[rajdawg]

I am the proud owner of a Panasonic TC-p42u1 since sunday afternoon. It is my first hdtv purchase and so far I could not be happier. I have been running the break in slides while I am at work and running errands for about 12 hours a day. At night I have been watching hd programming before bed. Last night I did cheat a little bit and played about 40 minutes of tiger woods on xbox 360.


Was just curious about other peoples experiences with this tv. Also what should I set my picture settings to after the 120 hour break in period?

 

[rajdawg]

Can anyone help me out with this or point me in the right direction

 

[mrofir]

Hey buddy. Looks like we're on our own. I've been trying to find ANY info on the tc-p42u1 since I purchased it right around launch (I got mine in late may). Nothing at all. So I can tell you that basically what I've noticed so far is that in a dark room, in order to get truly perfect motion handling, you should keep contrast and brightness settings in check. Right now I'm using cinema mode for movies which I highly recommend and standard mode for games..


contrast 68

brightness 54


for movies. I'm thinking of changing to something like 64\\52. I used to have it set to 80\\54, but that starts to introduce little smidgens of motion blur. I'm talking really subtle, but why buy a plasma right? I notice that the motion handling is about perfect at these levels and the picture looks more 3 dimensional and effortlessly detailed. For games I use 80\\55 on standard, and it ends up looking quite bright with excellent motion handling.. something like a high-end lcd. Works great for COD4.


Turn off all the usual stuff (sharpness I'm not actually sure makes much of a diff, def less than with LCDs so Ive left sharpness at 50.)... turn off edge enhancement, bla bla..


cheers

 

[munsell6]

I've had one of these for about 3 weeks now and so far I am very pleased with it . I replaced a sony 34HS420 that had been professionally calibrated with the panasonic and feel the picture quality after my own set up with AVIA and HD dvd essentials is comparable . I have my color temp set at warm, black level set at light.


ENJOY, Michael

 

[mrofir]

Good to hear regarding the Sony comparison. That TV was a stunner for sure.. still is really.


Do you mind posting your settings for casual comparison? I haven't calibrated using anything but my own two eyes.

 

[munsell6]

I am using the custom picture mode for sat, dvd and blu-ray.



SatDish 722 / Blu-ray / DVD


Contrast 58 / 65 / 67


Brightness 63 / 56 / 53


Color 45 / 45 / 46


Tint -4 / -2 / -2


Sharpness 0/ 0 / 0


Temp Warm / Warm / Warm


CATS Off / Off / Off


Vid Noise Off / Off / Off


MPEG Noise Off / Off / Off


Blk Level Light / Light / Light


HD Size 2 / 2 / 2


Hope This Helps, Michael

 

[mrofir]

Thanks for the input! Makes me feel pretty good that I settled on numbers not too far from yours just eyeballing it. For blu rays I had color down at 41 and was using cinema mode.. I'll try your settings and see how it looks. Out of curiosity, how did you get your different numbers for each source? Did you use a dvd calibration disc and a blu ray calibration disc? I would assume each source would output a slightly different signal?


Also, how do you find your black levels to be (open question for anyone\\everyone). I saw some pics someone posted of their S1, and you literally couldn't tell the bezel from the black bars. You also couldn't see a glimmer of the panasonic logo, which makes me think the pic was underexposed, since basically any scene will cast enough ambient light onto the bezel for me to be able to see the panasonic logo as I remember it. But has anyone approached these levels?


Tangentially, I just watched a movie on a samsung ln40a530, not exactly a powerhouse, but I noticed that the blackness of the black bars was somewhat impressive, kind of surprising.. but that the black levels in-scene were totally underwhelming.. either blue or totally hazy. On the other hand, the blackness of my black bars on the U1 hasn't blown me away, but the in-scene dark detail and black levels have. (Descent blu ray as one reference point) I wonder if LCDs in particular are designed to be able to display impressively black black-bars somehow? Is that possible? I was only watching a standard DVD so perhaps that had something to do with it. Anyway off to bed.

 

[munsell6]

I've used Avia Guide to Home Theater to set up both Blu-ray and reg DVD. I know this is not an HD set up disc. I also have the HD Basics by Video Essentials set up disc but I don't feel like I've gotten the hang of that disc yet. For Sat I recorded both the HD Network test pattern and a Starz test pattern. The Starz pattern to, to me, is more accurate for color,tint,and black level. So far I am happy with the black levels overall with my panasonic.



Happy watching, Michael

 

[pcflynn89]

I have a U1 coming from frys and my buddy has a g10 coming from newegg. should be interesting to see the effectiveness of the anti glare coating.


i bought this to do just about everything, ps3 gaming, blu ray playback and as a computer monitor.



does anyone know how crisp fonts are on this tv? my macbook pro can do 1920x1080 so I would imagine it should be fine but


I am really excited to use this tv - I have a 19" samsung lcd I bought back in june '07 which isnt too bad but has bad backlight bleeding and is almost impossible to see detail on from more than a few feet back.


i wil be sure to give some impressions when after i put some time on it.

 

[mrofir]

I think it's likely that the anti-glare coating will offer an obvious advantage in daytime viewing. What I'd like to know is how the U1 and G10 stack up under ideal lighting conditions... how the blacks compare, detail, brightness, etc.


Looking forward to your thoughts

 

[Pahblow]

Hey guys I bought the Panasonic 42U1 just a couple dyas ago. So far very impressed. I replaced a sv420m vizio 120hz and that was a great tv too, my wife can hardly tell the difference but I can see better blacks for sure.


Hey you know that 120hz "smooth motion" effect you get on the lcd's, since we are at 600hz will we see that type of smoothing effect? There is nothing like that in the menu's, what is your take on this matter?


Also, to answer the question about hooking up to the macbook. I hooked mine up tonight to my PC via hdmi from my gtx 260, looks great, very impressive however I have a 5% overscan and I need to reduce the resolution to a custom 18xx x 1036 something rather, anyway I am trying to find out if we can get in the service menu and tone that overscan down, I heard you can with the S1.


Also, I heard that this set along with every other set has a "green" push, now, to defeat this the users on the other pannys have been going in to the service menu and changing the "off-set" values. I don't notice a big problem with the greens myself but I'm not too picky that way either...


what do you guys think?

I just think to properly calibrate we need to get in to those offsets.....


I too am waiting to see how this stacks up against a g1.....


I am from Canada and for me to get even the s1 it was going to cost me 450 more, I got mine at 950 from Futureshop.

 

[Ambien Gnome]

OK you U1 owners, convince me on returning my samsung b550 (60hz) and getting the plasma (my only plasma option).

televisioninfo.com does NOT have a favorable review for the S1 (which is similar to the U1), saying it doesn't handle motion well, etc.

televisioninfo.com, however, DOES give a favorable review for the 550, even at 60hz saying it handles motion well, and successfully passes the 3:2 pulldown.


So what gives? Thanks.