NEW NEC HD Plasma

[mozmo]

In the case of the panasonic vs nec I'd say it all depends on the environment and type of material you watch. The pana's do have an advatantage in the black area, ie they have the deepest black, so if you like watching dark movies/sci-fi and turn the lights out at night while watching tv, the black level will be most important I feel. If you like watching bright shows and watch with a lot of external lighting in your room, then the nec might be the better choice.

As for solarisation, well on most panels it's usually a matter of using the right brightness levels and sometimes it can't be avoided because the actual source is responsible. ie remember DVD's are encoded and digital tv with 8bit yuv.

Having higher internal processing bits is good for brightness shifting and variences in the analog gamma ramp for video signals. For DVI though having 4 billion colour processing is useless, because the it's digital and limited to 24bit colour, you don't have any sampling problems that would require 10-12bit processing. A lot of the time the solarisation issues can be resolved using the correct gamma ramp correction settings, having a panel that allows you tweak those gamma ramp settings does help black crush issues and premature stepping of gradients. Just something to be aware of.

[glenncol]

In the case of the panasonic vs nec I'd say it all depends on the environment and type of material you watch. The pana's do have an advatantage in the black area, ie they have the deepest black, so if you like watching dark movies/sci-fi and turn the lights out at night while watching tv, the black level will be most important I feel. If you like watching bright shows and watch with a lot of external lighting in your room, then the nec might be the better choice.

As for solarisation, well on most panels it's usually a matter of using the right brightness levels and sometimes it can't be avoided because the actual source is responsible. ie remember DVD's are encoded and digital tv with 8bit yuv.

Having higher internal processing bits is good for brightness shifting and variences in the analog gamma ramp for video signals. For DVI though having 4 billion colour processing is useless, because the it's digital and limited to 24bit colour, you don't have any sampling problems that would require 10-12bit processing. A lot of the time the solarisation issues can be resolved using the correct gamma ramp correction settings, having a panel that allows you tweak those gamma ramp settings does help black crush issues and premature stepping of gradients. Just something to be aware of.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Solarisation is a direct effect from the lack of grey scale withing a plasma (NEC has confirmed this) I have sceen it on the Pioneers , Fuji's and Pana's that all carry 1024 steps of grey the NEC does not exibit solarisation due to the high grey scale 4096 and 12 bit processing.

The Viera for the price it only have 10 bit processing (The Virea is the same as the last model minus the DVI input and a better look)

The Viera will do 720P via VGA input only

If you want to use the VGA input it is mounted on the front on the TV (What a pain)

[Steffche]

The bit about "I would never take one of those home.....  I find it hard to believe the Viera could be that bad.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Pal

That was my opinion you dont like stiff .

I have done alot of auditioning of plasmas over the last few months and IMHO i would not take a Viera home due to solarisation , Pixelisation ,not DVI input that fact that the stand is way over priced and the fact that it only carries a 12 month warranty and for less money we have got the best plasma on the market bar none.

People are on here to give and read opinions and that my friend is my opinion i am sorry if it doesn’t match yours but after all it is MINE!!

Do me a hugh favour and audition the NEC and pana and tell me what you would take home and what you wouldn’t .

I assume you own a Viera with your comments.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Not yet...but I am half way between swapping my Philips for a Viera. I did ask megamart if they could get me the NEC, but the model numbers that you quoted me over the weekend didn't show up on their computers. I can still reneg if I wish....Im just gettinf nervous because time is not on my side as far as this swap over deal goes...

[DavidR]

RE: where to see on in operation in Adelaide. I did see the 50 inch at Sound & Vision studio & it was impressive. There is also a 50 inch hooked up via an LG DVI at HN Noarlunga.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hi Manc01,

The 50 inch at sound and vision looked good but as you know they have no clue in there re setup etc!

The loop was showing judder on the flyovers where the fujitsu was smooth and the blacks looked greyish but i am sure with a tweak it could be better.

I will go for a drive to see the HN Noarlunga setup!

If anyone in adelaide has a good setup I would be keen to get in contact.

Did I mention that I work in the wine industry.......?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Talk to Jim Tate Stereo who have the NEC in store.

I deal with them exclusively and highly recommend them.

[Groover !]

Just when you think it's safe .......

I thought I had finally made up my mind on which plasma .. a Hitachi 55" ... then I read these posts !

The NEC 50XR4W sounds like a real option, based on everyones experiances.

Does anyone have any comments or views between the two ?

