New TV time - around £1000

Kanpai · 10 Mar 2013 at 01:42

Glad to hear you are enjoying your GT50, it's a beast of a TV!

As for settings, I'm using the following settings, however I'll be getting mine professionally calibrated sometime soon to get the very best out of mine.

Picture Mode: Normal
Contrast 40
Brightness 32
Colour 28
Sharpness : 3
Colour Mode: Warm
CATS OFF
PNR OFF
Clear Cinema On
IFC Min
Gamma 2.2

White Balance:
-8
-5
5
3
-7
0

Psycho Sonny · 10 Mar 2013 at 09:33

El1te said:
Glad to hear you are enjoying your GT50, it's a beast of a TV!

As for settings, I'm using the following settings, however I'll be getting mine professionally calibrated sometime soon to get the very best out of mine.

Picture Mode: Normal
Contrast 40
Brightness 32
Colour 28
Sharpness : 3
Colour Mode: Warm
CATS OFF
PNR OFF
Clear Cinema On
IFC Min
Gamma 2.2

White Balance:
-8
-5
5
3
-7
0

how much is that going to cost you?

also would there be any major difference from just calibrating it yourself from a THX blu ray which has the calibration thing built in?

gothic_hobbit · 10 Mar 2013 at 18:47

You could wait for OLED !

Kanpai · 10 Mar 2013 at 19:27

Psycho Sonny said:
how much is that going to cost you?

also would there be any major difference from just calibrating it yourself from a THX blu ray which has the calibration thing built in?

Looking at around £300 from what I've seen.

And yeah, the difference even between calibrating yourself using the THX Bluray disc and having a professional calibrator come and do it would be quite big. They'd have all the special equipment and machinery to directly plug into your set and adjust everything.

I just figure since we've got a hell of a TV, at one point or another having the set professionally calibration is a given to get the very best out of it. However for now I'm happy with those settings, I just know sometime in the near future I'll get it done and will be enjoying an even better picture!

spoony77 · 11 Mar 2013 at 23:22

Is there no THX setting on this model for a good pre-calibrated picture?

Mal X · 12 Mar 2013 at 20:39

Psycho Sonny said:
well john lewis were price matching it for £1200 8 months ago, i know because i nearly bought one, decided the D8000 @ £769 (again price matched it was £1200 in john lewis at the time) was a much much better deal. you should always do a google shopping search then request a price match with john lewis, that way you get the free 5 year warranty and he best price available.

I am now tempted to get the GT50 for around the £800 mark when the new sets hit the stores it should drop from £900 to £800 you would think in other retailers then get JL to price match it.

i dont think they will be getting the 2013 plasmas in till they sell all the old stock, so dont expect old stock to drop in price much more, this is because i spoke to Purwells today, they will only buy the 2013 plasma when all the old stock is gone

all the old stock is selling fast so take care, if you want a 2012 panny get it now !!!! dont wait till it's too late and they're all gone

what about a 2013 panny ? well they wont be much better, because only the top end ZT will be much better, all the rest are the same as last years, plus you wont get a cheap 65'' version like you can now, you'll only get a max size of 55''

Psycho Sonny · 12 Mar 2013 at 22:58

El1te said:
Looking at around £300 from what I've seen.

And yeah, the difference even between calibrating yourself using the THX Bluray disc and having a professional calibrator come and do it would be quite big. They'd have all the special equipment and machinery to directly plug into your set and adjust everything.

I just figure since we've got a hell of a TV, at one point or another having the set professionally calibration is a given to get the very best out of it. However for now I'm happy with those settings, I just know sometime in the near future I'll get it done and will be enjoying an even better picture!

the way i see it is, the difference between thx calibration or any other calibration from avforums or avforums settings and professional calibration is going to be what 10% at best imo. nothing like the "quite big" you claim it will be.

£300 to get a marginally better picture is a waste of money imo. especially if you take into account it is 1/3 of the price of a brand new 50" GT50 (£899).

a bit like buying a £21K car then spending £7K on it to get 10% more performance, even though it is likely to be less than this number.

i think you are expecting it to be a HUGE difference, but the difference is going to be minimal.

look at the avforums review

http://www.avforums.com/reviews/Pan...ch-Full-HD-3D-Plasma-TV_287/Test_Results.html

Pros
Excellent black Levels
Impressive contrast ratio and dynamic range
Lack of PWM noise and clean looking images
Very good out-of-the-box colour gamut
Reference colour gamut after calibration
Excellent out-of-the-box greyscale
Reference greyscale after calibration
Reference level 3D performance

As you see it gets Excellent scores out of the box with no calibration what so ever.

