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It's official. I see a rainbow-like effect on every plasma. - Page 2

post #31 of 838
11/16/05 at 8:16pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoda1 View Post

I want you guys to do a test for me. Walk up to a bank of plasmas in a store, or the plasma in your home, find a bright scene and wave your hand across the screen...

I don't see the rainbows or flashes with my plasma, although I have been able to produce the effect while watching a single-chip DLP display.

Have you looked into or tried bias lighting?
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post #32 of 838
11/16/05 at 9:56pm
Guys!

The source of this is differential phosphor decay.

Plasmas use phosphors just like CRTs, and each color decays at a different rate with green being the slowest. As this decay, the green "hangs out" for longer than the other colors and is why you see this yellow smearing. You can also see this on CRT displays even when they are run at high refresh rates such that you don't see flicker. I see rainbows, flicker, and phosphor decay ("rainbows") on everything except 3-chip displays, and this includes plasmas and CRTs (I use a Barco CRT at 72hz progressive and still see minor "rainbows."

I hope that explains why you are seeing this and why you're not crazy. This is why good eyes aren't always a good thing
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post #33 of 838
11/17/05 at 8:09am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by 1920x1080 View Post

I don't see the rainbows or flashes with my plasma, although I have been able to produce the effect while watching a single-chip DLP display.

Have you looked into or tried bias lighting?


What is bias lighting? I'm interested!
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post #34 of 838
11/17/05 at 8:17am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoda1 View Post

What is bias lighting? I'm interested!

I'll leave it to somebody more knowledgeable than me to provide an explanation - but here's a whole thread on it:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=451527
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post #35 of 838
11/17/05 at 9:04am
I also see the yellow flashes on my Panasonic plasma (42PWD6 - ISF calibrated). It's usually on fast movement or if I move my eyes quickly to look at another part of the screen. A couple of hours viewing will give me a headache. I know someone else at another Forum who has a similar problem. We both wear contact lenses so wonder if that's a factor to consider. I don't get this with LCD TV's or PJ's. Not tried a DLP TV or PJ as yet.
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post #36 of 838
11/17/05 at 10:05am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jase H View Post

I also see the yellow flashes on my Panasonic plasma (42PWD6 - ISF calibrated). It's usually on fast movement or if I move my eyes quickly to look at another part of the screen. A couple of hours viewing will give me a headache. I know someone else at another Forum who has a similar problem. We both wear contact lenses so wonder if that's a factor to consider. I don't get this with LCD TV's or PJ's. Not tried a DLP TV or PJ as yet.

I'm also seeing multicolored flashes, now - not just yellow.

I think the rainbows on DLP are even more managable.
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post #37 of 838
11/17/05 at 10:09am
Would something like the ambient light maganvox (or whatever brand makes it) help with the yellowish hue? It seems that the brightness is having an impact on your ability to process really light, or white color, maybe the lessening of the degree of change from the actual set to the background would be use for you. As you noted, you didn't notice the effect nearly as much in a more well lite enviroment. I could be really off, but I think it would help.
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post #38 of 838
11/17/05 at 10:28am
Yes, viewing in a brighter environment or with backlighting will help minimize the bother of this effect if you see it.
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post #39 of 838
11/17/05 at 11:12am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevin C Brown View Post

>> Not the sub-pixel controller which only Panasonic says that they have.

> Fujitsu AVM has had it for at least the last 3, I guess now 4, model years.

I thought some Fujitsu plasmas used Panasonic glass?

They do, but controlling the color value of each sub pixel (R, G, and B values) is software. Way back when somebody explained sub pixel control it didn't seem to be hardware related. It's possible that what Panny claims as sub pixel control is not the same as what the AVM does.

larry
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post #40 of 838
11/17/05 at 11:27am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoda1 View Post

What is bias lighting? I'm interested!

Linky. Disclosure: I am not affiliated with them, although I do use their product.
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post #41 of 838
11/17/05 at 5:36pm
For those of you that have seen it, when you do the hand waving test, is your hand closer to your eyes or the display? Man, I spent 20 min in a store one day doing the moving head test (peripheral vision), and I just couldn't see this. People were certainly looking at me funny though! 'Course, maybe it's a good thing I haven't been able to see this yet.
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post #42 of 838
11/17/05 at 6:04pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevin C Brown View Post

For those of you that have seen it, when you do the hand waving test, is your hand closer to your eyes or the display? Man, I spent 20 min in a store one day doing the moving head test (peripheral vision), and I just couldn't see this. People were certainly looking at me funny though! 'Course, maybe it's a good thing I haven't been able to see this yet.