The viewing distance will be just on 4 meters

Ian, is the NEC stand that bad ? what was the option Geoff at e-home offered ?

What about the speakers, has anyone heard them ? .....was considering getting the speakers and using them both for the centre channel only.

Anyone seen one in Brisbane ?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Ive got the 50inch Nec (plasma that is ) and I really do like it.

Though I will say that as with most 50inch Plasmas Ive seen motion jidderness takes a while to get used to. I see it really badly where as the wife and kids dont see it at all.

Ive seen the Hitachi 55 next to the Nec at HN Marion and there is really only one thing that the Hitachi is better at and that is its a 55inch and not a 50inch screen

Angelo

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Angelo,

Now that surprises me that the Hitachi would have been as good as the NEC, as I would have thought the increase in colours/greyscales would have reduced the artifacts and jidder in the NEC over the Hitachi ! ( please don't confuse this comment with any real knowledge ! )

Does the NEC still suffer from face blurring etc. during sport type action, or is that more of a signal compression issue ?

Trolled the usual suspects in Brisbane over the weekend, but could not find an NEC, where is Marion ?

Ian,

Good point thankyou re-the speaker capacity, as I will be attaching them to a Yam RXV2400, it would be of concern !!

Thankyou for your feedback

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Sorry you misunderstood what I meant to say. The Nec is so much better.

Marion is in Adelaide .

There no face blurring either but it does depend on the footage.

Angelo

[Groover !]

RE: where to see on in operation in Adelaide. I did see the 50 inch at Sound & Vision studio & it was impressive. There is also a 50 inch hooked up via an LG DVI at HN Noarlunga.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hi Manc01,

The 50 inch at sound and vision looked good but as you know they have no clue in there re setup etc!

The loop was showing judder on the flyovers where the fujitsu was smooth and the blacks looked greyish but i am sure with a tweak it could be better.

I will go for a drive to see the HN Noarlunga setup!

If anyone in adelaide has a good setup I would be keen to get in contact.

Did I mention that I work in the wine industry.......?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Talk to Jim Tate Stereo who have the NEC in store.

I deal with them exclusively and highly recommend them.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

He has already come to my place and checked mine out.

Angelo

[danadelaide]

RE: where to see on in operation in Adelaide. I did see the 50 inch at Sound & Vision studio & it was impressive. There is also a 50 inch hooked up via an LG DVI at HN Noarlunga.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hi Manc01,

The 50 inch at sound and vision looked good but as you know they have no clue in there re setup etc!

The loop was showing judder on the flyovers where the fujitsu was smooth and the blacks looked greyish but i am sure with a tweak it could be better.

I will go for a drive to see the HN Noarlunga setup!

If anyone in adelaide has a good setup I would be keen to get in contact.

Did I mention that I work in the wine industry.......?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Talk to Jim Tate Stereo who have the NEC in store.

I deal with them exclusively and highly recommend them.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

He has already come to my place and checked mine out.

Angelo

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yse I should mention that I have seen Angelo's setup (Thanks once again!) and the picture is no doubt the best I have seen and better than all instore setups that I have seen!! I am going to wait for the new pio 435 with extra colours before I decide. I am thinking a media box will be a tidier aproach for my setup.

I saw the HN Marion setup and the NEC looks best there but the pio 434 and 504 have to be amongst the worst setup plasma's I have seen!

They are capable of much much more when set properly (back off colour/contrast and connected to good progressive sources).

Dan.

[Steffche]

Are you guys aware of an issue wuth the NEC on a 50Hz power supply? I was just speaking to an AV specialist who said that they look great when connected to a 60Hz supply, but suffer badly with a 50hz supply.

Any comments?

[ijd]

Are you guys aware of an issue wuth the NEC on a 50Hz power supply?  I was just speaking to an AV specialist who said that they look great when connected to a 60Hz supply, but suffer badly with a 50hz supply.

Any comments?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Errrr ... maybe ask him where he saw it on 60Hz and where he saw it on 50Hz?

To All: My offer of an in-home viewing of the NEC 42" in this post is now closed.

Edited October 18, 2004 by ijd

[Steffche]

Are you guys aware of an issue wuth the NEC on a 50Hz power supply?  I was just speaking to an AV specialist who said that they look great when connected to a 60Hz supply, but suffer badly with a 50hz supply.

Any comments?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Errrr ... maybe ask him where he saw it on 60Hz and where he saw it on 50Hz?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Err....a power supply?

[ijd]

Are you guys aware of an issue wuth the NEC on a 50Hz power supply?  I was just speaking to an AV specialist who said that they look great when connected to a 60Hz supply, but suffer badly with a 50hz supply.

