Official Panasonic GT50 Series Discussion Thread [No Street Price Talk] - Page 178

Got my 60gt50 delivered yesterday. Have had some time to play with it.. Overall I'm happy. First I'm so glad it's lighter than the 55vt30 which it is replacing.. I was able to put it on the stand myself and heave ho it on my cabinet. It's like eye searing compared to vt30.. So much brighter. Game mode is much improved I can actually see things in the game ( call of duty ) that I didn't know was there. I still can't tell if there is more lag compared to vt30. Movies look awesome.. Details/shadows better.. I think I'm happy with thx cinema tho slightly dim and the thx bright is way too bright despite decreasing the contrast. Anyways I'm glad I got this tv highly recommended and huge improvement to me over the vt30

Long time member, frequent lurker and 1st post in years.
First let me thank each and everyone of you that take the time to share your passion with this community. I dont wish to deminish anyones contributions here but I have to give an extra shout out to Randy!
A little background;
I thought myself pretty up to date with tech 10 years ago when I bought this TV, Toshiba 32AF43.A great TV BTW which still has an amzing picture today. Never have had one issue with this TV. It had been relocated elsewhere in the house.
Things began to change rapidly shortly after that as the goverment finally decided to actually make the switch to digital and HD displays began to fall in price.



And then we became parents 6 years ago and there were no resources for upgrades.
Last month I finally got to upgrade. I had been dating this TV for a long time, reading here, researching, ect.
(actually I was seeing the ST but the day I went to buy it on Amazon I took a quick look at the GT and found it to be only $139.00 more than the ST. I couldnt resist..."in for a penny in for a pound")


The windows in then relection are about as bad as it ever gets and this is about 8:00AM. By 10:00AM you hardly notice them.and by noon they are gone.
I went from the Flintstones to the Jetsons overnight.
I got the TV a week before Christmas. Scheduled delivery when checked out on Amazon. They where on time, took it out of the box and put it on the stand and placed it on a cabinet in our foyer. They waited while I hooked up a10' HDMI cable from my HD D*Tivo and I plugged in my USB stick with D-Nice slides. They wanted to make sure the TV was not defective out of the box. I wish I had more then the $20 dollars I tipped them. They were worth it.
I knew everything to look for because of this forum

I choose to run the slides because (a) I needed to do everything I could to reduce the chance of IR/BI(swiss cheese brain of teenager useing TV) (b) make sure no defect would show up after return period ended (c) I believe from reading here, the display looks better after a few hundred hours of aging.You (I) are correct!


I ran the slides in the foyer for about 3 days straight.High contrast and brightness. Slight buzzing on light screens which I determined were not problematic due to information I gatherd here.I can only hear it when standing within a couple of feet or sticking my ear up to it. I think this is normal elcetronic buzz. It is pretty much all over the back of the panel. Doesnt buzz near as much as the old CRT.I am not concerned.

I mounted the display on the front of the custom cabinet I had built years ago for the Toshiba. I used an articulating cheetah mount and am very happy with the finished look.
I got a DMP-BDT220 Christmas day with a stack of Blu ray and 3D movies and 4 pairs of the Samsung glasses.

In conclusion
The display is absolutely awesome! I think this is the best display for anyone comiing from CRT displays.
I am using THX Cinema mode. We are pretty much watching anything we want and have had no IR issues.
East facing windows in the morning and the reflections just are not that bad. No worse than the CRT.
The 220 and the TV do a great job with standard DVDs and DVD-r's. We have over a1000 of these so this was a concern
The TV linked up with our home wifi very easilly. I didnt buy this TV for anything but the display but all these extra bells and whistles are great!
B-rays and 3D disc's are outstanding as is HD programming from Direct TV. The Samsung glasses work very well IMO.
The TV's 2D>3D is very cool. We watched Its a Wonderful Life and it added another level to the experince.
I downloaded the Panasonic app to my iPhone. To cool! I can throw a website, photos, vidoes, anything on my phone onto the TV.

I think I have only scratched the surface of what this TV can do and I am tottally satisfied at this point.

If you came here to research this display, read all the concerns but dont let them over shadow all the great things users are reporting about this unit.

