The Official Panasonic UT50 Settings/Issues Thread - Page 8

Here's my latest calibration that I started last night and tweaked a bit more this afternoon.

This screenshot is for the TV calibration.




These next two are off my PC using the PC Client.

Pre Auto Cal




Post Auto Cal



My UT50's gamma is just about 2.15 and RGB is fairly well balanced using 30 and 80 IRE white balance. Of course the TV is being calibrated using the AVSHD disc played on a Sony S580 BDP. The settings for the BDP is set to YCbCr 4:2:2 and the TVs input gamut is set to Auto. The PC output is set to YCbCr 4:4:4 so it should be outputting 16-235. The PC itself introduced quite a bit of low end red and green throughout. With the PC Client the best part is being able to enhance the TVs internal calibration by increased the number or white balance points and being able to choose any gamma curve. I sampled gamma levels at 2.15, 2.2, 2.4, and 2.6. Using a few different movies scenes I decided 2.6 was too dark and shadow detail got difficult to see, but it sure makes a nice picture. I thought 2.2 seemed a little bright and 2.4 was just a bit darker than I would prefer so I was considering 2.3. I remember reading in a calibration thread here that someone really liked 2.28 and thought it was a perfect gamma level so I decided to use that. The picture of the TV is great. I really like the TV with its 2 pt white balance, but by being able to tweak gamma a bit makes a great picture even better.

ok guys you got me on this and i order a 55ut50 today at Best Buy....any advise? should i get the insurance they sell for $180 for 2 yrs? do i have to break in in anyway? i even order a darbee darblet on monday to install on my samsung UN46E6400 LED 3D set,does it will work too on this unit since is new and plasma? reading this thread (trying to understand because my english is bad) is what makes me make my decision so any help will be aprecciate.

Hello Zoroastro,

First of all, thank you for all your information, I'm glad to hear that I bought something good
Having doubts to change the UT50 for the ST50, because watching tv during the day does have a noticeable influence on the contrast.
You start to see the grey/green" glasplate/screen due to the incoming light.

I came from a sony 40inch CCFL-LCD, KDL-40BX400. Not a top-top-tv at all, but the picture was perfect!
Ofcourse, you could see the backlighting, and somne blue/grey spots, lucky enough I could adjust it, so I was wcahting at 40% of maxium.
This gave me a minimum of blue/gray spots without degrading the colors/quality too much. Never noticed any lag.

The good thing with this tv was that it didn't influenced the picture at all, no processing effects, no dynamic contrast etc.
But the blue/grey spots were bothering me. So I sold it on the net, and bought a FULL-LED LCD with 3D from LG, 42LM3400.
Found good reviews, and the FULL-LEd ment unifrom lighting of the screen, yes, one big uniform blue/grey screen!!!
horrible, when I turned down the backlighting to a acceptable level, all colours where out of balans, no descent picture at all.
Didn't matter what I changed, actived or deactived, I could not get the colours balanced.
I returned the tv the same week!!

Visited several AV-stores, and all sellers adviced me to buy a plasma. I found a review of the UT50 on HDTVtest.co.uk, and I was convinced.
Have been playing with the settings last night and today again. You are right about that when there are some bright parts in a picture, the blacks around start to look more black.
What I also noticed with many movies that dark / night scenes are many times not black at all...

Tonight I was watching the movie "The Thing 2011".
In the beginning of the movie, there is a scene at night where they set the monster on fire. The flames FELT real, like the fire was really 3 meters in front of me, so detailed and CORRECT!
But then, when the camera was panning, I had LAG with "True Cinema" setting. ?
Like I was watching interlaced material. My source is a 1080P mediaplayer set to 1080P 60Hz.
It's not the movie, becaus I watched it 1 month ago just before I sold my Sony, and then I didn;t have any LAG.
This irritated me because I couldn't follow the fast action scenes . I really dislike this.
Can I improve/change this? I thought this plasma didn't have any problems with this..
I'm not going to use Intelligent Frame Creation, or however it is called, because it makes the picture look "plastic".
Everything is sharp and moves smooth, but it doesn'tt feel real.

