Can you help me find the "code" to get into my Panasonic's service menu? (1 Viewer)

[James Zos]

I have a grayscale problem I'd like to take a crack at, but I have no idea how to get into the service menu. I have an older 27-inch Panasonic CT-27SF11S with a little too much green in dark areas of the screen. Anyone know where I can find the code to access the service menu? Does anyone have a similar model Panasonic that might have the same code?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[George_T]

I also have the Panasonic CT-27SF11. The service mode
is not easy to access or use, but if you are careful and
take note of the default settings before you change anything
you should be alright.
Go to http://www.calanan.com/panasonic
Here you will find the proceedure to get into the service
modes. Please note that our CT-27SF11 is not listed, but
the procedure still works. I go into service mode to adjust
the vertical size, (Squeeze Trick) so 16:9 widescreen movies
look there best.
What will you be displaying on the screen when you make the
adjustments?
Best of luck
George

 

[James Zos]

George - thanks so MUCH!
I didn't think anyone would actually be able to provide me with this information. I really appreciate it!
As for what I'm hoping to adjust, well, I'm not exactly sure. There is too much green in the picture, particularly with dark areas but also with flesh tones. It has been suggested that this is a grayscale problem so I thought I'd start there ...
I intend to write down all the original settings and to proceed cautiously, knowing I could screw my TV up if I don't ... Any other advice you have along these lines would be very appreciated.
Thanks again!

EDIT: Forgot to actually respond to your question as to what I'll be displaying on screen when I make my adjustments ... Again I'm not sure. I have the AVIA disc (and have already calibrated with it) so I guess I'll try to use that. For right now I just want to try to become familiar with the service menu.

What settings did you change and what did you change them to, if you don't mind my asking?

 

[George_T]

Glad I could help. It is always a little scary messing with
something expensive that is working ok, so you are smart to
take your time with this. There are quite a few steps to
get into and out of the service modes. If you are not care
full you may hit the volume control on the remote that will
change a value of a setting instead of pressing the channel
controll up and down that will step you to a "sub" mode of
the "main" mode. Once you get use to it, it's not bad.
A couple items about the instructions. After you set the
antenna to "CABLE", and the sleep timer to 30, you exit the
menus and tune to channel 124, adjust the volume down to 0.
Up to this point, all could be done with the remote, but
now you must press the Volume Down button on the TV.
This will make a small red "CHK" appear in the upper right
corner. You are now in service mode.
You can press the TV/VIDEO button on the remote to switch
from channel 124 to video from your DVD player.
The default settings in the instructions are different
from my CT-27SF11. If you printed out the instructions,
you can step through your settings and jot them down along
side the instructions settings. The only setting I adjust
for the "squeeze trick" is D0. My default is 100 and I
usually change it to 30.
Here are my TV's default values. Hopefully I did not change
any of them by mistake when I went into service mode for the
first time a year ago. They should be OK.
Note: The CT-27SF11 will not have all of the settings as
shown on the instructions.
B0 20 C0 2 89
B1 33 C1 179
B2 96 C2 2 125
B3 24 C3 31
B4 64 C4 96
C5 226
C6 224
D0 100 S0 3
D1 37 S1 10
D2 16 S2 15
D3 44 S3 15
D4 14 S4 7
D5 20 S5 12
D6 36 S6 25
D7 13 S7 1
D8 15 S8 4
D9 8 S9 5
DA 8
DB 20 SA 36
SB 8
SC 36
SD 109
Well I guess that's about it. Let me know how it works out.
George
[email protected]

 

[George_T]

Lets try that again. The Forum program ignored the spaces.
B0 20
B1 33
B2 96
B3 24
B4 64
C0 2 89
C1 179
C2 2 125
C3 31
C4 96
C5 226
C6 224
D0 100
D1 37
D2 16
D3 44
D4 14
D5 20
D6 36
D7 13
D8 15
D9 8
DA 8
DB 20
S0 3
S1 10
S2 15
S3 15
S4 7
S5 12
S6 25
S7 1
S8 4
S9 5
SA 36
SB 8
SC 36
SD 109
George
[email protected]

 

[James Zos]

Thanks again George!

I'm at work right now so I can't do anything about it,but as soon as I get home I'll get cracking and let you know what I find. Sounds like the only thing you changed was the "squeeze" mode, correct? Not the color temp or anything like that? I didn't even know my TV could do the squeeze technique, so I am very happy to learn that.