For me and DLP's, I'm usually at a normal viewing distance for the hand waving test, so my hand is definitely closer to my eyes. But an even more effective way to draw attention to yourself is to move a little closer than normal viewing distance and rotate your head left-to-right and back again while trying to keep your vision focused straight ahead. When I do this, as my field of vision passes over a color wheeled DLP display, it's rainbow city. If you mumble to yourself while doing this, people will tend to slowly move away and leave you alone.
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post #43 of 838
11/17/05 at 8:28pm
Yoda - I feel your pain, because I also see yellow flashes on high contrast material on my new TH-50PHD8UK.

Luckily most of my viewing is live sports (bright, not contrasty), where the flashes appear extremely rarely.

But the darker movies - the flashes make them pretty much unwatchable for me (Pirates of the Carribbean in HD - case in point).

Sucks to be me - I saw the same thing on DLP.

Returning the set is out of the question - too much hassle, and there is nothing else out there I really like.

I noticed I see much fewer flashes when I put circular polarized filters from my cameras in front of my eyes when watching high contrast material.

Don't know why, perhaps because of less contrast. So now I am considering getting light gray polarized prescription eyeglasses to watch movies on my plasma - seriously.
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post #44 of 838
11/17/05 at 8:30pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevin C Brown View Post

For those of you that have seen it, when you do the hand waving test, is your hand closer to your eyes or the display? Man, I spent 20 min in a store one day doing the moving head test (peripheral vision), and I just couldn't see this. People were certainly looking at me funny though! 'Course, maybe it's a good thing I haven't been able to see this yet.

You have to get close to the plasma for an effective hand-waving test. I look around first .. make sure no one is watching me and then start the test. Go up to the plasma - very close, now - and wave your hand back and forth, you should be able to see a trail of colors. FWIW, I went to Best Buy today, checked out some of their plasmas and noticed that the Philips didn't seem to bother me all that much. I don't think it had anything to do with ambligiht 'cause the showroom is really bright, in effect rendering the ambilight useless (boy those BB guys are dense).

Only thing is, I hate those Philips plasmas, they have weird clayface issues.
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post #45 of 838
11/17/05 at 8:32pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by wojtek View Post

Yoda - I feel your pain, because I also see yellow flashes on high contrast material on my new TH-50PHD8UK.

Luckily most of my viewing is live sports (bright, not contrasty), where the flashes appear extremely rarely.

But the darker movies - the flashes make them pretty much unwatchable for me (Pirates of the Carribbean in HD - case in point).

Sucks to be me - I saw the same thing on DLP.

Returning the set is out of the question - too much hassle, and there is nothing else out there I really like.

I noticed I see much fewer flashes when I put circular polarized filters from my cameras in front of my eyes when watching high contrast material.

Don't know why, perhaps because of less contrast. So now I am considering getting light gray polarized prescription eyeglasses to watch movies on my plasma - seriously.

Whoa, really? Maybe I should try that. I'd rather not send this thing back.

I also don't really like anything else out there, with the exception of Mitsu 1080P DLP (out of the question due to rainbows) and some other plasmas, like Pio and Fujitsu ... i actually saw the new Mitsubishi at a local Mom'n Pop shop the other day .. very nice PQ ... wonderfully balanced .. blacks are ok, nowhere near as good as the Panny or Pio, though. Maybe I should try this eyeglasses thing. You think they'll work? I'm totally up to suggestions and will try anything to watch plasma .. there's simply nothing else out there right now that compares.
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post #46 of 838
11/17/05 at 8:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoda1 View Post

Whoa, really? Maybe I should try that. I'd rather not send this thing back.

Dude - do the following:

Pick a DVD that is Black and White and contrasty - I picked The Saragossa Manuscript, a fairly obscure movie, but you can pick any movie that gives you flashes.

I unscrewed neutral polarizer filters from my two cameras and stuffed them between my eyes and my eyeglasses. Of course neutral polarizers being a little dark everything made everything a bit darker, but I could hardly see a flash even if I shook my head. I could see tons of flashes without polarizers. So, perhaps getting polarized eyeglass lenses would do the trick - I have no idea.

