You're right. I figured it after I starting putting them in. I'll go back and edit that post! Thanks.
Plasma, LCD, OLED, LED, best tv for next gen
- Thread starter spannicus
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Fatal Futanari
Member
Can anyone recommend a good hdmi switch? Need one for my PS4, Xbox One, and Wii-U
How are you liking the W9? Any issues with screen uniformity or motion resolution? I'm back to leaning in this direction, but I need one more price drop.
um yeah.... but I actually got to see an OLED TV at Fry's a few days ago, mmmm mmmm mmmmm those colors looked delicious.
I wanted to wait for an OLED TV because I just have a feeling they will be the prices of what 4k TVs are right now late next year.
but I heard that their life expectancy isn't too good right now, and manufacturing costs of these will still cause these T.V.s to be expensive next year....or something like that. So just chose the W900 instead of waiting.
edit- still have my Sony HMZ for my OLED fix.
Fatal Futanari
Member
I dont understand why its $40 and some units seem to have the same issues as the cheapo hdmi switches (port dies after one year, finicky ports, flickers with PS4/PS3, etc.)
Imo, $40 for a switch is ridiculous.
I got a Monoprice one recently. It's much cheaper and has been working fine. Need to buy another one for my folks.
Actually sitting at home right now during my scheduled delivery period of 9 to 12 waiting for it to arrive! Will post some impressions once it arrives and I have some time to run a variety of games and movies on it.
Bill Rizer
Member
For the first time yesterday I had a bit of worry about IR on my Panasonic Plasma.
I have the 42UT50E since last year (amazing tv btw), I never even bothered with proper break-in but only had the attention of switching game in between sessions and not displaying black bars for too long. It's almost exclusively a gaming tv.
Well, I never, ever noticed the slightest hint of IR even after prolonged gaming sessions until yesterday evening, when a local network broadcast for the first time a 3d movie (The 3 Musketeers) and I gladly tried it out. I never had played 3d content very much if at all before, only tried SSHD and Trine 2 and Wipeout but just for maybe half an hour a time and never noticed IR.
Yesterday, after just bringing up main tv menu to make some picture adjusment while in 3d mode, maybe 2 minutes total, caused some very sharp and clear IR of the menu writings in the top left corner, made probably noticeable by the fact the film had black bars. Curious fact, if I switched back in 2d mode, this IR vanished leaving no other than pure black, only to return if I switched back in 3d mode.
Now, a minute or so of scrolling bar disposed of the problem, but this event poses serious worry about 3d usage to me, and I am glad that for pure luck I never used it so much until now because I could have easily caused permanent damage at the rate I saw IR forming when in 3d mode. I know panel is driven differently in 3d mode to achieve high brightness and this is probably the problem, the result is now I have a real fear to use this feature especially with games.
Any thought/experience?
I have the 42UT50E since last year (amazing tv btw), I never even bothered with proper break-in but only had the attention of switching game in between sessions and not displaying black bars for too long. It's almost exclusively a gaming tv.
Well, I never, ever noticed the slightest hint of IR even after prolonged gaming sessions until yesterday evening, when a local network broadcast for the first time a 3d movie (The 3 Musketeers) and I gladly tried it out. I never had played 3d content very much if at all before, only tried SSHD and Trine 2 and Wipeout but just for maybe half an hour a time and never noticed IR.
Yesterday, after just bringing up main tv menu to make some picture adjusment while in 3d mode, maybe 2 minutes total, caused some very sharp and clear IR of the menu writings in the top left corner, made probably noticeable by the fact the film had black bars. Curious fact, if I switched back in 2d mode, this IR vanished leaving no other than pure black, only to return if I switched back in 3d mode.
Now, a minute or so of scrolling bar disposed of the problem, but this event poses serious worry about 3d usage to me, and I am glad that for pure luck I never used it so much until now because I could have easily caused permanent damage at the rate I saw IR forming when in 3d mode. I know panel is driven differently in 3d mode to achieve high brightness and this is probably the problem, the result is now I have a real fear to use this feature especially with games.
Any thought/experience?
lostinblue
Banned
^ I wouldn't worry too much as long as IR is quick to be gone. In short, it's IR alright, but it's not persistent IR - Persistent IR being the only one that through continued use enforcing it could lead to actual burn-in.
