It's official. I see a rainbow-like effect on every plasma. - Page 8

Okay, time out is over.

Lets stay on topic.

Lets remain civil to each other.

Lets contribute our opinions wisely.

Lets have a great weekend

Dave

Okay, time out is over.

Lets stay on topic.

Lets remain civil to each other.

Lets contribute our opinions wisely.

Lets have a great weekend

Dave

The effect is there and its real but switching to a differnt tech with Worse PQ is a different effect you will have to live with. Also i think as the plasma ages this effect might become less noticeable, i dunno.

OK. We know that phosphor decay causes the trails. They exist. I also saw them on the Rainbow six video, and I've seen them in person. Now, do we know if any plasma manufacturer is doing anything about this.

Dalandis. You should check out some AliS panels. They are found in Hitachis. AliS is a different tech for plasma and might not have the trails/rainbows. You will know it's an AliS panel because of the 1024 x 1024 resolution.

As I said in another thread I first noticed this entirely on accident on my friend's pioneer 5060. I didn't even know what it was at the time and thought that I had to be seeing things. However, after learning what it is, this explains what I have been seeing on my sony 32hs420 (crt) for the last couple years. I always thought it was just a crazy after-image at the fault of my eyes. But now I realize that the after-images I was seeing are really yellow/green trails. But for some reason whereas the effect was really bright on the plasma, it's pretty dim on the crt. Maybe just because of the difference in the brightness of the technology, I dunno. Anyways, though I do notice it atleast once or twice per movie it doesn't really bother me too much. I notice it non-stop if I am looking for it in high contrast scenes, but looking for it requires so much concentration that I can't pay attention to what's going on on the screen.

Also, I find it strange that me and my brother were seeing it for years without knowing what it was, and yet none of my friends see a thing. I guess it really does depend on your eyes.

All,

I am very sensitive to the RBE on plasmas and DLPs, but I made a startling discovery tonight...

I don't see any RBE, color smears, yellow streaks, nothing, nada, zip on 720p! I was watching the Spurs/Mavericks game tonight on ABC and realized that the picture was absolutely perfect. So I switched to a 1080i channel, and there they were again -- RBE! Back to 720p -- nothing.

It has been speculated that the decay time of the various phosphor are to blame, if that is the case, maybe 720p is the answer???

Comments?

I saw them on a 5060 with a dvd player upconverting to 720p. Maybe the content you were watching in 720p just wasn't a susceptible to showing the problem? I can only see it in high contrast scenes. Like in Pirates of the Caribbean or Serenity they have tons of relatively lit characters moving over dark backgrounds. Are you guys saying you can see this in completely bright material too? If so then I feel very sorry for you.

Yoda1,

Rainbows You see HHMMM Lots of different colors are they? Relax and become one with the plasma you must. Or else suffer your eyes will.

To the store you must go where purchased you did. Your weapons...you will not need them. The salesman you must confront. Only then, can you complete your destiny.

After my eyes are dialated for an eye exam, I'm astonished how clearly I can see 60hz CRT referesh. I swear I can almost count each frame. It almost totally disappears after a few hours.

Anyone with rainbowitis have unusual experiences watching after a dialation?

I was watching a Kim Possible DVD with my little boy on Friday night and the picture was vibrating color and trails at me... then by chance I swtiched the DVD to 480 and the picture looked perfect. Then I got excited... had I solved the problem?

So I put in my two acid tests, Casablanca and King Kong...

Tried to change the resolution settings and it did not help at all.

Weird...

I ended up taking back my plasma on Sunday and will keep following this tread.

As I walked around Best Buy on sunday... I realized I could see the effect on all plasmas if I looked for it. Again... it is much harder to see in the showroom. But now that I know if I can spot it there, it will be 100 times worse for me when I get it home.

Also... as soncomet said... now that I am freaking out about them, after I plugged in my CRT TV again, I think I am cathing them there too... but they are so fleeting and certainly not pulsing bright to me... so they really don't bother me. But they were SO obtrusive on the Plasma they have tweaked up my sensitivity.

Again... I must be ultra sensitive... because aside from the few people on this message board... no one I have ever talked to has heard complaints of this.

Maybe if this thread can stay live... perhaps this mystery can be helped.

