Annoying Panasonic TX-P42GT50B Problem

[meths]

I've had this tv for a number of months now so it's well and truly bedded in and while the picture quality is excellent it doesn't seem to handle motion well at all which was the main reason I went for a plasma this time.

The problem is most noticeable when a scene is panning as it'll be jerky and fairly blurred, then when the panning stops the picture will be okay. In addition whatever is moving on the screen will be a bit blurred and hard to focus on.

I've tried messing with all of the settings in the menus and nothing seems to make a difference.

The source doesn't seem to make a difference and the symptoms show whether viewing video or playing a game on the PS3. The main sources I use are PS3, Virgin Media Tivo and streaming across my network direct to the tv.

Has anyone experienced similar with their Panny and if so how did you fix it?

 

[Psycho Sonny]

do you have IFC turned on?

if so turn it off and now see if that makes a difference?

also when gaming make sure you use "game" mode.

 

[meths]

Had IFC on all settings but it seems to make it worse the higher I set it.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

Had IFC on all settings but it seems to make it worse the higher I set it.

yes make sure it's turned off completely.

what is your sky box and ps3 set to output?

sky box should be 1080i (because that's native for HD on sky) and ps3 should be 720P and 1080P (untick 1080i) for smoothness.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

also on another note is it DFC (dynamic false contouring) you are referring to?

if so then i think only a professional calibration will help with that but only slightly i believe it's a problem with panny panels.

samsung has less of these issues but doesn't have the same black levels.

the samsung 51" E8000 can be had for £899 from john lewis, if you bought your GT50 from JL, tell them your unhappy with the set and see if they let you upgrade it to the E8000.

the sammy panels have less issues at the expense of slightly worse black levels.

 

[V F]

sky box should be 1080i (because that's native for HD on sky)

It's a shame Sky doesn't do a proper 720p feed. As I have to set it to 720p since 1080i looks so blurry on my set since it is only 720.

 

[lucid]

For anyone using Sky, if 1080i doesn't look clean then 720p shouldn't really be better. Nothing broadcast by Sky is in 720p. All HD stuff is 1080i. So for the Sky box to output 720p it must convert it internally. The chip that does that is known to be quite poor.

If you are connected with HDMI then the optimum setting of the Sky box resolution is Auto. This will output 1080i for HD and 576p for SD channels.

If you can be bothered with the extra connections and changing inputs on the TV to suit, then the best output quality for SD is from the SCART socket. This gives 576i for SD and so doesn't go through the Sky box chip for interlace to progressive conversion (576i to 576p).


Virgin (TiVo and V+ boxes) sucks IMO. I have yet to see a decent picture off one of these boxes. I'm working on a client's project at the moment that has just been upgraded from a V+ to a TiVo box. The results are still awful. This is on the back of an 18meg download speed, so it's not a bandwidth issue. The Virgin SD picture looks slightly better than Freeview SD. That's quite shocking really.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

Interesting that you say it should be set to auto, when I googled it the people over at avforums said 1080i, also I don't have a scart on my TV so hdmi only.

So you say my gt50 should do a better job of scaling?

 

[evanswolves82]

Iv got this on my Panasonic plasma aswell (43ST30B) I tried every setting and it was still there, i only see it very rarely now, last time was when i was watching the Raising Concordia program on Discovery HD a couple of days ago, nice long slow pan across the damaged side that was under water and the image was pretty shocking

 

[Nymins]

Interesting that you say it should be set to auto, when I googled it the people over at avforums said 1080i, also I don't have a scart on my TV so hdmi only.

So you say my gt50 should do a better job of scaling?

Keep it on 1080i. Auto will make the UI extremely blurry when you switch to SD channels.

 

[meths]

also on another note is it DFC (dynamic false contouring) you are referring to?

I don't know to be honest as I'm not noticing any discoloured bands on the screen.

After doing a bit of reading it seems more like the 50hz bug which is weird as it happens on the ps3 output as well which is at 60hz.

Iv got this on my Panasonic plasma aswell (43ST30B) I tried every setting and it was still there, i only see it very rarely now, last time was when i was watching the Raising Concordia program on Discovery HD a couple of days ago, nice long slow pan across the damaged side that was under water and the image was pretty shocking

I think I'll go into John Lewis next week and see what my options are. I noticed white areas breaking up on scrolling text on their display model that was playing a promotional blu ray and the sales guy said not to worry about it as it was because the input was being split across multiple TVs.

