Official Panasonic ST50 Series Discussion Thread [No Street Price Talk] - Page 294

I returned the GT30 due to other issues. The meter was only a rental.

What was wrong with the gt30? How long did you have it?

Hoping you guys can help me out once again. I've been having my 60ST50 for a while now and have no issue with the set at all. Love this TV.
Now my issue is i have a Sony HT-CT550 sound bar, Uverse cable box and PS#3. My Uverse and PS3 run to my AR via HDMI, i then run a HDMI cable from my AR to the HDMI 2 of the TV(ARC). That all works fine. I am running into a problem when i plug an external drive to the USB port that has videos, i get no sound. My setting for audio is set to Home Theater on the TV, but no matter what i tried, i couldn't get sound playing from the video on the External hard drive. Anyone have any ideas on what i may be doing wrong. Do i need to run an optical cable and just use that?

Frame-doubling in 30fps material, won't magically dissappear, it's inherent in the 30fps to 60fps/60Hz conversion.

There is a test video to clearly demonstrate this issue, find here:
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1456808/30fps-vs-60fps-motion-test-frame-doubling-motion-smoother-cmr-trumotion-motionflow-etc

I use optical cable out to AVR. But I do not have expereince with your issues. When you say USB, I assume you mean USB of the ST50 vs. cable box or other component. I am thinking there is just about zero discussion of how to use ARC in the ST50 manual so it is a mystery to me.

yeah i mean the USB port on the TV. I hooked up a seagate external hard drive to the tv and then went into viera tools to play the video. Checked the viera tools settings and it shows audio - Home Theater, but i just get zero sound and only video playing. There is something i'm missing, but i can't find it

It might depend on the type of audio that goes with the video? The tv does not support all audio formats.

Make sure the video uses a supported audio codec like Dolby Digital (AC3) or AAC.
Panasonic doesn't support other audio codecs like DTS.

If I remember correctly everything is done in AAC or ac3. Just checked. Everything is audio codec AAC with mix down being Dolby pro logic II, with a bitrate of 160
Edited by sethmp - 2/7/13 at 3:58pm

What you are seeing there isn't a fault with your TV, it is an unwanted byproduct of how they construct the banner when making the movie, not line bleed, image retention, banding, blocking or anything else.

The ratings banners are often made very crudely, and a band stuck in the middle (such as this) is often achieved by using a cut and paste method - that's why, if you look closely, there seems ot be a raised edge to it.

You could just as easily see this on a quality LED. LCD or even the very best of the late CRTs, like the Philips 9763/25s, which were about as pure as pictures get on CRT.

As for the banding on the right, much of this, as far as I can see, is from users using bright and contrasts settings that are too high. Also, don't forget that broadcast standards are variable to say the least, and are rarely, if ever perfect, especially in NTSC areas; but generally the quality of the digital broadcast deteriorates the more channels there are crowding the bandwidth, so imperfections are rife.

One of the best ways of checking out your static picture is to try and get hold of one of the BBCs test card dvds - you know, little girl with the clown doll.

Sorry to just jump in but this thread is quiet long.

I just took deliver today on a used-like new 60ST50 from Amazon. The TV is basically new. I don't think any usage aside from maybe being turned on once.

My question is. I just finished watching The Dark Knight after a basic calibration (custom mode) and while the picture is awesome, the blacks just are not what I expected. I would definitely say they are a bit gray. I messed with the settings a bit and everything is pretty much inline with D-Nice's settings, but it doesn't change the way they look.

I know panels settle after 100hours or so, so is it to be expected they will get darker or what?


Thanks.

Blacks will get slightly deeper as the panel settles, but it sounds like you may have expected too much. In a completely dark room the screen isn't going to look pitch black, it's a very dark gray at best. I find them to be excellent personally, but I upgraded from a 5-year old LCD with terrible blacks.

I suppose. But I was only going by reviews and consumer feedback, everyone saying how black the blacks are.

Figuratively speaking they are very black for plasma, the VT is only slightly blacker. It's only when you get into Kuro territory do you get blacks that are so deep you can barely tell the TV is on in a dark room.

Got the USB external hard drive sound working. Not sure how, I was playing a movie using it and I went to check the avr and as soon as I touched it, it started working. It was almost like the tv needed time to recognize the content playing and where it was coming from

Also have a 60ST50, and think "Dark Knight" looks great - but a couple of observations:

1) Black levels on our panel did improve as it aged, although would not want to put a "number of hours" figure to it;

2) Although - again - think Dark Knight looks wonderful, the "black levels" inherent within any given movie (Blu-ray or SD DVD) are often NOT as deep as what the ST50 is capable of displaying, at least as judged by the "letterbox bars" that show up with any Non-16:9 material. (BTW, No. 1 Son has demonstrated with other Panasonic plasma panels, and provided a reasonable sounding - albeit forgotten - explanation about decisions made during the transfer process.)

