Official Panasonic VT50 owners thread - Page 376

When they turned it on, was there a prompt to select Home or Store use and the initial setup? If so, that shows it is new and you have nothing to worry about.

I think I did see that prompt. Had to go out after delivery and left tv on with slides running. When I got home checked the hours and it was right on the money and had only been cycled on once.

How to I find the device menu on the ST50? Getting mine tomorrow...

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Whos custom settings are you using? I used the Cnet custom settings.

The VT50 needs to be receiving 24p 3D to enable 48hz mode. Your laptop is probably converting the 24p into 60p before feeding your VT50.

Not sure what you mean. Try the Viera Tools button on the remote.

One of the worst. I have emailed/tweeted them about it. Ridiculous.

I do have the ST50, but I believe they are the same. Anyway, I'm referring to the menu where I can view how many times my TV has been turned on and how many hours are on it?

Haven't watched that channel but have had lots of the supposed bad stations on ESPN etc not a hint ot IR and I have looked hard for it. Also had some extended calibration sessions with menus and patterns on the screen and again cant find IR. Definitely not every panel that suffers

Thats the service menu, just search the forum been posted many times

Too bad we don't have a compiled list of all the worst offenders for logos/tickers so we could complain en masse. =) Although I seriously doubt that many, if any networks would even give serious thought to changing their logos to a more plasma-friendly design.

Some channels are absolutely horrible these days. While some logos have become transparent, others seem to have become bigger and more obtrusive. There's nothing more annoying than watching a television program and having the bottom 1/3 of the screen fill up with some stupid animated ad for another television program on the network you're watching during the show. It's so distracting and makes me not even want to watch the program live, but instead watch it on blu-ray or something. :P

+1

I haven't watched live tv since 2003 and even then it was just movie channels. My wife still does though.

This has been posted multiple times on the thread, as recently as a couple of days ago. You can also search for "official how to check the hours" on high def junkies website and bookmark it.

You see a lot of that nasty sort of upsell with electronics on the Internet.

You basically paid $1,800 for the TV including delivery, which is about $50 less than I paid for my 55" six months ago The difference was that the price I paid was exactly what was listed on the website, and included the "white glove" delivery.

Thank you so much for that in-depth post regarding your mount, DSperber. You should be a salesman for that company. I'm in a situation where I could use the 8" offset that the mount provides as well as the motion the mount offers and the option to have it low-profile. The mount I currently have is from my old plasma and is bottow-of-the-barrel from a previous owner (of our house). I want to replace that anyways and even though I only have the 55" version of of the VT50, I don't mind paying a premium (although preferably not full retail @$500) for a well-designed mount for this TV. For installing a 55" version with this mount, I assume I don't need to buy anything additionally as you had to for the 65"...

I've been following prices on this mount ever since you posted about it and currently it's at the lowest I've seen it advertised from any reputable seller. Not sure how long the sale will last, but it's currently $317.98 at Best Buy with free shipping (and the option to purchase online and pick it up locally if it's in stock). Think I'm going to listen to your rave reviews on this DSperber. =D Appreciate all the work you put into that post with the pictures and descriptions! Thanks!
Edited by Einskaldir - 3/21/13 at 12:08pm

I thought I'd give a shout-out to Best Value TV Swivels for their high quality, affordable swivel stands. For those of you who choose not to wall-mount your VT50 like me and need better viewing angles due to your furniture placement, this is the ticket. They're only $33, ship out immediately, and they literally swivel with one finger and very little effort a full 360 degrees. Here's the site:

http://www.bestvaluetvswivels.com/blacklcd.htm

And here's mine on my console, before and after.

IMG_20130321_163930_088.jpg 334k .jpg file

IMG_20130321_170439_654.jpg 275k .jpg file

Posted my initial impressions of the Xpand X105BT on another thread: http://www.avsforum.com/t/1409490/panasonic-2012-compatible-3d-glasses-thread/180#post_23109095

I wonder if 48hz in 3D isnt actually 96hz mode. Think about it, its per eye with 3D. So 48+48=96. Just a WAG.

When "1080p Direct" is set to on, up to 12 bit per channel color can be accepted from the source.

Whether this can be accurately displayed is another question, but with the quality of the VT50 panel and its accuracy when calibrated, I don't suspect that any other large display would be better.

I can confirm the XpanD X105BT work on my VT50; I synced them with no problem, and watched a little 2D-3D converted content. I don't have a 3D Blu-ray player yet.

Mark

I'm loving my 65" VT50 I got last week. One thing I've noticed is that almost every time I start up Viera Connect after turning the TV on, it prompts me to run the Connection Wizard. Is that normal? Are there any known issues with this or workarounds? Thanks for the help.

