The Official Panasonic UT50 Settings/Issues Thread - Page 20

I have some screen shots of a D9300K calibration that I used Cal PC Client to get and compared them with my D65 calibration. The average gamma of the D 9300K was 2.30 and the D65 gamma average is 2.28 but that won't affect the amount of color shift you see. Also, Calman calibrated to 0-255 with the HTPC output set to 16-235. I took the pictures with a Nikon D40 on a tripod and then reduced the resolution for uploading. The DSLR camera will not accommodate for white balance which makes it perfect for comparing the change in white balance. There are several pictures to compare and it is too blue, if you ask me. There are from Studio Ghibli's "Castle in the Sky" DVD released by Disney. Here they are:


Screenshot 1

D65


D 9300K




Screenshot 2

D65


D 9300K




Screenshot 3

D65


D 9300K




Screenshot 4

D65


D 9300K



Screenshot 5

D65


D 9300K




Screenshot 6

D65


D 9300K




Screenshot 7

D65


D 9300K



As you can see, the D9300K samples are definitely cooler and look wrong compared to their D65 counterparts. I hope this helps anyone else considering a D9300K calibration. So as far as I'm concerned, the content I have for viewing that's originally from Japan is picture perfect on a D65 calibration.

I applied these settings on my UT50E, picture looks better, but on dark scenes black is not black but little bit red..

My default values was:
R-Cut - 80
G-Cut - 80
B-Cut - 80
R-DRV - E3
G-DRV - FF
B-DRV - 83
All-CUT - 80
All-Drive - FF

That's pretty normal, I think, to have a color push at less than 10 IRE. I know with my UT50 with the AVS 709 brightness pattern I have red dithering if I turn up brightness higher than it should be.

Hey Laughing Buddha and Anikun,

Do you happen to have the +/- click amounts for the normal and cool WB calibrations? If Anikun didn't note his defaults, is it ok if i just follow use ones he posted in his last calibrations post? His Warm defaults were very close to mine... this is not a must as i am sooooo happy with my warm settings! just wouldn't mind seeing what the others look like.

One other question, I have the US model and i don't know how you guys are adjusting 3D settings? i only have standard, cinema, vivid, custom and game? I do notice 3D settings in the settings section but they don't help. Do I need to have a 3D source feeding into the TV and then go into the service menu?

thanks,
kev,

Hey Anikun and Buddha,

Sorry guys disregard the number of clicks question,, found that on post 365.

Still have a question about using cool for 3D settings. What are you guys doing this under cinema or custom in the service menu?

Thanks again,

Hey Anikun,

Regarding the number of + or - clicks you need to input in the service menu under Custom for color temp Normal. I noticed a few may have been off or different from my TV. For example the R Drive if your default was F6 then you only need to -9 to get ED not -18 (at least as per my TV (US model 50" UT50)) I also noticed the same thing for B drive?? any reason you can think of?

Buddha can you shed some light on this?

Here are my defaults
R Cut 80
G Cut 80
B Cut 80

R Drive FA*
G Drive FF
B Drive B8*

All Cut 80
All Drive FF

thanks,

kev,

It doesn't matter what you have the picture mode when you're just inputting the values because you're not taking readings. If you were taking readings then it would affect picture. As for the number of clicks, it's up to you. You can either assume that all displays are calibrated at the factory so all the displays look the same so you should need to adjust the number of clicks. Or you can figure that the TVs aren't calibrated to look the same at the factory and you should use the end value listed.

So when i go into the service menu to adjust the normal temp WB settings do I need to go under Custom or it doesn't matter for example i can go under Cinema. If it doesn't matter than i assume once you change a color temp setting it will be saved and changed for all picture settings, ie custom and cinema.

As far as 3D is concerned. What picture setting (custom or Cinema) are you using once you adjust the cool WB settings?

Thanks for getting back to me Anikun.

Yes, it saves the color temp for a settings, except there are HD and SD color temps so you can do those separate. I don't have any SD content so I haven't changed those. I use cinema mode for cool set for 3D. I only did a calibration of custom for you guys on the forum that like using custom mode. I use cinema mode for all viewing purposes.

Anikun just put in your Custom/Normal WB settings and the TV looks sick!

Which do you use your Custom settings or your Cinema settings? Both look really good. I can't decide?

kev,

anikun I think you might have a typo in your NORMAL WB value settings like ut50guy suggested.

For R-Drv I set my value to F6 and went -18 click and ended up at E4 not ED.

Same with the B-Drv, I set my value to B7 and went +25 clicks and ended up at D0 not 99.

I think you might have typed your calibrated value of ED & 99 incorrectly. I didn't catch this earlier because I changed my defaults (which are different than yours) by the number of clicks you posted.

LB

thanks Anikun. =) I agree Cinema rocks !