Of course though, do test it carefully; but try and see a full 3D movie or so, on it, and then see how long it takes to be clean of IR. If it amounts to a matter of minutes then you have nothing to worry about.
... Old plasmas IR like crazy, it's inherent to the technology and they didn't even have tools at their disposal to negate it... And yet, people that have them report that burn-in, after proper break-in is an impossible thing to do on them; same should be true on any Plasma out there providing adequate use, of course.
A good example:
And jesus do I wanna sleep with that 40 inch 4:3 SD plasma piece of porn; regardless of the fact it is an old plasma, last of it's kind actually.
In short, it should be a non-issue as it is for older screens that IR easily, but as it is for everything, you're right in not Rambo'ing your way through it, confidence is gained not assumed.
I hope it helped.
Vita is probably calibrated to be more vibrant; ST60's being more natural from the get go. Natural of course doesn't register as "HOLY SHIT, THAT GREEN IS GREENER THAN FLUBBER".
It should also behave better in the light, as it is an OLED versus a Plasma... But ST60 being a plasma has less defined pixels, that helps a lot with sub 1:1 content.
In short, it's really not oranges to oranges.
Of course though, do test it carefully; but try and see a full 3D movie or so, on it, and then see how long it takes to be clean of IR. If it amounts to a matter of minutes then you have nothing to worry about.
... Old plasmas IR like crazy, it's inherent to the technology and they didn't even have tools at their disposal to negate it... And yet, people that have them report that burn-in, after proper break-in is an impossible thing to do on them; same should be true on any Plasma out there providing adequate use, of course.
A good example:
Source: http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=43256
And jesus do I wanna sleep with that 40 inch 4:3 SD plasma piece of porn; regardless of the fact it is an old plasma, last of it's kind actually.
In short, it should be a non-issue as it is for older screens that IR easily, but as it is for everything, you're right in not Rambo'ing your way through it, confidence is gained not assumed.
I hope it helped.
Erm. Sure.
Vita is probably calibrated to be more vibrant; ST60's being more natural from the get go. Natural of course doesn't register as "HOLY SHIT, THAT GREEN IS GREENER THAN FLUBBER".
It should also behave better in the light, as it is an OLED versus a Plasma... But ST60 being a plasma has less defined pixels, that helps a lot with sub 1:1 content.
In short, it's really not oranges to oranges.
lostinblue
Banned
ShogunDarius
Member
what are the odds of a W8 or W9 going onsale in the next month or so?
lostinblue
Banned
You mean before 2014? Very dim.
It's christmas period after all, there are no real discounts after Black Friday has taken place; see January onwards is when newer models get introduced so they want to clear stock at full price; christmas rush being instrumental in that. (hence why clearance discounts are abundant later on, in January/February)
And W800 really doesn't hold it's own, IMO. At this point Sony it's either W650's or W900's in my book. For a W800 I might as well go R470 seeing how cheaper it is and still not that bad.
I bought the S60 at Sears for $600. I ran the slides for a week straight and I'm still nervous to watch anything that doesn't fill the whole screen. I'm sure I'll get over it, but I'm such a scared little plasma owner. I haven't even really enjoyed it yet. I'm assuming any kind of TV show with bars on the side (Star Trek: TNG on BBC America does this) isn't a big deal because there are frequent commercial breaks, right?
I also want to play Mario 3D World on it, but I'm so, so afraid.
lostinblue
Banned
Hehe, you should.I don't know about 4:3 plasmas, but I love my 5010
V402 are before Pioneer implemented their "kuro" revolution (ie: contiguous sub fields) hence, blacks are pretty CRT-like grey; but it's still an awesome set.
Do check the source I gave as it has some pictures.
The advantage there being 640x480 mapped on a 40 incher plasma are like DS games on a DSi XL, only so much better, it's really breathtaking.
Sadly, at that point 16:9 pioneers existed already so most of the Plasma's one finds on sale from that era are 16:9. It's kinda ironic that the top range model is less sought after than the entry one these days.
Don't worry, if you ran slides for a week chances are it's broken in properly already... for the most part at least, and breaking it in that way is really not a requirement these days.
