The Official Panasonic U50/54 Owners' Thread - Page 17

I would try to determine if the source of the buzz is internal or external.
Did you use the ferrite rings on your HDMI cables? If you disconnect all inputs does it still buzz?
Are your HDMI cables running parallel and close to the power cables?
Are your wall sockets properly phased (wired) and grounded?
Are there Wall warts and other AC to DC converting equipment on the same circuit or nearby?
You might want to consider what electrical appliances are on the same circuit as your U50. This is a well documented problem with high end audio equipment...refrigerators being the most common offender. Also dimmer light switches are notorious as well as florescent lights for being sources of hum/buzz. Most audiophiles are quiet familiar with the problems that just the electrical lines them selves can add (what is upstream from you) .
Are there Wall warts and other AC to DC converting equipment on the same circuit or nearby ?,IE Heating pads, electric blankets, aquarium heaters and doorbell transformers.

I have a U50 as well. I ran a dedicated electrical circuit just for the refrigerator so as not to add the clicks it creates every time the motor cycles on and off. . Dead silence on the TV. A Blue ray DVD is stunning.
here are some trouble shooting steps that might help.
http://www.ntopix.com/files/Killing_Buzz.php

If you do determine the buzz is from the U50 ...check to see what your contrast setting is..lower it if it is high..this may reduce it enough that you do not notice it.
Edited by Ernie in NH - 12/2/12 at 10:03am

The "buzz" you hear is common to most plasma display devices, very light colors or a white screen require the most power from the graphics driver and it is common but not on all sets, some are more prone to buzzing than others but there are a few things you can do to minimize or eliminate it. Display a white screen to get the set buzzing and run your hand around the outside edge of the panel, if you come to a spot where it is vibrating that can be a source of buzz, silicone is great for silencing problem areas. If there is not felt vibrations outside the set then remove the back cover and use a plastic or wooden dowel to probe the various components in the hopes of finding the culprit, once your probe touches the graphics driver/s you will find the source of the vibration and should notice it is a 60 cycle buzz just like a fluorescent tube, trusty tube of non-conductive silicone glue can go a long way here too, be creative but use common sense.
The 600Hz SFD and especially the 2500HZ FFD found on the ST GT and VT are responsible for the buzz, the driver has to work very hard to flash the pixels at the rate and intensity required for the particular image, i am not surprised it buzzes considering what it does and i am sure the factory has taken steps to minimize the buzzing created by the increased (for lack of better word) "refresh rate", this would explain why some sets buzz and some don't as the factory "buzz-proofing" is not consistent from one set to another..

In my opinion, if you look for it, you'll find it. in regards to buzzing that is. Mine buzzes if I stick my head behind the panel, it's quite noticeable. But I don't look for it and haven't noticed it watching it. I returned my first plasma due to buzzing. I found that I obsessed on it. I'm not sure that it really was that bad, but I heard it all the time because I was listening for it. I'm just going to enjoy this one.

Anyone have any suggestions as to which settings I can adjust in order to reduce motion blur?

I am currently streaming video from HBO GO via an XBOX 360 and can't seem to get rid of motion blur during an "action" scene.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

I have the U54 Costco version and am on the fence about the picture quality. Some of the programing displays fine such as an mkv file off of USB, however, I've noticed some pixelation on HD channels and in particular, I've noticed when watching NFL football, there is a hazy, greyish halo around the players outline. This is my first HD tv and from reading these and other forums online, I see that people tweak the settings quite a bit to get the picture to their liking. I have it set to vivid and thats about all the tweaking I've done. Has anyone else experienced similar picture as I've described or can recommend settings that I can tweak to improve the picture quality.

Thank you

http://forums.cnet.com/7723-19410_102-571010/panasonic-tc-p50u50-picture-settings/

I'm having some strange issues.

There are horizontal lines running through my screens during certain colour scenes of playback.

If I have my subtitles on, the lines just slightly skew the colour directly horizontal to the subtitle, across the entire screen. If I'm watching a scene with blinds in the background, I can see the horizontal line (following the blinds horizontal path) through the whole screen.
Am I going crazy? Is this common or heard of?

I have turned my lights off, played with settings... it's present all the time.

There was one particular scene where there were two characters taking up both sides of the screen, and a blank wall between them. The blank wall had about 100 lines through it. My gf double-checked to ensure I wasn't going nutso.

What the heck is the deal here?

I had my TV fixed last week for really loud plasma buzzing. Is this related at all?! TV is only 7 months old.

Thanks! Will try it this evening.

Yep. Wasn't listening for it, but unfortunately, I still heard it when I was reading a book while the tv was cycling on the break-in slides. As soon as I heard it, my heart sunk a little as I was afraid that I had gotten a buzzer. I played the slides on my older 42" Panny plasma that's in our bedroom and it is virtually silent unless you stick your head behind the tv but certainly not at normal viewing distances. With the new one, at normal viewing distances during quiet scenes that happen to be bright, or loading scenes when playing a game, you can definitely hear it at normal distances. It sounds like a fluorescent light fixture whose ballast is going bad.

