The Official Panasonic U50/54 Owners' Thread - Page 24

Dark grey is about as good as it gets with this flat panel, when viewing a full black screen in a dark room.

I am trying out a 50u50 with Dish Network (VIP211K) and I have been noticing s black horizontal lines appearing in areas of fast motion.
I think they call it interlacing? It looks like black stripes.

first I started to notice this in some commercials
Then noticed it in shows. Like I was watching Doctor Oz and he had a fitness guy on. When doing the moves his hands turned into the stripes.

Thinking this might be because I had the box set to 1080i switched to 720p on the box and the issue was still present.

Does this have anything to do with the TV or is the poor Dish.broadcast quality? Or is there a setting to avoid this? I am set to Sceen Full HD size 2 which seems to be the non over scanned size





Also why are some advanced picture settings grayed out Like the first tod 3d y/c filter, color matric 3:2 pull down and 24p direct are all not accessible. Why?

Why are you viewing a full black screen in a dark room again? And why does that have anything to do with pq?

Those settings are greyed out because they are irrelevant to the source being viewed at that time. For example there would be no reason to make any 24p adjustment if the source is 60Hz.

What about the lines. I am more concerned this tv is not displaying- up converting properly.

I did not notice this in broadcasts on LCD accept for a few commercials. But the network shows this I am seeing on more and more shows.
Edited by markstar - 1/31/13 at 11:07am

My preference for movie viewing is a totally dark room, and sometimes movies have fade to black scenes....so it becomes quite apparent the panel is still glowing a very dark grey, not black.

Exactly - or very very dark movies like Halloween - the non-black black becomes very apparent.

Even my direct-view tube HDTV (Sony XBR) isn't completely black under those conditions (yes, it's properly calibrated).

On my first one I had what I found out was dithering so I traded it for another one and this one is worse in dithering, I can't turn up brightness over the default settings without it dithering, but I too noticed on this new one right away when I played a couple blurays that there was noise/artifacts and/or snow in alot of scenes in the background, mostly in darker scenes or in shadows and stuff, this is different than dithering I believe. On my first one I didn't notice this type of effect at all, BD looked amazing and very smooth, not so much on this new one I got. I talked to Panasonic before I traded in my first one and they were goin to set up a time to come look at my tv, I think they thought I was having the issue I am having now with this new one because they had me turn on video NR to strong and what not, so I might call them in a couple days to set something up, I will keep the board posted. BTW I also purchased from Sears and they let me do an exchange without charging 15% but let me know that I wouldn't be able to exchange more than one more time without charging me the 15% restocking fee

In the dark this TV has blacks that are just as good as the ST50/GT50, it only falls short of the VT50. If you were expecting a black so deep you could barely even see the illumination of the TV, you were probably expecting too much. It still has black level ratings that are on average, around 5x better than an LED TV. I don't know the exact black levels on the best Kuro's, but you have to get extremely low to get to the point where your screen looks almost solid black.
Edited by JSpectre88 - 1/31/13 at 3:08pm

My Sony Trinitron and my Sharp CRT both are completely black no glow at all with a completely black screen. Based on all I read about plasma the last few years I was under the impression they were very close to this.

They are close.

I ultimately decided to return the U50 and to buy the ST50. The background noise that I was seeing was too distracting - even from 10 feet away. The ST50 is coming on Tuesday. Sears was great about the return - I still have the box and all of the packaging.

I just picked up the TC-P60U50 model. Reading the specs, doesn't look like this unit is VESA mount compliant.

Do you guys have a recommended wall mount? Preferably a swivel/tilt type.

It is VESA mount compliant.