Therefore with settings from AVforums should mean your basically at reference but not 100% the way there.

Your going to end up paying £300 and having practically the exact same picture. In fact I would be surprised if anybody could tell the difference from settings on avforums and a professionally calibrated screen when it comes to this specific tv, because it is so good out of the box.

Psycho Sonny · 12 Mar 2013 at 23:01

Mal X said:
i dont think they will be getting the 2013 plasmas in till they sell all the old stock, so dont expect old stock to drop in price much more, this is because i spoke to Purwells today, they will only buy the 2013 plasma when all the old stock is gone

all the old stock is selling fast so take care, if you want a 2012 panny get it now !!!! dont wait till it's too late and they're all gone

what about a 2013 panny ? well they wont be much better, because only the top end ZT will be much better, all the rest are the same as last years, plus you wont get a cheap 65'' version like you can now, you'll only get a max size of 55''

this is not the way john lewis usually works, they had 2011 as well as 2012 ranges in stock last year when the 2012 models came out. the 2011 did sell out fast though, because prices plummeted in other stores which then got price matches by john lewis after filling out their price promise request form.

this is what i did with the D8000, i waited til the E8000 came out, the D8000 plummeted in price to £769, john lewis were selling for £1200, i got it price matched from them for £769 with a free 5 year guarantee.

the best time to buy is after the new models hit, because thats when the old ones plummet.

Kanpai · 13 Mar 2013 at 18:27

Psycho Sonny said:
the way i see it is, the difference between thx calibration or any other calibration from avforums or avforums settings and professional calibration is going to be what 10% at best imo. nothing like the "quite big" you claim it will be.

£300 to get a marginally better picture is a waste of money imo. especially if you take into account it is 1/3 of the price of a brand new 50" GT50 (£899).

a bit like buying a £21K car then spending £7K on it to get 10% more performance, even though it is likely to be less than this number.

i think you are expecting it to be a HUGE difference, but the difference is going to be minimal.

look at the avforums review

http://www.avforums.com/reviews/Pan...ch-Full-HD-3D-Plasma-TV_287/Test_Results.html

Pros
Excellent black Levels
Impressive contrast ratio and dynamic range
Lack of PWM noise and clean looking images
Very good out-of-the-box colour gamut
Reference colour gamut after calibration
Excellent out-of-the-box greyscale
Reference greyscale after calibration
Reference level 3D performance

As you see it gets Excellent scores out of the box with no calibration what so ever.

Therefore with settings from AVforums should mean your basically at reference but not 100% the way there.

Your going to end up paying £300 and having practically the exact same picture. In fact I would be surprised if anybody could tell the difference from settings on avforums and a professionally calibrated screen when it comes to this specific tv, because it is so good out of the box.

I'm just going on my personal thoughts here as well as what many owners of the Panasonic 2012 range owners have said with regards to pre and post calibration on their sets.

Don't get me wrong, the picture out of the box is very good, but once you see a set out of the box next to a calibrated set there's quite a lot of difference, colours are way more accurate, in some cases black level is also improved. As for copying over settings from one persons set to another, it might improve the picture slightly but it will be nowhere near as accurate as a proper calibration. Each set out of the factory is slightly variant and react differently when set up in different environments. Some sets may be quite accurate from the get go, whereas others will be way off.

As for the current prices, that's always going to be the case with technology, you buy a GT50 like I did for £1400 at launch and a year on it's dropped to sub £1K. However, it all comes down to whether or not you feel it's worth having done.

With regards to MilanoChris' question, I was simply stating that to get the best out of his set he'd need a professional calibration, nothing else will come close to squeezing the very best out of the set.

The next best thing would be a DIY calibration by purchasing some gear yourself, although I believe this would easily cost £150-£200, at which point you'd probably be better off going for the professional calibration by an expert. The other alternative as MilanoChris stated is using a THX disc to load up some basic test patterns and adjust accordingly.