Quick bit of picture setting help please Plotloss and others

[andy_vtec]

A bit of help please Panasonic guru's

I have my new shiny p50V20 and there is not doubt it is a top TV, but I am struggling to get a picture setup I'm really happy - its good, but I think can be better, but can't really put my fingers on what to do with the picture settings to get it just right....so..

What sort of programme should I have on whilst I'm trying to set the thing up?
Are my eyes deceiving me when I play with the contrast/sharpness/colour/white balance/colour mgmt/Gamma.

Any suggestions for the base settings will be useful (I have enabled professional mode):
Contrast
Brightness
Colour
Sharpness
CATS
P-NR
3D-COMB
White Balance
Colour Management
Gamma

Thanks for any suggestions or links.

[PJ S]

andy_vtec said:

A bit of help please Panasonic guru's

I have my new shiny p50V20 and there is not doubt it is a top TV, but I am struggling to get a picture setup I'm really happy - its good, but I think can be better, but can't really put my fingers on what to do with the picture settings to get it just right....so..

What sort of programme should I have on whilst I'm trying to set the thing up?
Are my eyes deceiving me when I play with the contrast/sharpness/colour/white balance/colour mgmt/Gamma.

Any suggestions for the base settings will be useful (I have enabled professional mode):
Contrast
Brightness
Colour
Sharpness
CATS
P-NR
3D-COMB
White Balance
Colour Management
Gamma

Thanks for any suggestions or links.

Take it off Pro mode, and put it in Cinema mode for the first 100-200 hours.
Knock brightness and contrast (and colour possibly too) down to around 1/3 the total length of the adjustment bar displayed.

Turn off P-NR, Colour Management, and leave 3D-COMB on or off depending on which looks better.
Sharpness should equally be pegged back to the 2nd setting from the left/minimum position.

Once the hours have passed, buy a set-up DVD/B-R and use that to set the settings at daytime light level (memory 1), and again at nighttime level (memory 2)

Alternatively, you could leave it on THX mode, leaving the Pro mode for an ISF Accredited Calibrator to set up properly for you:

http://www.convergent-av.co.uk/isf_list.html - Gordon is extremely well respected and recommended on AV Forums
http://www.greyscalesolutions.com/calibrationservi... - quick Google search showed this chap, and very keenly priced. But best check you're getting the same number of inputs done as with Gordon.

There's others recommended on AV Forums too, so you can do quite a bit of comparing and chatting to them before committing to having it done.

[_dobbo_]

I must have buggered around with mine for hours, then just stuck it in THX mode and left it there!

[headcase]

A nice little google doc here with testcards for basic setup,

https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AQwyoj0hghSKZGZ...

[andy_vtec]

Thanks for the responses guys.

I've found this review http://www.flatpanelshd.com/review.php?subaction=s... which has used this picture setup which I have copied to start with.

Profile: Professional1
Contrast 36
Brightness: 0
Colour: 30
Sharpness: 0
Vivid Color: Off
Eco mode On/Off
Intelligent Frame Creation Off
P-NR Off
Gamma 2.2
• R-Gain: -1
• G-Gain: -1
• B-Gain: +6
• R-Cutoff: 0
• G-Cutoff: 0
• B-Cutoff: +1

Got to say that the picture does look very good now (consistent skin tones etc), although seeing as I installed Sky HD today as well I suspect that has had something to do with my perceived improvement!

I read somewhere about an unlock menu (hold down power button and hit "-volume" 3 times ???) which will allow me to see how many hours the TV has been used (I'm going to guess at 50hours usage so far), anyone use that feature? worth buggering about with this extra menu ?

[Atomic Gibbon]

Lol @ this thread - sums up PH blokes completely.

buy a tv, and you can't resist "professional mode" - after all, you're a bloke, right? Lesser men may opt for an auto mode, but despite not being a professional, you absoloutely must fiddle with knobs you don't understand.

To be fair, I think I'd do exactly the same thing =)

[T84]

I found a website ages ago that gave me service menu settings for my KDL40D3000