PANASONIC 65" 1080p PLASMA (TH-65PX600U) Owners Thread - Page 5

I think we all agree the Pioneer 5070 is a fine set and at $3000 plus is a top value, as well. I went to a hi end store this morn and saw a range of Pioneer displays. I am interested in the new Pioneer pdp 507cmx, the 50 inch display. Pioneer also has a 60 inch set. ..5070 glass with some refinements of the Elite series, I am told. Did not see the new 507 monitor today. It should sell for $3100 plus but it already has the feet and HDMI input. So, that will save $300 over the Panny 50 inch commercial unit. In the end, the Pioneer will net a little more than the Panasonic. On HD dvd all these Pioneers I viewed had a similar look. 720p/1080i sets and 1080p sets look very much alike on all but the very highest source material. Then, there is a different on resolution but no big deal really. At 12-15 feet (my seating distance) this difference sort of fades away. I think today the real value in tvs lie between $3000-$3800. For all pracical purposes (and in the real world of OTA, Directv/Dish, and cable, these top value sets give up very little to much more expensive units. By the way, there are some very nice looking Samsung and Sony back projection sets....60-65 inches..$3000. that are very, very nice. I viewed them..back and forth..for one hour this morning as well. Forgive me for getting somewhat off the track. My point being..you can buy excellent sets today that will give you 95 percent of what the more expensive sets give you...at much less money. They should certainly appeal to 95 percent of the population.

Rich, wouldn't you think if the performance of the 65 Panny was as good as your Panny in the Jurassic Park test, that the same result would have carried over to the Alien test? I'm assuming it's just that Alien is far darker and deficiencies more easily revealed.

Not only is it difficult to judge black levels from a screen shot, but this type of scene should never be used to judge even when viewing it live. Almost any display will look to have good blacks when the scene is bright and punchy and there's deep shadows also in the scene. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people post on how good the blacks looked on some given display in scenes just like that.

The real test is when the screen is almost totally black (space scenes are my favorite, but not when 50% of the space scene is taken up by a bright spacecraft...that too can be misleading). A night scene with some rather dim streetlights is a good scene to judge. The better displays will still look rich and the displays with poor black levels will begin to get that LCD muddy look.

I was actually shocked at how bad the 65" Sharp looked when I saw it this past weekend. It was fed the same signal as every other set in the store and I'll tell you I was hard pressed to find a worse, more digitized looking picture.

Right, and the fact that I thought I detected higher black levels in Alien indicates to me the black levels of the Panny are a bit higher than what I get at home. But the performance of the display over a broad range of material (excluding the very most difficult torture tests, but including lots of night scenes, such as the T-Rex attack in Jurassic Park), makes me think for most material the Panny 65 has pretty good black levels.

In contrast (pun intended), displays with even higher black levels are noticeable to me over a much broader range of material. Which is what I was getting at with the reference to the JP3 shot of leaves in shadow. A lot of plasmas have had black levels high enough that the deficiency was plainly visible in such a shot. I seem to remember that the FHD1 also showed higher black levels in that shot too - in other words, I generally notice higher black levels on the FHD1 throughout a broad range of material, whereas on the Panny 65" it took more challenging scenes to make higher black levels more noticeable.

That's why from what I saw I think I could live with the 65's black levels, given how great it is across so much material. But I can't say yet if, in watching a lot more dark movies, I would change my mind.

Actually I agree, the Sharp doesn't look too hot on a lot of material and seems really fussy. Anything less than top quality and it looks xtra digital compared to other displays.

However, in lauding it's capabilities, I was thinking of the proprietary 1080i stuff I saw on that Sharp. Given I've seen 1080i off hard drives onto several different displays, the Sharp certainly held it's own. As I'd mentioned in the Pioneer FHD1 thread, I saw the same 1080i HD footage (shot for Sharp) on both the Sharp 65" LCD and the Pioneer FHD1 and on some shots the Sharp excelled in pure palpability and vividness over the Pioneer.

