Calibration advice for Pana TH-42PV500A

[Guest EZYHD]

Anyone have settings for a SD Box (ToppyPVR5000) to the Panny500a?.

[PersianImmortal]

Thanks for sharing your settings like this. You obviously put a lot of work into perfecting your picture quality.

No worries, and more than anything I'm only listing these here as a basis for other people to start with. Each person will no doubt have more fine tuning to do before they arrive at their perfect settings, depending on ambient lighting in the room etc.

Had been doing a bit of amateur fiddling then went all conservative after reading the Pana white paper on burn-in. I take it you are not going to limit your contrast to 50 for 1000 hours 

I did for the first 80 hours or so, and trying these settings for the past 70 I've seen no signs of any problems. Obviously if you're worried, leave contrast and brightness to 50 each for the first 100 hours, but for me while 100 hours is OK, 1000 hours is just too long and unnecessary IMHO

One last thing to note, a 78 Contrast on the Dynamic preset is incredibly harsh and bright. A 78 Contrast on the Standard preset is much nicer. So for those who've just got their set home (it comes on Dynamic by default), if you set your contrast very high yes you will increase the chance of burn-in dramatically. First thing is to set the preset Mode to Standard, with Standar Color Temp. Then play around with the other settings.

[Bat21]

snip

Colour settings also went down a touch.

I am really, really, REALLY happy now. Didn't think it could get any better but these final touches have made it spot on for me.

DVD (via Component)

Mode: Standard

Contrast: 78

Brightness: 40

Color: 62

Sharpness: 9

Color Temp: Standard

Color Management: Off

D.PNR: Off

MPEG NR: Off

HD STB (DVI->HDMI)

Mode: Standard

Contrast: 78

Brightness: 49

Color: 47

Sharpness: 9

Color Temp: Standard

Color Management: Off

MPEG NR: Off

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Got my PV500 today and straight out of the box, just turned it on and wow! Very happy with it and so far havent found any cons but I am still in the kid in a candy shop phase.. Set my DVD recorder up and IQ then punched in your settings Persian and it was even better. Thanks for saving me a lot of time. This is my first plunge into plasma and I wish I had done this a hell of a lot sooner. Cant wait until it is run in some more to push some of the settings up.

Just one thing Persian, I havent got a STB box as yet, have you had any probs with your LG. I can get a good deal on an LG but I have heard mixed reviews from sales people. Would rather listen to the people on this forum who know a hell of a lot more than some of the retaillers.

Pana Heaven!!!

[PersianImmortal]

The LG STB which I have is the older model which is actually a rebadged humax I believe. It's an excellent STB, I've used it for over a year without a problem.

I'm not sure if the new LG 5 series STB is as good, but I haven't heard any bad things about it from sales people or on the forums.

As for the settings, I've been using these for a few days now and I'm pretty sure they'll stay as my permanent settings now

[Infra]

Has anyone got an optimal setting for their pc yet?

I'm thinking of running a pc for use with both digital tv and web browsing but unsure what the best connectivity and resolution?

[superviza]

DVD (via Component)

Mode: Standard

Contrast: 78

Brightness: 40

Color: 62

Sharpness: 9

Color Temp: Standard

Color Management: Off

D.PNR: Off

MPEG NR: Off

HD STB (DVI->HDMI)

Mode: Standard

Contrast: 78

Brightness: 49

Color: 47

Sharpness: 9

Color Temp: Standard

Color Management: Off

MPEG NR: Off

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I have a 2day old 42" 500A and im a little confused with this whole contrast "run in"

Would i be safe to run your settings on a 2 day old plasma or are these settings for a plasma that has done 100+ hors @ 50% contrast?

I also noticed that the 500A doesent have a seting to shift the pixes every few mins to stop burnin, im guessing it isnt there because this is a 8th gen plama and it is no longer needed ?

Look forward on your feedback,

Thanks,

Dave

EDIT:

I just read this on the panasonic "white paper" article

am i to believe this means all panny's do this "pixel shifting" without being told to?

Panasonic has developed new phosphors that are resistant to image burn-in and has added other features that minimize its occurrence. One such feature imperceptibly moves the image around the screen to eliminate sharp delineations between dark and light areas.

