidebar brightness difference on full screen content. I used this feature on my ST30 for like 6-9 months on med then low now I don't use it at all and have no problems.

What games? I recently bought a 55ST50 and today played Red Dead Redemption and Skyrim. I noticed the jittery, shaky movement of the background when I swiveled the camera as well. I think this is normal, as the game is trying to render the background, but can't do so smoothly for whatever technical reasons. I'm thinking that the jittery motion is more noticeable on a larger display. I primarily gamed on a 42" plasma and I don't remember it being as apparent. What size TV did you use to game on? I will try to do an A/B comparison today/tomorrow to see the differences between the 42" and 55".