Any comments?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Errrr ... maybe ask him where he saw it on 60Hz and where he saw it on 50Hz?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Err....a power supply?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Cool! If it looks even better showing 50Hz material on a 60Hz supply I might buy a 60Hz diesel generator ... Not!!!!

[mozmo]

Solarisation is a direct effect from the lack of grey scale withing a plasma (NEC has confirmed this) I have sceen it on the Pioneers , Fuji's and Pana's that all carry 1024 steps of grey the NEC does not exibit solarisation due to the high grey scale 4096 and 12 bit processing.

I’m sorry I have to disagree with the “does not exibit” Because like I said before solarisation can exsist on the source since mpeg encodings are limited to 256level of grey scale. I have seen solarisation and banding on lots of mpeg sources on a crt, even these panels only natively can do around accurately 16.7 million colours, the higher colour is emulated via dithering and half toning, look up close to your plasma and you’ll see a cross hatched dithered pattern in a lot of areas, especially low light/dark areas of the picture. Also it’s not just the colour processing that can effect the introduction of the solarisation that’s not source related, the gamma correction algorithms used can make a big difference. Also when using DVI since it’s all digital and the max colour depth allowed by the dvi spec is 256 grey levels 16.7 million colours, the 12bit analog processing has does nothing to improve solarisation that’s in the source from dvi. The best 12bit processing does is ensure that the digital sampling from the gamma video curve is as accurate as possible, but it will not remove banding/solarisation that is source related. This I’ve seen personally.

Overall my point is, solaration will still be an issue because it can be present in the video source and also the number of bits in the gamma ramp sampling doesn't directly relate to how much banding/solarisation is generated in the final picture. There's lots of stuff going in the drivers and half toning algorithms and gamma ramp settings help reduce or create solarisation.

Also note too that panels grey scale can operate differently depending on the refresh rate, ie 50/60hz. The panasonics sucrifice grey scale depth in the drivers in order to operate in the quazi 100hz mode to reduce flicker. In 60hz mode it actually has better colour definition because the way it drives the phospers allows it to do more grey scale.

[kirakira]

Just to let you know guys, the Panasonic TH-50PHD7 also supports 12-bit 4096 shades through DVI ports.

There seems to be a overwhelming support for the Panny in both AVSFORUM in the US and AVFORUM in the UK.

Also comparing a Viera which is 1.5 years old to the just released NEC is a bit unfair. (The Viera released in Australia is the exact model released in Japan 1.5 years ago, the new Viera PX300 series is only available in Japan, comes with HDMI/Firewire/LAN/Memory card standard with 7gen glass).

So I wouldn't go Panasonic bashing just yet.

[ijd]

I'm getting confused here, Mozmo?

If - as you say - the DVI spec is only a max of 8-bits per colour (red, green, blue) = 256x256x256 = ~16 million unique colours

... and the NorwegianBlue claims 10-bits per colour = 1024x1024x1024 = ~1 billion unique colours

... and the NEC claims 12-bits per colour = 4096x4096x4096 = ~68 billion unique colours

[edit]

... and the post above this one claims both 12-bit and DVI for a panasonic (NorwegainBlue? or other?) - while HN told me the Viera had no DVI (btw, we checked the back!) and Panasonic put a large sticker on it claiming 1024 'color gradations' (ie. 10-bit)

[/edit]

... and I thought I read somewhere that the NEC uses 14-bit internal processing

... then what are we to believe of manufacturer's specs and stickers?

Also, does this mean that I should expect a better PQ from a 3-pin analogue input (eg. RGB or YUV) than the 24-pin DVI digital input?

Wot's going on? My eyes tell me differently to your technical explanation, so I would appreciate some enlightenment?!

Ian

Edited October 18, 2004 by ijd

[mozmo]

12-bit 4096 shades through DVI ports.

That doesn't make any sense at all. DVI is a digital inferface, there is no analog gamma conversion to digital necessary which means having 12bit processing useless for such a task???

Yes the veira is based on older glass and tech, the new 7 series is what people here should be interested in. Viera is a lot like sony's floating style glass panels, mainly for looks and coolness factor.

ijd dvi was developed for flat panel devices which display colours in a digital nature. ie the pixels have a fixed number of colours they can display.

With traditional crt technology the video signal is an analog signal based on the gamma curve that phospors respond to. This analog curve on traditional crt's can display a virtually unlimited amout of colours.