Would like to thank all of you that participate in this forum and my tech savy Brother in law for helping me decide on the VT50 65" After a month of wondering if I spent my money wisely, I found out I did. I've had my TV for two days and it is absolutley incredible! Have learned much in these forums over the last month since starting this home theater project and have found your opinions to be very insightfull. Thank You.

Does anyone know if there is a way to program a button on an universal remote to switch to a specific input on the VT50 ?

Example: i want Button A to switch to HDMI1 input and Button B to switch the TV to HDMI2 input

Does the remote have a macro function?

Thanks. It really turned out well for me, so I'm sharing. I thought the visual "progress report" from start to finish would be helpful, but a lot of the creative credit for how to create that "wall" in what was a "hole" goes to my cabinet maker. The black velvet was my idea.

I thought you said your cabinet required a mount that could extend 27" if I recall. I assume you were thinking of putting the mount on the "back wall" of a large opening like mine. Am I wrong?

My initial thoughts were similar, but my cabinet maker came up with the plan of just building the "wall" at the front of the "hole", so the mount could attach just like it was really a genuine wall in the first place.

Unless you're going to have something like that the full extension, motion and swivel that would otherwise be possible can't really happen. In other words, if the mount is already extended fully from the back wall to the front of your cabinet, there's no way it can then twist or swivel, unless I don't have a proper picture of what you're planning on doing.

But I think you can see from my pictures just how the mount works, and how it attaches to both the wall and the back of the TV. I'm sure you have decided how this (or similar) mount would fit into your situation.

Correct. That extra adapter is only for the 65VT50. The standard mount is compatible with the 55VT50.

The instructions seemed a little cryptic at first (having never done this before). But after a few false starts we figured it all out. The measurements provided in the pictures of the mount and also of where the mounting holes are on the back of the TV were perfect, so figuring out exactly where the TV would end up on the wall worked exactly as I wanted.

The bracket that attaches on the back of the TV has many holes in it on the vertical sides, so you can also adjust where it ends up vertically. I wanted it to have the center of the TV directly in front of my eyes and perpendicular to my line of sight as I was seated in the opposite side of the room. So we ended up with one false start as it ended up too high. We then realized what the instructions were telling us about those holes on the vertical strips on the back, and had to remove the TV to re-do the bolts correctly to drop the TV about 2" when mounted, and then re-mount the TV. Now it came out perfectly, tilted downward (from the top) just a few degrees for my desired straight-on viewing angle from where I'm sitting.

Anyway, that's a good price at BB. Hope it works out for you.

First you will need to obtain the discrete commands for On, Off, and the HDMI inputs - I have an old MX-500 remote that cannot be programmed using a computer, it only learns via direct IR transfer. I went to my local high-end A/V purveyor and they were able to provide the discrete commands off one ot their remotes. I learned all the discrete input commands to separate buttons on my remote. That will give you the discrete input buttons you cited in your example.

If you want the TV to power on and set itself to a particular input, you need a remote that can program in a delay between commands, and as a previous poster indicated, you need a remote with a macro function. The problem with the Viera and a lot of other TVs is that they need a few second delay after you power them on before they will accept commands.

Here is the macro string I used to take the set to specific input HDMI(x):

Discrete Power ON
2 Second Delay
Discrete HDMI(x)...5 times in a row

You might be able to reduce hitting the HDMI input to less than 5 times, if you can increase the delay time between the Power On and the HDMI commands. My remote has a limit of 2 seconds delay, so I padded out the time with hitting the discrete input key 5 times.

Hope this helps,
Cheers,
Paul

To the OP buy a Harmony if you can find one, much simpler more versatile. Programming is done on pc thru usb.

Actually, that was someone else I think. Mine will be on the wall to the right of our fireplace (the fireplace is not centered in the room due to an addition. I do like how low profile this mount appears to be though and my studs aren't centered where I'll be mounting it (are they ever?). Also, we'll be having some drywall removed that was installed over our brick fireplace. Until we do that later this summer, I'll need to extend the TV out a bit from the wall to clear the drywall and plug in and remove HDMI cables, etc. Plus, it'll be nice to turn the TV as needed (sometimes we watch TV while prepping in the kitchen).

It might be a more expensive mount, but it appears as though it has a lot of uses and should be around for years.

Hopefully the instructions won't be too cryptic for me to figure out as I've never self-installed either. =) I'll be sure to bug you though if I get stuck!

I have tried the new VIERAremote2 app on my iPhone 4s and iPad and it won't turn the VT50 on either, although it will turn the TV off. Wonder if Panasonic is doing anything to provide an app that works.

This is via wifi, correct? That's not possible when the TV is off because it would be disconnected from the wifi. Not a bad app, just a limitation of a wifi-based remote.