Internet/TV enters my house by fiber-glass connection 100mb/s up/down, great
Got an Amino settop-box. 720P/1080i, so set to 720P. After running an automated software update, the only options I have now regarding resolution is interlaced :S:S 576/720/1080i i i i i i. Phoned them directly, but they couldn't do anything for me, no firmware downgrading, "sorry".
WTF.

Also, when I pause the movie, and go close to the screen, parts of the picture with no details, like a grey wall of concrete, you can see coloured pixels going over that part the whole time, like a lot of noise. When I move back, you won't see it anymore. Is this normal?
With LCD I never saw something like this when I got close.

So, can I fix the LAG problem? It maybe sound stupid, but if the LAG stays, I will return it....

Is there a way to calibrate 3D white balance, or does it just use 2D color temp settings?

From my experience,changing wb for custom changed it for all picture modes and 3d. When i changed the wb for custom,i left the sm and then went back in to change it for cinema mode but i couldn't because cinema and custom shared the same wb settings. I think the wb settings are shared for all modes but i'm not sure and don't feel like messing with my tv right now to confirm it lol. I do know that after changing my custom wb,my cinema wb was the same next time i went into the sm.

I'm pretty sure you don't change the picture mode's white balance; color temp mode is changed. You can rotate through each picture mode but I don't think that has an affect on white balance. Did your experience seem different?

Right,thats basically what i was trying to say. I wanted to be able to change if for the modes and not just the color temp. How would that work,would i just select the mode i want and then select the color temp and calibrate that color temp or would that color temp be changed for all picture modes? I haven't messed with mine in so long and don't really want to mess with it to confirm this until Neo posts his calibration settings.

I thought color temp was the same regardless of picture mode but I didn't check. I've been meaning to to a color gamut reading on custom to see if it's different than cinema.

go to pick up my 55ut50 today,any sugestiones for the installation and first hours of pictures/movies? thanks

My cousin's getting a TC-P50UT50 next week. I still have the burn-in slides from when I burned in and calibrated my GT25 a few years ago. I'll burn in his TV for the recommended 100 hours, but then what? Are there specific calibration settings that have been verified by anyone here?

Thanks for your help.

x2 I was wondering the same thing.
I check this thread on a daily hoping something new pops up.... let us know!

I can say that Cinema Mode is the best for gamma, but I was curious about Custom Mode. Here's what I learned. Cinema Mode has a gamma of 2.15 and the color gamut is fairly close but the primary triangle is inside the D65 gamut triangle. Custom Mode had a gamma of 1.08 but the gamut extends outside the D65 range. The benefit of using Calman with a PC Client license is it corrects WB and gamma, but if I create an ICC profile then MPC-HC should be able to send a perfect picture to the TV.

I'm looking forward to read PathofNeo's settings too so I can see how our display's compare.

Here are some pictures of BDP playback vs PC playback. The BDP playback is from a Sony S580 with gamma 2.15 and the PC playback is using TMT5 with Calman PC Client calibration at gamma 2.28. The top pictures are the BDP and the bottom is PC. At least I'm 90% sure that's what they're from, I might have them switched, but I don't think so.








You can see the BDP seems to be a little darker, but I would have thought the opposite to happen with slightly higher gamma.

Edit: I did some looking into the differences as to why the BDP is darker and it's because PC Client is calibrated to 2.28 gamma in a color space of 0-255. When that calibration is read on a 16-235 color space, the gamma drops to 2.08 and that is why the BDP still shots are darker - they're supposed to be. So I'm looking into correcting this and getting gamma to read 2.28 on a 16-235 range.
Edited by anikun07 - 11/5/12 at 6:53pm

Thanks for the update, I am / we are really looking forward to it!

I've had the 50UT50 for just under a week now and wanted to say thanks to all for the calibration settings and advise with this TV. It's my first plasma so the IR paranoia is still with me. One issue I've run into though is with the HDMI CEC. It works wonderfully with my Panasonic DMP-BDT210 and Onkyo TX-NR709 except when I want to listen to my Squeezebox Touch connected to my Onkyo via optical. When I turn the receiver on to listen to music the TV turns on and the ARC takes over and I can't hear my music. If I turn the TV off the receiver goes off with it too. I'd prefer to keep the power on/off settings as is so the HDMI CEC can control everything (makes it easier for the family to use). I have a Logitech Harmony 700 and that's getting me by for now but I would prefer HDMI CEC as the 700 has been giving me issues recently almost like my programming isn't being loaded correctly. Thanks!