Problem has been with flat panels is how you take a video signal that's intended for a crt and display it on a flat panel that has no gamma curve colour properties. This is where the 12bit/10bit colour processing tech comes in. The gamma correction/sampling circuits will take the analog gamma curve and map it into the 10/12 bit value, of course the more sampling points you have the more likely you are to have the exact colour value that was intended by the original analog signal.

That's why you can see why DVI is so usefull, because there is no analog to digital conversion, the stb or dvd player can just send it's digital frame via dvi and the panel will recieve the colours for each pixel exactly as they are intended.

Some panels my upsample the 24bit dvi colour into some higher native colour depth. The only benefit of that would be manipulating the brightness settings and other colour/picture paramters.

Now solarisation is usually there because the analog sampling process has errors, either by not enough sampling steps(bits) or using the wrong gamma correction curve.

[kirakira]

12-bit 4096 shades through DVI ports.

That doesn't make any sense at all. DVI is a digital inferface, there is no analog gamma conversion to digital necessary which means having 12bit processing useless for such a task???

The only thing I can think of is upscaling 720p/526/480p up to the panel's native res (1366x768 for 50").

[mozmo]

The only thing I can think of is upscaling 720p/526/480p up to the panel's native res (1366x768 for 50").

Yes it could just probably convert the 24bit colour into 32bit colour and then internally use that for scaling and processing the picture(ie edge enhancement, colour/brightness correction) Doing so could help reduce visable errors done by the digital image processing most of these panels do these days.

[kirakira]

Yes it could just probably convert the 24bit colour into 32bit colour and then internally use that for scaling and processing the picture(ie edge enhancement, colour/brightness correction) Doing so could help reduce visable errors done by the digital image processing most of these panels do these days.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It's 36-bit . I'd agree with you on your judgement of Pana vs. NEC at this stage. I have a quick read of the NEC Japanese brochure, Panasonic still is king in the black levels but NEC seems to have better colour processing though the real benefit of th so called gamma-12 technology is still up in the air.

One thing I have to hand over to NEC is their fantastic DVI support. Pana's has a really pathetic excuse of a DVI board not supporting any 50Hz resos other than a non-standard 575p/50Hz.

Also nod on the fact that solarisation really has nothing to do with grey levels. Besides, the human eye can only decipher around 700 shades so I wonder if there is a difference between these 04 generation panels.

[ijd]

OK All,

I was hoping I would find a flaw in the NEC 42XM3 video processing - if only to verify that my glasses hadn't developed a rose-coloured tint! - and now I have.

Was just watching "Jim Lehrer's Newshour" on SBS and noticed the "floating faces syndrome" for the first time ever! The PQ of the broadcast was atrocious (looked like 3-bit colour processing in the studio with an added 'fog filter'), but I have also seen many other poor source-quality broadcasts over the past week (no surprise there?).

This is the first time I have seen this weird effect - even after nearly a week of both admiring and looking very carefully for a fault to 'adjust out' - though it was not as bad as some descriptions in other threads?!

The eyes seemed to be just a few pixels behind the rest of the face on movement. Indeed I noticed the problem more with finer horizontal features like frown lines on the forehead and the horizontal border between the reflection off David Brooks' chrome-dome and the rest of his face.

Oh ... and I did find a flaw in the NEC's handling of the NineHD Loop this afternoon: the white sand in an aerial shot of a strip of [Gold/Sunshine Coast?] beach 'bloomed' with the brightness against the rest of the shot. This does not happen on my FusionHDTV HTPC and hasn't been noticed anywhere else (yet) with the NEC.

However, I'm being careful when assessing colour handling problems until it has had a little time to 'settle down' and then be calibrated with DVE. More on this in a few weeks.

I just thought you would like to know!

Ian

[jewfish]

Was just looking at some old DVI Specs and colours greater than 24bit is supported if the dual link is used.

http://www.ddwg.org/data/dvi_10.pdf

Not sure if anything utilises this however. 1920x1080 at 60 Hz is supported (http://www.ddwg.org/dvi.html) on a single link, so I guess it's possible to have higher colours at max HDTV res using both set of pins.

Rob.

[glenncol]

Solarisation is a direct effect from the lack of grey scale withing a plasma (NEC has confirmed this) I have sceen it on the Pioneers , Fuji's and Pana's that all carry 1024 steps of grey the NEC does not exibit solarisation due to the high grey scale 4096 and 12 bit processing.

