Official Panasonic VT50 owners thread - Page 313

Im about 50hrs in. Out of the box I went straight to THX brightroom which is super bright/contrast. When i'm home most things watched are 2:35 to 1 and when I'm not home most people are watching regular cable with logos etc, but at least its full screen. I run the scroll bar for a few minutes after watching one of my movies, but that's about it. I saw a momentary IR once on a logo, but it disappeared after a few seconds and that's about it for my experiences. I'd say use the tv the way you normally would and just don't make it exclusively one type of picture. Don't be too scared, watch the game, run the scroll bar for 15 mins afterwards and feel better =]

My 65VT50 with a November build is also without buzz, except on a pure white panel. Even then I can only hear it when I put my head right up to it. November was a good month for Panasonic.

My 65VT50 that got delivered an hour ago..... is a November build! :-)

btw did Jeff calibrate your 3D day and 3D night as well?

We just went with one 3D setting, and put that in ISF Day 3D. Looks great!

I hope so. I've still got my November build 65VT50 sitting in its box in the living room waiting for our basement to be finished. I've only turned it on to verify it was working and there was no damage. We're still 2-3 weeks away from the basement TV room being ready. Doesn't look like we're going to make it before the Super Bowl.

Hope you make it by the Super Bowl. I'd probably set it up somewhere in the house even if the basement isn't ready!

Where do I find the build date?

My TV is already mounted on the wall, can I look it up in the Menu or by the Serial Number?

Thanks

Also, it's not the game on the display for a solid 3 hrs. Half of that time is commercials and halftime so you can essentially count that time as IR scrubbing.

Agree - just enjoy it!

We've had our 65VT50 for about 3 weeks now... no signs of IR when we watch 2.35x1 or 4:3 content. Running in Custom mode... setting close to THX night. I'd say don't worry so much, unless you notice the IR on your set.

I'm wondering if my 65VT can be the cause of a very slight synching problem. I have DirecTV (multiple receivers), and this problem occurs only on those receivers connected to my 65VT. Whether I watch things live or via recordings, the audio appears to be ever so slightly out of sync with the video. It's not horrible, but it's noticeable to the "trained" eye.

I don't think it's my Onkyo 3008, either, because I don't recall having this problem before I got my Panny a few months ago.

My DISH Hopper was WAYYYY out of sync on the first day.

I unplugged the HDMI Cable and re-installed. It seemed to fix the problem.

you aren't crazy. two things you can do. 1) Check the tv and disable all of its motion smoothing and picture processing (noise reduction). or 2) if you want to keep all of those other things on (or they are already all off and you have the problem), go to your AVR and look for a 'LipSynch' option (usually under HDMI setup) and enable it. If you don't have that feature you'll need to find the 'audio delay' feature for the TV input on that receiver and set it. Start at about 30milliseconds and then go forwards or backwards from there.

Doesn't the TV also have to support LipSynch? If so, does the VT50 and would it have to be turned on there too? What does LipSynch do anyhow? It must have something do with HDMI.

Does anyone have issues playing back M4V/MP4 files via USB or DLNA? I get stutter every few seconds where it looks like a frame or 2 is getting dropped. What's interesting is that if I remux the same files into an MKV container they play back flawlessly.

The videos are H.264 high profile 3.1, 1280x720, with AAC and AC3 audio. They are encoded with the standard High Profile preset in Handbrake with the addition of the detelecine filter when needed. The files originate from my TiVo and are decrypted and immediately sent to Handbrake for encoding.

I'd really like to figure out what the VT50 doesn't like about the MP4 container vs the MKV container. My whole library is in MP4 to maintain compatibility with all my Apple gear, but I'd love to be able to use the DLNA feature to access that library directly from the VT50.

Anyone have any thoughts on what to do?

Ok, so answering these accurately would require a lot of detail that I could mangle and there are quite a few good threads about it, but I recommend you don't read them unless you want to become extremely OCD =]

So, i'll generalize it like this. The lipsynch feature just takes the HDMI pipeline and if synch data is present (from the sources) it will tweak the audio delay accordingly. Since most devices cause some sort of delay (like BR players) I was counting on the offeset from sources maybe mitigating his tv lag to the point where he didn't notice it - so if it works, then great - if not, then on to the audio delay route. The audio delay is ofcourse the best place to work with, but a lot of people don't have the tolerance to tweak at this level.

The TV doesn't need a lipsynch feature in order for the AVR to remedy the issue, but I believe this one has it. I'm not entirely sure on whether enabling it will send handshake data back to the AVR, which is why I am not speaking about it since I don't know. It could just be a lipsynch feature for if you hooked up a BR to the TV directly it could perform the same task as the AVR is doing with its lipsynch feature.

