The Official Panasonic UT50 Settings/Issues Thread - Page 28

Originally Posted by RandyWalters 

Those 3 instances are not flicker, those look to be the infamous "hockey flashes" that were discussed here several months ago. Several of us saw the same issue on various other brands and models, as well as on LCD TVs and even DLP TVs so it wasn't just with our Plasmas. The issue is apparently within the games' broadcasts and shows up on all TVs to some extent or another.

Search this forum for "Hockey Flash" and you'll find posts about it.

Originally Posted by b0bbYboy 

but on light dark the blacks look really washed off.

I have cats because when im trying to sleep its too bright so i love how it dims when my lights are off

Originally Posted by b0bbYboy 

but on light dark the blacks look really washed off.

I have cats because when im trying to sleep its too bright so i love how it dims when my lights are off

Originally Posted by Temo000 

When I wall mounted my UT50 I didn't realize the space between the wall and the TV would be < 2 inches. So when it was finally on the wall we noticed the HDMI cable was tweaked at an 80 degree angle (while still plugged in, eeeek!). Now I'm thinking I might have damaged the HDMI cable and/or HDMI port on the set (cable is not easy to replace, its fished for about 20 feet in-wall)

What I'm seeing might be natural for this set but I want to be sure.

• When I view a pure black screen within a few inches of the screen, I don't see a pure black image, I see basically screen noise (allbeit pretty faint). Of course when I move back to a normal viewing distance it's not noticible, however I'm sure this dancing black or screen noise would afffect sharpness and clarity... Can anyone confirm you can see a PURE black image? (or other colours too)
• Whites aren't exactly brilliant on this set, they are fairly dull (I've tried all of the recommended settings). Is it possible to get pure white?
• Buzzing on bright images, which I've read is normal for this set. But is this par for the course for ALL UT50s?

If anyone could help to answer these questions I'd forever be indebted! Thanks

Originally Posted by cjwinding 

Hello. I apologize for the apparent newbie question: Just waiting on the delivery of my UT50 and seemingly overwhelmed with the amount of information on this site. I want to maximize the performance of the display but I don't know if that can be done out of the box or if there needs to be some level of burn-in. Since there is a definite MTBF with all sets I don't know that it's important for me to burn off a couple hundred hours of miscellaneous slides to get that done. I was thinking of picking up the Disney WOW disc for ~$20 and starting with some of the suggested settings in this forum. Should I wait until I have a minimum amount of hours before doing so? And, are there other advantages to prematurely aging the set with burn in slides? I haven't looked to deep yet but I am not even sure how you go about that. Thanks, in advance, for your expertise. I value your opinions.

Originally Posted by RugerRell 

Hi, I also just picked up a 55UT50, but I seem to be having a problem with the 3D washing out the colors. When I switch to the 3D mode the display seems like it cranks the some brightness setting up to much. I know it's trying to compensate for the active shutter glasses, but even with the glasses on, the blacks aren't as deep as 2D and the colors are a washed out. Does this happen with any of your guys UT50's? Is there a way to fix this, maybe in the service menu? Thanks for your help.

Originally Posted by Seerden6 

I recently purchased a 55ut50 at Costco, brought it home and everything was great. I started to watch the various hockey games on the weekend and noticed this same flickering. I started to think I would have to return the set, but started to do some internet searches and found these same complaints going back several years. Most people think that it is just the nature of the strobes in the rinks and the flash photography? One guy I read about returned his set to BB and they just happened to be feeding in hockey and he saw it on every set!
I also observed this last night during the NBA all-star game. I was also watching plenty of other programing with ice, including a Top Gear episode where they were racing on ice and no flicker what so ever!

I would be interested to get the observations of other UT owners watching hockey.

-Rolf

Originally Posted by morphinapg 

Why do you leave the TV on when you sleep? Seems like a waste of the TV's life to me.

The black levels: Dark crush the blacks. This means there is shadow detail (different levels of blackness in shadows) that simply gets reduced to black, with no detail. The only reason to use Dark black levels is if the source is outputting an irregularly light image.

