The Official Panasonic UT50 Settings/Issues Thread - Page 12

I finally was able to complete a 3D white balance calibration. I think it has a little bit of work left because green is very obvious on the low end, but this weekend I should be able to smooth it out.

Cool! Be sure to post your settings! Can't wait. Thanks!

Here it is, my 3D white balance. I didn't think I was going to be able to get readings this good so I'm delighted to have achieved them. The chart below shows how well RGB tracked and especially compared to the previous chart.



I keep motion smoother at low because it helps motion in 3D and avoid too much blur and possible crosstalk. Besides that I use the typical "All Disabled" settings.

Contrast: +90
Brightness: +58
Color: +50
Tint: 0

The White Balance settings are for Cool color temp because I have Warm and Normal already calibrated for other 2D picture modes. These are the white balance values I have for 3D.

R Cut 75
G Cut 71
B Cut 62

R Drive FA
G Drive FF
B Drive 9B

All Cut 75
All Drive FF

These are calibrated to Panasonic 2012 Active Shutter 3D glasses. Different brands will have different tints and densities so it may not look the same disregarding the fact that not all TVs are the same. Also, if you have a 3D movie and play it back in 2D using 3D to 2D "Conversion" the color will be wrong because it's made to be viewed through the 3D glasses. 3D mode also alters the color temp of a 2D calibration which is why it's necessary to calibrate in 3D mode through the synced 3D glasses.

anikuon07- You already posted your factory WB default settings for WARM could you do the same for NORMAL and COOL? Assuming you recorded them of course.

I'm using your WARM calibrated settings (they look fantastic btw) but didn't use the exact values you posted because our default settings were a bit different manly the R-Drv, my default is FF yours is F6. Anyway, I calculated the number of clicks +/- from your factory default to your calibrated settings and changed my settings accordingly. So if you could post your NORMAL & COOL defaults so I can calculate the clicks to your calibrated settings I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks again!!!

WARM
R-Cut= +4
G-Cut= -18
B-Cut= -27

R-Drv= -7
G-Drv= 0
B-Drv= +22

I will have to look, I don't know if I ever wrote them down. I didn't write them right before calibrating but I may have written them down when I first started calibrating.

I do not have a default value written down for Normal or Cool.

Thanks for the settings!

Anikun07,

I have been using both your Cinema and Custom Settings. Both are very similar with colour but I notice a slightly richer image with custom/normal setting (which I prefer) however I lose some detail in darker areas of an image, but very very close.

I am going to run the AVS HD 709 tonight on my 55UT50 to better calibrate it to the lights in my room and see if that makes a difference.

However I was interested to know if you were using the Custom/Normal or the Cinema/Warm2 settings on your TV?

Also has anyone else noticed that the Custom/Normal creates a rich picture but you lose some detail in the dark areas of an image? If so, is it better to bump up brightness or contrast to compensate?

Thanks in advance
Edited by Skonoby - 12/10/12 at 12:08pm

Yes, both are calibrated to D65 and Custom looks like a richer image, I think, for a couple reasons. The two reasons I think it looks more appealing is because it's brighter (just a guess), but also the color gamut of Custom is slightly wider than D65/rec. 709 and Cinema has a slighty narrower gamut than D65/rec. 709. I use Cinema for all viewing because of one particular and important reason. Gamma. Ideal gamma for watching shows and movies is subjective, but the agreed range is 2.2-2.5, some people like a little bit brighter picture and some like that inky dark picture that is superb for dark scene movies, like the Dark Knight series. A gamma of 2.2 is brighter than 2.5, so it's an inverse value to luminance/brightness. The key difference between Custom mode and Cinema mode is that Custom only has a gamma of about 1.08, not even remotely close to recommended viewing range, where as Cinema on my UT50 has gamma of 2.14. That's really close to that 2.2 value. Now, that's what I watch when I'm not using my HTPC. I've recently rid myself of a standalone player for my UT50 and exclusively use my HTPC for all disc and file format playback. I use the TV's built-in apps for streaming Netflix and Amazon Prime Instant Video. The reason I prefer to exclusively use my HTPC for movie/TV show playback is because I use the Cal PC client to further correct my grayscale and gamma of the TV's calibration. With Cal PC client I can have a 10/11 point grayscale instead of the 2 point of the UT50 service menu. I can also set the target gamma in Cal PC to increase gamma from the TV's Cinema mode 2.14 to anything I want. I've chosen 2.28 as my preferred gamma. I find that it's a sweet spot between the bright 2.20 and the dark 2.40. While PathofNeo still had is VT50, D-Nice calibrated it to a gamma of 2.6, which really gives a wonderful picture but I thought it was just a little dark for my preference. But gamma is the reason why you're losing that detail in dark areas of the screen. The Custom mode 1.08 just can't compete with the 2.14 of Cinema mode, so adjusting contrast or brightness shouldn't really affect those spots much in order to get more detail. You'll just make it brighter or darker and that's how/why gamma works the way it does.