I have a Harmony 650 and it does all the power control. In the system settings under viera link you can disable CEC power on/off. That should fix the problem and still allow you you have ARC communication.

Does anybody know any good settings when playing an xbox 360?

Sorry in advance if this has already been posted somewhere, I tried to do a search but couldn't find anything. I'm looking for settings that work best when playing xbox 360. Not sure if they "game" mode is already set up or if anybody has any good settings. It seems like its fairly dark to me. If it matters I usually play fps games.
Thanks!

Thanks for tip!

I was also wondering if someone could post the factory settings for the service menu. I poked around in there just to see and I don't think I changed anything but I just want to make sure.

These are the settings that I currently use for the 360 & PS3. Note, I didn't use these until I had well over 200 hours on the TV for fear of burn in.

Game Mode
Contrast........ 84
Brightness...... 56
Color..............48
Tint.................0
Sharpness.........0

Color Temp Warm 2
Color mgmt: OFF
C.A.T.S: OFF
Video NR: OFF
Aspect Adjust: FULL-SIze 2
HDMI Settings/Content type: Graphics

Advance Picture-
Mosquito NR: OFF
Black Level: Light

i have my 55ut50 for about 2 weeks now and im a not very satisfied with the picture quality,my question is...does after 100-150 hours it gets much better in the image department or just a little bit better? i have 30 days for returning but i see all the people here talking about how good this set is so im comfuse.for me it does no look sharp it look a little blury too even with the darbee on,i used to have a un46d6400 samsumg the have a beautyfull picture quality but the motion blur was making me crazy.any color set up you can throw at me? any advice? my current settings set up is..

sony bdp-s790 blur ray

screen format-full (normal is the other choice)
cinema convertion mode-auto.....(video is the other choice)
output video format-Auto (original resolution or 1080p should i choose?)
bd-rom 24p output-ON (auto or off are the others choice)
4k output-Auto (off is the other choice)
YcbCr/RGB (hdmi) Auto (YcbCr (4:2:2)....YcbCr (4:4:4)....and RGB are the others choice)
deep color-Auto
smb-ON
video settings-Direct (brighter room,theather room,auto,custom 1&2 are the others choices)

i set the pictures on the tv to defaults because i was not satisfied but i try these settings...


Picture mode - Cinema

Contrast - 78
Brightness - 52
Color - 48
Tint - +1
Sharpness - 0
Color Temp - Warm 2
Color Mgmt - Off
C.A.T.S. - Off
Video NR - Off

HDMI Settings

RGB Range - Auto
Content type - Graphics

Advanced

Block NR - Off
Mosquito NR - Off
Motion Smoother - Off
Black Level - Light
3:2 Pulldown - Auto

im still not satisfied but as i ask...do i have to wait? does it gets any better? thanks for the help in advance!!!

Hi All,

I just purchased my Panasonic TC-P50UT50 television and would like to adjust the settings but I really don't know where to begin.

It seems to me that there should be some "cookbook" procedures explaining step by step how to do it and what to look for. For example, back in the dinosaur era of black and white photography, you increased the contrast until you lost detail in the black and white areas.

Do such procedures exist for today's televisions?

Thanks in advance,

Bob

Download the AVS HD 709 files, there is a tutorial In the mp4 files that's guides the way through the disc.

Why yes Bob they do! But you will need some patterns for it.
The Disney WOW disc is great, and there are several others including a good free one by the forum on here.
For example, you go to the Brightness (for blacks) pattern. You turn it all the way up until it shows all the information that you are not supposed to see. Then you turn it down until it is hiding everything below 16 that will make your blacks as good as they can be without blacking out your details or washing out your picture if it is too high.
Spears and Munsil, DVE, and Disney WOW all offer very good instructions on exactly how to do all of this in a very "cookbook" kind of way, since everything is adhering to a strict standard.
-Phil