I have a question about the settings on the U50, alright Im on my 2nd one I returned the 1st one because of extreme static/dithering, on the new one the settings for each HDMI are shared, like if I change settings for HDMI 1 in cinema mode it changes the settings to the same on HDMI 2 in cinema mode. I don't recall this being the case on my first one, I recall when I used the Disney WOW on HDMI 2 in bluray player I had to go back to HDMI 1 and adjust the settings to what I had on HDMI 2. Maybe Im not remembering right or something, could someone check and see if you change settings on HDMI 1 does it change the settings on HDMI 2 also? Might be another thing I have to mention to Panasonic when I call them next week if its not the same on all.

My settings stay the same between both hdmi, change one, they both change.

Same here.

Seems to change. This is odd since at first the HDMI 2 WAS different. But when trying to change the settings in HDMI2 and checking in it WAS different. But when I went back a second time now both are changing. I wonder if it matters I did not have a cable in HDMI 2 when testing?
Edited by markstar - 2/2/13 at 2:15pm

I can't really see the back of my 50U50 as it is wall mounted, but in setup and in the about section says the version is 1020-1030, if that helps any. I bought the tv back in about june 2012 I think.

I have the P50U50 for a few days now. Fantastic inky picture quality. I sold my old Samsung LCD 120hz LN630. I use a HTPC with media center for everything. Works perfectly!. What a fantastic value. Also the TV is handsome and professional looking. The stand may "feel" cheap, but it looks good.

There is definitely a buzzing sound during bright scenes, but my speakers drown it. There is also the line bleed in rare occasions, but I am really nitpicking here. The picture quality is absolutely stunning in a dark room. I only watch TV in the evening so the glare is not an issue.

I use Cinema mode, 68 contrast, 58 brightness, 49 color, 0 sharpness, and auto content type. All others are off.

I call BS on this. I have a calibrated XBR HD CRT and it is not completely black (ie: unlit) on a completely black screen. That beings said, by eyeballing the two of them I'd say the U50 is 95% as dark as my Sony XBR (small enough a difference to not matter in real world usage), but, the XBR's whites are brighter, thus giving a better contrast range. The CRT has better color fidelity, too.

All in all though, the U50's perfect 1:1 pixel mapping, faster refresh rate, and screen size easily trumps all of the CRT's technical advantages. I watch content, not specifications.

Thanks, it must be the norm. I probably was thinkin about another TV I used the WOW on a month or so back.

Sometimes I think theres no way you could get a better picture than what the U50 delivers, but then theres times it looks so darn grainy and pixels jumping around all over in the background, like today I was watching MIB 3 on bluray and for the most part it looked amazing but at the beginning in the scene where they are in the headquarters where its really white in the background it just looked horrible, static/snow/noise/all the above, the pixels were dancin allover in the white, it was very distracting to say the least. The strange thing is I don't think the first U50 I had did this in this scene, This was the first BD I watched with my first one and I remember really focusing on the whites because of all the talk about how it doesn't get that white and I remember changing settings while watching that scene just to see how white it would get, Im sure I would of noticed it if it did it. Maybe Im just expecting to much from this set I guess, I like the TV for the most part and I can't exchange or return another one without getting charged 15% restocking fee, so.......................

If watching a blue ray you could be seeing film grain. I have no idea why people think it is superior and as the director intended when If feel it looks distracting.

I was just watching THE GREY on the 50u50 testing how it does in white snow scenes. (I can report that I did not see any dimming on full snow scenes as I do with commercials )

But what I did see is allot of grain. I was searching on line and it seems they make sure it stays in movies and some claim it is good thing.

I think when I first started testing blu ray and flat panels in December, it was MIB 3 where I noticed grain all of a sudden. I thought it was the Black Friday Blu ray I bought so picked up a Sony to try. The sony showed LESS grain but it was still there.

And in the case of THE GREY, the plasma , at times, made it less noticeable compared to a new Hisense 50" LED I was comparing the 50u50 to.

I was surprised how much more detail in the black areas the LED produced. I thought I had this Plasma vs LED figured out but now I am not sure the plasma was doing as well as I thought.

