Plasma NOOB going crazy, help! (1 Viewer)

[Barton Lynch]

Hi,

I just purchased a Panasonic 42" HDTV Plasma. Thrilled. I am extremely picky with PQ, almost to paranoia levels. A couple of things, first, I noticed a small level of video noise speckle on the black areas (like in the black bars or dark shadows, more like dancing speckling pixels, very faint) using a DVD player with S-Video interface (looking for an HDMI capable replacement for the holidays though). This so called "faint grainy noise" is like a motion of grainy dark colors only in the black areas (and visible while looking at the screen a very close distance, inches to be precise). Why is this? Normal with Plasma sets? inherent with the signal? Will it go away with progressive component and HDMI? All I have attached right now is an old DVD player and a DTV box using composite. I barely calibrated the set using commercial DVDs with the simple and plain THX setup menu (don't own Avia nor DVE). And I'm using the same old Pioneer Elite DVD Player that I used with my 10 year old CRT set (and same quality cables) and it never showed anything similar. Although this 'noise' is subtle, I'm worried this might be a defect. Please help me sort this out so I can be sure if this is a defect or if it is normal.

Second, there is in fact a greenish bias that cannot be corrected with ease using the basic user's menu settings. Without the proper training and living in South America (Venezuela), how can I resolve this? where can I contact or have an equivalent service like the Imaging Science Foundation nearby? Is there a possibility that I might perform this calibration myself and how? I heard that more damage can be done if you poke around the service menu without the proper knowledge. Help!

Thank You

 

[DougR]

Wait until you have a decent source with Component or HDMI outputs !
You invested in a New Set...do the same with a New DVD Player !

 

[Barton Lynch]

Yeah Doug, I have my eye on a DENON DVD-2910 w/HDMI and DCDi or maybe the 3910 if the extra money is worth it. But for now I'm concerned about the issue I mentioned at the first post and looking to correctly calibrate the display.

Thanx

 

[Jeff Gatie]

S-video could be the culprit of what you observe. If you are that picky, I wouldn't go overboard about the PQ until your get a digital source. Garbage in means garbage out.

 

[Barton Lynch]

I've seen other plasma sets on dealer rooms using cheap composite cables and can't see the same thing I see on mine... I know I'm going paranoid with this... but this set was not cheap for me and I did a lot of research on web sites, this forum and magazines before choosing this brand.

 

[Alex/d]

Composite cables = crap on HDTV
S Video = a little less crappy on HDTV

Component = Very liveable
Even airial HD looks better than Composite. (unless I am tuned to a NTSC broadcast, yuck.)

 

[Barton Lynch]

Well... it seems this effect is much less visible, even at all during satellite DTV programming using a composite cable, so it must be related to my old Pioneer Elite first gen DVD player. Still investigating, if all goes well, I should have my new DENON HDMI (Faroudja) DVD player by next week w/HDMI cable.

 

[Barton Lynch]

Update: It looks like no one cares or knows 'cause I'm not getting any feedback as whether this issue is normal with plasma or a real problem. So, anyway, I finally got the DENON 'little hi-end' deck DVD-2910 and saw a small but perceived improvement with overall PQ using the progressive component interface. I'll get the HDMI cable this weekend but something tells me I won't get any more improvement than what I've got already.

With the DENON I'm getting subtle but better saturation of colors, more natural hues, slightly sharper picture and detailed contrast compared to the very old Pioneer Elite deck. But again this is an unfair comparison, as the Pioneer was using a composite S-Video connection and the DENON a component one (and as with the Pioneer, the de-interlacing is done but the Plasma's built-in circuity and in the case of the DENON a more advance Faroudja DCDi chip is handling the job).

Still, those small dancing noise-speckles of very dark blue and dark red dancing pixels continue to appear -uniformly- on the almost black and very dark areas like the darkest color gradients and deeeeeep dark grays (but not on deep blacks after a recalibration and using the Panasonic Plasma's 'Dark' Black level setting).

So, I'm still where I started, no answer on what are to those "noise-dancing-speckles" on the close to black areas of the picture (again, only visible at very close range) and no way to calibrate this display to get rid of the greenish bias... *sigh!*

Any help would be quite appreciated.