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Received TH-42PD25U yesterday - Quick Review PLUS Problem/Question - Please Help!

691 Views 11 Replies 7 Participants Last post by  qkslvr, 
M
So I received the PD25U yesterday afternoon and rushed home from work later that night to set it up etc. in time for MNF.


Here are some of my thoughts/initial impressions:


1.) HD content looks pretty amazing...very impressive

2.) SD content looks so-so...looks just about the same to me as when I was using my 65" Sony RP unit...could be just a bad signal from my cable provider (comcast)


3.) After doing a search on the forum, I jotted down some of the brightness etc. settings that other people had settled on after calibration. I adjusted my set to some of these and the picture just seemed to dark and dull. Maybe I might just be used to the super saturated images from B&B's , but after playing around with the settings, I settled on most of the same settings, but with brightness turned up from the recommended "0" to about "15" or so. That seemed to fix the dull/dark issue for me and the family. Any thoughts on this?


4.) Unit is very quiet , not even audible to me ...

5.) Unit does not get very warm/hot at all..after 5 hours of watching, it was barely warm..which is a good thing I believe.


One problem that I HAVE had is this:


- I route my comcast receiver into my AV receiver as well as my dvd player (use component switching) so the output goes from the receiver to the Component 1 input.


When switching b/w HD and SD channels, it seems like the signal "cuts out" and gets scrambled for about 1-2 seconds. In other words, if going from ESPNHD to ESPN, I'll see a black screen momentarily, with the input caption along with scrambled vertical lines....


This happens only when going from HD to SD, or SD to HD channels on cable. If I go from HD to HD, or SD to SD, I don't have this problem.


Any suggestions/experiences with this guys?


Hoping someone can answer this...thanks!!


- Mike
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C
I don't own a plasma yet, but it sounds like your screen is syncing to the different video signal. ie. you are changing resolution, and maybe refresh rate


I don't know, but my Panny Tau tube does this with comcasts HD box. I would think it is normal.
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K
I bought the PA unit from Costco a couple of weeks ago and these Pannys are amazing. Could you be more specific on what you have your video settings at? I always have problems calibrating the picture. Also, have you tried out the speakers on the set itself? When I use the BBE on certain channels (ie Discovery SD and MTV SD) the volume gets really loud when music comes on then the volume drops with dialog. I ended up turing off all audio features because my wife's ears were starting to hurt. Thanks.
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M
Quote:
Originally posted by chadturner21
I don't own a plasma yet, but it sounds like your screen is syncing to the different video signal. ie. you are changing resolution, and maybe refresh rate


I don't know, but my Panny Tau tube does this with comcasts HD box. I would think it is normal.
Thanks for the insight. Just wanted to make sure it wasn't detrimental to the tv somehow and/or unexpected.


I never had this issue with the RPTV so I wasn't sure if it was normal...
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Miken168,


the slow channel changing is caused by the switch from SD to HD and back. Depending on your cable box, you may have alternate settings ( fixed, passthrough, upconvert 1, upconvert2, etc.) that may make the switching more seamless. I have the same set and experience the same switching scenario in passthrough mode. You may lose some aspect functions under different settings.


Try some other settings if they are available and see if that helps. I'm using th42pd25u with SA8000HD dvr from TWC.


Regarding sound issues, my cable box audio has to be set to "narrow" and Dolby Digital. On Normal and Wide settings, the sound is significantly lower.


I have my Picture and Brightness at 35 to alleviate the darker picture, sharpness 15, color 28, tint 27, temp normal, HD matrix.
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Quote:
Originally posted by krusty20874
I bought the PA unit from Costco a couple of weeks ago and these Pannys are amazing. Could you be more specific on what you have your video settings at? I always have problems calibrating the picture. Also, have you tried out the speakers on the set itself? When I use the BBE on certain channels (ie Discovery SD and MTV SD) the volume gets really loud when music comes on then the volume drops with dialog. I ended up turing off all audio features because my wife's ears were starting to hurt. Thanks.
No unfortunately, I haven't used the unit's speakers yet as I have it hooked up to my surround sound etc.


I do know that when I go from SD to HD content, the volume does get softer etc..but I think that's due to the different sound quality being sent from the box (stereo vs. dolby or whatnot)
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C
Quote:
Originally posted by miken168


I do know that when I go from SD to HD content, the volume does get softer etc..but I think that's due to the different sound quality being sent from the box (stereo vs. dolby or whatnot)
I have to turn up the sound when viewing HD OTA signals also (on my DishNetwork HD sat box). So that sound normal.....
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Congrats on the new purchase. I love mine so far. I've only had a few days to tweak the settings, but for what it's worth, here's where I'm at on HD via cablecard:


Standard:

c 24

t 33

b 34

p 34

s 28

color temp: normal


This may be slightly more vibrant than you prefer, but I'm very happy with the results and never get the "dark HD" feel with the above. Also, these numbers are all near the halfway point on adjustment, so I feel they're pretty reasonable. I like you, found other adjustments people have posted to be far to dark for my taste. The screen looked dull and hazy.
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Quote:
Originally posted by qkslvr
Miken168,


the slow channel changing is caused by the switch from SD to HD and back. Depending on your cable box, you may have alternate settings ( fixed, passthrough, upconvert 1, upconvert2, etc.) that may make the switching more seamless. I have the same set and experience the same switching scenario in passthrough mode. You may lose some aspect functions under different settings.


Try some other settings if they are available and see if that helps. I'm using th42pd25u with SA8000HD dvr from TWC.


Regarding sound issues, my cable box audio has to be set to "narrow" and Dolby Digital. On Normal and Wide settings, the sound is significantly lower.


I have my Picture and Brightness at 35 to alleviate the darker picture, sharpness 15, color 28, tint 27, temp normal, HD matrix.
Can I ask how you adjust the HD Matrix? Also I noted the 3dYC comb filter is greyed out on my set..so I can't adjust whether it's on/off...how do I get this adjusted?


Thanks!
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3dYC is only applicable to other inputs. If you are coming in over component your Y and C are already filtered.


If you are watching HD I would leave the color matrix set to HD. It would have a slight impact on the colors of SD, but probably not enough to notice.
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Quote:
Originally posted by miken168
Can I ask how you adjust the HD Matrix? Also I noted the 3dYC comb filter is greyed out on my set..so I can't adjust whether it's on/off...how do I get this adjusted?


Thanks!
The HD matrix is an option, it is either on or off. If you watch HD content, it should be on.
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Regarding sound changes from SD to HD: if the source is cable, some boxes have a setting to normalize sound on all channels. Check your cable box documentation.
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