Why does Blu-Ray look Better in Best buy and not on my TV?

How far are you sitting back from your television? You got a great tv, but at Best Buy you were probably standing a few feet away from a 1080P television. Calibrating can help but I would suggest trying to sit a few feet closer if that is possible. I have a 56 inch Panasonic 1080P DLP set and I sit back about 7 1/2 to 8 feet away. A friend of mine has the 50PX60U Panasonic plasma set, the same set you have but the bigger size. He sits about 14 feet back. From his viewing distance on his television I do not get anywhere close to the "wow" factor I get when I am watching my television from my viewing distance.

First what display were they using?
Have you tried the same title on yours?
have you tried being that close to your display?
there are a veriety of possibilities.
Also usually the TV's there are on torch mode to attract your eye and combat the lighting in the store.

Torch mode at home FTW!

You only live once!

It very well could have been on a new 120hz lcd that makes the movie almost look re-shot cause of how clear it looks. I work at BB and yea we have a 120hz Samsung sporting a blu ray demo and Pearl Harbor and Pirates looks unreal, but some people still thinks it looks great but a lil funny, the demo disc we have if a special disc that sports 120hz, Im not sure but maybe the disc is different from general blu rays. Ill try it out on a different tv and player when I have time.

The TV you have is excellent. If you are not getting the wow factor from your Blu Ray movies something is either not setup right or you need to calibrate your TV. You have to separate yourself from the 1080p vs 768p of your TV. Your TV is capable of making very stunning images and even if you upgraded it to the latest 1080p panny plasma, you might not even see a difference from 10ft away.

So, start here. What BD player are you using? How is it hooked to the TV? Are you running the BD player straight to the TV or are you running it to an AVR then to the TV?

This is too funny, I almost started this exact same thread earlier in the week.
My last trip to Best Buy I noticed the same thing.
They were showing a scene from Gone in 60 Seconds that looked like you were looking out a window at Nic Cage.
I can assure you it has nothing to do with the TV.
These demos are most certainly completely remastered, recolored, retimed, etc for demo purposes.
I would bet my house that if you went to the shelf rack, pulled Gone in 60 Seconds Blu-Ray, with its same transfer as the SD version, and put it in that TV/Player, it would not look anything like what you are seeing.

I have seen demos at Best Buy, Frys, Circuit City, etc of Blu Ray and HD-DVD since early last year and they have never looked this good. It looks like the same equipment they have been using before.

Now if only they could do that demo magic on the full length releases.
It reminds of the time DTS used to cook the sound mix for their demo material (Jurassic Park comes to mind).

You saw it on the XBR4 didn't you? That TV looks sick!! As someone alluded to it's not just a Remaster. My local CC had a A3 hooked up to an XBR4 playing the Batman Begins HD DVD and it had the same window effect that the BB XBR4 demo disc had.

One odd thing I noticed though, both the BR demo disc at Best Buy and the Batman HD DVD at Circuit City had this weird effect where they looked like they were being played back very slightly in fast forward. It wasn't extreme, but it was noticeable. Is that a side ffect of the 120hz refresh rate?

BTW, I used to have the same Plasma as you and I was VERY pleased with HDM Picture Quality. I just traded it in so I could buy a Projector and go BIGGER. The PS3 detects the TV at 1080p because the Panny can accept 1080p inputs and then converts them to the TVs native resolution (1024x768 IIRC). That always looked a touch better to me than setting the PS3 to 720p. If you don't want to calibrate, then there are some ISF recommended settings for your TV that might help a bit. Lucky for you, I still have a notepad file with them.


Picture Mode Standard
Picture +22
Brightness +8
Color -1
Tint -4
Sharpness -14
Color Temperature Warm
Enhanced Black Level Off

EDIT: w00t! Post # 1337!

I saw a setup with Spiderman 3 playing at Best Buy, and it looked really strange. It was extremely crisp and clear, but it had a look to it that was completely different than on my display. My wife said it looked like a soap opera...that's probably the best description I can think of.

We have a 67 inch Samsung DLP and sit about 7 feet away. We like to think we are inside the TV, rather than sitting in front of it...

Well, the movie was a Soap Opera masquerading as a Summer Blockbuster.

BTW, does anyone know where the term Soap Opera came from? What does it have to do with soap? Do actors in regular operas not bathe?

Soap Opera
Daytime dramas so named because they were originally sponsored by the makers of laundry detergent in the early days of television.

Thats wierd, I have never seen any blu-ray setup in any store look good. But it looks stupid on my sony 60a3000. (seriously sensational). I cant beliebe that the BDA dont make sure these stores get it right. If I went off of what they show I would have never bought one because they dont take advantage of the difference.

I've seen the XBR4 playing in my Best Buy with that Pirates demo, it has that odd "real life window" look too. Now, dont get me wrong, the XBR4 is a GREAT LCD, but NOT THAT GREAT! I asked a sales associate if I could pop in the blu ray from another TV that was playing the regular version of Spiderman 3 on BD, and it looked awesome, but not that "door to real life" look. I'm willing to bet anything that the demo plays unrealistic clips not true to the actual blu rays. My proof? I have a 4671 120 Samsung, and I popped in Pirates and it looks awesome, but not that awesome, not even close.