Thank you, AVS forum members! You all rock!!!!!!!
Edited by Trebor Pyn - 1/10/13 at 6:27am

Just had a 55gt50 delivered the other day and moved the 50g25 to the bedroom (we have a big bedroom). So far been watching in THX Cinema which looks pretty good tho it might be a little dim so i'll probably bump up the contrast and brightness slightly after a couple weeks. Been plugging in some of the settings seen on here in Custom mode. Can't decide which one looks best. On the 50g25 I copied D-Nice's SM settings in THX about a month after I got that TV and have never changed them since and it looks great still. Right now I see no need to get into the SM on the new TV unless it is to check the hours.

Does anyone know if there is anything that differentiates THX Cinema from Cinema other than the default user settings? When I duplicate their settings, the picture looks exactly the same. There is a difference in the other modes i.e. (THX bright room is still lighter at the same setting).

The only issue I had in setting up the new TV was when I attached the stand it was about a bubble off level (a little higher on the left side than the right). It was noticable because it didn't match the soundbar if front of the TV. I read Randy's tips on the first page of this thread (thanks Randy) and it helped although I had to tighted the screws more than I liked to keep it from falling back to the unlevel position.

Mike in Mich

to those of you who had issues with the TV and returned it -
how does it work?
The tv is big and heavy. Did someone come over to your home, packed it up and take it away?
It seems like it would be very difficult for you to send it back to amazon or another retailer.

Nice upgrade trebor!
We did the same thing as you with the ST to GT jump..We watched the ST on amazon go up then down ,then back up ..So we just got the GT for 150 more ,,then got a 50 dollar credit from amazon for buying the TV !

I have returned two tvs to Amazon.. one Sony 929 LED and a ST50 60". I by myself picked them up and put them back in the boxes and wheeled them to my garage.. they picked it up from there. THe pick up is easy, hardest part repackaging.
Mo!

THX Cinema and Cinema have differences in grayscale. I may measure the differences tonight or tomorrow night.

ditto!

OMG this TV rocks! I'm so happy I can finally get up from the couch and go on with my life and not sit there all day adjusting the picture like I was with the VT30. The VT30 is crap compared to this tv, its so clear! I'm using CNET settings but increased the contrast a bit. I mean its like looking thru a mirror.. I'm watching The Warriors over and over.. the best movie ever! I feel so bad about the 2500.00 + I wasted on the Vt30 when this is what I wanted all along.
Great TV!

where did you get it?
I am curious how best buy handles this
i will know after watching some footbal this weekend if i want to keep it or not
i watched ESPn for lik e30 mins and had IR for an hour afterwards

I am trying to break in the TV before I watch anything like that again.
I have about 25 hours on it after two days. I would leave it on over night but I dont want to chance something happening and it being stuck on the same image for hours.

You need about 150 to 200 on it before IR is much less of an issue. Zoom the picture in for channels with white logos or white in the score bar until then, Its that simple. Do it until you get more time on the TV. ESPN, CNN and NFL AM will be the worse channels for IR. You need to Zoom it in either with the TV format button or with your cable/sat receiver. You can do it every 15 minutes if you want, that is about how long it takes for IR, zoom for 15 and go back to full for 15 minutes. White is the worse cause of IR. The CBS banner isn't bad, its mostly blue. This is what you need to do with this TV. If you don't want to do that, either live with the IR or take it back for something other than a plasma.

Hello new member here. I did search for a while and have been reading this forum quite a bit. I got my 50" gt50 in December and I have only been playing dvd's on zoom in thx cinema mode, and I am at just about 100 hours. Here are my findings and questions...

I can hear a buzz when a bright screen comes on like the Panasonic blue ray menu screen, but it is quiet otherwise.

I am noticing a halo around the images while watching Kung Fu Panda. Is that normal for an animated movie?

I had the DVD menu on for less than a minute tonight and I could see a little IR of the menu when the movie started, but it went away.

Otherwise the tv is great and I love the picture quality.

