Official Panasonic VT50 owners thread - Page 333

Thanks for the info - please let us know how it goes. I wouldn't want to spend money on just that either - although I still do drool over a dvdo Iscan duo occasionally =]

edit: I just read what you saw and it looks like chances are slim. I probably have the issue and just don't notice it since I never output any interlaced images to the TV. I keep the box on 720p since the motion looks most natural that way, even on my other tv's that I've had.

I

In my opinion and experiences, I would recommend you staying away from the LED for now. There good but they are still not perfected to the best they can be.

LCD's are still a great choice but if your going to be watching a lot of Blu-Rays, I would highly recommend a Plasma. Not putting LCD's or LED's down but from my experiences, Plasmas are the way to go for Blu-Ray viewing.

With the newer coatings on the glass of Plasmas I would highly recommend them. And I would look into the new Panasonic ZT60 series which is a 65" model. However, Sharp makes just as good Plasmas as well. I have the P65VT50. I wish I would have waited for the ZT60 series. Now the ZT60 will be released sometime between April and May according to them and will have a hefty $4,100.00 price tag on them. But you can still get the P65VT50 for around $2,800.00 - $3,000.00 if your looking to make a purchase sooner than April.

Also, with the lighting issues and all those windows in your room. You can have your TV setup for Day and Night Mode which will help with any possible reflections your windows may cause.

I hope I was able to help you out somewhat.

Good luck with your decision.

Once calibrated, is day and night mode easily switched. By a single button or do you have to get in the menu

I'm sure you still have to change it just like the other modes.

You're sure, or you know as a fact from experience?

Well that's unfortunate. I already have the swap scheduled. So at a minimum I can contribute to the knowledge/experience pool here.

I tried the STB in 720p and the picture seemed gooey or blurry. You don't have that problem?

It is very easily switched with 5 total button presses and takes about 2 seconds. Menu > Enter > Scroll left or right (they are next to eachother) > Enter > Exit

Regardingt the green vertical line at the right side of the screen during the Superbowl, I would not worry. That was visible only in THX mode and THX mode doesn't do overscan. So maybe CBS did not bother getting rid of that. I have XFINITY. If you switched to any other mode, the green line was gone

definitely not blurry. for comparison purposes I use TimeWarner via their scientific atlanta box.

Just a couple of minor points. The sets that manufacturers label as LED displays are LCD displays with a LED back light. Mostly they are edge lit which can be a disadvantage. The Sharp Elite models and the top of the line Sony are full LED back lit. The displays that manufacturers label as LCD are LCD panels with a phosphorescent full back light. The only place I've seen them is in the small low end of the current models.

Sharp doesn't make plasma displays. You probably meant Samsung. Of course both Panasonic and Samsung plasma displays have their own unique strong and weak points.

Okay, thanks for the correction. I didn't know that Sharp didn't make Plasmas. I heard of their Elite series and that they had a lot of strong points. Everyone kept pushing me towards the VT50 so I ended-up with that. Thanks again for the correction. I'm here to learn.

Got my 65VT50 and all I can say is I am glad I jumped on that Paul's deal coming from my original 720p Samsung HP-S5073 plasma (bought brand new when it hit the market for well over $3k). I've only got a few hours on it so far, using the suggested break-in settings I've seen in this thread, and even with these basic toned down settings, I am amazed at the picture quality. The best way I described it to my buddy is that I have new window on the wall that lets me look onto a movie/TV studio. I cannot wait to get around 100 hours on it, apply some of the user posted settings, and see some of the fuller potential that can be unleashed. I know the settings won't be as perfected as a pro calibration, but try justifying that to the wife after spending money on this TV, 3D glasses for a family of 5, some cables needed for connecting to my sources, my new Denon 3312CI, and ControlCal. The wife is just not having it...haha