 

[Hutchy]

I have problems with mine and the Sky Sports logo, have to use the scrolling bars for a while afterwards amongst watching other shows to get it to go away.

Really not enjoying the babysitting element of it all. Are all plasmas like this?

 

[Psycho Sonny]

All plasma's have IR, sky should allow you to rotate the logo tbh.

If you are going to see what jl are willing to do try and upgrade to the E8000, it doesn't have the 50 hz bug, Samsung panels are up there with the best in the plasma world because they have less issues

 

[V F]

For anyone using Sky, if 1080i doesn't look clean then 720p shouldn't really be better.

Nothing broadcast by Sky is in 720p. All HD stuff is 1080i. So for the Sky box to output 720p it must convert it internally. The chip that does that is known to be quite poor.

Is is though. I switched 4 times between the modes to double check. 1080i looks blurry on a 720p tv. So I left the Sky box set to 720p. Sure it's not a 720p feed but it looks better than the 1080i setting.

If you are connected with HDMI then the optimum setting of the Sky box resolution is Auto. This will output 1080i for HD and 576p for SD channels.

When you set Auto and go back in it's set to 1080i. It never remains set to Auto.

All plasma's have IR, sky should allow you to rotate the logo tbh.

I find it funny that the Sky Sports F1 logo is the only one thats a relatively dark grey. When has Sky ever believed in options though?

 

[Psycho Sonny]

The way it was explained to me by the guy's over at avforums was that the feed is 1080i, by converting to 720p you are losing quality therefore it's better to have a higher quality interlaced picture than a lower quality picture with a higher refresh rate of progressive.

On a native 720p set though you would let whatever the better scaler is do the job for you, therefore if it's a cheap TV then use sky's scaler, if it's a top end one then use the built in scaler.

As for auto being 1080i, it's not it just uses the native signal, of which hd is 1080i. Are you pressing the green button to save the settings before exiting? If you don’t nothing gets changed.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

I absolutely hate logo's, say there's 2 good matches on TV on a Saturday or Sunday, the 5 hours or so of being on sky sports means that the logo will be there for up to a week afterwards. I just don't understand why they even need to be there.

The epg will tell you what channel you are on, or do they do it for free advertising? The logo should move from one corner to the next tbh every 15 minutes, that way the 45 minute rest would get rid of the logo

 

[lucid]

Interesting that you say it should be set to auto, when I googled it the people over at avforums said 1080i, also I don't have a scart on my TV so hdmi only.

So you say my gt50 should do a better job of scaling?

There's a difference between what's the most convenient and what gives the best picture quality.

Setting to 1080i means that the TV doesn't have to change processing between SD and HD channels. I'll often set client boxes to 1080i if they value convenience and speed of channel change over ultimate picture quality.

External scalers and scalers in TVs work best though when they're given a signal in it's native form. It is better not to try to undo the artefacts from bad deinterlacing/scaling before reprocessing to the display's native resolutions.

 

[lucid]

Re 1080i being the prefered setting compared to 720p on a Sky box.

Is is though. I switched 4 times between the modes to double check. 1080i looks blurry on a 720p tv. So I left the Sky box set to 720p. Sure it's not a 720p feed but it looks better than the 1080i setting.

It's well known and very well documented that the Sky box sucks at making SD in to 720p and downscaling 1080i to 720P.

I can't comment on your specific set. Maybe it has a particularly poor scaler or there's some settings that are getting in the way of the processing. I don't know. What I can say is that on the 720/768p sets I have installed and calibrated (Pioneers, Panasonics and Sharps mostly) that those using a Sky source looked better when either 1080i or Auto mode was used.

When you set Auto and go back in it's set to 1080i. It never remains set to Auto.

That's because you're not following the onscreen instructions. It tells you to press Green to confirm the change. Do this and the box will retain the new settings.

 

[V F]

I can't comment on your specific set.

Samsung LE37S73BD

That's because you're not following the onscreen instructions. It tells you to press Green to confirm the change. Do this and the box will retain the new settings.

Trust. I did. It automatically changes after it's picked the setting. Which doesn't make sense as it's not a 1080 tv.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

Got mine set to auto now, I only watch hd anyway but the wife watches sd Sometimes