Official Panasonic GT50 Series Discussion Thread [No Street Price Talk] - Page 32

Regarding buzzing:

Has it ever been determined exactly "what" causes the buzzing ?
Is it electrical discharge of the plasma inside the tv - (and hence, can't be fixed/changed) ?
Is it an electronic component ?

I would think that if it is a component in the set that is the "source" of buzzing, that it would have been found out by now.
Also, if that were the case, I would expect that manufacturers would have taken major steps to fix/mitigate it - given all the complaints about buzzing over the years.

The E8000 I had was the PN51E8000, same as yours. I noticed frequent brightness fluctuations on it.

I ended up selling a couple things I wasn't using anymore so that I could afford the VT.

just curious for those of you that are not or have not professionally calibrated the GT50:

Outside of minor tweaks, are you performing many adjustments and tweaks to the TV's settings, or are you satisfied with the PQ in the pre-set THX Day/Night modes?

I'm not doing nor will get my GT50 calibrated. I'm perfectly happy with the THX mode and I've set my own settings in Custom to suit my own needs. I spoke to Panasonic in person and they said while it's perfectly fine to have your TV calibrated it's really not necessary. It's already pre-calibrated from the factory. Honestly, do we need to really do this or are the people on this forum following others because they were told to do so and it's the popular way to go around here? I read a post of someone saying (I'm paraphrasing) that they can't wait until CHAD comes around to give his opinion on what people should do with their new VT50's. Seriously??

I would say check out your GT50 and set it the way you want it. IMO, the only reason to get it calibrated is if you're a videophile and you're just plain unsatisfied the way the TV looks after several attempts to adjust it yourself.
There's no guarantee that calibrating the TV will result in the perfect TV for you.

Thanks. I'm not really weighing the benefits of professional calibration though. I know the tv has great out of the box performance and there are plenty of people that like the tv as is. I also believe there is a definite benefit to professional calibration.

I was just wondering because the LED threads have post after post of different settings people have tried, and I have seen very minimal discussion, let alone specific settings, on this thread other than people saying they have made tweaks or had the TV professionally calibrated. So I was just wondering how much tweaking those not professionally calibrating were doing.


I currently own a Samsung UN46D8000. I have never owned a plasma, but plan to get the GT50. Out of the box, my current TV needed ALOT of TLC, and even though I noticed a dramatic improvement using recommended settings found on this forum, the tv still has issues. Professional calibration or not, I'm hoping the gt50 is better.

Got my 60" GT50 tonight swapping an E8000. This new set would be normal for plasma in the noise department. No buzzing detected . I haven't had much time to test it, but the THX Cinema mode is real nice. Did some minor adjustments, but overall initial few hours with set shows slightly better blacks/detail than my Samsung, but the Samsung has a bit more punch. I like them both, but the quieter GT50 does it for me.

Just thanking you for posting photos early on in this thread. I'm wall mounting our 55" GT50 and this has helped me visualize where I want my recessed dual gang power / low-voltage AV cable box to be located in that it doesn't matter as much as I'd worried it would. I do believe I'll move it farther away to keep cable bend radius more gentle. We are doing a gut to the studs reno and am just about to close up the walls and this photo helped me make a final decision so I can move forward.

On to insulation and drywall hanging.

Hi Lenny,

Could you tell me the length and width measurement of the stand for your 60GT50? I want to make sure that it matches what's listed on the manual online before I get my set. Thanks!

So i read that there has been actual studies done that say there is no PQ difference between cheap HDMI cables and expensive HDMI cables. They suggest that because of the technology used, as long as a HDMI is operating properly there will be no PQ difference between the $4 cable and the $150 cable. So why waste your money?

Is this true?

Randy,
Respect your opinions but in this case I have a problem in that every connection you add does have the potential to creat noise and cause problems. I think the double 90's aren't a good idea. It's too bad someone doesn't creat a single product to do that!

So tonight I delved into Netflix using my 55GT50's built in app and noticed that THX and THX Bright disappeared from the Picture menu. Anyone seeing this?

15 1/4 deep by 22" wide. TV sits about 7" back from front. I just wall mounted mine since it looks like a keeper.