I will say U50 does a better job with Dish Networks crappy feeds. Less artifacts and blotchy oil painted looking faces on the network shows or shows not fully in true HD. I am not sure why on the networks it is mostly the faces that are showing this. Some panning and zoom in do not show this but jump to a face talking and see all sorts of mess.

However as my trial period is ending, I am not so sure I can deal with the Automatic white balance limiter and 3-4x the electric use. The newer LED seems to have plenty of black and still showing me more detail in the shadows than the U50.

If it were not for watching more broadcast than BD then I would no longer be considering the plasma. I think there were a few pluses for the 50u50. Film grain and the oil paint effect on faces are lessened. Faces looked more natural with plasma. Glare was not so bad. The Hisense LED was glossy as well and with the stand, is pretty heavy. So a draw on screen and weight. The plasma buzz can be heard but only on really bright scenes and if watching at a normal level do not noticed it and when you do, you can easily adapt.

Diming or lowering the contrast one bright white scenes, only noticed during commercials so far, is annoying. Power usage is still higher than I would like. Any savings in the plasma panel is lost in a year or two. IN a 48 hour time period my killawatt said 4.5 KWH were used. The LED used 1.3 KW (300 watt average vs 68w)

I find it interesting that you are comparing the U50 to Hisense 50" LED. I think you should double check your settings.

I won a 50" Hisense LED from CES and I was absolutely stunned at the horrible PQ (smart 3D version, not the low end). I sold it two days later and bought the P50U50. The picture quality is night and day. The LED may be bright but the detail is lacking, overly sharp, and terrible uniformity. The U50 has so much more dark detail. I am very happy with the U50 and finally sold on Panasonic plasma.

btw my sources are OTA and HTPC.
Edited by openwheelracing - 2/3/13 at 1:57pm

Sounds like a setup issue, the U50 properly adjusted shows lots of shadow detail.

Long time lurker.

This particular post made me laugh out loud. I hope it was a joke, but in case it wasn't:

You know for the first 500 miles of owning a new vehicle you are advised to not go over 4,000 RPM on the tach or drive above 55 miles an hour by most manufacturers? Look up 'mechanical run-in'

Anyway, just purchased the U50 at the yellow tag store. Very excited as this will be my first plasma and I'm upgrading from a Samsung LN40B500. I'm hoping the difference will be dramatic with my HTPC. A few questions:

This plasma is actually 1920x1080 and not odd plasma resolutions like 720 panels correct? (1024 x 768 stretched out to 16:9 looks terrible on my parents Samsung Plasma)

Next, does anyone know if there is a 1:1 pixel 'Just Scan' mode that bypasses the scaling/overscanning and whatever undesired processing it adds to HDMI signals? It will primarily be connected to my HTPC.

Hoping it blends in well with the rest of my gear:

Denon AVR-591 | Pioneer SP-FS51s | C21 | BR-41s | Bic F12 | Klipsch RW-12D

don't worry your new U50 works perfectly with HTPC. Don't forget to set aspect setting to "full" and "size 2" to avoid over-scan. You'll notice a bit of flicker on desktop if you sit too close. Put it in Cinema mode and calibrate to your liking. You are set. Enjoy superior picture quality.

Gotcha, so 'full' and 'size 2' should avoid any over scanning.

The flicker on the desktop, would that be due to pixel orbiting or what not? Is that able to be turned off, or is it just the nature of the beast with plasma screens?

Just picked up a 60U50 and Im having some issues with the TV receiving a signal from my receiver. Basically all I get it is no device connected message. When I use the same hdmi cable and connect it directly to the PS3 everything works fine but once I try through the receiver again nothing. I have tried different cables and different ports but the same result. Directly connected to PS3 just fine but nothing through receiver. But here is where it gets really weird... usually when your receiver isn't sending a signal to the tv you still get sound through the speakers just no image. But in my case when I turn the tv off sound works (no image obviously) but if i turn the tv on no sound or image!!!

What the heck is going on? Any help would be appreciated. And yes the receiver definitely works fine.