posting this in a separate thread since the official ST50 thread has turned into 2 guys bickering about stupid crap
i just set up my new 55ST50 a few days ago. first plasma ever, so i have almost no experience with them. i have owned several LCDs and LEDs. i have a few things to ask.
I am -very- happy with the colors and blacks. they are so far beyond what my LCD produced i cant believe it. the sharpness of the screen is also superb. i have been extremely happy with the 2D playback of blurays, but have noticed quite a bit of crosstalk on 3D blurays (avatar, tron, prometheus). i am not sure if you can reduce crosstalk somehow through calibration.... but it is something that may end up causing me to return the set and get something else, as we bought the set with watching 3D movies in mind. some scenes will be perfectly fine but if there is ever a bright light (like a lamp or something) in the scene, you will almost always see a second "ghostly" version of it off to the side a bit. in movies like avatar and prometheus, this can really jack up the viewing experience as there are lights like this all the time.
my main concern is the TVs performance while playing games on my xbox. i have always heard that plasma has the best motion processing of any panel, but i have to say after playing games on it for a good 3-4 hours yesterday, i am horribly disappointed.
3 things stand out that have me disappointed with my first plasma purchase:
#1- moving the camera quickly in games like Assassins Creed 3 causes the picture to become completely blurred out, and everything on the screen produces a triple image with the actual object in the middle and "ghostly" versions of the object slightly to the left and right. also, these "ghostly" versions of the image are strange colors, typically either red or yellow. this is PARTICULARLY noticeable if you move the camera quickly and there is anything that is stark white on the screen, as it will produce VERY noticeable, bright yellow "ghostly" images to the sides of the object. As an example, mission markers in the game are typically white text with a symbol, but if you rotate the camera while they are up on the screen, the text will blurr out and become bright yellow while the camera is moving quickly, and then return to white when the camera stops. this happens with pretty much everything in games.... including while playing sports games, or anything that involves really fast movement. This is not "motion blur" as produced as a graphical effect by the game, i know what that looks like. this is how the panel is handling fast movement.
This is beyond distracting while playing, as when you quickly move the camera in any direction, the screen almost becomes a rainbow of colors with triple images everywhere. i have tried turning motion smoothing on.... i have tried fiddling with settings. motion smoothing works sometimes but when the framerate of the game drops it just makes the game look horribly jerky and awkward. honestly it looks exactly like an issue that i had on an LCD for my PC.... but i didnt think plasmas could have anything like this. it was also my understanding that plasmas had pretty much perfect motion processing thanks to their incredibly high refresh rate, but as it looks on my screen, motion is WAY worse on this plasma than my 5 year old sammy LCD.
#2- the screen uniformity on this plasma leaves something to be greatly desired. on a white, or grey screen, there is a 4-5" round area that is a soft pink color in the top left hand side, and then the ENTIRE right hand side, and lower right corner, are bordered in about a 3" section of soft pink. the rest of the screen seems fine. Now, when you are watching a movie or TV, you cannot see this. typically even if the screen is fairly light you cannot see it. however, in games, the screen will often go to loading screens that are light colors and you -can- see it. i am not sure if this is something that is typical for plasmas.... but again, i was told that plasmas have the absolutely best screen uniformity you can find, and with this soft pink issue, the uniformity on this set is WAY worse than anything i have ever seen out of my LCDs
#3- buzzing. 2 of the LCDs in the past buzzed when on vhite or near white screens, however if there was nearly ANY volume coming out of the TV, you could not hear the buzzing over it. This panny, however, if on a light colored screen.... or particularly when viewing 3D content of any kind (the buzzing really ramps up during 3D viewing).... buzzes, loudly. i sit about 9ft from my screen, and in a low volume sceen in movies or games, you can hear the set buzzing. even with people talking, if there is no music playing or something and the screen is very light, you can hear the buzzing over their talking. now.... im not going to say this particular thing is a deal breaker because really, it is infrequent that i notice it because the screen really has to be bright and the volume has to be relatively quiet, but there is a lot more, and louder, buzzing than i would have ever expected
if anyone has any suggestions on how to eliminate or lessen any of these issues, please let me know. im going to give the set another week or so and see if any of these things really start to bother me (im almost sure the blurring and triple images/rainbow colors while gaming will be a deal breaker though).
also... anyone know how to get the 3:2 pulldown setting to not always be greyed out? and when is it appropriate to use it? only BD playback? gaming? any HD content? thanks
i just set up my new 55ST50 a few days ago. first plasma ever, so i have almost no experience with them. i have owned several LCDs and LEDs. i have a few things to ask.
