NEC new plasma thread!!! - 42xr4, 50xr5, 61xr4 - Page 6

screen reflectance of this set
I purchased the xr5 because it stated great anti-reflectance, but i haven't had a chance to test it out. It has been raining here for 10 days straight. I have glass brick windows that created beautiful defused light in the after noon. _very bright_
but not glaring so no curtains. I 'll post on a sunny day.
db

^^^It does not need to be sunny. If you are not seeing much glare on a rainy day you won't see any more ona sunny day. Thanks for the investigation.

I'll play with it some more and see if I can get it looking smoother. I'm no expert though, but the good thing is that the grey scale adjustment can be set back to factory defaults throught the menu so it can't hurt to try. I'm going to play with the color temp adjustments first, then saturation, then the grey scale adustments last. I'll try to post a photo.

Wow, a quick scan of the owners manual I got email to me from NEC and this looks like the swiss army knife of plasmas, with just about every control and adjustment feature imaginable! A link to the manual should be posted shortly.

Sorry to contradict you, but all the inputs and outputs on my new 50XR5 are on the right hand side (not rear) of the panel, as you face the screen, an extremely convenient location, I might add.

I stand corrected...you are exactly right.

Does this pose a problem with cables sticking out of the side or is there enough room to bend them down and still be hidden from view behind the panel?

definitely enough room to tuck them down unseen...unless you have a clear view of the side of the PDP like me. I was able to use the cover from my VR5 though to hide (they sell it for like $60).

Yes, indeed, if that side of the panel is viewable (which depends on your set up) it is not pretty. But there is a solution.

For my model (XM2) NEC offered a cover for the cable side of the panel. I have it and works great. See if they still do with the current models - I'd be surprised they didn't.

ww

The inputs are on the back/bottom-center of the 42 inch model according to the owner's manual. They are on the back right (as you look from the front) on the 50 and 61 inch and inset around 3 inches from the side.

It's not directly on the side. It's in-set about 3 inches so it's still hidden behind the panel as you look from the front.

mhfnet: can you give us any tidbits from the owner's manual in terms of any user adjustments we didn't know about?

mhfnet, here is a quick pick of the grayscale from AVIA. Again, crappy dvd player via component, but it looks pretty good to me...will try again tomorrow with a good camera

Just to say thanks to Johnson5 for this informative response, better and more to the point than the responses I got on the DISH thread in DBStalk. I guess I will delay my installation date by about a month and see what happens in the interim. And now, back to the NEC plasma thread. (This whole discussion of satellite is spurred by my burning desire to secure a high quality HD-via-HDMI source so I can really see what my 50XR5 can do. I am already growing tired of the limitations of all-SD via S-video viewing.) Gotta buy an upsampling DVD player too, I guess.

I also noticed tonight that you can use the Stadium stretch mode with 720p adn 1080i material as well. Last years models you could only stretch with 2.35:1 or anamorphic, but being able to stretch HD material with the Stadium is pretty nice.....

If you are looking at the TV, what side do the cables get plugged into!?

I noticed something on the screen last night. I played Blade runner, to view black levels. I 'm in wide screen, so black bands top/bottem. I could see vary faintly upper right conner __ DVD VIDEO__ Then on upper left corner other faint letters -words. going down from the black band into the screeen, they were present in the picture too.. when darker images were produced. very faint but i saw it at 12' away.
{ these images _words_are the lettering from my DVD Panrp82 setup screen}
I did not leave the setup screen on at all- even the last time i used the xr5 or dvd player. It had been off for 24 hr. what am i seeing and Why?
db

Good news people: mhfnet sent me the manual this morning and it's now up and available for your viewing pleasure at http://www.calim.org/xr5_manual.pdf . Please let me know if you have any issues accessing the file.

Cheerio.

It sounds like you have image retention. I'd run a DVD loop to see if that gets rid of it. Make sure it's a 1.85:1 or 1:78:1 DVD with no black bars.
You need to limit any static images to a minimum for the first 100 hours and be sure to fill the screen. Also, consider turning pdp orbiting on in the function menu if it's not already.

