NEC new plasma thread!!! - 42xr4, 50xr5, 61xr4 - Page 8

I spoke to NEC tech support about this yesterday and the question was referred to an engineer, but I've not heard back yet.

I went back and read some in the video processor forum and I found that motion compensated deinterlacing is even too much for Realta. The best currently available seems to be motion adaptive. The Realta HQV (Hollywood Quality Video) is certainly touted as being on of the best new chips, though.

I guess the model supplement pamphlet has a typo.

It's still possible they use Realta. I would also be surprised as they don't use it in marketing. Also, I think the HQV logo is usually applied if the chip is there. See http://www.necvisualsystems.com/Prod...6-0244061f690a and use the magnifying glass.

Anyone know how to post pics that are not HUGE. I just linked some that Chris was hosting for me and they showed up HUGE!

Welcome to the forum.
Contagious is good only to the extent that it adds "information". Now, as to what is good info and bad info I am afraid it is something that we have to decide on our own.

Read through the lines, note who's posting what and in most cases you'll be able to tell when the info is genuine, b/s, marketing .... Ultimately use your own judgement. And if you are seeking professional opinions, this is not in my view the first place to search even though you will find references to reviews.

As to online NEC vendors, I have used TVA, a sponsor here at AVS, for my NEC 2 years ago and was very happy (but in this business 2 years might be a long time). I used very recently Visual Apex for the purchase of a pj and was also very happy.

Good luck !

Tony, go to imageshack.com, they will resize them for you and host as well.

http://www.imageshack.us/

Okay, thanks to calim who was kind enough to resize and host these for me, below are a couple picks of the game the other night. I was a little hesitant to post these because this was before I had done any picture setting tweaks and the picture quality has definitely improved since these. Nonetheless, they do show some of the potential this panel is capable of.

The first one is of the national anthem singer and the second is off the guys holding the flags during it. I posted the flag one cause it has alot of smoke in the background. I have seen alot of panels struggle with this type of scene and wanted to show how flawlessly the NEC handled it. It also shows that the blacks are BLACK.

I have a couple more pics showing the whole panel with the lights on and the side of it with the cable cover over it (in case those who would need the cover wanted to see it with it on). As soon as I can I will post those as well.

Wow, nice pics Tony! It would be interesting to see a full resolution picture although it would be better to provide a link to the picture rather than put it in-line. I think the downsized pics are showing artifacting that is probably not in the full size pics i.e. false contouring.

Microsoft has an handy "image resizer" powertoy if you have PC with Windows XP. Just right click your mouse over the picture you want to resize and select resize pictures. It gives you several options but even the large size (1024 x768), results in a good size for posting with a reasonable size. Download it here.

http://download.microsoft.com/downlo...ertoySetup.exe

Thanks for posting the pictures (hopefully a grayscale pic is coming soon ).

Thanks for posting the pics! The blacks do look very impressive in the smoke/flag shot.

However, I do see some gradient banding and the dreaded clayface on Ms. Rimes. Is this due the pic resizing and processing or have you noticed some of this on the screen? If it was on the screen, have you're tweaks taken care of it?

You are exactly right N8G ... this clayface issue is the reason I still don't have a plasma TV. My early reading lead me to believe that the 42" XR4 was the only one of the "new" NEC's that had all of the state-of-the-art features...am I wrong in thinking this?

I see it too. But what was the input? That could explain everything, even with the best tweaking.

It would be interesting- after we get a couple of hours under the xr5's belt and some of us/you who are very good at calibrating.
post - for let's say night/dark Movie DVD setting. We all have different EQ. so some some seting would be different. But it would also be interesting to see how close all our setting are too.

Tony17 (my friend) I haven't got a HD feed yet. %&#@%(% comast), I hope my PQ is that good.

* aslo those of you how have Blade Runner (I have the newer one) opening sceen. Black clouds on Black back ground viewing the city or oil fields.- very interesting...
db

mhfnet...I forgot to take a grayscale when I had the camera...maybe cpcat can take one for you. N8G....the camera did add some unwanted effects in the picture which is why I really didn't want to post them...but I wanted to at least show you guys something. I can assure you there is NO clayface whatsoever on this panel. I think the pausing of the image with the tivo adds some unwanted noise as well. If I can I will try to take some pics with my measly 3.2mp camera after the tweaks I did and see how they come out.

I've loaded some others onto image shack. I had to reduce the size from over 1MB each to like 98KB, so they got a little blurred compared to the originals, but look decent. One is of the football game, which I took to show the level of black and details in the background. The other is a quick pic of the overall plasma and the last is of the side panel with the cover in case those who are going to use the cover wanted to see what it would look like.

yobob, that was ota with my hdtivo. however, before any tweaks and using the hdmi cable that came with the box. I've since gotten a cable from RAM (forum sponsor) and done pretty many tweaks. Anything noise in the above picture is now gone. I hope to post better pics soon.

I thought as much. And your quote from post #223, pretty much says it all:

"NO clayface whatsoever on this panel"

Thanks Tony! And congrats!

I've tried taking pics of the greyscale pattern. It just looks horrible and it's not even worth posting. My digital camera is old (Canon ps100) and I don't have a tripod.

Your pics look spectacular, though, compared to mine. I'm sure the clayface is an artifact of either the camera or the computer. I see absolutely no clayface artifacting with my panel. I know you said your settings were "out of the box", but can you post them anyway? Whatever they were, I'd like to try them out.

If you or cpcat ever get some good quality pics of the grayscale I would love to have one. I would also love to see any full resolution pictures. You can email them to me at the address I sent you in the last PM.