But I am quite desperate - I really don't want to return the set.
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post #47 of 838
11/18/05 at 8:56am
I work at a place that has multiple plasma displays. All are Panasonic HD6UY and 7UY series except for one display which is a Philips 32FD9954 from several years ago. I had a DVD which contained Black images and titles which panned across a pure white background. The material was computer generated graphics which resulted in a very steppy-looking pan. On a normal interlaced CRT display, this DVD played flawlessly. However, on the Panasonic 42 and 50 inch displays we could see obvious yellow edges on the black objects that panned rapidly across the screen. Regardless of progressive or interlaced DVD playback, and regardless of any contrast or menu setting on the Panasonics, the artifact remained. We tried the same test on our Philips display and and were surprised to see that there were no colored edges - only black objects moving on a white background as it should be. We are not sure why this is, but the effect on the Panasonics was so obvious, anybody who looked at it could see the yellow. It was not limited to those with visual sensitivities. We put the DVD into variable speed slo-mo on the Panasonic plasmas and observed the problem is speed/response related. As the playback speed was increased from still frame ( no visible yellow), the yellow edge appeared and gradually increased in width as our variable speed increased. It almost appears that the blue phosphors might have a slower resonse time than the red and green. There also appears to be a sequence to the way the phosphors are refreshed in that even with a stationary image on the screen, panning your eyes with your hand or fingers in between you and the screen sometimes allows you to see a rainbow-like effect similar to what the moving images create. Very weird, but the Philips doesn't do that. Used the same DVD and identical Panasonic DVD players for the testing. Just wanted to pass this on to let you know others see it. It is real, but not all plasmas create images in exactly the same way! By the way, an LCD television exibited a little motion blur with the test material but exibited no color edges.
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post #48 of 838
11/18/05 at 9:06am
VidRX - thanks for confirming.

I cannot even fathom how other people CANNOT see that artifact on their 8UKs, but I guess I (and a handful of others) are just unlucky. I see the trailing yellow edges even in HD sometimes (for example when football player's white helmet is slowly moving against the background).

I am not sure if I would see it on other plasmas.

But if my idea of neutral light grey polarized prescription eyeglasses does not work I may have to get rid of my TH-50PHD8UK.

Given the current shortage this might not be a problem.
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post #49 of 838
11/18/05 at 11:17am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by vidRX View Post

I work at a place that has multiple plasma displays. All are Panasonic HD6UY and 7UY series except for one display which is a Philips 32FD9954 from several years ago. I had a DVD which contained Black images and titles which panned across a pure white background. The material was computer generated graphics which resulted in a very steppy-looking pan. On a normal interlaced CRT display, this DVD played flawlessly. However, on the Panasonic 42 and 50 inch displays we could see obvious yellow edges on the black objects that panned rapidly across the screen. Regardless of progressive or interlaced DVD playback, and regardless of any contrast or menu setting on the Panasonics, the artifact remained. We tried the same test on our Philips display and and were surprised to see that there were no colored edges - only black objects moving on a white background as it should be. We are not sure why this is, but the effect on the Panasonics was so obvious, anybody who looked at it could see the yellow. It was not limited to those with visual sensitivities. We put the DVD into variable speed slo-mo on the Panasonic plasmas and observed the problem is speed/response related. As the playback speed was increased from still frame ( no visible yellow), the yellow edge appeared and gradually increased in width as our variable speed increased. It almost appears that the blue phosphors might have a slower resonse time than the red and green. There also appears to be a sequence to the way the phosphors are refreshed in that even with a stationary image on the screen, panning your eyes with your hand or fingers in between you and the screen sometimes allows you to see a rainbow-like effect similar to what the moving images create. Very weird, but the Philips doesn't do that. Used the same DVD and identical Panasonic DVD players for the testing. Just wanted to pass this on to let you know others see it. It is real, but not all plasmas create images in exactly the same way! By the way, an LCD television exibited a little motion blur with the test material but exibited no color edges.


Wow. This is very interesting, and an almost exact description of what I'm seeing. I, too, don't understand how people do not see this on their Panny PDPs.