-Rick

Maybe call Panasonic about the buzz, I have never had one and many on here don't. The halo sounds like edge enhancement. Go back a few pages in this thread and try some of the posted settings which will turn off the settings that cause it. Those settings will help with IR too especially if the TV brightness is way too high. Its hard to tell how many hours your TV has on it, the first 150 to 200 are when you see IR the most. 20 days at 10 hours a day.

I guess i got used to not having to worry about it with my old plasma, i could watch history or play a game for hours upon hours and not have any IR at all.
I am going try and get to the 200 HR mark fast, before the best buy return runs out. Its just too bad I lost a week waiting for them to delivery it.
But i am a Premier Silver member so I belive i get 60 days.

I just want to make sure after the 200 hour mark, i can watch TV adn game like I did on my old plasma.

Nice settings hdmaster I like them quite well so far (24hrs). The black bars on a movie are not quite as inky black as the cnet settings on my 65" (as in disappear in dark room) but your pro settings look a little more accurate in color representation. I know every panel varies but wanted to thank you for sharing. I'll stick with them for a week maybe longer and enjoy.

My settings have been removed following the actions of JSpectre88.
Edited by HD-Master - 2/26/13 at 10:39pm

Thank you. I updated them shortly after your post. Like you said, panel variances. I've used the settings posted by other people for years on various displays. You find what works best for you eventually.

I'm curious to know why you made no color adjustments to your custom 3D settings.

I will check that I copied them down correctly when I get home on about 30 minutes.

Color was set with the meter though. You note the luminance measurement of a 100% white window. Calculate 21% of that value. You then bring up a 100% red window and adjust the color control until you reach the luminance value from the 21% calculation. The only difference with 3D is that you have to use the meter through the glasses.

I was wondering if you had to use a meter through glasses for 3D.

Yes and it's a huge pain in the neck. You already have the meter on a tripod and then you have to devise a way to also position the glasses in front of the meter.

I am going to do a bit of homework on the 3D calibration and take another run at it over the weekend. I am less familiar with it than I am with 2D, so I need to make sure I get up to snuff on it.
Edited by HD-Master - 1/11/13 at 6:22am

Making a change to the Contrast Setting when changing to watching at night instead of day doesn't seem like a big deal, but changing the Pro Settings does. Have you considered a compromise Pro Setting that would be OK for both night and day?

No, because I use an HDMI splitter from my A/V receiver to my GT50. On my GT50, HDMI 1 is Day and HDMI 2 is Night. I have a Harmony remote and a separate Day and Night option programmed for each activity (Watch Blu-ray Day, Watch Blu-ray Night, Watch TV Day, Watch TV Night, etc.) The only difference is which input it selects on the GT50. If I am watching TV and it starts getting dark, I grab the remote and select "Watch TV Night." It changes the TV to HDMI 2 and I'm all done.

Can't you re-purpose one of the other modes, would probably need to use service menu but not really that hard.

I thought about using Custom and THX Cinema, but I chose not to because I wanted it to be programmable for a single button press with my remote. There are no discrete codes for the picture modes. Plus, I prefer the amount of control you have when calibrating Custom compared to the THX modes.

Thanks for posting all the revised pic settings hdmaster. Can't wait to try the 3D settings. Funny thing, yours are almost exactly what I tweaked mine to be. I did it with my eyes only.

I come from a '08 panny plasma that was calibrated so I feel like my eyes are pretty well trained.

Can anyone give me some guidance on the best way to view Internet material on this TV?

I know that if the App is available in the Viera Marketplace thats the easiest way. But without that, I dont think it will work to use the Viera browser to directly access the content and stream it...so I guess Im referring to streaming to my PC and then outputting it to the TV. Im interested in the easiest way to get both the video and the sound.

I have my GT hooked up via HDMI to a Denon 2112 for audio.

I have tried to stream through the Denon without success.

Anyone have thoughts on how I can best achieve this?

Thanks.

Are you saying that Custom Setting can be set for HDMI1 and then set differently for HDMI2? If that is the case I'll buy an HDMI splitter.

why won't both of you just select the night time picture display options you'd preset . Can't that be configured with one click...

Yes. Each HDMI input has its own separate picture modes.