Originally Posted by JSpectre88 

They aren't washed out. If what you're watching is supposed to look solid black, it will be. With those settings and CATS on, I don't even know how you can see anything. Also, Warm 2 isn't yellowish. That's just your brain tricking you into thinking a cooler temperature setting is always going to look "whiter". Believe me, I've been there too.

Originally Posted by b0bbYboy 

To each its own. Regardless, on the navigation menu it states that Colooler will give (Blueish) color hues and Warmer will give (Redder) color hues.

Originally Posted by Jeff D 

I think you may be seeing the same thing I've been talking about. I'm actually on the phone with panasonic right now trying to get to a level of support which can look into what I'm seeing.

When the set came out of the box, in standard mode, I noticed the picture was horrible. I can see this stuff from a distance because I work on CE AV products and I've been trained to notice this stuff. If someone were to get close to theTV, say 3 feet away or closer, they can see this "noise" too. This is most obvious on the menus, solid black color bar for the menu is more a grey which was comprised of flickering black, grey, blue, red and green tinted pixels. I did switch the display mode to cinema and the 2D picture is rock solid. But that's only true for 2D. If the set is switched to 3D (and cinema mode) the pixel noise comes back. This isn't a 3D frame sequential thing because a in image which is computer generated to be a single color has the same "noise" in the image. I can watch with one eye and see this noise (or movement) in solid colored regions of the screen. It looks like what one may experience with crappy composite video cables for displaying video from a DVD player or DVR.

The result of this noise is the picture is quality in clearly not the same as if I switch the mode back to 2D (with same 3D source). 2D again looks rock solid, 3D looks bad. I'm not yet ready to get into the service menu because I just got the thing out of the box last week.

Does that sound like what you're seeing?

Originally Posted by JSpectre88 

True, but the most accurate setting is closer to the warmest temp than a cooler one. It can vary by TV, but on the U50/UT50 warm 2 is closest to 6500k. White will still look white at temperatures ranging from 5,000k-10,000k, it's your other colors that are going to be off. You can set your TV up any way you desire, but if you just leave it on warm 2 your eyes will adjust quickly and whites would look normal. Warm 1 isn't necessarily bad though, just trying to share my experiences regarding color temps.

Originally Posted by morphinapg 

Personally, using the default Warm 2 Cinema mode, and the official Panasonic glasses, 3D cinema mode looks just like 2D cinema mode for me.

Originally Posted by RugerRell 

Thanks for your reply morphinapg. You wouldn't by chance have tried the Samsung SSG-4100GB 3D Glasses with your display have you? Also, do you notice that your display washes out the blacks when in 3D mode when you have your glasses off? Just wondering if this is normal. Thanks.

Originally Posted by morphinapg 

I only have the Panasonic glasses (TY-ER3D4MU)

by washes out, do you mean crushing the blacks, or the opposite (lightening them)? Without the glasses, it looks to me like the image gets a cooler white balance, which makes the whole image look a bit washed out, but as for the blacks specifically, it doesn't look like the black levels change at all. They aren't crushed and they aren't lightened. It doesn't particularly look like the gamma is modified either from what I can tell, but I'm not 100% sure on that. The only difference I see is that the colors are just pushed more towards blue, which I believe is offset by the glasses.

Originally Posted by bwar 

Come on...someone has to have an idea about my situation regarding my ut50 on page 27....no?

Originally Posted by bwar 

Okay thank you kindly JSpectre 88! I have decided to exchange it. I'm sure I'm over reacting as it is barely (and I mean really looking for it) noticeable during regular viewing but I think it will just ease my mind...knowing me I'll be sitting there just watching for it to get worse.....

Cheers!

Originally Posted by damag0r 

Note: Where I said "gain", I meant to say "drive".

So, I'm too lazy to read back everything I've missed in this thread...

But I'd just like to add some things from my previous posts from months ago.

