Official Panasonic GT50 Series Discussion Thread [No Street Price Talk] - Page 243

spectre could you share your game mode settings? I want to compare them with mine.

what do you game on ps3 or 360? Ill show you my settings in a sec.

hmm ok maybe thats why. I game on my ps3 here are my game mode settings:

Contrast: 71 ( Calibrating contrast if i increased to 72 i could notice the white background suddendly change to a kind of faint warm white so i guess 71 is the max for me.)

Brightness: 53 following lagoms lcd test patterns since i was calibrating to 0-255, how did you get 45 for brightness, seems like you are crushing some blacks.

Color: 50 ( i just left this alone since i have no way to measure color but i compared it to dnices settings and 50 doesnt look too far off, how did you come to 45 color?)

Color temp: warm 2

Sharpness: 0 ( I didn't want any extra artifacts)

i know the xbox has a messed up gamma curve which is why most games are darker on the 360 rather than the ps3. So you might want to check your brightness setting. Also copy this image to a flash drive and open it on the 360 picture viewer. Make sure to view it in 1080p mode since there cannot be any scaling.

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy352/floatpoo/444_faq/tint-blue-rgb-1080p.png

Check to see if the red and magenta color bars are clear when you enable 1080p pure direct. Toggle on/off. I always wondered if the 360 was capable 4:4:4 i know my ps3 supports it however most games are 720p and can't upscale them to 1080p so i cannot use the pure direct feature. The only thing i noticed that it does is change the colors a little bit, possibly because its outputting more color depth since blu rays are 4:2:2 iirc or 4:2:0 idk. It also makes the picture a little bit sharper.

Ok maybe i should have worded my response differently, what i meant to say is that from 71 to 72 the contrast would jump noticeably so i decided to leave it at 71. I know if i raised it to 80 it would be brighter but i wasn't looking to calibrate with peak contrast. Btw im calibrating on the ps3 so our settings could differ.

I compared it to dnices settings on my custom preset and its about the same brightness surprisingly, by the way the reason why game mode is much brighter than custom is because game mode is probably locked at 2.2 gamma and in custom you can change from 1.8-2.6 so you can't change that. Sucks i know.

55GT50 VS LG 60PM9700 for about the same price. (About $75 less for the LG) Anybody compared them? Neither one is anywhere local for me to check.

i would certainly pick the gt50 over the lg. Much better quality you're getting, i would never buy an lg plasma.

+1

Isn't IR and buzzing more of a problem on the Panasonics? Also, I think the screen is less reflective on the LG. Did you have bad luck with an LG plasma?

Ugh, just got a GT50 from Amazon (really good price, $1700), and it buzzes on vivid, cinema, and thx cinema, displaying anything white (for example, on the "internet" page) I can hear the buzzing about 8.5 feet away. If I listen at the back the buzzing seems to be primarily from the top portion, at the left and right sides for sure, and to a lesser extent, possibly center-right. I have a "-2" after the model number and it says it was made in "September 2012". Looking through the grill it appears I have the newer screws with lock-washers. I'm going to give Panasonic a call tomorrow to see if they can fix it (maybe board replacements?).

Having just gone through the same exhaustive research and trial and error, I ended up at the GT50. The Panasonics get the rep they have for best picture quality for a reason, nothing else in the price range compares. I personally would never own another LG product again, I just don't think the production quality is there. Some of their products are fantastic, some aren't good at all, most are somewhere in the middle. Unfortunately, not knowing what you're going to get from product to product, even of the same line of products is just a deal breaker for me, especially with their shaky customer service rep.

As you may have seen from my recent posts, the post I quoted below and others, buzzing can be a problem. But I wouldn't say it is a problem any more prevalent in Panasonic's plasmas nor would I say it is a problem I'd ever consider when buying. My Panasonic has a bad buzz, I'm exchanging it. Even with the buzz it has, I wouldn't reconsider the decision and if an exchange weren't an option, I would have kept it because the TV itself is that good. I just wanted to make sure that for the money, I was totally satisfied.

I didn't even consider IR when purchasing. I game A LOT and probably 90% of my TV viewing is ESPN, sports with contrasting scoreboards, CNN, etc. IR never even crossed my mind making the purchase. Since I am exchanging my TV anyway, I figured I'd put it through some pretty intense IR testing. Long periods of gaming with contrasting scoreboards (NBA 2K) and a lot of watching sports/ESPN, any IR I had was only visible when I intentionally checked slides to see if it existed, it was barely visible on the slides and any trace was gone after I checked again 10 minutes later. Never visible in regular usage. The only way you're getting significant IR on this is if you abuse the hell out of it on some pretty intense picture settings. Even then, I think it'll hold up. Maybe the new one I get won't be as resistant to it, but I researched a lot on AVS and elsewhere and you don't see too many true, real world IR complaints.