[PersianImmortal]

Would i be safe to run your settings on a 2 day old plasma or are these settings for a plasma that has done 100+ hors @ 50% contrast?

People suggest running at 50% Contrast, 50% Brightness for the first 100-200 Hours.

am i to believe this means all panny's do this "pixel shifting" without being told to?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I believe it does. Either way I've been running my settings now for the past few weeks without any signs of image retention. I even allow 4:3 content to stay at 4:3 aspect ratio (i.e. black bars either side), as long as I'm not watching it for more than half an hour at a time (e.g. Simpsons).

Basically use the above settings, just turn contrast and brightness to 50 each. Then after 100 hours return contrast and brightness to the values above and see how it goes. I really don't think burn in is a big issue with the latest gen panas anymore.

[JemLang]

Any one got any optimal settings for hooking the PC up to the 500A?

I have done so and it is hard to read the writing

[amalgam]

Thanks Persian!!

Just received my 42PV500A today from Myers. Bought it for $2834 with all the discounts. Thanks to the members of the dba forums for the heads up on the pricing.

Calibrated to Persians settings and WOW!!

Guess I am now a fully paid up member of the Pana Clan.

My sincere thanks to all.

[PersianImmortal]

I'm glad my settings have worked out for others. Obviously each person has to fine tune it to suit their own tastes and the subtle differences which difference DVD players and STBs bring with them.

Since posting the settings in October last year, I have kept them exactly as they are through many different DVDs and watching hours of TV and I'm still perfectly happy with them.

I am happy to say that this is not one of those TVs which you find yourself constantly having to tune and retune. Once you get it spot on, you can sit back and enjoy it. And after 7 months of watching this TV, I can definitely tell you it is an absolute beaut - not a single problem or issue with it so far

[amalgam]

Hi All,

Once again thanks to all the members in this forum for their help and advice especially Persian on calibration.

As a keen digital photographer I use Colorvision ColorPlus to calibrate my monitor to obtain a calibrated workflow.

Colorvision also produce Datacolor SpyderTV to calibrate TV ( crt , lcd , & plasma )

http://www.colorvision.com/profis/profis_view.jsp?id=402

Has anyone used this before and what are the results like?

Has anyone else used something similar?

Thanks in advance.

[donuts]

Gents, while we are here on this topic, what zoom settings are you guys using ? I note Persians "no more than 30 minutes for 4:3", but what about DVDs ? Yuo guys zoom in one level to get the full screen, or just run the cinemascape picture with thin bars at the top ??

Cheers,

Donut.

[kanine]

Gents, while we are here on this topic, what zoom settings are you guys using ? I note Persians "no more than 30 minutes for 4:3", but what about DVDs ? Yuo guys zoom in one level to get the full screen, or just run the cinemascape picture with thin bars at the top ??

Cheers,

Donut.

I did the former for the first month but now I try not to worry about it too much. So far I've not seen any impact from having the sidebars, or top and bottoms.

[dixie]

Hi Guys,

Well I had an interesting experience yesterday. I have been researching the purchase of a Plasma television, for about 9 months now and originally settled on the Hitachi 42PD7800TA. I didn't buy at the time, because I was going to wait, until my regional area, fully transmitted free to air in digital. Well, that still hasn't occurred and it won't be until the end of the year, before the switch over.

Yesterday, I though to hell with it and went out and purchased the newer Hitachi 42PD8800TA, had it delivered, set up and after only 1 hour of watching, I decided it was to go back. The picture was just too blotchy around peoples faces (especially close ups), I just couldn't get a focused picture, it just seemed to have a faint blur all the time and this mingled with fast moving objects, gave me a headache.

The set was a beautiful piece of furniture, with stacks of functions, great colour, sound etc, but the picture quality was lacking badly in sharpness. So......I took it back and swapped it for the latest Panasonic 42PV60A, which is a very plain unit in comparison, but is reported to have an excellent picture quality.

Being a Saturday, it was delivered but not setup for me, so I have had to struggle along myself, to tune it in. I am a middle aged grandad and this setup and all the functions that go with it, are beginning to confuse me no end. The set is presently 1 hour old, straight from the box and only auto tuned to free to air stations.

