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Bought a Panasonic TC-50S30

Mannix2106

Active Member
So I just bought a new 50" 1080p plasma. The size is perfect for my seating area. So far I have messed around with the picture only a little bit and so far am not impressed with the PQ. I'm going to put in some movies that I know very well and see what I think. I know this is a middle level plasma so I'm not expecting extreme black levels but from what I've seen so far it's not impressing me.

I won't dog the TV to much until I watch it more and adjust the settings. I couldn't find any reviews on this set for picture settings. Guess I will just have to figure them out myself.
 
Mannix2106 said:
So I just bought a new 50" 1080p plasma. The size is perfect for my seating area. So far I have messed around with the picture only a little bit and so far am not impressed with the PQ. I'm going to put in some movies that I know very well and see what I think. I know this is a middle level plasma so I'm not expecting extreme black levels but from what I've seen so far it's not impressing me.

I won't dog the TV to much until I watch it more and adjust the settings. I couldn't find any reviews on this set for picture settings. Guess I will just have to figure them out myself.

Check out AVS and see if someone has posted some suggested settings. With the number of people on there usually you can find something.
 
Did you calibrate the TV? Discs like AVIA and others will help you get a bit more performance from it. I would do that, but wait until you get about 100hrs on it since plasmas have to have a break in period.
 
Mannix2106 said:
So I just bought a new 50" 1080p plasma. The size is perfect for my seating area. So far I have messed around with the picture only a little bit and so far am not impressed with the PQ. I'm going to put in some movies that I know very well and see what I think. I know this is a middle level plasma so I'm not expecting extreme black levels but from what I've seen so far it's not impressing me.

I won't dog the TV to much until I watch it more and adjust the settings. I couldn't find any reviews on this set for picture settings. Guess I will just have to figure them out myself.
I have the same tv,It defintly wants to be in a light controlled enviroment. If i couldnt control the light i would get something diffrent.But if you can its a good deal for the price.
 
nats said:
I have the same tv,It defintly wants to be in a light controlled enviroment. If i couldnt control the light i would get something diffrent.But if you can its a good deal for the price.

Ya I realized this TV needs to be in a light controlled room. Once I turned off the front lights and or all the lights the picture looked good. I think I found good settings for the TV for the break in period. I just have to get the flesh colors adjusted.

The black levels with the lights off do look good, can't complain for the cost of the TV. Guess this would be a good time to search for good calibration disks once I get some hours on the TV.

Question - Are the black bars, when watching movies, a good indicator of how dark the blacks can get? Or are they not supposed to be completely black?
 
Mannix2106 said:
nats said:
Question - Are the black bars, when watching movies, a good indicator of how dark the blacks can get? Or are they not supposed to be completely black?
Yes! Short of using test equipment, that is the best indicator. A perfect TV would have those areas blacker than when the TV is off.
 
Well that's good to know. It's funny how much BS TV sales associates gave me when asking questions. I was told by one of the sales associate that those blacks bars aren't meant to be perfectly black and weren't a good indicator of black levels. Best one was that Sony's have the best PQ of any TV because 80% of the HD cameras that film shows and sports are made from Sony, making Sony TVs better because of that lol

I finally got the TV adjusted for better, more accurate (IMO) skin tones.
 
Congradulations on your Panny plasma, I just bought a floor model 2010 Panasonic TC-50VT20 from Best Buy. In the store I thought it the best PQ of any on display, will see how it looks when I get the stand and hook it up. Welcome to 50' Plasma club :handgestures-thumbup:
 
TitaniumTroy said:
Congradulations on your Panny plasma, I just bought a floor model 2010 Panasonic TC-50VT20 from Best Buy. In the store I thought it the best PQ of any on display, will see how it looks when I get the stand and hook it up. Welcome to 50' Plasma club :handgestures-thumbup:

Well I'm not quite in that club yet, I just have a little 50" ;)

Honestly, I think the store displays do no justice for TVs, at least the ones I was looking at. When I went to Sears to check out the Panny and LG they both looked bad IMO. The blacks were grayish black and the colors didn't do anything for me. I was almost rethinking not buying either one of those TVs due to the crappy PQ in the store. Now that it's in my house in a light controlled room the picture looks 100 times better. I couldn't imagine if a TV looked good on display how well it would look in a light controlled room.
 
Well looks like I will be calling Sears tomorrow about exchanging my TV for a new one.

Tonight I noticed a white/gray area that pops up on the entire top part of my screen. It goes from the top of the screen to about a half inch down. Not too noticeable with a bright screen but when it's dark I notice it and not something I care to see with a brand new TV.

I guess we'll see how nice Sears is about me exchanging.
 
Mannix2106 said:
Well looks like I will be calling Sears tomorrow about exchanging my TV for a new one.

Tonight I noticed a white/gray area that pops up on the entire top part of my screen. It goes from the top of the screen to about a half inch down. Not too noticeable with a bright screen but when it's dark I notice it and not something I care to see with a brand new TV.

I guess we'll see how nice Sears is about me exchanging.

You may just need a vertical adjustment on the position of the picture - probably requires getting into the service menu - best done by a service tech. Good luck.
 
The TV has never done this until last night. So I figured it was something wrong with the TV. I called Sears and they said just bring it in and they'll exchange it for me.

Weird thing is is when watching satellite or playing my Xbox I can see the white area but when I was watching my PS3 I couldn't see the line. For satellite I'm using component and PS3 and Xbox I'm using HDMI. I would really like to get this figured out as I don't want to box this one up and go get another one. Hanging a 50" TV by yourself isn't fun.
 
Well I'm happy to announce that the TV was not the culprit. On my old LG TV when I switched the receiver's input I had to change the TV input also. Well, on the Panasonic is changes over immediately when the receiver input is changed. So, the receiver was upscaling the component input signal to HDMI out to the TV. Once I switched the TV input to match either component or HDMI the problem went away.

So I can deal with having a bad upscaler in my receiver for now. I'm happy that I don't have to lug this TV off to Sears and back.
 
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