Anikun when you get a chance can you confirm your normal settings... the more i watch the custom with normal the more i think my settings are a bit off... Good thing i have Cinema dialed in.

thanks,

If there is an error with my posted settings it would be with the number of clicks and not my end value. My end values are those that I calibrated my TV to, however I later went back to the default value and counted the number of clicks. My default values were taken from my SD defaults because I didn't record the default HD values.

Okay...I'm using Windows Calculator to find the difference (I think it's doing what I want..)

Try these corrections:
Red Drive: -9 clicks
Blue Drive: -30 click

I know what I did wrong.. When I looked at my default values I looked at the wrong column, I was looking at Warm default and not Normal. That's why those two are off. If you take FF and subtract ED you'll get 18 clicks and if you take 99 and subtract 80 you'll get 25 clicks. I will go back and correct that post. Thanks for catching this. Tell me what you think of the new settings.

Edit: Post 361 updated to show these corrections.
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1412033/the-official-panasonic-ut50-settings-issues-thread/360#post_22712742
Edited by anikun07 - 1/9/13 at 7:24pm

Thanks Anikun,

It did make a difference. Now I find it really hard to tell the difference between Warm 2 and Normal under Cinema mode. Normal has a bit more pop, but i think i prefer the Warm setting better. But its nice to have the option.

thanks again man,

Kev,

I'm glad that fixed the problem. Of course the goal is not to be able to see a difference between warm and normal with their picture modes. I'm glad to hear you like it.

Anikun, I have a question. I'm taking a course on Lynda.com about color management, and it says that for low ambient light environments D50 is the preferred white point, D65 for a normal environment. Do you think that D50 would be better for a completely dark room? If so would you post those service menu settings when you have a chance? Thanks for all your hard work!

I'm noting IR differences between panel build dates. Both TV's below were broken in with slides, the second TV even more "properly" than the first in fact since I left the first on the wall while I ran slides on #2 for 7 days.

First 55UT50 Panel Oct 2012 Build Date: No discernible IR problems. I was really impressed with this panel in terms of IR compared to my 2009 Samsung. My completely non-scientific test is to connect my HTPC which has a solid gray desktop, right click on the desktop, revealing the menu and shortly after, clicking the desktop to hide the menu. I could see NO trace of the menu left behind.

Note: I ended up returning this panel because of the vertical band uniformity issue (before I knew the extent of the banding issue) and because it buzzed quite loudly during bright sequences (I'm used to this having only owned Plasma but this sounded really distracting).

Second 55UT50 Panel Aug 2012 Build Date: This screen shows very bad IR! It doesn't pass my right click desktop menu test. In fact, it's so bad that even the "SmartVierra" logo on startup is visible for a couple minutes after!!! If you try to use the Pandora app, the large "Pandora" text on the first login screen is visible for some time on the next screen. Additionally, even though the Vierra Apps, like Pandora, have a screensaver, I can see the remnants of music progress bar on solid backgrounds or test slides quite clearly after playing Pandora a bit last weekend and having watched plenty of TV for about a week. Can't say it's "burned in" but it looks that way.

This screen also exhibits very noticeable (what I believe to be) dithering effects, even from a 11-12' viewing distance. Basically, shadow detail has lots of moving noise when it should just look solid. This is viewable on Blu-ray or streaming Netflix through Vierra apps.


I'm starting to question whether I want to deal with the downsides of Plasma any more. I've posted more about my experiences in the "Discussion Thread for the UT50". I welcome feedback from others on this but honestly, IR is very distracting to me. If I watch a high contrast scene in a movie and the next is a solid pan of the sky or something, I truly don't think I should see remnants of the previous scene???!!! While room lighting is very controllable for me, this isn't a dedicated movie display...I use it for HTPC DVR use for every day TV material and I enjoy using it for music apps like Pandora. Having a "smart TV" has allowed me to move my Roku into the bedroom to use on the "dumb tv."

If I can't even briefly view a menu without seeing it on the next screen for a couple minutes, that's a deal breaker for me. How do the rest of you deal??? Am I just that unlucky? My 2009 Samsung was the same way as panel #2. Between IR and vertical banding, I can't agree with the outrageous PQ claims everyone is making for this set. Time to buy LCD???
Edited by WRXfanatic - 1/10/13 at 12:16pm

I'm assuming build date is the date listed on the sticker on the back of the set? I think mine is April (which I found odd since I just got it from Amazon.

I haven't noticed any IR on it after watching ESPN etc. then running the slides. Only gripe I have is the buzz is a bit louder than I'd like, but not as bad as some other Plasma's I've checked out so I can live with it.

GO PLASMA
Edited by ut50guy - 1/11/13 at 7:12am

Yes, that's where I was obtaining build date info. The Buzz is annoying, especially since our primary time to watch TV is in the evening so we turn the volume on the HT down so the buzz competes with dialogue. Of note, however, is the fact that when I was running the slides, the TV was on the stand and about 12" from a wall and I could barely make out the buzz. As soon as I wall mounted it, it's much more noticeable (probably from the close proximity to the wall and the reflected sound).