Finally, in the function menu, there is a screen wiper, white screen, inverse white screen. These can help, too, but the DVD loop is probably the best option as that also will run-in the panel some which will make it less susceptible to image retention. The inverse white screen in theory should be used with the same offending screen image which caused the image retention.

See http://www.fcw.com/vendorsolutions/panasonicplasma.pdf for other tips on break-in.

Thanks, i thought i had been carefull. Change the picture quite often when watching, using full piture and only using letterbox a few time. Turned the xr5 on this morning and on the blank screen i could see -upper left- the word- PANASONIC-!!! went to menu- screen wiper,white and inverse. it's clean now. i'll be even more carefull....
db

Video connections are on the right hand side of the TV when you look at it. Power plugs into the bottom of the set, as well as onboard audio.

Thanks calim!

The manual covers the 42XR4, 50XR5 and 61XR4 models. Should help answer many questions.

Since this was a issue with the last model year models, it would interesting to hear from those owners if the retention issue went away or significantly reduced after the break-in period.

not to worry DAB, even though sort of scarey at first, I know, been there

My guess is that if you turn the thing off with last shown some static image prone to cause retention, then it will simply stay there for you to find the next time you turn it on.

How old is your panel ? As it is commonly said around here, I am pretty sure it depends a lot on age. My panel, now 2+ year old, has not shown any signigicant image retention in a long time if at all.

You did the right thing with a bit of wiper and white screen ....

good luck !

This holds for the 50 and 61 inch models. The 42 inch model has the video inputs on the bottom. I like the inputs on the side, actually. They are easier to access but yet still inset from the edge enough to hide the connections.

On a side note, I've made a big change with my 50XR5. I took the external scaler out of the loop entirely. Guess what? The picture is better overall!!
Better blacks, color, contrast. Overall, a richer, more natural image but with no loss in perceived resolution and I think even *less* noise/artifacting. This is one nice set. Thanks to mnfnet for spurring me on to look at the AVIA grey ramps. Once I started playing around with the grey scale adjustments, I found I could actually get a nice smooth ramp with the scaler in bypass mode while I still had a few bands with the scaler in the loop.

Here are the results of my adjustments so far. I'm using HDMI/DVI inputs:

Contrast 48
Brt 36
Color 28
Tint 31
Color temp Mid-low with below adjustments
* GR 34
* GG 27
* GB 30
* BR 40
* BG 40
* BB 40
Gamma 2.2
Pedestal 0
Picture mode Theater 1
Low tone auto

Be sure HDMI is set to High in Set Up assuming you aren't using a PC level source.

This has produced the smoothest grey ramp via AVIA so far. It's without banding whatsoever and bright white to near black. It seems to be neutral grey to my eye. The bias adjustments don't seem to affect the banding as much, but change the overall tint of grey. I ended up leaving them at defaults as that seemed to look the best.

*Edit 1/10: I've gone back to default color temperature setting at "mid". In spite of the fact that the AVIA grey ramp doesn't look quite as smooth, it provides much more accurate colors. I was back to "wow" again last night with CSI Miami.

Also, "low tone" set to 1 at first seemed to improve the blacks a little, but it's stealing too much shadow detail. Went back to "auto".

I guess I'll stick to my day job afterall.

I'll leave grey scale adjustment to someone who knows what they're doing.

have any owners tried out the PIP? can you have 2 HD inputs in PIP/split screen? what is your review of the PIP feature?

I'll give it a try and get back to you.

My big news: I ordered a 42xr4 tonight from Chris at Cleveland Plasma...am eager for it to arrive so that I can experience the great picture that many of you have found from the NEC plasma.

Thanks to everyone who posted their reviews here. They were tremendously helpful in my decision-making process.

Congratulations Lisa! Let us know if it performs as well as everyone else's 50XR5 when you get it. I'm guessing it should, but it seems there are a few electronic differences when viewing the specs.

I am trying to decide between the Panny 42PX50U and the 42XR4 so I am very interested in your review.