Anyway, everything else considered, I knew that I would always obsess over it and decided to schedule an exchange for it. Can't say enough about the Zon's customer service either.

I like these settings, but I dropped the contrast to 80, and bumped up color to 47.

Other than that, everything else looked good to me.

Yes, it looks pretty good on those cnet settings. I'm going to run a hundred or 2 hours and then use my WOW calibration disk.

Hi guys, I have the tc60put54 version and so far i love it. But recently i noticed while using the "HD size: Size 2" option there is a single pixel on the screens edge in the upper left hand corner that flashes white when there is a black back ground and black in a white background. This only happens on the Size 2 option. On Size 1 there is no such occurrence. The TV has less than 100 hours and Ive ran the anti image retention option a few times. Also this problem is not visible while running the anti image retention option even though the white and black bars cross over this same area with no change. Any guidance would be appreciated.

Correction. I stated before i had the tc60put54 but it is actually the tc60pu54 model.

This is called line bleed.

And is it something that can be fixed, or is it normal?

All plasma's have this issue. I can only see in on mine when watching movie trailers (green & blue info stating rating, etc.). Green is the worst by far, next is red and I see no line bleed with blue. Even with green it varies from heavy lines to almost invisible.
I have not seen it watching regular BD movies, just the trailer info; as I do not watch regular TV I can't comment on that.

I will try to post a picture.

I have the TC-60pu54-2 and all the settings i see here and around the net use the normal-warm2 color temps. On my set those settings make my white backgrounds look like they have a darker or light brownish tint. I prefer white to look white, but to do so i sacrifice skin tone by a shade or two. Also leaving the hdmi content type to auto makes colors to intense mainly the red in skin tones. Could the fact that i have a TC-60pu54-2 and not just a TC-60pu54 make that much of a difference in colors and calibration settings? Also i prefer "Standard" over Cinema and Custom because it provides the brightest and cleanest pictures out of the different settings i have tried from this site,C net, and the web. Here are my current settings. Any comments are appreciated.

--Picture menu
Picture mode: Standard
Contrast: +65
Brightness: +55
Color: +50
Tint:0
Sharpness: 0
Color temp: Cool 1
Color mgmt: Off [grayed out]
C.A.T.S.: Off
Video NR: Off

-- Aspect adjustments
Screen format: Full
HD size: Size 2
H size: [grayed out]
Zoom adjustments: [grayed out]

-- HDMI settings:
RGB Range - Auto
Content type - Graphics

--Advanced picture
3D Y/C filter: Off [grayed out]
Color matrix: HD [grayed out]
Block NR:Off
Mosquito NR: Off
Black level: Light
3:2 pulldown: Auto
24p Direct in: 60Hz

Cinema is the most accurate picture mode, the other modes have certain processing features on that can't be turned off, or they have wonky gamma. Not sure how far off the u54 is from the u50, but cool 1 on my set is way too blue.

Hello all, new 60PU54 owner here. I have an issue that I think is HDMI related. I have a monoprice 4x4 hdmi switcher. To it I have a 360, ps3, and Dish 722k receiver hooked to the inputs. I have a denon avr-789 (the monitor out is connected to a mitsu hc3000 projector), mitsu wd65737 and the 60u54 hooked to the outputs. The issue is, When I turn off the mitsu tv it turns the plasma off as well. The hdmi cec box is greyed out on mitsu tv; and I haven't found anything obvious in the panny menu which might cause the panny to turn off when I turn the mitsu tv off. Does anyone know what the issue might be?
Edited by mobius - 12/8/12 at 12:16pm

A question on the 2500HZ FFD. How does this compare to the 600Hz SFD? Is it there just for the 3D capability or can it also provide a better picture?

Costco just stopped carrying the 50" model and replaced it with the 55" 3D model which features this processor. I don't care for the 3D feature, but if it's an improved panel over the 50", then I would consider upgrading.

Thanks!

Hi I'm new to Plasma and just replaced a failed DLP with a TC50PU54 about a week ago. I have been trying to educate myself and was working my way through all the posts (got to page 7) when I realized the numbers users have been posting for picture settings bare no resemblance to what I have been choosing.
When I first got my TV up and running the Standard mode was so dark it was un-watchable, so I went to menu and checked out the available picture settings. All were an improvement over Standard but I wasn't impressed with any of those either. I finally found the perfect custom settings, but the numbers are weird compared to what others are posting (Custom, Cinema, whatever). I'm guessing now there is some sort of picture calibration one is supposed to do before you start changing the various picture settings provided. The main clue was that typically users are quoting sharpness setting of 0 - 14 whereas, on my set, any thing below 70 in sharpness makes the picture look like a really well used VCR tape. Any info you could provide would be appreciated.
Thanks Dave

What connection type and video source are you using?

