Official Panasonic GT50 Series Discussion Thread [No Street Price Talk] - Page 114

Thanks htwaits for the info!

Blu Ray is important to us we have a few hundred and same thing with our DVD's and we aren't ready to get rid of our collection so DVD upscaling is important! So I guess I will have to resort to just trying one out and see what we think but I would still like to know what the vast majority of GT50 owners are using!

The newest Sony Blu-ray 3D player reviewed in the current issue of Sound & Vision Magazine received rave reviews and was favorably compared to the Oppo. Fry's has it for $219.

I went with the BDT500 because it has a couple of conectivity features that I wanted as well as some audio capabilities that I also wanted. Quite happy with the PQ and scaling ability. From what I researched before I got the 500, the 220 and 320 are also good performers and offer excellent price - to - performance ratios when compared with the other big name producers. The 500 gets you to nearly the "reference" level of an Oppo or Cambridge unit but at a fraction of the price.

I'm also considering getting a new bluray player. I also have the O.G. PS3, nothing wrong with it but I love the look of the new 2012 Panasonic BDT500 bluray player, i think it would go well with my GT50 too. I also just received the Darbee (so excited) I'm going to install it this weekend and will post a review and let you know how it looks with my 55".

I just ordered my Oppo 93 today!!! cant wait, added my Anthem MRX 500 today.....been a great month. I am still incredibly happy with my 65GT50 still!!! No problems at all!!!

Thank you for posting. I was hoping that someone that owns a VideoSecu mount would post. I have one for my 42" and it's very well made, I was just unsure about whether they were as sturdy when it comes to larger articulating mounts.

I've read that the 500 is excellent for music/cd, what is your opinion?

I just hooked it up about an hour ago or so, havent put it through the paces yet. I will update

^^^
Thanks!

If tpollagi uses HDMI out then his music/audio experience should depend on his AVR, speakers, and room. If he uses analog out, then it gets more complicated.

Glad I could help. I just want to re-mention that I was not that thrilled with the mounting bolts that come with it so I grabbed a couple from H-Depot. I also added a wire security cable and secured that to a eye hook in wall and attached it to the mounting brackets on the back of tv. This was the first time I mounted a tv and was just nervous as I have kids sometime touching my tv when I am not looking

The reviews at Amazon are great for this mount and talk about the bolts being weak.

FWIW, depending on the content you use your player for, the biggest advantage that the OPPO has over every other player is no Cinavia.

I like the Panasonic BDT500 better than the Oppo 93. Not only is is half the price, but it performs better in some respects:

http://www.amazon.com/review/R2LBJCPXYBI42J/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&linkCode=ur2&tag=tt-20

Standard DVD upscaling looks just as good to me on the Panny, I was watching one last night and even forgot it wasn't HD.
Edited by mediahound - 8/21/12 at 7:40am

I have a friend who is getting a 60'' GT50 and I told him about the break-in process I did with my Kuro and using D-Nice's settings that is posted on this forum. I told him to do the same thing for his new TV if such a thing existed. Is there an official break-in process someone has posted for this TV along with some calibration settings?

He could just not bother with it at all or just do the standard break-in process, but I was hoping to find one that everyone with this specific TV was following so hopefully at the end the calibration file would be as close as possible aside from hiring a professional which he does not want to do right now.

Well at this point I can't give you a qualified opinion one way or the other I just haven't had time to figure this thing out yet. I am connecting to an older Pioneer Elite reciever without any HDMI capabilities. I love this reciever; you can turn it up past the THX reference level and still have zero detectable hiss. You don't even know its on if there is nothing playing. Quiet periods in sound truely are quiet.

Right now, I'm connected to the BDT500 with an optical cable which is 100% functional but I'm not sure if I'm loosing any quality versus HDMI or the analog outputs and there are a lot of audio settings that I haven't read-up on yet. Strange thing for me is that even though I have the BDT500 connected directly to the reciever, it changes is output behavior depending on whether the TV is on or off ??? If the TV is on, the sound is output "normally" and plays "normally" but if I turn the TV off, the BDT500 changes its output and the reciever switches to 96 KHz stereo. It all sounds great but I have no control over any of the features on the reciever when it gets the 96 Khz upscaled audio.

Seems to be 2 ways to go here.

One, start out with THX Cinema until you get familiar enough with the menus to dial the CNET settings into the Custom mode and just watch the TV.

Two, read the HDJunkies site (that probably will not make it past the auto-purge) about pre-aging the panel with color slides for 100 - 150 hrs then dialing the D-Nice settings into the custom mode ((did he ever post settings ???))

I did the first method (do almost nothing) and just started enjoying the set from day-1. I have no regrets and would suggest this.

