The Official Panasonic U50/54 Owners' Thread - Page 18

New owner of the U54(Sam's) and everything is looking great except it looks like my audio is out of sync both on the tv(slightly but noticeable) and on my surround sound speakers(very noticeable) anyone else having the same problem? Is it my HDMI cables?

My 60U50 came in today and man this thing is massive. I LOVE IT!! The only problem I am seeing is that 3:2 pulldown is grayed out and its off and 24p is grayed out in 60hz. I would keep 24p at 60hz anyways but is anyone elses grayed out?

the 24p option becomes available when you are using your PS3/Blu-Ray player assuming its the same as the U54

Hello there, new user here.

I just recently purchased the U50, and I have to say I'm quite disappointed. Even using the game/custom settings and putting contrast at 100% and brightness at 100% it's still not very bright. I believe the TV may naturally be much dimmer than what I was expecting. The strange thing about it though is that the TV is much brighter in the menu. For example the right side of the screen that isn't covered by the menu will appear bright and clear rather than a dull grayish looking color when done on a white background. I don't understand why this kind of brightness only works in the menu interface, the TV would be phenomenal if it had that level of brightness. Is something wrong with my TV or is this intentional? Now it's not all bad, the picture actually looks very good depending on what is being watched, it's just that lighter colors can appear dull and faded. My major concern is that I can't get this TV to look any good at all for gaming. This TV just can't get bright enough, I have tried every single setting and everything appears dull and faded, but of course when I bring up the menu the picture lights up before my eyes. I really just am not sure what to think about this TV at the moment, any input would be greatly appreciated.

Brightness controls the black level of the set has nothing to do with light output, if you are watching tv with those settings my sympathies. That brightness should be in the low to mid 50's at the most. By a cal disk would be my advice

Please, at the low to mid fifties the screen looks terrible, it's dark and extremely dull, I don't know what you're trying to get at. I can't even make a white background look white with max contrast and brightness, yet I should turn down the brightness? What about the fact that in the menu the dull whites magically become bright and clear?

What picture mode are you using? If you are using Standard, you should change it to cinema or custom . In standard mode, the picture looks very dim and the brightness changes automatically depending on the viewing materials. This is listed in their FAQ. Also, may sure to turn off CATS. I have mine (contrast/brightness) set around 50 to 70 and it is pretty bright. If the picture is still not bright enough for you than may be LED TV would be better for your viewing environment.

Brightness controls the deepness of blacks, if you won't take my word for it google it. I'd like to help you but if you don't understand the basic picture controls then I don't know what to tell you.

Agree with chunon here. My own set up is +55 for Brightness and it is bright enough.

My local Costco just stocked the 55" UT (regular set, not specificaly made for Costco and Sam's like the U54). Have to decide if the extra 5" is worth $300 (not now; for $150 or less, possibly). I do not need 3D plus my set is great: no buzzing (slight from the back; silent in front), great colors. Still have 30 days to decide but as of now it is a keeper. Too bad Costco did not have the 60" model.

I will admit I am new to Plasma, I am coming from a 5 year old Sharp LCD. I am using the game and custom settings, although both seem the same to me. I tried using CNET's Cinema settings and to me it makes the TV look horrendous. CATS is set to off. I'm not sure how you can have contrast and brightness at 50-70 and still have a bright picture. Vivid colors and dark shades look fine, but white or any other lighter shades of color are dull and faded for me on brightness/contrast of 100% ( I have tried every setting in between) . Is it so wrong to want a white background to actually look white and not a dull light gray color. I want the TV to look like it does when I press the menu button and the TV becomes bright and vivid. I contacted customer support recently and they informed me the TV is supposed to look much brighter in the menu than it does while normally viewing it, I don't even know what to think about plasma now at this point.

I do keep the brightness around 50 when watching TV, the only point I was trying to illustrate is that the TV is not physically capable of displaying a white background at it's highest settings. Some things look great, like sports and outdoor scenes, but it is painfully obvious when I see a commercial with a white background that something is not right. After a lengthy conversation customer service finally admitted to me that for this TV set a white background should have a dull light gray tinge to it.