You can play, you could play out of the box too. But as I said above, confidence in plasma technology as much of a non-issue as we "old timers" claim it is, shouldn't be assumed... I know I didn't "assume it" a shitload years ago when people, even then, told me the same thing. Hence, try it then check until you have confidence in the technology knowing it'll probably get better still, some IR is normal and you shouldn't worry too much about it, the real kicker is how long it takes to clean.
If you want to be extra careful (as in, if you hadn't run the slides) then just be careful with the contrast at first and do cycle between sources as before, but I really don't think you have much to worry about at this point, specially seeing you've been so careful until now (people don't just stop being careful, it's not a switch).
It's about time you started enjoying it, though.
W900A owners: any recommended first steps or agreed upon settings to try? Got the TV setup (was delivered late) and then had to head into work after about ten minutes of using it, so I haven't had proper time with it yet.
Early impressions are that it's impressive! Watched a trailer for The Last of Us that I had on the PS3 and thought that looked great without changing much (switched it to vivid temporarily as the TV is currently in a very bright area, and will be until early January as I repuprose another room).
Was also surprised that the TV knew a PS4 was connected and switched its Scene Settings automatically to some specific game mode, whereas it didn't do that for the PS3 (but it did detect a 3D display and asked a few questions like what size TV... which I was also impressed by).
Early impressions are that it's impressive! Watched a trailer for The Last of Us that I had on the PS3 and thought that looked great without changing much (switched it to vivid temporarily as the TV is currently in a very bright area, and will be until early January as I repuprose another room).
Was also surprised that the TV knew a PS4 was connected and switched its Scene Settings automatically to some specific game mode, whereas it didn't do that for the PS3 (but it did detect a 3D display and asked a few questions like what size TV... which I was also impressed by).
Try turning off the Light Sensor so the TV won't automatically adjust the backlight. This should also increase the maximum brightness:
Home button > Settings > Preferences > Eco > Light Sensor: Off
To turn off overscan:
Home button > Settings > Picture & Display > Screen
Wide Mode: Full
Auto Wide: Off
Auto Display Area: Off
Display Area: Full Pixel
I posted all my settings here if you want a starting point. That's kinda cool about the PS4, I had no idea about that.
Many thanks! Will try those settings as soon as I get home, which will hopefully be soon.
Haint
Member
Hey guys, I just wanted to confirm this is bullshit. The Bodnar does seem to be accurate for PDP's, including the latest driving methods. I've had the opportunity to test this theory on a NA VT60 and found around 43-46ms (think the Bodnar shows 46-47ms). I've been using SMTT and the same laptop and driver to measure my displays for several years now. I know the GT30 shows 20ms lag against this laptop and we know the Bodnar reads 32-33ms against it (so we can safely assume 13ms lag on the laptop panel). VT60 in game mode across various picture modes and with all processing off shows 30-33ms in SMTT + 13ms laptop = ~43-46ms. Looks like there are possibly differences in the EU and NA models, or HDTVTest are not using the same HW/SW and/or consistent procedures in their timer testing, cause the VT60 is by no stretch of the imagination or definition a 23ms display.
Panasonic U54:
Panasonic VT60:
Any article that bases its hypothesis around something termed the "sensorial feedback loop" is one that needs to be questioned.
Haint
Member
I've gone through several PDP's and have always been able to hear buzzing clear across the room if not halfway across the house with doors open. Buzzing should be heard to increase mostly linearly with APL, not just white. This is just the nature of plasma's. Variances in hearing, ambient noise, and noise tolerances are likely to blame for any conflicting reports you may see.
Got my PS4 today. These 1080p native games sure look nice on the ZT. I found myself disabling some HUD elements playing Assassin's Creed IV to ease my IR paranoia, though none of the disabled elements have hindered the ability to play the game. I also quite prefer to play it without the needlessly cluttered HUD. The minimap takes a needless amount of screen space, especially considering you can just tap the touch plate to open a full map. Player placed markers are also shown in the game world as objective markers, so why bother with the minimap? Shameful, too, is the lack of 'screen size' setting in the options. The HUD seems even more intrusive with elements placed close to center to avoid any of it being off-screen for those who don't bother check their overscan settings.
I could look past these if you could just control the HUD transparency, but I suppose there's only so much you can ask of games in terms of interface options. Being able toggle almost any of the elements on or off, as in past AC games is more than most do anyway.