HDMI/Satelite.

Don't get me wrong. I have a fantastic picture with my custom settings. I wouldn't normally have suspected anything unusual (the presets on my previous DLP were totally crappy so when I saw the presets here were also crappy I assumed that's typically what the Manufacturers provide). However, I accidentally found this site while searching on another issue and, out of curiosity, searched under my TV Model, found this forum and started reading. When I saw other users settings I began wondering about mine.
For The record here are my Custom settings. I have not tried to modify the others (Cinema, Vivid and Standard) because my previous TV had 11 presets (Normal, Movie, Sports, Computer, etc etc..) and a Custom, but only the Custom could be changed even though the sliders were active in the presets, moving them did not change the picture. Again, I assumed that's typical

Current Settings:

PICTURE MODE: Custom
CONTRAST: +85
BRIGHTNESS: +70
COLOUR: +35
TINT: 0
SHARPNESS: +90
COLOUR TEMP: Cool2

The rest I have browsed but left at default as I know nothing about them.
Thanks, Dave

Sorry there was a long delay after trying to submit above so I kept pressing the submit button. Luckily I only got one additional submission.

Thanks for posting this. I was getting a little nervous. I came late to this site after buying a TC50 PU54 about a week and a half ago (my 1st plasma), and I just now read about "break in" , "slides?" and "calibration" etc. Gee, I'm surprised I don't have to change it's diapers. Here's hoping 8 hours of golf channel plus 4 hrs of Crackel or Blu Ray movies (all full screen) for 10 days straight was an O.K. break in technique. What happened to the days when you just buy the sucker, take it home, plug it in and look at it. I don't want to fly the Space Shuttle I just want to watch TV!

wheooooo, that high of a contrast number along with brightness just make it easier for Image retention. plus that is some ENORMOUS over sharpening....and that's a LOT of color saturation. that's basically a modified torch mode . custom mode is ok, but the best mode for this tv is the cinema mode. download the AVSHD calibration disc from this forum and run those, that will get you a much more accurate image (find on cinema it's more like this)

PICTURE MODE: Custom
CONTRAST: +68
BRIGHTNESS: +56
COLOUR: 0
TINT: -1
SHARPNESS: +1-
COLOUR TEMP: Cool2

as long as there's no image retention that you can see from channel logos and the such you should be fine. Plasma's are more tempermental and require some more TLC than LED's and LCD's but they give off the best pq for the price hands down

Sorry, but I am new here. Browsed around but could not find a downloads section. So where do I find that calibration disk and how do I get it to my TV, SD. USB or DVD?
Not sure what you mean by that's a lot of colour saturation as I have the colour set to +35 which is well below the preferred 44 that shows up in several posts.
Thanks for your perseverence - Dave

http://www.avsforum.com/t/948496/avs-hd-709-blu-ray-mp4-calibration

that disc will give you all you need to do basic calibration.


and as for color you're right. I had to glance at my tv again. I was thinking it was -50 to +50 on the scale instead of 0 to 100. lol

I got my U54 late last week and got it set up. This is my second plasma (first was a Pioneer Elite PRO-910HD, circa 2003 or so). This generation of plasma certainly has a blacker black; as in orders of magnitude blacker.

I installed my U54 in the same place in the room as my Pioneer--a well-lit living room (skylights facing north-ish). The U54 looks about the same during the day as the Pioneer--it's a bit washed out. I just use the C.A.T.S. settings to allow the electronics to control the picture at those light levels; which change with cloud cover.

In the evenings when I do my serious watching of video sources, I have virtually no problems viewing. I am using the U54 set on Cinema and have the Contrast dialed back to about 75. All other settings are at 50 or the mid of their adjustable range.

Other than Contrast and Brightness, I've found the other settings to purely preferential; i.e., each person's tastes differ as to what looks normal/natural/correct.

It may be that my previous plasma set "trained" me to accept dimmer images than what many are accustomed to, but I like what I see in a plasma. It just looks more natural than the overly bright and unnatural looking (to me) LCD/LED sets. I own a couple of the latter, but don't use them for critical viewing.

As for which Picture Mode (Standard, Cinema, Custom, etc.) to use, I've read there are subtle differences between them. I have dialed all the modes to the same settings as used in my Cinema mode and have not yet been able to do proper comparisons. I also can't find anything "official" that confirms or denies any differences, so I'll take the communities word on it.

All in all, I'm quite pleased with this plasma and am looking forward to some great viewing experiences. It is fun to finally have a full 1080p panel that can and does take advantage of the high definition sources now available. There is definitely a discernible difference between 1080i and 1080p.