Would one of you kind and knowlegable gentleman, please give me some advice on correct settings, for the 100 hour or so run in period. At present the Pana is looking just as bad as what the Hitachi did, possibly due to poor signal strength in my area, my cabling connections and my wrong settings.

I have the Plasma, a Panasonic DVD recorder with HDD, and an Austar box. I will get myself a set top box in the near future. What would be the best cable connection for this equipment.

Thank you and Regards.............dixie.

[reslo]

Persian, Have you sought fit to tweak your settings for the Soccer World Cup? Ive noticed the games ive watched so far are quite bright and the contrast needs to be lowered a little..

[PersianImmortal]

I lowered my Brightness a while ago, but only a little bit. My current settings are:

DVD (via Component)

Mode: Standard

Contrast: 78

Brightness: 39

Color: 62

Sharpness: 9

Color Temp: Standard

Color Management: Off

D.PNR: Off

MPEG NR: Off

HD STB (DVI->HDMI)

Mode: Standard

Contrast: 78

Brightness: 46

Color: 47

Sharpness: 9

Color Temp: Standard

Color Management: Off

MPEG NR: Off

I've used these settings now for at least the last 5 months and these are pretty much my final settings for this set. I've watched at least 40 DVDs now in the last few months for example and not once have I been tempted to change the settings. World Cup seems fine to me as well, nice image quality and colours seem quite natural. Even the grass looks perfect and very little if any artifacts/noise in the image. I'm very happy with this set, still going strong without a single glitch or problem

[Kesawi]

Is there anyway to adjust the overscan on the TH-50PV60A? It's quite severe on my set.

[optusman]

Persian

I went into the gg and put your settings on. I found the sharpness of 9 to make the edges look fuzzy when watching sport. What happens if you tweak up the sharpness ? (I couldn't do this as the drone was watching me suspiciously) many thanks

[PersianImmortal]

Any sharpness above 1 or 2 is technically not recommended (going by my Digital Video Essentials calibration DVD). If you raise the sharpness all you do is add visible noise - white lines appearing around black lines. This is because you can't increase the amount of information in the signal, you're just adding more noise. A sharpness of 9 is about all I could raise it to on mine without getting the onset of this ghost effect.

The bluriness is natural if you're running a 576i/p source. Try watching the HDTV loops with the same setting. Not much we can do about the source images not being sharp on standard def broadcasts.

[Cooksta59]

Hi Persian

I would like to thank you for your settings advice, they look great.

They were the only way I could get the wife to stop setting the pana back to dynamic

Would you happen to have any settings for S-Video at all? Its the best my current dvd player has

Regards Steve

[Billy Two Hats]

cooksta, I also use s-video (the best I can get from my sd stb) with the following;

Picture: Standard

Contrast: 58

Brightness: 50

Colour: 47

Sharpness: 5

Colour Temp: Standard

Colour Mgr: Off

D.PNR: Off

MPEG.NR: Off

All credit to Persian Immortal, I just reduced the sharpness with the s-video and will use his settings for the contrast/brightness after I have a 100 or so hours on the clock.

[Cooksta59]

Thanks Billy i will try those settings

[invercom1503559589]

Hi

Need some advice.

Just installed my new TH 50 PV on the wall fed through Topfield 7000 via HDMI (Kordz). On Standard setting Sharpness is around 35. Why is Persian Immortal's settings recommending sharpness to be set at 9?? Is it supposed to provide a sharper image?

Thanks

Rose

[PersianImmortal]

Again, if you use a calibration DVD like the popular Digital Video Essentials, it tells you to lower sharpness. When I calibrated my set using the test pattern for adjusting sharpness, 9 was the highest I could raise it to without getting extra "noise" adding to the picture.

At first it's hard to adjust to such a low sharpness, so just like you I started off at a higher level. But over the first few weeks as I adjusted and started to see the extra white lines around black lines, and the added pixellation/grain that a higher sharpness introduces, I lowered it to 9 which is the correct level for me.

You can set it to whatever pleases you, remember that I don't pretend to be an Audio visual/calibration expert - these are just the settings I found have worked extremely well for me

[invercom1503559589]

Thanks PI.

Will use your recommended settings as a reference from now.

Rose