Probably more than you wanted, but I believe for a truly accurate picture - the reason we calibrate to begin with, Cinema mode should be used. It's true Custom may look more pleasing, but if we're calibrating or using calibrated settings, then we're not necessarily looking for what's pleasing or more vivid, but we're looking for what is accurate. And in that context, Cinema mode is what's accurate.

This post shows you the difference in color gamut and gamma between Custom and Cinema. You can also see the post Cal PC calibration.

Hope this helps.

Thanks Anikun07,

I reviewed the charts from your early posts however your additional comments help alot.

I see from your charts the DeltaE 2000 numbers are much higher in custom, what is that? Also the gamma tracking is opposite for Cinema and Custom (referring to colors in the positive field vs negative). could you briefly explain this.

Unfortunately I don’t have a HTPC to help adjust the gamma to 2.28. So this means that I will need to calibrate to the 2.18 of Cinema.

With that said would calibrating to the base 2.18 in Cinema change your posted WB settings from the service menu? If so, I am assuming it best to go back to default WB?

I would also like to thank you for your contributions to this site. This is a new world for me and am trying to grasp the basics. The information that you and other posters (neo, giraffe) contribute is invaluable.

Thanks!

DeltaE 2000 is a value of how far off that grade of gray (10% / 10 IRE) is to true gray / white. Of course grayscale is equal amounts of RGB and we show that on the gamut chart in the "center." That point is D65, reference white, which is a color temp of ~6504K. If we look at that gamut chart as a graph, we have red and blue as our X,Y coordinates and D65 is at .313, .329, so that DeltaE 2000 value is how far off our grayscale shade is compared to that reference location. The closer to 0 the better. A value under 5 is acceptable and a value under 3 is said to be unnoticeable. two values you can usually ignore are 0% gray / 0 IRE and 10 IRE. Because these are such dark shades the readings are usually off because the meter just can get a good reading.

For gamma, the most common form of expressing it is the power law, I don't know the exact formula but it's something along the lines of output brightness = input brightness ^(1/gamma). So that's why gamma has an inverse relation of its value to screen brightness (2.5 is darker than 2.2). The gamma charts for the grayscale pages show that Custom has gamma all over the place whereas Cinema is relatively flat. Flatter is better and 2.2 - 2.5 is good. That is how you get good detail throughout all brightness levels. On the color gamut pages you can see the deltaE values are closer to rec. 709 in Cinema than Custom, and that shows that Cinema has more accurate color reproduction. The UT50 doesn't have a CMS so we can't correct the primary and secondary colors. We do have Color and Tint, but Color just changes the brightness of color and Tint shifts everything toward green or red.

One thing to note is that gamma is a function of the calibration and settings. On the UT50 we don't have an option for gamma so we get what Panasonic gives us built in. Changing the white balance settings can affect the gamma, but not by much since we're really only changing RGB to be equal. Typically you would set gamma (on my Sony LCD it's something like -1, 0, +1 or -3, -2, -1, 0, +1, +2, +3) and then calibrate grayscale and then see the gamma results. By using default WB settings your gamma won't really change, but your WB will be off. Using my WB settings should give you something near what I see on my TV. Again, no two TVs are the same so it's highly unlikely that my settings will create an identical picture to anyone else's but they should be pretty close.

I just bought the P60UT50 about two weeks ago. I used the Cinema settings listed earlier in this thread and it looks amazing, but I just have a question.

I noticed last night while watching The Avengers that anytime there were night scenes or scenes in space I'm seeing this kind of layered effect. It was almost as if when the camera panned there were different shades of black. I'm really new to this kind of thing so if there was anyone who understands my vague description can help I'd appreciate it.

Like posterization?

Which? "HDMI Size 2"? I think that just translates to the "Overscan" setting on ours, in which case Off is what we want for 1:1 pixel mapping. However, as I said before, I'm still seeing a slight blurring effect. I used an overscan test pattern, and the image definitely isn't being over-scaled. But it doesn't look quite 1:1 to me - almost like it's been under-scaled just a tiny bit.
Edited by Oubadah - 12/13/12 at 1:28am

Yea I believe posterization is what's happening. Now keep in mind this wasn't a blu-ray or DVD I was HD streaming it from Amazon if that could be the culprit.

My guess is the streaming connection. I've never noticed posterization on my screen but if I'm not watching DVD/BD then I don't really expect much regardless of the feed because even "HD" streaming doesn't match BD.

What I planned on doing was getting the blu-ray and going to back to scenes that I remember noticing it. I agree with you that this more than likely was a streaming issue

I spent time this last week tweaking calibrations because I removed my Sony S580 as my disc player. If you use that model, and possibly the S590, you may want to continue using my previous settings because it looked like it had blue push compared to the TV. This time around I calibrated using the AVS HD 709 mp4 files on a flash drive and played them back on the TV's built-in media player. I'm assuming the TV doesn't created any kind of color push and just plays back the files as they were created. Here are the new charts that show the changes and the settings that I ended up with.