Yes THX Cinema is fine (that's what I used for break-in), and there is no need to turn down contrast. If you can, close the blinds if the sun is shining through for a little more pop and detail in your picture.

Enjoy that game!

ss

You didn't miss it on them posts, but way earlier in the forums you would see my slow growth of explanations here.

Anyway, long story short, the 2 TV's are actually in 2 different houses. VT50 at my moms house. XBR950 for me at my house.

That said, I did a FULL tv shootout at Magnolias (this is what you would have read about in earlier posts in both this forum and the XBR950 forum). I brought tons of material and some of it wasn't just normal material, some was strictly for testing/stressing certain situations. Brought my Xbox 360, games, etc.. Spent ALL day there literally ! I knew I was buying 2 TV's, one for my mom, one for me. I was able to have tv's side by side.

It took about 2 hours for me to narrow it down to 2 tv's (which was quick IMO) - Either the VT50 or the XBR950 (or one of each). And yes, the Elite was there. Didn't like the motion of it at all on ANY setting. Also, its viewing angle was even worse than the XBR950, and that viewing angle is bad. Spent the next 6 hours shooting out things between the VT50 and the XBR950.

Longer story long, and to JUST answer your question - The XBR950 has less lag than the VT50. Yet another reason I like the 950 for gaming over the VT50. And the sad news is, the XBR950's lag was something I had to stomach coming from a old SD tv.

Joel, was the Elite playing a blu-ray? I saw the same horrible motion problems on the Elite at a magnolia and at my house, but once I adjusted a setting in my PS3 to turn OFF 24p and turn off motion enhancement on the tv (or whatever it's called) the Elite looks GREAT. Not like an LCD at all. In fact that was my single biggest concern with the set (much more than pulsing or cyan) when coming from a DLP which did motion beautifully.

Do you have the pixel orbiter turned on?

Long time lurker and finally decided to chime in on the whole IR Issue. I own a 5 year old Panny PZ700U (looking to upgrade to the VT50 or the ZT60) that I purchased with the help of this forum (asking questions, reading comments, etc.) Like a lot of you, I was OCD about IR as I play a lot of video games and that was my main concern 5 years ago when I decided to go the plasma route (so glad I did). In the 5+ years that I've owned this TV, I have had LONG gaming sessions (6+ hours), football on all day (Sat and Sun), the dreaded black bars displayed when watching movies and just about everything else you can think of. After a week or two I grew tired of "babying" the Panny due to fears of IR or burn in, so I just started watching TV as I normally would and I've never looked back.

To this day, I still see IR on my set from time to time. I see the red Netflix banner that's at the top of the screen when a light background is displayed, or sometimes I"ll see a station logo on a light background. However, after a minute or so of watching something else I never see it again. I do not go out of my way to look for IR, nor do I even think about it when I watch 9 solid hours of football on Sundays. The point is, you're going to get IR. But it'll go away.

I do not have on-hand experience with today's newer plasmas, but based on my personal experience, my advice would be to stop worrying about it so much and just enjoy these beautiful TV's. Again, you're going to get IR. And if you do, just watch TV like you normally would. Having other content displayed will eventually remove any traces of it. I don't think you need to go out of your way to always run a scrolling bar or pixel orbiter. Just enjoy watching your TV.

Just my two-cents.

The "Game" mode changes some settings that reduce the lag, so you probably want to use that for gaming. But, it also cranks up the intensity, so you should probably calibrate it back down to match something like THX (or your custom settings). This should help with the IR when gaming.

I can't see IR on my VT50 during normal viewing, even if it's really obvious when running slides or the moving bar. If you can't see it during normal viewing, just use your TV as normal and you likely won't have any problems, unless "normal" for you is playing the same game 10 hours a day, every day. If you mix up the content, you should be fine.

Well it was some Blu-Ray's that I brought in and also a motion shot that I specifically test for motion that I have on a USB thumb drive. All media was played through a Oppo BDP 93 at Magnolias, and all settings were set to what I thought was properly. The Oppo allowed us to shot the identical signal out 2 HDMI ports simultaneously, and so I could compare 2 TV's at a time.

That said, I am almost sure I tried flicking between the 24p and motion enhancements, off, on and in every possible combination. It was not doing the bad flicker like motion that 24p causes. Its more of a funny movement feeling, but only during certain panning scenes, and then will go away. EVERY HD tv has these issues with motion enhancements turned off, period.. ALL of them, cause all do. But the difference is, on every other set, I could find a setting combination that would pass my "motion scene" test. The Elite, I could not find one.

