[Snail's_Pace]

We have the Panny ED panel. I've run the gauntlet of VE tweaks and even delved into the service menu to optimize my Y/C timing on one of the inputs to improve composite performance. But I was curious to get some feedback from other Panny users as to their color temperature settings and to find out if ANYONE has found value in the "advanced settings" menu? I'm as much curious of the settings themselves as I am anyone who can explain what these things really do.


I personally found the "warm" setting gave everything too much of a red hue though I've read it's supposed to be closer to the 6500K standard than cool or normal. This also seems to correspond to a recent series of posts regarding an ISF calibration of a Panny plasma display (user reported things looked a bit amber now that they were closer to 6500--if I recall correctly). I use "normal" for my color temp and while I know it all comes down to personal preference, I was just wondering if anyone has their settings otherwise?


I'd also love to hear from anyone who has anything at all dialed into their advanced settings menu (I thought I read one post a while back where another ISF tech changed some of these settings). I haven't been able to see what the Black Extension might do since my DVD player is already set to output blacks at the 0 IRE level, nor what the four w/b settings would really be good for. Is there a particular test pattern from VE or Avia that might aid in changing these values...if they indeed can improve PQ? What about gamma...does anyone use something other than the stock settings?


Thanks for your feedback!

- J.T.

 

[slb]

I actually measured the color temp of the three setttings on my Panny ED (consumer model), and normal measured about 6500K, although the temp was biased slightly magenta. The warm setting actually measured about 4600K.


The consumer model displays do not have the advanced menu, however, I know that the W/B controls (White Balance) are for adjusting the display color temperture. You really cannot adjust White Balance properly without instrumentation. The Gamma settings can be changed per personal preference. NTSC specification is 2.2 to 2.5 and many people adjust it to get about 2.3 to 2.4 when possible. The higher the value, the darker the mid tones will appear. Too low a gamma produces a flat, washed out display while too high a gamma will cause a loss of shadow details.


I have also checked out the service menu in my Panny, but I did not see any settings that looked like they were for the Y/C timing. Which settings did you tweak to adjust this?


Regards,

Steve

 

[Snail's_Pace]

Thanks for the info on the color temp, I wonder now where I read that warm was closer to the 6500K standard?


If you've gone spelunking into the service menu, then you already know how intimidating it can be, and you've probably already found there are a few different modes you can access. The IIC mode for service alignments, white balance, pos/size, etc.--is probably what you were looking at--the user is given very obvious menu titles to indicate what is being adjusted and most of the settings are interactive so you can see the results on screen as you make changes.


But then there's the CD (complete diagnostics) mode that gives you direct access to the panel's EPROM settings in hexadecimal form. This one is kinda scary; there are no prompts to indicate what memory addresses correspond to what panel functions, and there is no interactivity on the adjustments like there is in the IIC mode--you have to turn the panel off after changing the hex values and hope to God you made the right change in the right memory address so your set powers back up and does what you think it should. If you really think you need to make a Y/C timing adjustment, PM me and we can talk.

 

[slb]

Snail's_Pace,

The "warm" setting has been reported to be closest to D6500 in several threads and reviews, but like you, I felt that "warm" was a little too red. Since I had purchased ColorFacts to calibrate my previous display, I decided to check out the Panny plasm. It may be that Panasonic changed their factory settings in the newer "5 series" displays. FYI, the cool setting on my display measured about 7500K.


According to Avia, the Y/C delay on my display is fine. However, the color decoder check seems to indicate that green is under-saturated by 15% to 20%. The "R-Y axis angle" and "B-Y axis gain" controls in the IIC menu do not seem to allow correction of this. I was wondering if there were setting in another menu (like Y/C delay) that could correct this. I did check out the CD menu, but with no map, I wasn't about to experiment with the settings in there. Not sure I'm willing to mess around in there even if I did have a map.


Regards,

Steve

 

[Snail's_Pace]

Steve, I am very sorry, I only have information on the Y/C timing for composite/s-video, and even the service manual for the PW4 series doesn't have a map of the EPROM settings on the CD menu.


You also have a PM.


- J.T.