However, once I saw the Pioneer with 1080i stuff shot for Pioneer, that became pretty much the best HD images I've ever seen, with the Sharp 65" LCD neck in neck on just a few images that stuck out on the Sharp.

I agree. That screenshot was posted to demonstrate the overscan function on the set, NOT to show black levels. Once I do a bit more calibrating I'll post some more screenshots (for what they're worth) of the very type of scenes you are describing in order to look at black levels in the various modes.


I'm very "anal" about any light being on in the room when I'm viewing a movie to the point that I'll block out the red On/Standby Light on the TV along with any lights from my other electronic equipment. I want to see only what's on the screen and any other light source I find distracting. (Unless, hopefully, the movie is so totally engrossing I forget about it.)

Franchot,

I'm the same way about watching films. The less other light distraction from the picture the better. Which is why I haven't gone for bias lighting (after much experimentation).

The installers came today to mount my 65PX600U and the Sanus wall mount VMPL3 will not work. The mount holes on the Panasonic are 42 inches apart and the maximum widith on the Sanus is 40 inches. Don't know if this info has been posted before and I am not as familiar with these sites, but thought I would pass it on.

D-Nice
Thanks for the post and the answers to my questions.

I found a blurb in the manual regarding the acceptance of signals on the HDMI input which made me second guess the 1:1/no overscan capability. Or in other words the capability of accepting native rate....

Page 52 - Above Input Signal that Can be displayed Chart:

"All signal is reformatted before being displayed on the screen"

Do you know - and I understand you may not - given the set is just shipping...
if this affects the panel's ability to accept native rate - for say use with a VP?

I do not mean to belabor this and I may have missed a definitive answer to this question - and in that regard I will reread the various threads to see if/what I missed.

I do understand that an external VP has not yet been reported upon

Thanks
Therese

It probably depends on how much of your field of view is taken up with the display, but I've found that a bias light behind my display at no more than 10% of peak brightness helps absolute black to appear darker and relieves any eye strain.


On a different note, what I'm finding out on my plasma(768p Pioneer) is that it doesn't take much light on the front side of the plasma to make it look like it has elevated black levels where in reality, it's ambient light reflecting off of it.

Just a thought about the Pioneer FHD1 and the 1080p Panasonic plasmas that people have commented about elevated black levels, see if there is any room lighting that might be reflecting off of it and if the room is totally dark, if the elevated blacks tend to go away.

Well if it can take a NR signal with HDMI (which has been answered as affirmative) then you'd have to blame the VP not the panel. Gotta trust the results posted (even though I'd be more comfortable with direct test pattern experience).

Yes, that is one really big plus about using backlighting/bias lighting. Because ideally you get the benefit of less eyestrain (for those who experience it), apparently better contrast, at the same time as keeping light off the front of the display. So there is plenty to say for bias lighting.

It's just that, in my experience (and this trying many different backlights, with dimmers etc), the good points about back lighting are off-set by the "bad" points.
To me I find it distracting. And I find the image looks more convincing set completely in darkness, and appears subjectively bigger, because in darkness the display image itself becomes the only frame of reference, sucking me into the image. Whereas a backlight
casts a halo behind the plasma frame, making my brain continually aware of the actual size of the image, that there is a wall behind the image etc. The image therefore looks smaller to me, and I loose some of that immersion effect and the purity of observing only the source image itself.

But...that's my preferences. Bias lighting is great for lots of other folks.

Larry, that's good to hear. I'm looking forward to your observations.

Final word regarding black levels...when I'm watching a film in Full mode and there are no black bars, then I find the black levels quite good, especially for a plasma. It's only when a film has a narrow aspect and I can see the widescreen black bars that I'm aware that the blacks aren't quite as deep or as dark as I had thought. I think I'm hoping too much that the blacks on the TV will somehow match the black bezel of the TV. (Could that be part of the reasoning why Pansonic has increased the amount of silver on their cabinets?)

Thanks all for the comments on the black levels for this set in particular. Being the only place I can view any PDP is at Sears it is difficult to have a chance to really be able to give any a critical eye.

