New Plasma TV

[Chris D]

Since the cat's already out of the bag in other parts of the Guide, I'll post it here, too. I just picked up a new Philips 32" flat plasma monitor from Good Guys, with about 4 different good deals and rebates attached to it. Not too shabby.

It's not light, so it took a little manuvering to get it mounted on the wall. This model comes with its own wall hanging bracket, so I don't need to buy anything extra. But once I got it up (so to speak) it's beautiful. The whole reason I bought it was to clean up the room I'm putting it in, making it unobtrusive and very sleek looking. I'll very shortly be running all my wires behind the wall to make it perfect, and I want to even do something like put a picture frame around it. Has anyone used or seen the products where there is a retractable piece of art over the TV? Awesome.

The performance is FABULOUS! Right off the bat, I was saying, hey, that's a great picture, both high-def and standard. After watching some local hi-def TV pulled from my Radio Shack off-the-air antenna, I found myself saying "wow, that's a great red" and "what a fantastic green"! I noticed, though, I hadn't seen any super blues. Strange. Then I'm adjusting the set today, and notice that I by the component cable connection, there's a blue RCA plug I hadn't used. Well, it turns out that I had hooked up the blue component cable to the "H" plug (the set has extra "H" and "V" plugs for higher use) and when I reconnected it to the blue, the set just blossomed with even better colors far and above the already great improvement. ops: I can't believe the colors now! They're so rich, far above my past use of CRT TV's in my home. I immediately sat down and watched Star Wars and Toy Story 2 again, reveling in the dark light saber scenes and the opening Toy Story Montage.

Right now I've got a Hughes E86 high-def satellite and terrestrial signal receiver hooked up via component cables, outputting at 1080i, and as of yet only a standard non-progressive DVD player via S-video at 480i. But I intend to buy a DVD player right away with DVI, like the Samsung HD931, to watch top quality videos upscaled to 1080i.

The biggest thing I'm concerned about right now is screen burn-in. I can't really watch pictures that are compressed or stretched abnormally to fit a screen, so standard TV 4:3 signals have the black bars on the sides. One standard definition TV channels I've told the Hughes to display grey bars on the side to help with this. But on high-def channels, if the show is still 4:3, the TV STATION sends black bars on the right and left, and the Hughes sends it all as a complete 16:9 picture, so I can't get rid of them. Grrrr... I'm just dreading having a contrast change line on each side of the screen in the sometime future every time I watch a widescreen version of anything.

As it is, I've already noticed that there is a demarcation line where the sides are lighter on some dark widescreen material. I've only owned the set for a week, so I don't think there's any way this could be burn-in. It hasn't really happened in any actual film or television material, just setup screens, introductory DVD player screens while the disc spools up, etc. It's something that I have no experience with, so I'm not sure what it could be.




CHRIS
Luke: "Hey, I'm not such a bad pilot myself, you know"

[Dr C]

Hi Chris - your concern about burn-in is very real. And it's not just limited to 4:3 scenarios but also very prone to the channel logos displayed in corners.

For that reason some of us in the industry (I work for Thomson) believe that LCDs are the way to go as burn-in is not a problem. However I share your enthusiasm that pix from a plasma are brighter and more vibrant than LCD. however ... with the increasing performance of LCD, this may change. As it stands, anything below 40" go for LCDs and for the larger screen sizes - go for plasmas.

That said, since you have bought the set, burn-in is inevitable. The only thing you can do is to regularly play a very white scene continously so that all parts are burned equally. Not a good solution ...

Me ? I'm waiting for display technologies to settle down. the problem is that I'm always waiting for this ... only to be presented with another new technology that's just been discovered and wait again ...

[George Bellefontaine]

Congrats on the new addition to the family, Chris. :drool:




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[Pat]

Chris, have you adjusted the brightness and contrast properly with Avia or VE?
Most sets come out the box in torch mode 8O




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[Lex]

Congrats on the set Chris! I'm more impressed with the technology every time I see the sets.