But I think I'll have to look to another technology for now... and keep my eyes on plasma in the future models.

dalandis

I honestly think the answer to this is that most people don't have them or simply don't see them. If they actually do exist on all plasmas (which I seriously question), they're obviously far harder to pick out than ghosting issues on LCDs.

Bingo! This whole discussion reminds me of one we had several years ago regarding false contouring. I discovered, through my own experimenting with my Panasonic 34" CRT HDTV, that what people were accusing plasmas of, was in some cases SOURCE related. I well remember seeing some false contouring on my Fujitsu plasma on Man In The Iron Mask. When I took that same DVD to my Panasonic CRT, there it was.... precisely the same false contouring, to the same degree, as was shown on my plasma. This is not to say that earlier plasmas (and some lower end units today) don't exhibit false contouring on their own, but people are way to quick to blame a display for what may well be source related.

How do people know that some trailing issues are not inherent in some of the video cameras that are being used? Some of these issues are just not as simple as some think they are.

Rich, the only problem with this (I would think) is that if someone is so sensitive to rainbows on plasmas, SSE on the SXRD's would KILL them!!! I've never seen a rainbow on my plasmas, but I sure have seen SSE on the SXRDs. It's one of the reasons I could never own one myself. They've got some great PQ aspects going for them, but the SSE is a deal-break for me.

I think an interesting test for you would be to check out other B&W movies. Do you see these issues to the same degree with other B&W movies? If not, I'd go back to a possible source related issue or some strange interaction with THAT movie and the display you're watching. But it seems to me if a given B&W movie shows this issue for you, then all B&W movies should manifest it.

I don't think it has a thing to with 'better eyes'. I have extremely keen color perception, but yet have never seen this problem. Have you considered the possibility that there's actually some minor issue with 'your' vision that makes you see this? I'm truly not being flip here. I totally agree with what's been said by SillySam, there are a ton of people here that own plasmas and it's almost impossible to believe that such a 'serious' issue could be missed by 99.9% of plasma owners. Honestly, doesn't this seem more than a bit odd? So yes, I honestly believe there could be an issue with YOUR vision that makes you and a couple of others susceptible to this....doesn't make you a bad person nor does it make your vision 'better' than others.

I see the rainbows and I know that I have astigmatism. I've wondered if the two might be related...

But as I posted above, the rainbows go away on 720p broadcasts on my plasma.

I saw it but didn't think it was a big deal, but I honestly never see this kind of thing on my plasma! BTW, the color looked more green than yellow to me.

ScottS, what plasma do you have?

Ken Ross:

I now know that I am one of the TINY minority of people who see this... I say Casablanca is my acid test as I don't have any other B&W movies... but I saw the effect in B&W TV shows... as well as in color sources... it's just really fast to notice in B&W. And I also have stood next to quite a few people watching clips and they CANNOT see what I describe.

So yes... my eyes for sure.

It's interesting though that a digital video clip captures the effect the same way my eyes do.

It does not look to bad to me in the video clip... but live effect is a different story. Very bright and very pulsing.

Really weird. But I'll keep looking at new plasma models as they are released to see if any new tech helps me out with this.

Congrats to all who cannot see it... I think you're seeing the best tech available.

I wonder if the effect changes in intensity based on the white level setting of the TV. Yoda and Dalandis, what do you have your contrast set to? If the left side of the bar is 0% and the far right is 100%, what is yours set to?

Yeah but what is it set to? Perhaps there is a threshold where pushing the phosphores above that level causes their decay rate to change, and maybe their profiles change differently depending on that level. Reduce the contrast to like 20%... It should be about there anyways long term.

Glasses wouldn't help because they would only reduce the light into your eye and not the emission of the panel.

Also, IMO all tests should be done with a 720p native res feed. If the effect is so quick then IMO it could easily be mistaken for interlacing artifacts. So any set in the store could be suffering from 1080i feed + too high of contrast. Even interlacing artifacts could show a color-changing trailing edge, because of the TV sub-pixels interacting, in the same way that a very fine vertical B&W stripe surface (a ref uniform) will turn to rainbows in the right conditions.

I can't wait for the posts from the blind and half blind guys saying plasma flashes too much for them.

Several posts removed: please keep it cordial and only post if you have something useful to add.

Thanks