Official Panasonic PX60/600 Tweaking, Settings, Issues, Technical Thread!

Originally Posted by baloo

I took a first shot last night at doing a very basic calibration of our new TH-50PX60U. I've spent some time in the past trying to obtain the best quality picture in our basement front projection system (our home theater), so I've used AVIA and other tools several times. However, I am definitely not an expert, so YMMV greatly.

The new 50PX60U is in our upstairs family room. There is some ambient light during the day and the walls are a light yellow. I calibrated in the evening using AVIA and an OPPO OPDV971H DVD player connected to the Panasonic through the HDMI 2 port. (We also have a DTV HD TiVo, although we'll be switching to Verizon FIOS or Cox soon.) During calibration, I kept the room dim (some overhead ceiling lights on a dimmer) but not dark, as this is our typical viewing environment for this room.

Like others have reported, I found the default "Vivid" mode settings out of the box artificial -- they made the picture look blocky and oversaturated. I first switched from Vivid to Standard mode. The default settings in Standard mode were: Picture +20, Brightness 0, Color 0, Tint 0, Sharpness +15. After doing the AVIA video calibration tests, my settings were:

Picture +12
Brightness +5
Color -2
Tint -5
Sharpness -3

I'll check the settings again in a few days with AVIA, as I've found that it sometimes takes me a few times to get the best settings. I'm also not sure I had all the other video options on the Panasonic set correctly (i.e. Light or Dark blacks).

From my amateur viewpoint, the picture is VERY nice -- I'm glad I didn't wait for the 600, which I had earlier debated. It's hard to turn off the TV. My next step is to research and buy a relatively inexpensive surround speaker system to upgrade the sound in the room ...

baloo

Originally Posted by HomeTheatreMaven

I'm using Warm and Light.

I wonder what temp is closest to 6500K; usually it's the Warm setting. To know for sure we need a professional calibrator or review.

Also wonder if it's better to choose the Light setting and darken Brightness or choose Dark and lighten Brightness. What's the difference?

Originally Posted by GodWhomIsMike

Wouldn't the recommended display settings people suggested for last year's model work just as good on this year's? Or would there be some major differences?

Originally Posted by Beto3645

Got my 42PX60U yesterday. This set replaces a 27-inch 1992 cathode ray tube Sony XBR which still has a great picture (in SD, of course).

We put the TV at the foot of the bed so we will be watching from about six feet. Only had a couple of hours to watch, so these are preliminary impressions:

Picture quality is great, but default settings are wrong. Vivid is way too fiery, Standard has too much contrast and artificial sharpness, and Cinema is lifeless. In Standard mode, I decided to turn down Picture (why doesn't the TV industry like the word "contrast"? "Contrast" is much more descriptive than "Picture") to about +20, and leave everything else at 0. I will calibrate when my Avia disk arrives.

SD is very good when the signal is good. Unfortunately, the signal varies greatly between channels and the differences in PQ are much more pronounced than on my old Sony XBR. All in all, SD is very watchable.

I was surprised that I could get HD channels over Time Warner Cable without a STB! Local channels and a special KPBS channel with different programming than regular KPBS. I though I needed a cable card to get HD over cable without a STB. Evidently not!

Now what do I do with the Zenith Silver Sensor antenna coming in the mail next week?

Needless to say, picture quality in HD was wonderful. Very sharp and lifelike, fantastic color saturation, excellent contrast, deep blacks (almost as black as my old Sony XBR), and very pure whites. This is from a few minutes of watching the KPBS HD channel, and snippets of the March Madness college basketball games.

I watched the opening scenes from the new DVD of Good Night and Good Luck. I was pleased with the purity of the blacks and the whites. The gray scale, in particular, seems very refined and extended, moving from black to white seamlessly. Shadow detail is exceptional, and highlight detail is the best. (By the way, the Dianne Reeves soundtrack of this DVD is so well recorded that I ordered the CD; the saxophone in particular is very real.)

I also watched some scenes from Natural Born Killers, and the PQ was fabulous. Color is very good, although perhaps a little oversaturated because I have yet to calibrate the set.

I used a cheap Toshiba SD-3950 to play the DVD's. It seems that the Panasonic de-interlaser and scaler are so good that even a $50 DVD player looks good. Why would I need an Oppo?

Originally Posted by mugwump88

We will need info how to get into the service menu. This will be another informative thread!

Originally Posted by jkv4

Does that Toshiba have HDMI? If the new panny scalers are really good than you might benefit from getting the new OPPO player coming out in april. It will let you feed the panny a 480i signal thru HDMI and this will let you take advantage of the 16 bit processing and better greyscale gradations only available thru HDMI.

Originally Posted by sirbrillo

My issue is, when setting the TV up for TV watching, it wants to do a channel scan, it seems to look for either cable or antenna but I can't seem to figure out how to make it remember both.

Originally Posted by elight50

About HDMI inputs:

Being new to all of this chatter, I was looking at the photo of the back of the 60s and noted that there HDMI 1 and 2 Audio in jacks. I thought if you connected with an HDMI cable, you didn't need separate audio inputs. I apologize if this is a silly question, but what are these inputs for?

Originally Posted by editedby

Do any owners know if a 50u wallmount will work with the 60u ???

Originally Posted by mugwump88

We will need info how to get into the service menu. This will be another informative thread!

Originally Posted by Beto3645

...I was surprised that I could get HD channels over Time Warner Cable without a STB! Local channels and a special KPBS channel with different programming than regular KPBS. I though I needed a cable card to get HD over cable without a STB. Evidently not!

Originally Posted by Beto3645

Thanks, that is good information. No, the Tosh 3950 does not have HDMI. I was using S-Video, actually. I was wondering what the differences are between the current Oppo and the new one. So the new one will NOT have a de-interlacer and scaler, but it will have HDMI and be a universal player, including all manner of DVD's and CD's, including Super Audio CD and DVD-A?

Originally Posted by Byron Walter

Huh?

I thought that you had to have a STB for the HD stuff. If, in fact, that's the case I might consider a 37 inch model to replace my ancient Sony CRT in my bedroom.

Byron

Originally Posted by Erie33

I tried the info. listed in the Bruzzi Panny sticky under "Checking Hours Used" and it worked on my 50PX60U, so service menu access seems the same as the 50U's. The menu was a little bit different, however.

BTW, I checked the info when I first turned my set on and found it had been turned on 11 previous times for an hour of total use. I guess this was during testing.

Originally Posted by SweatyPalm

I tried to access the service menu but it didn't work. Here's what I did, holding down the "-"vol button, press the "recall" button 3 times. nothing happened. Am I missing something? Mine is 42PX60U.

Also, how do I get the TV to display SD pictures in full screen?