The Free White Glove delivery from Paul's was a joke. Not that it was a direct reflection of Paul's TV as a store or as a damn good deal on this TV, but more of the sub-contracted local delivery service (seems like they were a sub-contractor of Home Direct USA delivery services). I will say that they were on time, showing up about an hour into my 4 hour window. So an Enterprise Rental moving style truck pulls up, and two unprofessional looking 'men' deliver the TV, wheel it into my 1st floor Great Room where it was to be mounted. They set it on the floor, told me they needed a signature, and would be on their way. I told them that I was told there was white glove delivery included, and I wanted to check the TV over, make sure it worked and had no defects. One of the guys bolted for the door, sat in the truck the rest of the time. I assisted the other with taking the box off, unwrapping the layers of styra-foam sheets and packaging, and plugging into the wall. It turned on, I didn't notice any scratches or cracks, and the guy was done. No taking the set completely out of the box, no putting the stand together and setting on top of......nada. It was like pulling teeth to get anything from them that I would consider 'white glove'. I've never had a white glove delivery before, but this did not leave a happy, fuzzy feeling with me. Hopefully Paul's TV will perform some type of QA on their delivery services and step up to customer expectations and satisfaction.

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Other than that, I have a curiosity. Previous to installing this TV, I have been streaming media content from my PS3 (hard wired to my home network). My PS3 will stream from my PC via the PS3 Media Center software. Now that I have a 'Smart TV' capable of DNLA, I'd like to see what DNLA server/service (including version numbers) others are using for their streaming needs (Windows 8 DNLA Server, PS3 Media Server, Windows Media Center, Plex, PlayOn, etc)? I'm able to stream avi's (divx/xvid), and 720p and 1080p mkv files from my PS3 to this TV no problem, and they look awesome. I've experimented with connecting to my PS3 Media Server within this TV's 'DNLA' option. I'm able to navigate and see a listing of files. When attempting to play my Hi-Def mkv files, files will either begin to play then skip around and stutter, or simply state "cannot read file". Funny thing is, when I first connected my TV to the network, I let my 1080p Iron Man 2 mkv play for a couple of minutes, and it seemed to start working, but I've been unable to replicate a successful attempt. I'm okay if I'm forced to continue streaming through my PS3, but I think it would pretty cool to do this natively within the TV's DNLA feature. I know this would be a HUGE feature to get family and friends on board with buying a DNLA capable Smart TV set like this beauty, and maybe another for my bedroom. Do we know what media codecs this set can handle for native streaming processing?

Thanks

DtF

EDIT (2/5/13): I think I may have found a fix for my PMS streaming to the Panasonic (http://www.ps3mediaserver.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=16250)
Edited by Dru the Fu - 2/5/13 at 2:00pm

Yeah, I think I read your posts about it turning off.
Mine turns right back on with the remote. I turned power saving off and will see if that solves it. At this point I want to know if it's the power saving mode or another issue. If i don't have any more problems I'll probally turn it back on and push a button once in a while.

I purchased my 65VT50 from my Local Best Buy brick and mortar. Delivery was free. Delivery team was unbelievable. They carried the TV into my Mediaroom, unpacked it, installed the stand, put the batteries in both remotes, plugged it in and helped me verify all was good BEFORE pushing the delivery complete sheet in front of me. I was really impressed given some of the horror stories I have read on these forums. Tipped the guys a 20 on their way out.
And they took the carton with them!
Edited by peirek - 2/5/13 at 2:18pm

I went to Paul's TV the night before I purchased my set from BB.

White Glove Delivery is a misnomer. I think they told me it was inside the threshold only. You are lucky they waited while you unpacked it.

When I lived in Chicago I was in a Basement Condo, the "Standard" delivery would NOT walk down the flight of steps. I think I offered the guys an extra $20.

I think it's more of a case where the delivery guys try to get away with not doing it. They are definitely supposed to unpack it and hook it up for you, as well as carry it up/down two flights, but it seems like some of them will try and just drop the TV off an go. In that case you're going to have to explicitly tell them what they're going to do or they're going to hope you just let it slide and simply sign for the delivery.

Probably depends on the company they use to ship it. I didn't get mine from Paul's TV but did use white glove delivery from where I ordered from. Once the shipping company called to setup a delivery time the guys driving the truck called on that day letting me know their schedule. They called two more time afterwards updating me and let me know they were running behind an hour. He gave me an arrival time and when they pulled up he was within one minute of that given time lol.