+1 for what tpollagi said. The THX modes were much better than the standard mode, but a little too warm for my liking. I eventually did a quick calibration with the WOW blu-ray disc and my adjustments were almost identical to the THX settings except I changed the color mode to Normal or Warm 1 and enabled the pixel orbiter. Depends on how you like your whites I guess.

No break-in slides, just movies and cable. I did play MW3 a couple hours a night (in game mode) and have not experienced any image retention. BTW, my TV is about 2-3 weeks new.

Yes, it has excellent Burr-Brown DACs inside of it. That will only be used when you hook up to your AV Receiver via the analog audio outs. If you use digital audio into your receiver, then your receives DACs would be used. I hook up both so I have a choice of both.

enough of the disc player talk...

back on the display topic- I saw this THX article on the GT50:

What Makes Panasonic’s New GT50 THX Certified Displays So Special?

Thanks for the replies. I will forward this info along to him. I went ahead and registered for the HDJ forums to access the D-Nice settings thread. Looked promising since there was a break-in procedure and settings for the ST50, but there are no settings for any other display including the GT50. I'm not sure if anyone else has settings, but for the time being I think he may go with the THX mode and compare it against the Cnet calibaration numbers.

One thing I've learned from sad personal experience: If judder in 30FPS console games bothers you, get the GT50, and NOT under any circumstances the Samsung plasmas, which unlike the Pannys have no way to enable interpolation/smoothing for 60Hz sources! As for me, I'm going back to LCD.

My 60" GT50 hasn't even arrived yet and I'm already wishing I got the 65". Of course the wife factor had a big part of me getting the 60. She had a prob with the "size" of the 50" I got some 5 years ago and was not pleased when I said I was going with the 60". The way I look at it is the difference from 50 - 60 is way more than 60 - 65. I sooo can't wait for this set to come!

I will post pics in a couple of weeks.....of course pics now are not as exciting as when everybody was anticipating this set to come out....but too bad, you're going to get them anyway.

Is the GT50 going to handle judder better than the ST50?

I didn't see a seperate "Settings" thread, so here are my settings. I also obtained a DVDO iScan Duo to force 1080p output from my Dish satellite receiver, to help these settings work better. I use the same settings for day and night use. I also put two undercounter soft white flourescent lights behind the TV, with a footswitch for night use, to accomodate the eyes better. The Gamma adjustment should be lower than 2.4 in order to not crush the shadow details, in my humble opinion.
Panasonic TC-P55GT50 Settings:

-Picture Menu:
Picture Mode: Custom,
Contrast +86,
Brightness +58,
Color +38,
Tint +0,
Sharpness +8,
Color temp: Warm 2,
Color Mgt: Greyed out,
C.A.T.S: Off,
Video N.R. Auto,

Pro settings submenu:
Color Space: Normal,
W/B high R: -2,
W/B high G: 0,
W/B high B: 0,

W/B low R: +1,
W/B low G: -7,
W/B low B: -2,

Gamma Adjustment: 2.2,
Panel brightness: Mid,
Contour Emphasis: ON,
AGC: 0,

-Aspect Adjustment submenu:
Screen Format: FULL,
HD: Size 2,
H size: greyed out,
Zoom Adjustment: Greyed out

HDMI Settings: no change,

-Advance picture submenu:
3D Y/C filter: greyed out,
Color Matrix : greyed out,
Block NR: greyed out
Mosquito NR: ON,
Black Level: Light,
3:2 pulldown: greyed out,
24p Direct in: greyed out,
Edited by Tazishere - 8/22/12 at 4:48pm

Does anyone know if using game mode actually does anything to help prevent IR?

Not trying to beat a dead horse, but at this point I'd say I have some burn in from the Trials HD hud (been there for over a month at this point) and I currently have some more IR from the AC:Revelations hud.

I know i should be limiting the gaming but it's kind of an Icarus situation...it looks so good I don't want to stop

It's really driving me nuts that I can't completely enjoy this tv due to the IR issues because other than that it's fantastic

Personally, I think Game mode contributes to the likelihood of IR. I don't know why though.

Not that I know of. I doubt it. I've also been told over in the Sammy thread that the motion smoothing features on Panasonic are not as good as the ones on the high end Samsung LEDs.

I would ythink because we are "brightening" everything it would be more succeptable to IR

Why does plasma even need motion smoothing ? It is a marketing gimmick to compete with LCDs.

Game mode has the pixel orbiter enabled and is suppose to reduce lag time. I always switch to game mode for gaming on the GT50 and luckily haven't had any burn in or image retention issues. How often and for how long do you play for?