OK - so after a bit of going back and forth and back and forth between Custom and Cinema - I have finally made a decision.
But it was a $400 dollar decision.
And worth every single penny!
Cinema has always been the most accurate place to go on a Panasonic plasma when you are setting it up.
The gamma is always right and the colors are great at the WARM 2 setting. But this TV is a bit different.
And as PathofNeo originally said, Custom turned out to be the best picture with the GRAPHICS setting. And looking between the two, I definitely chose Custom.
Cinema just looked washed out and blurry.
But then he sent me an email after getting a professional calibration stating that Cinema really is the way to go.
He has all kinds of charts and stuff from the calibrator and yes, Cinema had the best gamma as usual. So I tried it again. Re-ran the discs I had and got the same results.
Going back and forth between Custom and Cinema on a paused video game first, then a Blu Ray, I could see it fade out and lose resolution as soon as it hit Cinema.
So my conclusion was that maybe a professional calibration would take care of these issues and I would just leave it on Custom until that day (if it ever came).
And then I came across an article about outboard video processors and the amazing things they can do. But I kind of ignored it because they are usually too expensive to even consider.
And then I found out the DVDO Edge GREEN for $399 Amazon (free shipping) had the same Reference quality processing that its' $1200 counterpart had, so I had to give it a try. (the link actually goes to a cool HDNATION video about the DVDO)
All I can say is WOW.
And here is what I don't yet understand.
I tried it with both Custom and Cinema and it looked amazing on both.
So I decided to keep it on Cinema with the correct gamma setting built in and nothing looks washed out - and the resolution is better than I have ever seen on ANY 60 inch TV!
Every detail - every hair strand is crystal clear!
And another thing is that mine had the "oil painting effect" when viewing 720 content that was up-scaled to 1080p. That no longer exists!
Which is awesome because most PS3 games are 720p and the neither the PS3 or the Panasonic did a good job at this. The XBOX360 actually has a good internal scaler.
It is like getting a new high powered video card for a computer and seeing the graphics like you have never seen them before.
So I am guessing that everything this TV is doing weird is from its own processor and the DVDO is fixing it all.
It is the best TV I have ever had with the best picture I have ever seen.
Anyone who has any insights to this please feel free to chime in.
So Cinema it is for me.
But if anyone on here is not wanting to go the outboard processor route or get a Full Professional calibration - you probably will get a much better picture in the Custom/Graphics mode.
If the DVDO broke - I would go back to those settings.

Sounds good with the DVDO! Custom picture mode has a slightly wider gamut than D65 and Cinema's is a hair inside the D65 gamut triangle. Blue is about spot on in each mode, so it basically comes down to red and green accuracy. The gamma of cinema mode is 2.15 whereas custom is a mere 1.08, so that's a big difference and major picture killer if you want lights and darks to track properly. For my current setup, I have Calman PC Client setting gamma to 2.28 for HTPC playback and it will correct WB and gamma regardless of the picture mode. So if I felt Custom gave a better picture, I could auto cal with my target gamma and get proper grayscale and gamma. It will compensate for the any lacking values in custom mode. I have some more things to do before I get my HTPC full-blown for all my playback, but so far it's going well. I'm glad to hear you found a processor that works great at a good price. I'll be keeping that in mind if I ever need one.

Please tell me where these files are. I am new to this site and don't know my way around.

Also, can I use the tutorial on an ordinary PC?

Thanks,

Bob

Thanks anikun07!
That sounds like a really cool setup.
BobGuercio, the disc link is here in blue.
Haven't tried then on a PC, but if they are mp4 files you should be able to play them.
-Phil

PRBR - have you tried using Custom mode yet?
As I mentioned before - Cinema did not look good to me although that is usually the best setting and would be with a professional calibration.
Also - what setup/calibration disc are you using?
You will not notice a change after 100 hours or whatever of "break in."
It would only be a little bit if you did.
But it is very important that you use a disc and not just numbers from this forum. All Tv's are different, even from the same assembly line.
It needs to be setup with your room lighting.
Also, even though the gamma is weird in Custom, it still makes a better picture than most TVs I have ever seen.
But a $25 disc is well worth the money if you don't want a full professional calibration.
(Which I would do, but there are not many of those in Alabama)
Give it a little longer before you take it back, but if you still are not sure - there are plenty of other good TVs that will make you happy.
-Phil

PathofNeo - glad to hear that you decided to go with the 60 inch!!! You will notice a difference from the 42.