I am very interest in the grayscale pic because I got burn on my last Hitachi plasma because it had a banding problems that would have been easily determined using the AVIA grayscale ramp pattern. Unfortunately I bought if from a store with a poor return policy and ended up getting "stuck" with it. Luckily I was able to convince Hitachi that it was unacceptable (using photos) and they are in the process of giving me a refund, however it was a very painful process getting to this point and I want to make the right decision this time.

Since I there are no stores in my area that carry the 50XR5, I am buying it on risk and I thought if someone could send me a picture of the AVIA Horizontal Grayscale Ramp it would ease my mind. I guess since you guys have looked at the pattern and you say it is smooth, it sounds like banding is not an issue on the NEC. Thanks for at least checking it out.

I have also been waiting to see if there is a plasma announced at CES that would top the NEC. Sounds like there is not much new in 50" plasmas. Panasonic announced the 50PX600 which basically has some cosmetic changes and 1 more HDMI connection. Also I have no interest in getting a 50" 1080P plasma as I don't plan to sit 6 feet in front of it in order to resolve 1080 lines of resolution. So at this point the NEC is still the top contender.

now that I have seen some pictures, I must say, purely aesthetically, I prefer the XM2/3... look.
The frame around the panel just seems so big ! On the XM2 and similar models, I love the minimalistic hedge .....

Okay, mhfnet, I know you REALLY wanted these. I had taken them before, but just wasn't that happy with them as they don't look exactly like what I am seeing, but a pretty good indication. The camera seemed to add some extra effect that is weird (mostly noticable in the second one), but I know you were dying for these so here they are. This is with an old toshiba with component cables and 480i.

Thanks, Tony!

I focused on the first one as your are right that the second one has some moire effects due to the camera. It does look like there is some vertical bands especially on the dark end of the pattern which eye is most sensitive to. Many people complain about "clayface" effects on peoples faces in dark scenes and this is why.

Was this before you applied the video adjustments provided by cpcat? If so did it improve afterwards? It sounds like from cpcat comments, that his adjustments really did improved the gray scale smoothness and color variation on his plamsa.

Also on the picture you took of singer above, several people commented about the "clayface" (also called banding, posterization or false contouring) they saw on her face. Is this the same in the full resolution picture or is it a artifact of resizing the picture? Is it possible to post the full resolution picture or email it to me?

Great photos! But Tony, what is the feed? Are you using satellite or cable, SD or HD? I would really like to know, because it would enable me to compare your PQ to mine.

I have continued to work on this. I've used both horizontal and vertical grey ramps and found settings which make both fairly smooth ( much better than defaults). The settings I posted earlier produced banding in the vertical ramp. I still can't get the vertical ramp to look perfectly smooth, but almost.

Here are my latest settings. I set two picture memories up for comparison to the prior settings and I definitely like this one better with actual programming. This is via HDMI with HDMI set to high in setup menu. I made bias adjustments this time as it seemed to help smooth the vertical ramp. The color saturation can be set to taste. I prefer it slightly undersaturated. It doesn't seem to effect the grey ramps much at least +/- 5 from the default of 32.

Contrast 48
Brt 36
Color 28
Tint 31
Theater 1
Gamma 2.2
Pedestal 0
Low tone auto
Mid-low temp
*GR46
*GG34
*GB36
*BR39
*BG30
*BB30

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.

There a NEC 50xr5 on my porch!
Finally took delivery today after being on the waiting list for 3 weeks. Just peeked in the box to make sure the screen was OK The only problem is the table stand is another 3 days out.
Just about ordered the Panny until I dug into this forum a little deeper. I want to thank all the contributors to this thread for their expertise. I will continue to monitor and add what I can. This is my first HD experience so I am still climbing the learning curve. Thanks again!

Congratulations !!
Dining chairs came to my rescue. My XR5 is resting on 3 chairs in my bedroom .
I promise ,you will not regret your decision about Panasonic .

Hey you guys.... Very new here and I am impressed with all the info.. Perhaps you can help me with a decision. I have a brandy new Panny th-42px50u in a box in my basement. I got it so cheep through a friend that buying it was a no brainer. I have not opened it because although it is a great plasma I have been told that I should sell it and buy a NEC 42xr4a. I also have the opportunity to trade it for a Panny 500u. I don't need a tuner or speakers so its all about the picture quality and inputs. AHAHAHAH...What to do???

Watched Star Wars 3 , to nite .
No macroblocking with my OPPO. I think this was the best stress test .
Picture Quality is outstanding just with Default Settings .No Clayface issues.
Very happy so far.
I have no issues with blacks either . They seem to be great .

I have both the 50XR5 and TH-50PX50U. The NEC is the better plasma IMO. Better processing (clearer, especially noticeable with sports) as well as better colors and I'm beginning to think even better blacks/shadow detail. It's a winner from the standpoint of inputs hands-down (2 HDMI, 2 component, VGA, s-video, composite). It's infinitely adjustable through the user menu and supports native rate. The 3 year warranty's nice as well.

It's likely the comparison is similar for the 42 inch models, but I couldn't say for sure.

My blacks and shadow detail performance just seem to get better and better. The PQ on Ghost Whisperer tonight was stellar. The very last scene when JLH was saying goodbye to the guy on the street, the black jackets they were wearing as well as JLH's hair looked blacker than I ever remember seeing on my Panny.

JLH + NEC 50XR5 =

Thank you cpcat. Read your other posts and was hoping you would get back to me. That clinches it! NEC is on its way!!