Still, there are unit-to-unit variations; "calibration" settings matter; Viewing Environment matters; SD DVD vs HD DVD vs Blu-ray can matter; and it is also possible that other causes could also be involved - such as VIdeo settings on your (blu-ray - ??) DVD player.

FWIW, our "serious" viewing is done in a light-controlled environment (very dim room, with "bias lighting" behind the panel), using CInema mode (which to MY eyes seems superior to Custom for well-mastered HD DVDs / Blu-rays), with slight tweaks as per our Visual Interpretation of the AVS HD709 disk....

With these parameters, find it difficult to believe that there could be an Appreciable Advantage to any other reasonably priced panel - even though I "know" that the ST50 is merely a middle-of-the-road panel.....

Room conditions, your calibration skills, and your expectations are all going to play a part in evaluating black levels.

Some people use a very dim light behind their display in an other wise dark room to enhance the appearance of black. I do something similar with our UMR (Jeff Meier) calibrated Pioneer Kuro.

There is no way others to determine what your settings have done to black levels. The only way to be sure that you're getting the most out of your display is to have it calibrated by someone who has good references here at AVS. D-Nice has pointed out that a calibrated ST50 is very close to the more expensive Panasonic models in over all picture quality and black levels..

There is a do it yourself calibration thread here at AVS, and you can also read owner's comments about their professional calibration results using the link in the signature area at the bottom of my post. The second post in that thread has links to flat panel calibrations, and the calibrators who have good reports working on Pioneer Kuro displays, the current Panasonic displays, and the current Samsung displays are all qualified to maximize your display's picture quality.

EDIT: Dierkar's comments are right on with one exception. Unless there are very unusual circumstances, do all your picture adjustments in the display. Leave the Blu-ray player at default settings (ie, unchanged). A Blu-ray player, that's not defective, should pass the 1080p data on to your display unchanged.
Edited by htwaits - 2/7/13 at 7:39pm

This is just plain wrong. It's a well-known plasma artifact. I've never seen line bleed on my SXRD TV, LCD projector, SXRD projector, D-ILA projector, or LCD TV. I've seen it on every plasma TV (three Panasonics and a Samsung) that I've owned.

And "broadcast standards are variable?" That doesn't make any sense. Standards are, uh, standards, and by definition not variable. If they were variable, they wouldn't be standards!

"Generally the quality of the digital broadcast deteriorates the more channels there are crowding the bandwidth, so imperfections are rife." That's great and all, but it's pretty clear that this screenshot is from a Blu-ray or HD DVD or similar high-rez, non-broadcast source. I've never, ever seen green ratings banners on any broadcast television. So even if the line bleed weren't a common plasma artifact (which it is), there's no way that "channel crowding" would be causing the problem since the source is an optical disc (or similar).

They use a "cut and paste method" to make the banners? What does that mean? And how do you know the banners are made "crudely?"

portions deleted by Moderator

Lol

So I tried D Nice's calibration settings and my blacks are amazing but my whites look dirty. Like in the MAtrix movie the white surrounding where Neyo is being showed the "matrix" by Morpheus the whites looks really dirty. Did I miss something ? Thanks.

This is a 55ST50

Can the ST50 output trueHD and DTS MA sound? In the Sound Options I get 'SPDIF: Auto or PCM'. I have connected my TV with HDMI 1.4 to the denon ARC. I am trying to play some TrueHD and DTS MA samples off a USB drive plugged into my ST50, but I get no sound. Why is that? I have no issues watchgin regular DTS, Dolby, Stereo content. My Denon is the latest model and it does support the lossless audio formats.

Thats because of white balance dnices settings dont work perfectly for everyone

Something to do with the usb. You can get lossless from the st50 through arc.

And some people are used to cool/cold torch mode whites. Any time you change calibration settings, especially big changes, you should give yourself time (up to a week) to get used to them.

larry

OK, well to eliminate that, I put the test samples on my NAS, so playing the files through the network -- still no sound on TrueHD and DTS MA. Furthermore, when I play through the network, as soon as I start the file the 2 seconds info that shows up on the TV (file info, title, etc) shows a disabled audio icon -- like the one on the PC but crossed out. So, maybe the media player on the TV cannot handle those lossless formats?

Are you trying to get sound from tv or avr? Tv will not work.
Scratch that. I have no ideas about hooking up usb and computers to the tv. You can get lossless through arc if you watch a blu ray. Hopefully someone else can help you.

movie sample --> TV HDMI2 --> AVR ARC using HDMI 1.4 --> surround speakers

i just ran into the same problem as you. It seems to me like it took the TV a while to recognize the seagate external drive via USB. I have my AVR hooked up through arc. I started a movie that was saved to the seagate and had no sound. All of the sudden my AVR just started playing the sound. I noticed on my AVR display that it picked up Linear PCM and recognized the HDMI cable. As soon as these two popped up on my AVR screen, sound started coming through. So there could be a stting in your AVR that is stopping it from seeing the HDMI cable and not recognizing LPCM.

Hmm and which would be that setting? My AVR is the Denon 2113.

Thanks...I'll give it a week and see how well I adjust.