I've yet to try out Killzone, but I think I'll play through this one first. I do like the rather natural look the game. The dynamic range also seems well preserved.
I could look past these if you could just control the HUD transparency, but I suppose there's only so much you can ask of games in terms of interface options. Being able toggle almost any of the elements on or off, as in past AC games is more than most do anyway.
I've yet to try out Killzone, but I think I'll play through this one first. I do like the rather natural look the game. The dynamic range also seems well preserved.
Killzone with no HUD is fantastic, but the mission markers will not appear and that can be frustrating.
Battlefield lets you set the HUD transparency, which is also a good thing and should be done more often by other games.
BF4 on PS4? That actually sounds great. Is it percentage based, or a three step setting like in something like inFAMOUS?
As for Killzone, I did consider popping that thing in and disabling the HUD even for my first playthrough. I really liked 2 and 3 without the HUD. Felt super immersive.
Souldestroyer
Banned
Went into the Sony Store today to look at some TV's to replace my Samsung 4th gen 720p LCD. That next gen 1080p feel!
Loving the look of the W9 and W8 series TV's.
Oddly though there was a W8 series 55' TV at
~£3000 and a 55' W9 at ~£1800.
That doesn't see right to me surely? I thought the W9 series was the latest highest spec?
The 4K TV looked fantastic, but I just can't bring myself to buy it when there is no meaningful content for it.
Loving the look of the W9 and W8 series TV's.
Oddly though there was a W8 series 55' TV at
~£3000 and a 55' W9 at ~£1800.
That doesn't see right to me surely? I thought the W9 series was the latest highest spec?
The 4K TV looked fantastic, but I just can't bring myself to buy it when there is no meaningful content for it.
lostinblue
Banned
Weird considering all the reviews months ago, did you take all the steps to make it lag less?
I'm talking about:
Pixel Direct - OFF
Game Mode - ON
Pixel Orbiter - AUTO
Overscan - OFF
Video NR -OFF
That should be all.
Fatal Futanari
Member
Anyone still playing their PS2 on their HDTVs? Are component cables the only way to go?
yup, components
lostinblue
Banned
Depends.
Ico is 240p and it really doesn't translate into a picture over component on 99% of the TV's out there. Some other games too.
Having a RGB Scart cable at hand can come in handy and for the most part (480i games) won't make a difference. Nevertheless, if you have to pick one, yes... Go component without blinking; I only keep the RGB ones because they're being used on the PSone.
lostinblue
Banned
True, but that's not the only 240p PS2 game, retro collections and the like, use it the most... although sure, Ico should be the one most people butt heads on. (and I don't have a PS3... yet!)
And these days it's also possible to force Ico to run at 480p on the PS2, which is awesome.
My point though was that it's pretty much like having VGA-only on a Dreamcast, depending on the genre you delve most with (I suspect fighting games on PS2 to have the most 240p titles) there can be some quirks on a game to game basis; having a RGB Scart cable being the perfect fallback and my recommendation.
There also other reason, which is a non-factor for me but... PSone running on PS2 also won't go across component no matter what... actually, I'm very curious now as if the signal is getting across even, I've actually played Ico over component, as Sony PVM/BVM's support 240p via component, but never tried PSone.
Must try that sometime. Anyway, years ago people would say when PS2 was running PS2 240p games like Ico the signal wasn't even being carried via component, turns out that was not the case, just that most TV's couldn't possibly deal with it.
Haint
Member
I did unfortunately, double and triple checked everything every time I measured different picture modes, and I didn't stop there. I even tested against not so obvious potentials like ARC Vs. non-ARC inputs, turning off Viera link (HDMI CEC), and killing its internet connection. There could very well be differences in the NA and EU models.
lostinblue
Banned
That's plausible, there have been nuances in the past like the US ST50 being regarded as the equivalent of the European GT50 (evidenced by the focused field drive specs).
That said, Panasonic only has 3 chip solutions going on this year AFAIK, LD8 on X60's, the Mediatek chips on S60 and ST60, and their Hexa thing going on on the GT, VT and ZT segments.
There shouldn't be many differences across models providing the chips and features align due to that; ghosting time is 6 ms, so measured lag in fast camera mode amounting to more than that is due to post processing... Should be transversal.