The 120 hz stuff baffles me, perhaps it is just my eyes, but it makes everything look sped up and robotic to me. The new Samsungs have a demo option you can turn to make it split screen. Everything 120 hz is on the left, everything regular is on the right. If you have a shot from any movie with a group of people walking towards the screen I can barely watch. The legs of the people on the 120 hz side look fake and cartoony, the ones on the regular side look fluid! It seems clearer? But I cannot tolerate the tradeoff...

I don't understand how people can say "it looked better in the store"?

The majority of in-store displays I see have terrible noise, color, and visible motion smearing from the stupid "enhancer" modes most brands have.

Or how my local Magnolia in Best Buy has a 70" SXRD facing outward towards the Best Buy floor always playing a horrible looking 4x3 stretched DVD of an ancient Led Zep concert in glorious Dolby 2.0 while all the smaller displays inside air DiscoveryHD...

Film is 24hz not 120hz.
The flourescent lighting in the big stores dont help.

I buy all my panels from a little store(they dont carry LG for some reason). only stuff with top notch quality. And it's always dark. Not on display with the pumped up contrast or vivid settings. You know what you get.

Haha I always feel that when I walk into stores like Best Buy that their HD setups are amazing. I think it's just some placebo affect going on for me. You walk into a showroom of TVs or or an HD setup spotlighted and it just feels more majestic than in your own home. It's kinda like going to a carshow where in the back of your mind you have preprogrammed yourself to expect beautiful cars. Same thing when I walk into an electronics store. The atmosphere of all the electronics around just makes it feel greater than it really is.

Nothing in Best Buy or Circuit City has ever looked as good as Blu Ray or HD DVD on my 92" screen. Nothing. Not even close. All the demos, even the one's on the XBR4 pale in comparison to my home presentation.

Sony paid BB to put a PS3 the A3000, they brought it in and set it up, can't remember if it was actually Sony or another 3rd party that set up a lot of endcaps/displays for us but the $ came from Sony.

That is exactly what I was saying except you went ahead and did the test.
Thanks!
The next test would be to get the demo disc, take it home and do online screen shots, they don't lie.
A TV can do only so much. These scenes looked like raw footage before they processed all the filters, etc. It would probably give you eye fatigue if you had to sit through the entire film that way in the theater.
You can tell the dirt on Depp's face was clearly make up, that is not the effect they want to achieve.

Read the thread again, they (Best Buy in this case) are using a super tweaked demo disc. I'm pretty sure, in my case, this was the same TV that was showing the older Blu-Ray demo disc that compared SD and BR of Knights Tale.
It wasn't close to looking like this.
Not all Best Buys are behind the times, some have the right equipment hooked up.

I have a 60U series Panny plasma as well and it looks fantastic with most blu-ray titles. The stores have everything all setup for demo purposes and who knows what was being fed to that display?

I also agree, and so does Home Theater magazine that the 120hz LCD sets are not all they are cracked up to be. Comments like "artificial" and "un-natural" keep coming up in reviews and discussions about them.

Your plasma is a TOP rated unit and is capable of a terrific video image.

BB here in WLA is a Mag center, they calibrate certain TV's there so it wouldn't surprise me if you did see something look good. I'll admit they are doing there best to get HD media out there and the Mag guys they seem to know more than the average bear...

They scrutinize returns, now you go straight to Magnolia for TV returns here and it better have a problem.

I have a better question, why do the previews of upcoming releases on BDs, look better than the actual releases. Seriously, the POTC preview that runs before POTC3 starts, looks way better than the actual releases.

The demo discs they use have jacked up colors, so they look waaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than they will look on a real TV. A lot of the stuff aren't even real HD.

I have never seen a TV that even remotely looked half way decent at a Bestbuy -- they are all in torch mode and look overblown.

It makes me sad that most people think it looks good this way. Not everything is supposed to look like Monday Night Football!!

I was just in there yesterday and I noticed the Pearl Harbor demo on the Samsung was on the 120 hz refresh rate. Now, while it does give movies the look of a High Defintion sitcom on NBC, the 120hz has a drawback.... Fast moving objects tend to leave a "ghost" trail that looks pixelated. I don't have proof or anything else to support this other than the fact that EVERY HDTV I've seen that utilizes 120hz has this extremely clear look but they also have the trails. I saw Transformers on it's release day at circuit city and it looked like I was watching it live but again, OPtimus had mad trails behind him. The Barricade chase seen looked HORRIBLE,!

I'll just keep my 1080p JVC HDila calibrated as well as possible and still have jaw dropping demos!

Well I notice the same thing at Best Buy versus my experience at home. I noted from what has been described here why that may be.

I only have an older Tosh 50" 4:3 HDTV ready RPTV running component at 1080i which is highest available resolution from that display. I often wonder if the cheap RCA, Westinghouse, Olevia etc. on the market would perhaps blow my older display way! I'm unsure what 1080i may even equate to on my older display.