I’m sorry I have to disagree with the “does not exibit” Because like I said before solarisation can exsist on the source since mpeg encodings are limited to 256level of grey scale. I have seen solarisation and banding on lots of mpeg sources on a crt, even these panels only natively can do around accurately 16.7 million colours, the higher colour is emulated via dithering and half toning, look up close to your plasma and you’ll see a cross hatched dithered pattern in a lot of areas, especially low light/dark areas of the picture. Also it’s not just the colour processing that can effect the introduction of the solarisation that’s not source related, the gamma correction algorithms used can make a big difference. Also when using DVI since it’s all digital and the max colour depth allowed by the dvi spec is 256 grey levels 16.7 million colours, the 12bit analog processing has does nothing to improve solarisation that’s in the source from dvi. The best 12bit processing does is ensure that the digital sampling from the gamma video curve is as accurate as possible, but it will not remove banding/solarisation that is source related. This I’ve seen personally.

Overall my point is, solaration will still be an issue because it can be present in the video source and also the number of bits in the gamma ramp sampling doesn't directly relate to how much banding/solarisation is generated in the final picture. There's lots of stuff going in the drivers and half toning algorithms and gamma ramp settings help reduce or create solarisation.

Also note too that panels grey scale can operate differently depending on the refresh rate, ie 50/60hz. The panasonics sucrifice grey scale depth in the drivers in order to operate in the quazi 100hz mode to reduce flicker. In 60hz mode it actually has better colour definition because the way it drives the phospers allows it to do more grey scale.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

When i was having heaps of problems with Solarisation on the Marantz unit (re-badged older NEC) both Marantz Australia and US admitted it was due to the 256 shades or grey and 16.8 million colours.

Then to top it off both Mark Rubin and Deeann from AVS have said that the solarisation on plasma's is direct attributed to lack of grey scale.

I have also since had this confirmed by NEC about their older models .

And to answer your statement its not fair to compare the viera to the new NEC this discussion started with some one considering the Viera over the NEC and i have replied to this.

[angryofmayfair]

I think though that we all have to bear in mind that some, in fact a lot of solarisation and image quality problems *are* due to poor source material.

My take on this is that the later models with more than 1024 grey levels will not add to the source defects and that the finer (more colour/grey scales) the processing the better the set will cope with poor sources and also it will certainly give a more faithfull rendition of good quality sources.

I know for a fact that even the 1024 levels of current Pioneer sets give a smoother gradation to skys and large areas of colour in general than the 256 levels of my Hitachi.

OTOH the Hitachi seems to handle panning better - not a sign of any jerkyness.

[glenncol]

I think though that we all have to bear in mind that some, in fact a lot of solarisation and image quality problems *are* due to poor source material.

My take on this is that the later models with more than 1024 grey levels will not add to the source defects and that the finer (more colour/grey scales) the processing the better the set will cope with poor sources and also it will certainly give a more faithfull rendition of good quality sources.

I know for a fact that even the 1024 levels of current Pioneer sets give a smoother gradation to skys and large areas of colour in general than the 256 levels of my Hitachi.

OTOH the Hitachi seems to handle panning better - not a sign of any jerkyness.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

No thats a good take on the discussion

[ijd]

ijd dvi was developed for flat panel devices which display colours in a digital nature. ie the pixels have a fixed number of colours they can display.

With traditional crt technology the video signal is an analog signal based on the gamma curve that phospors respond to. This analog curve on traditional crt's can display a virtually unlimited amout of colours.

Problem has been with flat panels is how you take a video signal that's intended for a crt and display it on a flat panel that has no gamma curve colour properties. This is where the 12bit/10bit colour processing tech comes in. The gamma correction/sampling circuits will take the analog gamma curve and map it into the 10/12 bit value, of course the more sampling points you have the more likely you are to have the exact colour value that was intended by the original analog signal.

That's why you can see why DVI is so usefull, because there is no analog to digital conversion, the stb or dvd player can just send it's digital frame via dvi and the panel will recieve the colours for each pixel exactly as they are intended.

Some panels my upsample the 24bit dvi colour into some higher native colour depth. The only benefit of that would be manipulating the brightness settings and other colour/picture paramters.

Now solarisation is usually there because the analog sampling process has errors, either by not enough sampling steps(bits) or using the wrong gamma correction curve.

Many thanks, Mozmo, for this simple and elegant explanation that even I could understand!

The penny has now dropped!

Cheers,

Ian

[delbz]

Is there a web brochure with specs and images of the inputs for the NEC-42XM3W?

I couldn't find anything in a google and the NEC Australia web site is basic.