You are most likely seeing the effects of ABL. Bothers some doesn't bother others, based on what I am hearing I think you would be happier if you go back to LCD/LED. Plasma isn't for everyone.
Edited by chunon - 12/11/12 at 10:51am

I was wondering if anyone had noted changes in their screen during the "break in" period? I had similar issues to JS88, but my main issue was with the posted contrast settings. I am over 110 hrs now, I have downloaded the recommended Calibration File and copied it to disk, but I have not had time to use it yet. However, during this period, especially the last 30 hrs. I have noticed the screen appearance changing and have gradually made adjustments in my Custom setting to compensate. When I posted my settings the other day, I had already backed Contrast off from 90 to 85 and Brightness from 80 to 70. Late last night I felt again the screen was too bright and way too sharp, so again I adjusted the Custom settings accordingly. Contrast is now at 80, Brightness at 60 and Sharpness at 80, and this time I had to jack the colour up from 35 to 40, when I switched the TV on just now I again notice it can be retuned some more. So is it me, or is the TV display changing as I write? Additionally I should mention my viewing room is always pretty dark and I had a DLP in this room before and initially tried for the same "look" as my previous unit, when I started viewing the "Panny" 18 days ago. The big negative so far for this TV and the Sony BluRay player I bought is the controllers are not backlit; so to use those controllers I have to turn a light on. Solution is to keep a little book lite next to the controllers and use it, if I need to manipulate a controller.
Cheers, Dave

You are correct, I was not aware of such a feature, that explains everything I was experiencing. I assume now that what really happens when the menu comes up is that the ABL is being disabled. Whatever the reason is, the result is still the same. It sucks the light right of video games, and shows like Family Guy and anything with lighter colors or shades. This is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard of, I can't believe something like this can't even be disabled.

As it stands right now I guess I have no reason to complain regardless of my current settings. Had my neighbour over. The guy who got me interested in this TV in the first place (he picked one up in the States earlier this year on his way back from Florida) and my daughter and son in-law who have a 40 " Samsung LED unit. They didn't know were watching my DVD copy of Once Upon a Time in the West, and kept commenting on how my Sony BluRay player produced such great BluRay pics. So much depth and detail, better than 3D they all agreed.
One of these days I will tell them they were watching a regular DVD .... or maybe not
This particular DVD was one of the best ever produced, as all you Movie Buffs would know, but it's still amazing that the regular guy who owns a BluRay and an HD TV would think he was watching BluRay when he wasn't. Do I say God bless Panasonic or God bless Sony? Too soon to tell ........I guess?
Cheers, Dave

Anybody else experiencing a lot of noise during some movies. Popped in I Am Legend blu-ray to see some scenes, especially the ones in the dark and I noticed a lot of "snow" and shimmering noise, grain in the dark scenes. Its pretty bad and very distracting. Using cinema and brightness at 50, I have to lower the brightness to below 40 for the effect to be less noticeable. It's only a few days old so I'm wondering if that's normal or do I have bad panel?

Blame the "green" movement, all about the power consumption in the end.

What is your viewing distance ?

for those interested..Sam's is showing the 60 inch 54 model for 799.........

if you are passing picture and sound through an AVR..check the AVR settings for sync

I couldn't agree more. As I've stated in other posts, I have been viewing plasma sets for over ten years and have probably been "trained" (or beaten into submission) regarding how "bright" a well adjusted plasma is when compared to an LCD/LED. That said however, I'll take the inky blacks and stutter-free high speed motion of a plasma over the capabilities of an LCD/LED any day.

(Disclaimer: this is my opinion) The factor I've found that impacts one's enjoyment of plasma viewing to the greatest degree is ambient light in the room. If you can dim the room sufficiently, there is no better picture presentation than plasma; a well adjusted projector aside... I guess I'm fortunate that I was an early adopter of plasma (LED TVs were quite terrible in the early 2000s), so I never got used to or "trained" that the overly bright LCD/LED display is normal or correct.

[Steps down off his soapbox...}

I agree with all but one of your points. I have never experienced the stuttering effect that people describe when watching high speed picture on an LED/LCD, even on the lower end 60mhz models. So IMO, this issue is overblown. I definitely agree that in a setting with minimal ambient light, plasma offers a superior picture.