Yes it's true for shorter lengths. I've used Monoprice HDMI cables like these for several installations up to 15'. You could probably go to 20' with no trouble if you're not putting them in a wall where replacement would be a major problem. In the past 10 years I've had one Monoprice cable that I thought was bad, but it may have been that it was too heavy which could have put stress on the connection. The lighter the gage the better for these shorter lengths.

Bought a 50" GT50 today @ BB. Very happy so far. THX modes look good to my eyes out of the box. Will have it calibrated this Summer. So far I have to put my ears near the back of the TV to hear any buzzing. Also bought the BDT-220 and 2 sets of 3D glasses.

True. But handshake problems can throw a monkey wrench into that tried an true concept. When first confronted with excessive handshake problems the first step is to reduce the number of HDMI connections to the absolute minimum. If the problem goes away than there is a poor connection somewhere in the original HDMI chain.

The second step is to check the minimum connections to make sure that the connections are all solid. Stiff heavy gage cables and tight bends are a big contributor in that case.

If the HDMI folks had specified positive lock connectors there would be a lot fewer "handshake/retry" related problems. Of course if a given installation never has problems related to excessive retries during the required handshakes then all is good. Since the copy protection/handshake problems are a moving target, it's hard to predict when an individual installation will have problems.

My exact setup save for the fact that I got the 55". I love mine too. Congrats! What I really like the most is the fast startup of the TV. I had a Samsung D7000 and it took a bit of time to startup to TV viewing. It wasn't dirt slow but the GT50 is just that much faster.

Whoa that's not good! Anyone else???

Have you been able to do a side by side comparison of the GT50 and VT50?

http://ukhdmi.com/ivuna_flex_cable.php




http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B006..._p23_d0_g23_i2

These are in the UK, but I assume you guys must have something similar

So is there a non-thx 'bright' mode that can be used? I have too many windows in my room, one reason I was looking at the gt vs. st was the 'bright' mode.

Thanks Randy. Here is another option for HDMI port stress relief, HDMI whips from Monoprice, which is what I will be using.

I spent a couple of hours with a GT50 at my local dealer this Saturday comparing the 7 picture modes in their default setting (Vivid, Standard, Cinema, THX Cinema, THX Bright, Game and Custom). I focused a lot of attention on the relative brightness of each mode as I have an ambient light problem in my family room as well.

There was VERY LITTLE difference in brightness between THX Bright, Game and Custom; that is to say ALL were quite bright, and significantly brighter than the comparable modes on the GT30 or VT30 (which were close by for comparison). My perception is that THX Bright is basically a THX calibrated variant of the (now brighter) default Custom mode. Surprisingly, my preferred bright mode was actually Custom with gamma set to 2.0 (vs 2.2) and color set to normal (vs warm2). This setting produced better blacks that did the THX setting (which made blacks a little "bright") and i didn't notice any real brightness difference flipping between the 2. I tried adjusting the panel brightness from mid to high. It had little overall effect to apprecaibly increase brightness and I found it caused brighter elements to wash out and loose detail. For instance, in a clip that was shot in a seting of arctic snow and ice, increasing panel brightness from mid to high caused a significant loss of visible texture and shadow in the white ice and snow.

On the other hand, there was again VERY LITTLE difference in brightness between Cinema and THX Cinema; in fact these 2 modes produced very similar pictures. But both were significantly dimmer than THX Bright/Game/Custom. Vivid was garish and Standard was too dim and washed out to be of any use other than substantiate low energy use claims for the set!

All of my high speed cables are thick and unwieldy. I've ordered a bunch of the whips, will report back. I'm most concerned with stress on the device port itself, if these do not alleviate then they are going back. I'm thinking that the elbows may help in some devices (such as display) but in my rack they're really not going to work.

FWIW I have no concerns with handshake issues - that you are using them with no problem is enough for me.

I can't pull up _ANY_ settings while watching netflix, it's as if the processor is so loaded with running the stream that it stops monitoring certain functions of the remote. There's even at least a five-second lag after pressing the volume control before my GT50 responds. Is anyone else seeing poor remote response like that in the netflix app? This doesn't happen when viewing broadcast or blu-ray content.