They brought it inside and unpacked it for me then plugged it up after looking it over and powered it on. They waited while I combed over it using a flashlight and then ran through the slides checking for any dead or stuck pixels. I wasn't about to sign off on it until I was fully satisfied with it after arrival. Very good service I had from them.

What if your VT50 craps out under warranty?? You have no 'carton' to put it back into for service? I've never understood why people throw out the box for ANY reason. But that's me. Enjoy your display...

Me neither. And they're often so quick to toss it out, not even waiting for the return period to expire!

Would you really pack that 65" TV and ship it somewhere for repairs?

Exactly my experience as well. Was very very impressed with their service. And the fact they price matched the lowest online rate I could find.

Purchased my VT50 in October 2012 - can say I have been pleased until recently I notice alot of very bad burn-in in the upper left corner from the TV's input menu's you press to select inputs, change picture settings, etc... Really bummed that my $2200 is gonna be wasted in a matter of months from yet again the downfall of all plasma's - burnin!!! I think this will def be my last purchase of a plasma evre - if they are even around when my current burnin gets to the point of unwatchable w/o annoying burnin bugs from simply accessing the menu's - really Panasonic? So very disappointed!!!

More details
did you break in TV as recommended?
are you calibrated?
What color Setting?
What burned in? Example Fox Logo"
did you try anything to remove it...
These bits of info will help others prevent or help you...

If you just noticed parts of the menu image remaining on your screen, you don't have burn-in. What you have is image retention (IR). If you're wondering what's the difference, it's that burn-in is a fixed image on your screen that will never go away. IR, with normal use, will go away on it's own.

As for how you're using your TV, that might explain why you have IR. If you are constantly using the menu to change picture settings, and to select different inputs, then it will seem like the IR is always there because you keep repeating the same menu fixed images. I don't see how changing inputs would happen often enough to cause IR, unless you are doing that every few minutes. It's sound as if you like to play with the picture settings a lot. Try reducing that for a couple of weeks and see if you can still see menu IR.

Repairs should be done on site, you shouldn't have to take it anywhere.

If your TV requires replacement, the bad TV can be shipped out in the box the good one was delivered in. At least this is how it worked out for me.

When streaming Netflix and Amazon Instant/Prime video via Viera Connect on a 65VT50 I noticed that the remote's "Format" button was non-functional, a problem for viewing 4:3 material. It cycles through the five settings as expected with a HDMI sourced Blu Ray player or the RF input. The menu's "Aspect" setting had no impact on this anomaly. A search of the forums did not disclose any clues, other than it should have worked. Is this expected behavior or have I missed a configuration parameter? 11/12 build with the most recent software version.

Also tried accessing photos using the Oppo 95 via network and it saw even fewing picture files in the same directory.

So this doesn't sound like a VT50 issue but something else with windows 7.

Any thoughts?


Edit: Google's my friend. You have to go in on your computer using Windows Media Player and change some settings. http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/mediafoundationdevelopment/thread/969de982-856e-4a88-abd0-5f28201145df/
Edited by JimP - 2/5/13 at 8:47pm

TV was broken in using break-in DVD and also watching non logo 16:9 programming during the day.

TV is not calibrated - just use the THX settings except when my adult son uses it for gaming, then he switches it to game mode.

Color settings are set-up per the recommendations here at AVS for THX mode.

It may be IR - it is the type from when you access the different menu items - like when you choose inputs or change modes, THX, GAME, etc.

Running the "white burn" option that is built in as we speak
imes
My son and I share the TV, and we do change inputs from several HDMI hookups... but really... you can't expect someone to have 4 HDMI ports and not change between them several times in a day? If it is having these type of problems, then I can only assume it is just part of being a plasma owner. Like I said earlier... my next step will be something besides plasma... you would think after all the years plasma has been in usage, the problems would be solved. My guess is they can't be resolved... so onto a different technology for me in the future.

Thanks for the replies...
Nate

That's normal.