Perhaps a photo of a screen that has blacks that are not up to par?
Or is it that a photo cannot provide enough detail to see the black level properly?

Bob

^^^^^^^^

Okay. I'll try to accomodate your request. Here are three shots from "Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith" with a spaceship on the right side of the screen just entering from hyperspace.

I calibrated my set to each of the three modes using Avia to get what I thought was a pleasing picture.

First--Standard Mode
Second--Cinema Mode
Third--Vivid Mode

I don't think the camera captured it all too well, but...

Next, the spaceship is at the center of the screen. (The image is an upconverted SD DVD using my Onkyo at 1080i, 60hz, if it matters.)

First--Standard Mode
Second--Cinema Mode
Third--Vivid Mode

Franchot,

You mentioned that you used Avia. Doesn't Avia presume you are using a CRT with floating black levels? Have you tried DVE?

Finally, I switched to "Alien" for a shot of a spaceship that occurs just after the opening credits.

In all three series, I tried to select shots that had very little light so that the blackness of the screen could be seen. Within the limitations of the camera and resizing the pictures for this thread, I can't say the pictures are a true representation of what I'm actually seeing. Blacks are lighter than what appears in the pictures, but...

I'm actually starting to rethink my opinion of the blacks on this set, the more I watch it and tweak the settings. I think it does a very credible job for a plasma and, perhaps, I was expecting too much in the black area. (For instance, when I used to go to regular movie theaters and looked at the black levels there, I was always disappointed because they were never as dark as my RPTV back home. Resolution, of course, was another matter.)

Watching a few black and white films during the last few days I'm coming to appreciate how much detail the plasma is showing in the dark areas along with the super sharp crispness of other details on the screen. A few more tweaking sessions and I'm just going to start enjoying the movies instead of looking for flaws. The black levels are certainly good enough. And the way the set handles SD DVDs and HD DVDs gives me no room to complain about the clarity, depth, and sharpness of images.

Yes. It presumes that you're using a CRT as far as I can tell. I'm not sure about the floating black levels, however. I don't have DVE and won't be getting it because I'm purchasing the following:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...518310?ie=UTF8

which is coming out next month. It seems like it will be the best fit for my set.

When I use Avia or Video Essentials, I get a basic calibration, and then from there I tweak it until I get the look that I want. Not very scientific nor overly accurate, but functional enough until the Digital Video Essential HD DVD gets in my hands.

Franchot, great shots and thanks for using the type of space scene I suggested. Now, as I've said before, the only problem with shots like this (certainly not your fault) is that virtually any digital camera will render the blacks (even when they're not nearly true black) as inky jet blacks. So many people post screen shots from LCDs to prove their TVs produce a 'jet black'. Of course all these shots DO look like the blacks are jet blacks...but we know they're not and we know it's just the way the digital camera is capturing the shot. I've got a Bravia XBR and I could take a shot that makes blacks look jet black while my naked eye is telling me a totally different story.

Franchot, from your description, I know you're not seeing blacks that look this black on your live picture. But, more importantly, with the lights out how would you describe the color of black in your first shots where the spacecraft is rather small? That's what I'd really like to hear.

BTW, this is why the screen shots we see so often of new technologies can be very misleading. No digital camera, at the resolutions we can throw up here and then displayed on an LCD monitor, can possibly show us what the real CR looked like.

Thanks Franchot for the photos of the screens. Yep, they certainly look very black and vivid mode certainly brings out the contrast well!

I wonder if someone has photo processing software...ie Photoshop, etc. that they could use to adjust the black level to what their eyes are seeing? Just the black level would be the critical area, and any other objects in the scene would be irrelevant in the analysis.

Trying to get a feel for what is considered normal for these PDP sets.
This seems to be one of the biggest issues for flat panel technology or do the DLP or others have better blacks?

Bob

Unless the viewer's monitor has been properly calibrated, they may not see what is being displayed on the PDP either.

Thanks Franchot,

The shots indicate that the Panasonic is capable of picking out detail in the dark areas that are tough to do (that is at least the vivid mode shots - I know those details are generally there in the other picture modes as well, but don't come through in the screen shots).