Again, this is not a "horrible" thing that is easily noticed. Nor is it all the time. It is only when the shot is a slow to medium pan and a decent amount of detail is going on in the picture. It gets even more noticeable if at that same moment there is also motion in the background moving in the opposite direction of the pan. Then once the shot is over and it gets to the next cut away, its back to normal. Sometimes only happens once or twice in a movie.

Some people don't even notice it, but I do and am unfortunately extremely anal about it. Cause find the SD version of the same movie, and watch it on a older SD tv, and you wont see the same issue EVER. Because of that, I do not think it is a acceptable thing to live with.

Hmmm, I am very glad you are not experiencing this. But at this point I am wondering if you've seen it and just not noticed it. Its just a ever so slight change in the pans movement that makes it look slightly less fluid.

Some classic popular scenes that do this are. The Avengers BD... towards the end when they are all grouped together in battle for the first time and get in that circle and the camera is low to the ground and pans around to show all their faces. (this one is slight, and mostly easy to handle, but a first running up test).

Next would be Lord Of The Rings Fellowship Of The Ring BD - Beginning once first shot in The Shire. As the camera pans around the whole plantation with the kids running and playing, etc... and Gandolf is on his wagon and the camera is also trying to follow him and Frodo is there, and then later also the kids are playing behind the shot of the wagon, etc.... that WHOLE scene needs to be watched carefully for this at various times.

The other scenes I do for testing this are on some calibration discs.

Watch the opening scene to The Dark Knight when the joker and two other criminals are first running into the bank after getting out of the SUV. As the camera pans right to bank, the leading edge of the building shakes like crazy. This is one of my test scenes and with 24P on it is almost unwatchable (to me).

Joel surprised that you find the picture so good when the native full on/off contrast of that tv is 1,797:1 and it requires an extreme mix of SW and HW to get it to the 11,000:1 level, which of course then introducses the blackcrush, bloom, etc. The vt is over 10,000:1. I'm sure some scenes will look better when the hw/sw tweaks get it right, but I just can't stand inconsistent quality throughout.

The even more funny thing is, there is no sw/hw tweaks for the XBR950... the only adjustable stuff for pro or not is the consumer level menu ! The VT went through the whole ISF tweaks. Yes both me and Robert were amazed looking at the XBR950 ONLY in comparison to a preconceived notion built up about it from a "spec" view point. Like you pointed out.

Honestly, I believe I see blacker blacks and whiter whites (one extreme to the other) on the 950 than the VT50... without the contrast specs that the VT50 has, tell me how that is possible ?

BUT the VT50 presents the picture slightly better, yes. It looks slightly more rich and has a depth to it, like I could reach into the tv with my eyes. The 950 does not present this. But oddly enough visually it doesn't seem like contrast is the problem to it... though it may be, it just doesn't "look" that way. As I pointed out, I almost blame it not looking as good because it gets more black and more white than the VT50.

Again, I am no professional, nor do I claim to be. I am just pointing out the perception of what I see. Though my calibrator was one of the top in the industry, and he mentioned being surprised about the Sony as well.

I tried with it on and off. Turns out it was source related - A standalone Sony BDP S280 player did this. 3 other players (2 different model standalone Sonys and 1 PS3) were absolutely fine and display that test image with full borders on each side but the S280 just seems to get the positioning wrong or at least clip off the top and left of the image. I don't think I've ever heard of players doing that before.

Joel, the XBR950 uses a Dynamic Contrast to make up for its inherent lack of contrast ratio. From rereading your original post it seems like a lot of pro calibrators would be surprised at your results and even told you so? I've not heard of ISF/THX calibrators using the dynamic features in their calibrations since they significantly reduce the fidelity of the screen reproduction and color accuracy, although at times they do work nicely on their lower levels. Who was your calibrator?

Another thing I noticed in your post is that you have observed greater input lag in the plasma over the LCD?

You definitely have one of the more unique experiences I've ever heard of. Thanks for sharing.

Its all fixed now. Just didn't think it through when i set the game mode = torch mode.

Man this is so confusing to read. Can't I just get my tv watch it 100+ hours get it calibrated and be done with it. so much work!

Yes, you SHOULD do exactly that if you want to make your life more enjoyable! Avoid a lot of letterbox movies or tv shows with bright logos during that period. Just mix up the content and you'll be golden. Enjoy it. (Oh, and probably switch to THX mode too).