Lex

[Chris D]

Pat-

Funny you should mention it. I just calibrated last night using both my Avia and DE. (I've found they work best in conjunction with each other) I had to make very, very few adjustments to the set. But I found some interesting things:

Brightness (black level)- Only had to turn down 1-2 notches to 47 out of 100. I'm used to going much lower with my CRT sets.
Contrast (white level) - No blooming or line bending even at 100. But here's the kicker--I don't see any change in contrast above about 60. From 60-100, it seems to just stay the same. What's up? I left it at 80, not sure what else to do.
Tint and Color- No adjustments at all, right in the middle for both is perfect in the blue scale. I'm not quite seeing what I expect in the red and green, though, expecting the little boxes below the lines to match up in saturation to the lines above them.
Sharpness- Had to turn way down to remove all edging. Orignally left it at 0 out of 5, but it was just too soft on pictures, so I upped it to 1. Still a little soft.
Color Temperature: I think the three options here were 6000K, 7200K, and 10000K. 6KK (can you say that?) seemed red, 10KK blue, so I again left it in the middle for grey.

Overall, still a fantastic picture. Not sure if I've got the colors perfect, yet, but every time I see a bright color of ANY color, it leaps out of the screen as very vivid and full. It's beautiful!

I hooked up HD-DirectTV today. Somewhat disappointed with the mainstream package, but the very few channels in the HD package are wonderful. I was just flipping through the channels and went past ESPN-HD. I backed up and watched boxing for a while, something I never do, just because the picture was so great.

Next step--CAT cables and DVI-output from a DVD player for even better picture!




CHRIS
Luke: "Hey, I'm not such a bad pilot myself, you know"

[Pat]

Glad the calibration went well.

If you aren't seeing any difference in the white level from 60-100 I'd venture a guess that at 60 you already have your peak output.
Me, I'd leave it at 60...no need to push it any farther or harder than necessary. (especially if you are worried about screen burn)
I would go back and check the black levels again...just to make sure that nothing had changed by lowering the white level...some sets the two are tied together somewhat. I've never gotten to adjust a plasma, so I might be full of it

I think if you are using the component inputs the tint control is disabled.




Pat's Page

[David Meek]

Chris, congrats on the new set! Sounds wonderful.

What room are you using it in? At 32", is it going in the HT room?




David - HTGuide flunky
Our "Theater"
Our DVDs on DVD Tracker

[Wireless]

VE is pretty useless for digital display contrast setting as these types of displays don't have the same issues as CRT type displays. They do have the problem of clipping if you set contrast too high. You should set contrast at the point where the second lightest bar in AVIA is just visible. Did you use AVIA for contrast?




John
My HT Picts

[Chris D]

Pat- Yeah, I've found that every display I've calibrated has had contrast and brightness interconnected, regardless of type. Interesting about the component inputs. I only have satellite TV coming through high-def component inputs on the set so far, so I haven't checked out your statement yet. If I could find calibration off the satellite, I definitely would. (which brings up an interesting idea--having direcTV broadcast a channel with nothing but calibration stuff, both audio and video. That's a great idea!)

David- Actually, the plasma is in the master bedroom, which is our primary "theater" while I build the theater room. With in-wall speakers and the plasma, I'm really going for a clean, hidden look in the room. My wife has back problems and is pregnant right now, so she spends a lot of time in bed and I want to take care of her! (still going front projection in the theater, with 96" or more screen width)

Wireless- Actually, I used both, but started with Avia for contrast, yes. Interesting point you make. I assume this is one of the reasons we're seeing Avia Pro and DVE now. What tests are better for digital display? (I assume plasma is considered digital)




CHRIS
Luke: "Hey, I'm not such a bad pilot myself, you know"

[Kevin P]

Personally I'd keep the contrast well below "maximum" (60 in your case). A rule of thumb for the Avia needle pulse pattern (and the way I do it) is crank the contrast all the way down, then turn it up until the white areas look white and not gray. You may find this is well below the maximum contrast, maybe 30-40%, or 50 at the most (on most CRT RPTVs optimum contrast is down in the 30% range).