Unfortunately, as Ken points out, there's no way to really show accurate black levels from a screen shot. The screen shot will typically make blacks (by crushing them) look super dark. You can indicate relative black levels in screen shots. In other words, if you have two displays side by side and you expose properly for the dark areas of the darkest display, and the other display has brighter black areas, you'll be able to see the relative difference in black level performance in a screen shot side-by-side (see my recent photos of the LCDs beside the Panasonic plasma).

That opening shot of the alien ship is the one I'm always talking about as a torture test for dark, low contrast image. The key lights on the ship on that shot aren't very bright, so it really takes a display with decent black levels to dig out any depth and contrast to the image. As well, there is noise in the shot than can be exacerbated by poor picture processing/scalilng. The shot after that one, with the ship over-head, really changes in contrast and should look very punchy, solid and three dimensional as the ship passes by the screen (it did on the 65PX600U that I saw). And then the first shot inside the ship looking down the corridors should be a "wow" moment in terms of the depth of image and contrast (and it was on the Panny).

As I mentioned before, I mostly watched in the default cinema mode. But occasionally I felt I wanted a bit more contrast, to help the perception of black level depth and dimensionality. Switching to the "standard" mode really aided this. Of course, tweaking the contrast in the cinema mode should do likewise.

(For the heck of it, next time I can view the 65PX600U with SD and HD-DVDs, I'll probably take some screen shots myself, to share).

Et al: It would certainly be nice if someone with a VP connected to this unit posted their experience SOON. I bought a Sony 70" XBR2 instead of the 65" Panny due to $ and being p__ssed off by the Panny table stand pricing policy. The Sony is going back. Good set, but the PQ is soft and the silk screen effect is too much for me. If the 600U won't allow 1:1 with a 1080p feed (Lumagen HDP) then I will have to default to the 65" 9UK. I would rather not do this because of possible in home warranty service issues. Thanks

Ken, I totally agree with you. If somebody looked at these shots and heard me complaining that the blacks weren't deep or dark enough, he'd probably say, "What the heck does this guy want?! If somebody painted over his display with a coat of black paint, he'd probably still complain that the blacks weren't dark enough!"

No picture (I can take) is going to give you an idea of how good or bad the blacks on this TV are. The best way to judge if the blacks are deep and rich enough for you, of course, is to see the set for yourself. But, to answer your question, in that first shot, the black level is not that bad when I put it in this context: when the set is on and there's no output from my DVD player, I am aware that the set is on because the set is emitting light. When there is output from my DVD player such as that dark first screen shot, the light output is about the same. It doesn't look significantly brighter either way. (I guess one would have to use a light meter to get a better answer.)

With my old RPTV (which had its glare screen removed), the TV could remain on all night long and I wouldn't be aware it was on because the screen was so dark. With this plasma I can't mistake that the TV is off when it is actually on. (Which I guess is inherent in plasma technology at this time in history?)

That's a good question (for which I don't have the answer.) I was seriously contemplating the 2007 Mitsubishi WD-65831 or WD-73831 because they were supposed to be "as good as a plasma without the plasma glare or high price." When I finally got to see one in action, I immediately stopped considering it. The SSE killed it for me. (And also, like others, I greatly favor a direct view set as opposed to rear projection or front projection.)

The TH-65PX600u fit many of the things I wanted in a direct view set (especially size and resolution) and because the price for such a set had gone under $10,000, I jumped on it. Like others on this forum I bought a smaller ED plasma years ago at a price which was roughly half the price I paid for this beast. Looking at it that way, the PX was almost a bargin.

Sorry, dsinger. No VP for me. (My funds are tapped out.) Maybe Larry has one or someone else will post about this because I'm also very interested about how a VP could/can work with this set.

Franchot: Thanks for your support on this issue. I have a 50" 6UY which the 65" will replace. 1:1 is hard to obtain without the correct timings but after 1:1 is working the PQ improves significantly. Good PQ DVDs look as good as an HBO HD version of the same movie IMO.