Any minor image retention I gave my TV by torturing it is totally gone, I can't see it no matter what color slides I use... and it has been gone for a very long time. However when I watch station that has a high contrast logo up all the time for an extended period I often use the "zoom" setting to zoom in past it.

Also, I was using Anikun's service menu settings, but I started noticing things have been drifting back yellow/orange as now I have 1200 hours on the panel. Another thing is, I kept noticing blacks were looking magenta/red and not so black/grey with some sources. So, I spent the last couple of hours tuning the white balance by eye using my monitor as reference, and I'd be willing to gamble I have it quite close to ideal with a very low deltaE. I no longer see the reddish blacks anymore either. The monitor used as reference once upon a time calibrated with a colorimeter.

It's not perfect, but it's damned close and it looks great to me. If anyone cares I will list what my settings are.

I also ordered this: http://www.amazon.com/Xrite-EODIS3-i1Display-Pro/dp/B0055MBQOW

I think it should be interesting to see how close I was able to get it by eye once I have a chance to try out the colorimeter.

On custom with normal temp (using Anikun's original settings as a starting point):
The main things I did were dump Green gain from FF to EF, I also adjusted the cutoff slightly. I increased the blue gain/cut slightly, and reduced the red cut (but not the gain) by 3-5 notches. Skin tones look much better now and instead of yellowish/orange it's a bit pinkish at worst. Another interesting side effect is now that the All drive isn't at "FF", the "color" setting in the normal settings menu actually has a large impact. I had to turn it down a little because I could tell the colors were a bit overdriven/oversaturated once I made my white balance changes... and I seem to remember before I made these changes messing with the "Color" setting hardly did anything unless I moved it like 20 ticks... now I can tell a difference with ONE tick.

I'm sure I screwed something up since I don't have a meter yet, but still looks better by my own subjective measures. I think grassy scenes look slightly better if I switch back to Cinema with Warm2 which is still using Anikun's settings... but my by-eye calibrated Custom w/ Normal temp looks better for almost everything else.

Edit: Also, to the person saying they thought things were too yellowish/orangish... it isn't just you... and it isn't just your brain tricking you... This set really does tend to have a bias towards yellow/orange on warm2, especially in skin tones where it should be more pinkish than orange. I was able to clear this up by adjusting the white balance. Actually... at first I only dumped the green gain way down and the cut a bit... then adjusted the blue gain/cut up slightly (from Anikun's previously posted settings)... which made things pinkish... a little too pinkish... at which point I dropped the red CUT a few notches and it seems to be about the ideal level of pinkness for skin tones now.

I notice if I set it to "Warm 2" on custom which I didn't mess with, everything looks yellowish, but when I set to "normal" (the one I tweaked in the service menu) things look a little pinkish, which is how they should look on warm2 imo. Warm should == a little bit red/pink... at least in my mind... not orange/yellow.

Hope I didn't ramble on too much and hope this post was coherent... I'm pretty tired right now.

Originally Posted by chunon 

You can not adjust greyscale by eye, if you you think you can you are fooling yourself

Originally Posted by damag0r 

We'll see when I get the colorimeter and have a chance to try it out.

I don't doubt my greyscale is less than neutral, but I was using a well calibrated monitor as reference to adjust the white balance and I think I got pretty good results. The reds seem ever so slightly off, but not enough to bug me. The tangerine skin tones I had before were much worse.

Originally Posted by damag0r 

We'll see when I get the colorimeter and have a chance to try it out.

I don't doubt my greyscale is less than neutral, but I was using a well calibrated monitor as reference to adjust the white balance and I think I got pretty good results. The reds seem ever so slightly off, but not enough to bug me. The tangerine skin tones I had before were much worse.

Originally Posted by chunon 

I'll be interested to see but you did start with calibration settings derived using a meter correct ? You are alot braver than me blindly messing with things in the service menu is not a good practice in my experience especially those all cut and drive values definitely a no no according to the pros.

Originally Posted by JSpectre88 

The VT50 is actually closer to D65 at normal temp, but I'm not sure about the UT50. I suppose the accuracy of your settings would have to depend on that.