I think some people are more sensitive to motion artifacts or maybe looking for them. I am a plasma lover but have some experience with some 60hz lcds and as you mentioned I never noticed motion issues with them.

I just picked up a U50 and it's my first plasma. I've looked up what to do to break it in, if it needs it at all. Got lots of different answers. I get the kinds of content to be playing in the first 100 or so hours to not burn anything in, but what about brightness and contrast settings? Or anything else? Thanks.

I'm just making statements based upon my experiences. Your mileage may differ.

Also, much of the program material that I saw "blocking" or "image penalization" in was from Comcast cable feeds of NHL hockey and NFL football some years ago. Comcast may have been having bandwidth constraints somewhere in their system; although my neighborhood is newer with purported "fiber-to-the-neighborhood" technology.

My 50U50 arrived yesterday afternoon and I spent the evening watching TV and eyeballing the picture into my traditional preferred zone. The room has a fairly heavily curtained window and sliding glass door on the South-West side with the TV at the North-West end and a ceiling centered dimming incandescent fixture. There's a walkway into the kitchen at the South-East end with a counter pass-through nearby (kitchen has a ceiling fluorescent fixture). A little light enters via the windows and easily more indirectly from the kitchen fluorescent. Following install I sat down and was a little concerned about some obvious reflections off the screen, but happily, with the set displaying a signal, I see no hint of reflection -- looks perfect, even with the overhead incandescent maxed (I usually have it either off or perhaps half on). I'm so far very satisfied with the TV coax-cable picture and that's with the following preliminary settings.

Mode -- Cinema
Contrast -- 45
Brightness -- 35
Color -- 60
Tint -- +1
Sharpness -- 50 (factory default, didn't fool with it)

I just wiped the screen for about half an hour (two scroll cycles), since for eight hours I mostly watched news and talk show programs, thought wiping would be a good idea. Hoping to check out some movie content tonight and see how that goes. As long as I can avoid image retention issues, I think I should be fine -- very nice picture! I'll eventually do a Video Essentials calibration, but in no rush given the set needs time to settle in. No sign of a buzz last night with my head behind the panel and normal program material -- course, it probably helps that my contrast setting is so modest.
Edited by TrevorS - 12/12/12 at 1:50pm

I'm sitting at about 8 feet away. I did find a solution though. I switched all of my equipment so that it outputs an RGB signal and that solved the issue. On my PS3 and my blu-ray player. Why would that cause an issue though?

I don't know what you mean by AVR? All i'm using is HDMI cables that run from the cable box to the TV.

So this is probably my last post on the subject, I just want to know if there is any way of disabling the ABL by unconventional means. I honestly can't find anything definitive on the subject other than it may be possible to disable the ABL circuit. Is something like this even possible, and would it be feasible? I understand if it did work it would increase power consumption and shorten the life of the TV by a good bit, but these are sacrifices I would be willing to make. I am already going to be out $100-$150 getting this sent back, and I don't want to go running back to LCD just yet. There's definitely something I really like about Plasma, but the ABL is 100% intolerable for me.

I just got my 60U50 today. There was no one around to help me mount it on the wall. Thought I would not be able to use it today and was surprised at how light the unit is. Still kind of a risk, but mounted it anyways. Coming from my old Panny 42inch EDTV, this thing is just amazing, especially the blacks! I do notice playing games on my PS 3, the ABL that JSpectre is talking about kind of makes the faces of the characters on screen a bit dark and that sucks that it cannot be fixed, but worth the trade off for everything else you get. I have yet to try switching from HDMI to component, maybe that will fix it?

One thing I do notice is on lighter shades while running the slides, I hear a faint buzz and although it is not very loud and not noticeable when movies are on, I don't mind taking the back off the unit and messing around with it. Has anyone had success eliminating the buzz by replacing the flat washers on the electronics boards to those gripping washers? I read about people fixing buzz this way, but not sure if it was only for severe buzzing.

The only thing that I dislike about the set is how the inputs are all located on the back and not recessed very much. It was a real bitch getting just the HDMI cable in there once it was mounted. Really miss the inputs located on the bottom side where they are easy to access and not being smashed up against the wall.