Sounds like my situation, except mine was November 2012. Every picture mode including custom with HD's settings (which I intend to use permanently) would buzz on any bright screen. It didn't even have to be white, opening the Menu on an all black screen led to audible buzzing at 8'. A light shining on a white character's face in an otherwise dark room would cause buzzing. When I watch something like basketball, I forget the buzzing is even there because it is consistent throughout and it just turns into white noise. But when you start getting into TV shows and movies that go bright-dark-bright-dark, the pulsing buzz completely takes me out of what I'm watching, even with sound on.

I elected to exchange rather than deal with a service call, Amazon is great about exchanges so I figured I'd give another panel a try. They'll bring the new one and take the old one at the same time. I kind of wish they didn't because I'd like to be able to test both and then decide but since it's still cold, I won't be able to turn the new one on for a while after delivery. Guess I'll have to chance it. As long as everything else is the same (no PQ issues, no glass defects) and the buzzing is equal to or less audible than the current one, I'll just keep the next one regardless. Not going to play the shipping lottery three times, so as long as it isn't worse, it'll be fine.

Can't blame you for going the service call route over an exchange though, ever since I requested it I've been dreading it worried it'll be worse or the set will have other PQ issues that I don't have on the current one.

Likewise, opening the menu on the Roku clock screensaver buzzes at vivid/cinema. I have my TV on a stand in front of a pair of (useless) french doors. If I open them the buzzing is a tiny bit quieter but still detectable (this just means that it's coming from the rear and bouncing off the doors). I can even hear the buzzing if I open my living room door and the refrigerator (about 25 feet away) coil or whatever is running. I wouldn't care if it was not noticeable during real use, but I noticed the buzzing while watching a CNN reporter talking against the backdrop of the vatican (lots of light coloured stone).

The PQ is great, no dead pixels, nothing else wrong afaict, so yeah, I'm reluctant to exchange it, but I will if Panasonic support doesn't help.

O.K. I’ve got a couple questions after having more seat time with my set over the weekend.

Do plasmas fire off red and green pixels in black areas normally? I’ve noticed my black areas aren’t all black. Depending on my seating distance (the closer the more noticeable) in black areas (bars, screen content) there are green or sometimes red sparkles that appear to firing off. Is this a byproduct of the source material?

Also, I found a line of pixels that won’t convert to white or light colors such as gray etc. On white screens it stays green and with any other color blue or red it will turn to that color. It’s a line on the far right of my screen running vertical. Has anyone else seen anything like this? It’s weird and as if that line of pixels just for whatever reason can’t fire up completely to show gray or white.
Edited by BDP33 - 3/4/13 at 5:39am

It is possible (unlikely) that you have a bad HDMI cable.

Yeah that's unlikely because I've never had an issue with the cable I'm using. I was watching a DVR of Sherlock Holmes A Game of Shadows and it really showed on any dark areas. In some cases like a tunnel would be a pixelated mess where the screen seemed to have trouble going black. I watched the same movie upstairs on my Sony and it didn't exhibit any of the behavior. I also tried watching regular content and it showed up for instance on the H&R block commercial where the guy is talking in front of a black background. Also,the black areas on Blu Ray with the Dark Knight on screen and in black bars when it switches aspect ratios. It was firing red pixel flashes for a moment and then it would go black and do the same thing in another area of the screen.

I've got just over 100hrs on the set now. I watched A LOT of full screen content over the weekend also. I may just keep aging the panel and see what happens but I don't see it getting rid of the vertical line of pixels I have that want to say green though.

So youre getting it with different hdmi cables on different sources? If not you may have damaged the cable when you installed the tv. A bad cable will do exactly what you are describing.

I've only got one HDMI cable going to the screen from my Onkyo 705. I have a couple other cables laying around I could swap and try. The green vertical line of pixels though happens on both usb and via HDMI.

Is it ALWAYS there?

Thanks for the input HuskerPower25. The LG is already on the way from Amazon. Ordered with free "super saver" shipping and 2 hours later when I had buyers remorse and was going to cancel they had already shipped. Super Saver has never shipped that fast before! Tried to stop it, however they were going to charged me the whole $85 in shipping even though it had just let the warehouse, so I figured I give it a try. Not to many 55GT50's left-looks like Adorama has they best price and there's no returning from them unless it's damaged, so that's a bit of a gamble.

The green vertical line or the flashes in black? lol

The green vertical line is...yes. It's literally one vertical row of pixels. It will change color to red, blue etc. but it will not change to white or any "light" color. It will stay green in that case. It's weird and acts as if for that row of pixels is just not able to fire up completely to generate white of gray, etc. The flashes of red/green pixels in black is almost always there as well.

The flashes in black may be hdmi cable but coupled with the vertical line that is always there I would say you got a bad panel.

I have a question as far as having my 60GT50 on with the Pure mode on with my Oppo 103. I do this when listening to music to so I can navigate my HDD connected to the 103. When I'm done viewing the content of the HDD I activate the Pure mode so the 60GT50's display is blank. Is the display being adversely effected when it is on but not receiving a signal (black screen)? I'm thinking it is fine but I thought I would ask.

Bill