I may have to get a Philips plasma, tweak it out at home and see if I can grow to like it. It's well-priced and has a lot of inputs/connectivity.
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post #50 of 838
11/18/05 at 12:06pm
I just saw some ninja-looking dudes wearing white robes in a TV commercial on the 42 Panasonic plasma and I saw the yellow fringing on the edges of the robes as they moved rapidly against the background. It's there if you know what to look for (and if you WANT to see it)!
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post #51 of 838
11/18/05 at 12:26pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by vidRX View Post

I just saw some ninja-looking dudes wearing white robes in a TV commercial on the 42 Panasonic plasma and I saw the yellow fringing on the edges of the robes as they moved rapidly against the background. It's there if you know what to look for (and if you WANT to see it)!

Trust me, I have no choice in the matter. I see it without fail.
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post #52 of 838
11/18/05 at 12:32pm
R Harkness, calling R Harkness. We would like to hear from you . . . .
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post #53 of 838
11/18/05 at 1:03pm
How far from the display are you when you see this? Is there a distance from the screen that it disappears. I have never seen it and have had a 42PWD4UY for four years and a 50PHD7UY for over a year. At least not from normal viewing distance.
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post #54 of 838
11/18/05 at 1:43pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by JWhip View Post

How far from the display are you when you see this? Is there a distance from the screen that it disappears. I have never seen it and have had a 42PWD4UY for four years and a 50PHD7UY for over a year. At least not from normal viewing distance.

JWhip - I sit about 8 feet from the display. The flashes and trailings are still there when I get closer (obviously). I have not tried to get farther away because it is not an acceptable solution for me.

The only thing that worked so far and reduced the flashes to almost nothing was looking through polarizing filters I took off my cameras. Their light transmission is about 30%, though, so I think I was just reducing the flashes by 70%.

Still - better than nothing.
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post #55 of 838
11/18/05 at 1:44pm
I recently got a 42" panny 8UK (commercial) ED panel. I love the set, after tweaking it a little, the picture is simply stunning. However, I am noticing rainbows which in theory shouldnt happen with anything but DLP sets. This is really strange to me considering the way plasma works (unless ther'es some miniscule delay between the RGB fires). This is mostly noticeable in B&W or pure White areas. It's not very blatant or objectionable like 1st gen DLP projectors, but it is noticeable.
Does anyone else see these or is this just me?
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post #56 of 838
11/18/05 at 1:52pm
Strange indeed as I do not see them and hope I continue to not see them. Have you had the set calibrated? I sit 10 feet away and my set was calibated in Cinema mode with a normal color setting by Greg Loewen. Perhaps this will help. If you ever get to the Philly area, you can always check mine to see if you can see them.
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post #57 of 838
11/18/05 at 10:15pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fiddler View Post

I recently got a 42" panny 8UK (commercial) ED panel. I love the set, after tweaking it a little, the picture is simply stunning. However, I am noticing rainbows which in theory shouldnt happen with anything but DLP sets. This is really strange to me considering the way plasma works (unless ther'es some miniscule delay between the RGB fires). This is mostly noticeable in B&W or pure White areas. It's not very blatant or objectionable like 1st gen DLP projectors, but it is noticeable.
Does anyone else see these or is this just me?

I'm in the same boat as you - however - it's not just during bright white scenes that I see yellow flashes or rainbows - the effect is actually sometimes worse during dark scenes. For instance, I was watching Rome the other night and in many of the night scenes, characters walk around with torches that, whenever they're moving around, emit a lot of yellow flashing pulses ... this is kind of the same thing that was described above ... when objects move across the screen, there's this very odd yellow fringing that occurs ... sometimes they seem like flashes because the movement is so quick.

Also, I was playing the snow map online on Halo 2 the other day .... there's a lot of white on that whole map .. if you move your character's POV around, you will noticed MAJOR yellow fringing around white objects on that level ... the portals on the map are another place where this effect occurs as well.

Btw, I think I'm gonna pick up a Philips plasma in a couple days and see what happens. I'm not ready to give up on the technology just yet.
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post #58 of 838
11/19/05 at 9:12am
Thread Starter 
Hey,

If I tried out an ED plasma I'd most likely see the same things, right?
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post #59 of 838
11/19/05 at 9:37am
I'm curious if the original poster wears eyeglasses? I know from experience that some forms of plastic/acrylic eyeglass material will cause what is called chromatic abberation. If, while watching any type of TV picture, the wearer turns his head just a bit left or right of center, a reddish line can be seen on the edges of objects. I have a plasma TV screen and never see rainbows.
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post #60 of 838
11/19/05 at 1:24pm
I was thinking something similar but different. I have anti-reflective coatings on my glasses, but I haven't seen this effect yet. But I do need to do more testing.
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