I really don't know what to do here. I could keep playing the lottery and returning panels to Costco but I'd hate to ruin return metrics over my neurosis for a visually perfect screen. Heck, they could stop carrying the product due to high returns!

I think I'm going to pick up a TC-55LE50 Edge Light LED/LCD TV (with IPS panel) and take a hit on contrast/blacks and loss of 3D in favor of near silent operation, no worries over IR, zero/less dithering, hopefully less strobe effect (Plasma bothers my eyes when I look away and notice it out of the corner of my eye I can notice the strobing effect of how it drives the pixels) and higher power consumption (by my calculations, I'll recoup the $50 price increase in 1.5 years just in electricity).

Other things I don't like about the UT50/ Panasonic:
*Can't turn off or re-configure the red power status light (which you could on even my 2009 5 series Samsung Plasma)
*Vierra Link (HDMI-CEC) doesn't work as nicely as Samsung Anynet+ (HDMI-CEC). Samsung allowed me to power off connected devices through menu (like Power off Receiver?). The Samsung also displayed a reference volume GUI on screen independent of the connected receiver (my receiver doesn't have volume GUI via HDMI)
*Panasonic doesn't include advanced color and picture options on their mid-tier models (Samsung does)
*Streaming apps flash black screen when changing streaming PQ quality

Things I like about the UT50/Panasonic:
*Amazing Black Levels!
*Much better build quality as compared to my 2009 5 Series Samsung. The display casing is very solid and rigid and fairly lightweight. The Samsung was not as rigid and any stress on the bezel would cause it to creak and crack as it flexed! (i.e. moving the TV in wallmount to try to install cables).
*Netflix App (It actually skips the episode recap when you watch back to back episodes)
*Amazon Prime Video streaming (no other Smart TVs seem to have this)

Kev,

Thanks for the reply. I've never been among the minions (always owned Plasma) but honestly, I've wasted so much time on the UT50 to try to solve problems that primarily exist because it's plasma technology. Certainly, LCD is not perfect (unless you want to pay $4k for a Sharp Elite) but at least the TC55LE50 uses an IPS display which if it's anything like the IPS screens I use for professional photo editing, should amount to good off axis contrast, good color representation and poor blacks . I'd almost be willing to live with the vertical dark band screen uniformity issue of the UT50s I've tried so far if the buzz didn't exist and IR was like the first one I returned. How will I know if I'll get a better one next time??

Then again, I also notice LCD panels tend to flash when displaying static, high contrast graphics on the screen (like commercials that might have a high contrast but small text box, the box might sorta of flash on the display). This bothers me. I've never read reviewers discuss this downside but I noticed it very easily on multiple LCD screens in Costco. I even thought maybe it was a sharpening issue so I asked for the remote and turned sharpening off and it didn't help at all.

I have some questions here....
The american UT50 uses hexadecimal values and the european uses decimals, right?
Can somebody post here the max and min values in both american and european TVs?
I don't think that the number of clicks is very precise to convert the hexadecimal do decimal values, since they are in different numerical bases.
the right way to do it would be calculating the PERCENTAGE of increase/decrease of the values.

Edit: My UT50B has just arrived, and it has all the white balance settings unlocked!
I don't need to enter the service menu, great!
But in order to find the right values, I need the smaller hexadecimal value avaliable on the TV, can somebody answer me that?
The biggest I already know that it's FF.
Edited by LexSombra - 1/11/13 at 8:50am

Evening guys, just received my TV from Amazon.

After setting it up I cannot get the bloody thing to turn on. Am I doing something wrong or have I got a duff TV?
The only thing I didn't do when putting it together was that little plastic spacer in the stand. It can't be shorting on that can it?

Check the power cable. Mine was very hard to press in.

Just checked. It's defiantly in. There goes my planned weekend!

Edit: I get the "click" sound from inside when I turn on the power at the socket but no lights and it doesn't react to the remote.

Thanks everyone for the contributions in this thread. I just picked up my 50" UT50 2 days ago.
I've got two newbie questions regarding the UT50 and the calibrated settings posted earlier.

1) Since TV is fresh, do I have to "break-in" the TV before using those settings or does it not matter? Does color change overtime?
2) How do I check my current TV usage hours?

Thanks.

Anikun07, is there one post in this thread that has your current recommended settings from soup to nuts all in one post? Both service and regular menu settings?

I've been using PathOfNeo's settings since I got my 50UT50 last June. The TV looks great but I've been hoping to try your settings. This thread has grown so large it is giving me an ice cream headache trying to work through it and piece together your current recommendations.

Post 360

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1412033/the-official-panasonic-ut50-settings-issues-thread/360#post_22712742

Thanks Ani!