I am -very- happy with the colors and blacks. they are so far beyond what my LCD produced i cant believe it. the sharpness of the screen is also superb. i have been extremely happy with the 2D playback of blurays, but have noticed quite a bit of crosstalk on 3D blurays (avatar, tron, prometheus). i am not sure if you can reduce crosstalk somehow through calibration.... but it is something that may end up causing me to return the set and get something else, as we bought the set with watching 3D movies in mind. some scenes will be perfectly fine but if there is ever a bright light (like a lamp or something) in the scene, you will almost always see a second "ghostly" version of it off to the side a bit. in movies like avatar and prometheus, this can really jack up the viewing experience as there are lights like this all the time.
my main concern is the TVs performance while playing games on my xbox. i have always heard that plasma has the best motion processing of any panel, but i have to say after playing games on it for a good 3-4 hours yesterday, i am horribly disappointed.
3 things stand out that have me disappointed with my first plasma purchase:
#1- moving the camera quickly in games like Assassins Creed 3 causes the picture to become completely blurred out, and everything on the screen produces a triple image with the actual object in the middle and "ghostly" versions of the object slightly to the left and right. also, these "ghostly" versions of the image are strange colors, typically either red or yellow. this is PARTICULARLY noticeable if you move the camera quickly and there is anything that is stark white on the screen, as it will produce VERY noticeable, bright yellow "ghostly" images to the sides of the object. As an example, mission markers in the game are typically white text with a symbol, but if you rotate the camera while they are up on the screen, the text will blurr out and become bright yellow while the camera is moving quickly, and then return to white when the camera stops. this happens with pretty much everything in games.... including while playing sports games, or anything that involves really fast movement. This is not "motion blur" as produced as a graphical effect by the game, i know what that looks like. this is how the panel is handling fast movement.
This is beyond distracting while playing, as when you quickly move the camera in any direction, the screen almost becomes a rainbow of colors with triple images everywhere. i have tried turning motion smoothing on.... i have tried fiddling with settings. motion smoothing works sometimes but when the framerate of the game drops it just makes the game look horribly jerky and awkward. honestly it looks exactly like an issue that i had on an LCD for my PC.... but i didnt think plasmas could have anything like this. it was also my understanding that plasmas had pretty much perfect motion processing thanks to their incredibly high refresh rate, but as it looks on my screen, motion is WAY worse on this plasma than my 5 year old sammy LCD.
#2- the screen uniformity on this plasma leaves something to be greatly desired. on a white, or grey screen, there is a 4-5" round area that is a soft pink color in the top left hand side, and then the ENTIRE right hand side, and lower right corner, are bordered in about a 3" section of soft pink. the rest of the screen seems fine. Now, when you are watching a movie or TV, you cannot see this. typically even if the screen is fairly light you cannot see it. however, in games, the screen will often go to loading screens that are light colors and you -can- see it. i am not sure if this is something that is typical for plasmas.... but again, i was told that plasmas have the absolutely best screen uniformity you can find, and with this soft pink issue, the uniformity on this set is WAY worse than anything i have ever seen out of my LCDs
#3- buzzing. 2 of the LCDs in the past buzzed when on vhite or near white screens, however if there was nearly ANY volume coming out of the TV, you could not hear the buzzing over it. This panny, however, if on a light colored screen.... or particularly when viewing 3D content of any kind (the buzzing really ramps up during 3D viewing).... buzzes, loudly. i sit about 9ft from my screen, and in a low volume sceen in movies or games, you can hear the set buzzing. even with people talking, if there is no music playing or something and the screen is very light, you can hear the buzzing over their talking. now.... im not going to say this particular thing is a deal breaker because really, it is infrequent that i notice it because the screen really has to be bright and the volume has to be relatively quiet, but there is a lot more, and louder, buzzing than i would have ever expected
if anyone has any suggestions on how to eliminate or lessen any of these issues, please let me know. im going to give the set another week or so and see if any of these things really start to bother me (im almost sure the blurring and triple images/rainbow colors while gaming will be a deal breaker though).
also... anyone know how to get the 3:2 pulldown setting to not always be greyed out? and when is it appropriate to use it? only BD playback? gaming? any HD content? thanks