Also, plasmas can exhibit a temporary form of burn-in which will fade if you watch varied material and avoid static images. If you see burn-in after only a week, it is most likely the temporary form. Some plasmas have built in screen savers, or use the screen saver in your DVD player, or run material that fills the entire screen (16:9 material) for a few hours and the "burn" should disappear. It takes a lot longer to permamently damage the phosphors, but you still want to be careful with such an expensive set.

Anyway, enjoy your plasma! IMHO they're the wave of the future but they still have a ways to go as far as bang for the buck goes. The prices are dropping though. Maybe someday I'll have one or a few, when they're competitive with direct-view CRT sets.

KJP




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[Chris D]

Thanks, Kevin. Those side bars have definitely been very temporary, going away very quickly.

I may turn down the contrast as well.




CHRIS
Luke: "Hey, I'm not such a bad pilot myself, you know"

[Chris D]

Well, I just ordered the Bravo D1 DVD player with DVI output, and FedEx delivered it today. I hooked it up with a 6m DVI cable that V Inc sells as an accessory to the D1. So far, great picture! I don't really know if I'm seeing any improvement over component connections, though.

One big problem I'm having though- The D1 has a "jutter" in the picture during some dynamic, moving scenes. This isn't manifested on the depicted objects that are themselves moving, just on the screen in general. It is most prevalent about 2/3 of the way down the screen as a horizontal line where the picture is shifted slightly below the line compared to above it. Not sure what's happening. As an example, in the introductory screen to Toy Story 2, with the Disney magical kingdom moving up onto a blue screen, as it moves through this line that stays stationary, the picture distorts and shifts slightly. But then the movie starts, and picture is fine. Screen jutter and the line shift appears periodically in dynamic scenes.

It's happening only with the DVI output, not the S-video, and seems to be more prevalent with the higher output resolutions. V Inc has released a firmware update to set custom resolution settings, which perhaps I need to try. Since I just ordered the unit, it should in theory even have the update already installed. I just have NO idea what to put in for the settings to even try and fix the problem. Looks like I'll have to call them next week.




CHRIS
Luke: "Hey, I'm not such a bad pilot myself, you know"

[steffche]

New to this forum......

Recently purchased my 42" Philips plasma....42PF9945 model. Ordered the latest DVD from Video Essentials (DVE), and sat up till 1:00am the other night trying to calibrate it. I was interested to see Chris's settings of brightness and contrast....as I found brightness of 47/100 to be the best, and contrast....well it's not so easy to set. I do notice a change in the contrast all the way up to 100....ie, it just keeps on getting brighter. But I settled on 64/100. I guess we're somewhere in the ballpark with these figures being similar. I don't have the AVIA disk though, so I have only gone on the DVE setups.

Reasonably happy with the PQ...it;s just that when watching a DVD such as Matrix2, it has the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, and with the brightness set to 47/100 there are little white dots visible in these black bars. If I turn the brightness down to say 45, they disappear. Thats fine, but what then does that say for the DVE setups?

At the moment I am still viewing analog TV channels, as Philips have not yet come up with the goods...(there was a HD STB included in the deal, which I am still waiting for). Skin tones look horribly blotchy, which I am hoping is only due to the poor quality signal I am feeding it (analog).

What's the general feel on these Philips plasmas anyway....are they any good?

[Chris D]

Updating my info, here... I ended up trading in the set a month or two later for the 42" version, the FD9954. Yes, I still really enjoy it. there's some frustrations with the accompanying control box that I ended up buying later, but it's still pretty darn good. Just what I needed for my bedroom setup. True HD looks so good on it, especially football games and HD nature scenes like Discovery HD.

[Lex]

Wow, you could trade after 2 months? That's a liberal trade policy as technology can change in 2 months on this stuff.... congrats.

Lex

[Chris D]

I got the set from Good Guys. They've always been really good guys. (pun very intended) I can't remember exactly how long after it was that I traded it in, but they have a nice trade-in policy and have always been great to work with.