But I dunno,
Haint
Member
Are the FW's interchangeable across territories? That's where my finger would first point, and I'm assuming they're not as EU has USB DVR capability, 50Hz compatibility, etc... Even the Bodnars are returning different values as Cnet measured 47.9 (US) and HDTVTest measured 41ms (EU). Still, I don't believe 23ms is accurate at all, even for EU. Certainly not for NA.
Really? I've got a fresh American ST50 and haven't seen it referred to like that, do you have links?
So while overall I'm very impressed with the W900A after a night of using it, I can very clearly see lighter spots when the screen should be all black. I'm not sure if that's clouding, or light bleeding, or what the term might be, but I do know it's pretty disappointing on a $2,000 set. Will have to research how common that is or if I should start investigating returning or replacing the set. Might snap some pictures and upload them later too.
Unknown Soldier
Member
Perfect uniformity is virtually impossible on an LED side-lit LCD. If it's very bad, exchange the set for another one. Don't expect absolute perfection though or you will never keep any TV you try to buy.
lostinblue
Banned
It's word of mouth, but:
Source: http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/panasonic-tx-p42st50b-p42st50-201203191731.htm?page=Performance
In short:
ST50EU - 2000 Hz FFD
ST50U - 2500 Hz FFD
GT50EU/U - 2500 Hz FFD
I never looked too much into differences like design and the like, but in europe that was often said; I took their word for it.
Seeing people were saying that, it's probably down to chips, european ST50 had the XT/U/UT50 chips, and that is dual Cortex A9 @ 1 GHz and 512 MB of RAM, american ST50 probably had the GT/VT config, which was a dual Cortex A9 @ 1.4 GHz and 1 GB of RAM. It's most likely that difference in processing power that made 2500 Hz FFD possible.
Levels of gradation remain at 12,286 equivalent so it's definitely the ST50 panel being better driven, so not strictly a GT50 (but that makes it actually better, as GT50E was a little too dim compared to ST50)
I don't know wether they are interchangeable or not; I'd wager probably not. But I find it difficult to conclude them to be so different down to the panels and driving software.
But looking into the differences seems the right thing to do in order to explain erm.. differences in behaviour.
Got my Vizio 60.
I thought the Samsung 55 was a nice upgrade from the Sony 46.
But this thing looks even bigger! (I know it is, but the upgrade is so nice.)
Scanning for channels.
Will tweak picture. I think I may have noticed a blob, but it could be a reflection from a light.
I thought the Samsung 55 was a nice upgrade from the Sony 46.
But this thing looks even bigger! (I know it is, but the upgrade is so nice.)
Scanning for channels.
Will tweak picture. I think I may have noticed a blob, but it could be a reflection from a light.
Flashlighting. My Dell monitor and Vizio 60" also has them. Fairly annoying but not noticeable at all when things are going on in full screen. Sucks to hear the W900 has it too. You could exchange it and hope the replacement doesn't have as much of it.
try loosening the screws behind the TV closest to it and see if it alleviates the problem. That's the only possible fix I read online.
You're disappointment is understandable, the set has it's shortcomings. I'd trade the fancy slim form factor for a bulkier full-array local dimming design. The W900A's backlight is more noticeable in the corners. If you set LED Dynamic Control to Standard you'll get a slight black level improvement over Low, which I use so I can see darker details better. Also I should point out that if you're on a input with no signal, it will display a black screen but the local dimming wont activate and the backlight will be very noticeable. Whereas if your console displays black screen, the backlight dimming will kick in. What did you set your backlight to by the way?
At least you didn't spend closer to $3000 like I did... twice (for the VT60 and W900A.) They charge considerably more for TVs here in Canada, so $2000 would have been a bargain for me. I feel like for that kinda money a display should be near perfect, but both sets have room for improvement. Nevertheless, I'm very happy with the W900A for gaming.
Make sure the backlight isn't turned up too high for your viewing. I have the f8000 and if I don't change away from daytime settings in a dark room I can see some minor spotlighting/flashlighting. Once I adjust the backlight down for the darker room those go away entirely unless I'm looking at the set from more than 30 degrees off axis.
But if you have the backlight at factory levels in a dark room you will almost certainly see some sort of flashlighting. LEDs are bright.