For Cinema Mode you can see blue was lacking across the board based on the S580 calibration.




After tuning things on the TV directly, everything is evened out pretty well.




White balance settings for Warm (I use this with Cinema mode)

R-Cut: 83
G-Cut: 6E
B-Cut: 66

R-Drv: EB
G-Drv: FF
B-Drv: 99

All-Cut: 83
All-Drv: FF



For Normal color temp, that I use with Custom mode I don't think I remembered to take a pre-calibration screen shot, but the post calibration is pretty good.




White balance settings for Normal (I use this with Custom mode)

R-Cut: 7E
G-Cut: 6A
B-Cut: 63

R-Drv: ED
G-Drv: FF
B-Drv: 99

All-Cut: 7E
All-Drv: FF


And I also tweaked 3D calibration with Panasonic 3D active shutter glasses, other brands might vary for color accuracy. Before I had calibrated 3D off my HTPC using the AVS HD 709 disc, but that technically changes the output a little bit, so based off the PC's playback 3D used to look like this:




Now, based off the TV playback, white balance has been smoothed out from 30 IRE to 90 IRE.




I'll reiterate that I used Cool color temp for 3D because Warm and Normal are beings used specifically for Cinema and Custom picture modes. 3D glasses have a green tint to them so it's important to calibrate through the lens, while synced to the proper 3D frame. So you only want to use Cool when you're using your 3D glasses or you have a bit of green push due to the offset.


White balance settings for Cool with the intention of 3D viewing

R-Cut: 75
G-Cut: 71
B-Cut: 64

R-Drv: FE
G-Drv: FF
B-Drv: 93

All-Cut: 75
All-Drv: FF

If you happen to like the normal white balance more than the warm, or vice-versa, you don't have to use it with those picture modes. I don't think color temp has is affected by the mode just the gamma function. So feel free to use warm and normal with any of the picture modes and see what you like most for each mode.

Great job,only thing I could think of to make it complete is instead of just showing wb values you should state the amount of clicks + or - from default since everyone's defaults are different as Panasonic calibrates all the sets to look the same. That's why dnice does the + and - clicks. Awesome job though,and thanks a lot.

I don't know what my default values were. But, do you think that the SD settings would be the same as the HD settings, I've never changed the SD settings.

Yeah,they should be.

anikun07- I recorded my HD default normal, warm, cool WB settings before trying your settings and I just checked the SD WB settings and they are in fact the same!

LB

So I just got the 50u50 last night at bestbuy for 648.. Sams and Costco no longer carry it.. I am wondering what setting I should use for cable (getting comcast today) and gaming it seems like pathofneos were the go to but those seem to no longer be listed.

I see you are from nw illinois? What part exacly? I am in Schaumburg. Do you offer you services for other ut owners new to all this? i would love to have my tv professionally calibrated; however, I don't want just anybody. you seem like you know your stuff, and i would like to know whether or not you would be interested in that?

whoops, i thought i was replying to a specific response. i was addressing anikon07? i dunno. lol

I have family in that area. If I had a commercial license of CalMAN, I'd love to do calibration but I recommend following the settings I have posted, they're pretty good. I've only been doing calibration for 2 months, but have been doing a lot of reading in the mean time. I will post my original WB values so everyone can adjust the proper number of clicks.

First, thanks to you all for the great content in both this thread and the original owner's thread. I have been away from the forum since I stopped selling at Sears in late 2007 and HD-DVD lost the battle. My 40" or 42" 720p Toshiba DLP finally died this week after 5 years of heavy use so my 55UT50 gets delivered tomorrow. I have the DVE calibration disk for HD-DVD format that I plan on playing with but do have some questions that may or may be set specific or could be 1080p specific.

My intent is to hook up both my Blu-Ray player and HD-DVD player to the two HDMI ports and hooking up my Comcast HD box to the component input.

1. Will I lose any potential picture quality improvements by hooking up the cable box via component? Comcast doesn't broadcast any 1080p content that I'm aware of.

2. I will borrow some of the suggested settings post on this thread in the short term. Based on what I am reading will I just not be able to adjust the HDMI specific settings when adjusting the component input settings (I assume the option will be greyed out)?

A lot changes in 5 years. If these questions are extremely basic I apologize. Thanks in advance.

Its been a while since I've had Comcast for cable but I had a better experience being hooked up via component since I didn't have to wait for hdcp handshake every time I changed the channel from regular TV to something like HBO. The picture had a little noise but it isn't going to look too great anyway considering the resolution is being scaled to the panel.
I don't have anything hooked up via component to my ut but it seems like the picture settings are input specific.

I just got a 60ut, do I need to do the 100hr slideshow? Dnice have it for the st but I dont see anyone mention it here.

Only if you're going to calibrate "Out of the Box."