 

[George_T]

"Sounds like the only thing you changed was the "squeeze" mode, correct?"
That's correct. No other changes. One of these days I will
break down and buy the AVIA disk. It's really best to have
test patterns on the screen so you can see precisely what
you are changing.
I have been very happy with this Panasonic 27". I paid a
little extra for the Superflat screen and PanaBlack, but
it was worth it. The picture in "squeeze mode" looks
pretty good, even on a 27". Since it takes a couple minutes
to put the TV in that mode, and a couple minutes to put it
back to normal, I only do it for the really special movies. One thing to remember, when you go into and out of service
mode, your TV channel defaults are erased. It's not a big
problem, just select "auto program" in the setup menue and
your done.
George
www.elversonpuzzle.com

 

[Jesse Skeen]

If the picture is too green, you probably want to either turn down the green or turn up the red and blue to compensate. (And yes, there's a much more scientific way of saying that )

 

[James Zos]

Well, I was up till 4 a.m. checking out the service menu (made for a rough day at work and troubles with the girlfriend, but in the end it was worth it.)
Tried the squeeze trick and popped in a DVD to check it out.
I was shocked - it looked AWFUL!
What a let down. I couldn't believe it.
Took me a moment to realize that entering the service menu resets EVERYTHING to factory settings. White level and sharpness were thus set AS HIGH AS THEY COULD GO.
What kind of person would do something like that to a poor defenseless TV? I'm serious, you can't imagine how terrible this thing looked, it nearly burned my eyes from their sockets...I can't believe it would look good like that, even under the glare of a store's lighting.
Anyway, I reset it the way I had it before, and - TA DA!
It looked incredible! Much greater detail, and much smoother image with the squeeze trick. I'm so happy; I feel like I have a new widescreen TV and I didn't have to pay anything for it!
Only problem is, to set it back to normal, means I lose all my regular settings again. So I've made the rather radical decision to just LEAVE it in widescreen mode all the time. Sure regular TV shows and some Xbox games look kinda stretched out, but it's worth it for those widescreen Xbox games and especially enhanced DVDs ...
So George, I owe you a debt of gratitude, sir!
Now if I could only figure out what the rest of those settings do - and if is possible to disable VSM with the menu ...
and what size to set the squeeze for widescreen, and ... the list goes on. I think I might start another thread with some more specific questions.
Jesse - I'm still working on the green level, but I tried tweaking the green "cut" and it seemed to work - thanks for the advice!

 

[George_T]

"I feel like I have a new widescreen TV and I didn't have to pay anything for it!"
That's exactly how I felt the first time I saw my TV in
widescreen "squeezed" mode. It makes the decision to put off
purchasing a new TV for a few years a lot easier!
One thing to keep in mind about having the TV in "Squeeze Mode"
all the time. Some channels broadcast Closed Caption
info in the vertical interval of the video signal. This will
appear as a series of bright white dots and lines dancing
quickly at the very top of the squeezed video. It is
possible that it may cause a burn in your CRT if it is there
for a long period of time.
The way I determine how much to squeeze the video is pretty
simple. With the TV in normal mode (not squeezed), and the
DVD player set to display Letter Box format ( not 16:9 ),
I start the movie and note where the top and bottom of the
video falls on my TV screen and mark it with paper. I then
set the DVD player to display in widescreen format, then
squeeze the picture on the TV to the same marks.
How different were your default settings from mine? Just
curious. Now that you have access to all the adjustments
for the CT-27SF11, I will be interested to hear how well
the AVIA DVD helps you adjust the screen to "perfection".
George
[email protected]

 

[James Zos]

You want to know something strange, George? Nearly all of my service menu options were originally set to something different than yours.
Sometimes they were off by just one number, but more often by much more than that. Since neither of us have changed anything except for the squeeze trick, and we have the EXACT same make and model number, it seems kind of odd. Are all TVs, even the same model, set differently? Why would that be?
For instance, all of the "D" options on my set were different than yours, except for Da 08 "Horizontal EHT" (whatever that means) and D2 16 "Vertical S Correction" (whatever that means).
And, experimenting with vertical and horizontal size for the squeeze trick, I realized that in my default settings, I was losing picture on top and bottom and left and right - the image was actually overlapping my TV screen. Is that what "overscanning" means? I'm not sure if that is the way it is supposed to be, or if I should adjust it so that I'm not losing any image at all. Maybe I should post and ask about that.
As for the AVIA DVD and "perfection," I've given up on ever reaching it. Even with test patterns, there is still a lot of subjective guesswork going on as to what are the proper settings. But given that, AVIA helps TREMENDOUSLY in improving picture quality, because when you try to adjust different settings one by one on your own, you just get lost. I used to think I could judge by eye, but using AVIA I got much better results. Each setting has a subtle effect on every other setting, so you want to start out getting reasonably close to a reference setting, tweaking setting by setting. My picture improved greatly as a result. If you want I could send you my current settings since we have the same set, and you could give them a try, although maybe they would look totally diferent on yours, different room lighting, etc.

 

[George_T]

That's real interesting that most of your default settings
from the factory are different than mine. I guess, since
there are hundreds of discrete components like resistors,
capacitors, and coils with tolerances of + - 20% inside,
the manufacture has to adjust the settings for each TV,
then save the settings in a flash chip.
After eight years of service, the value of some components
may have changed a little, so what looked great at the
factory may not look great now.
You have me sold on the AVIA DVD. Adjusting video can be
fustrating. If the disc can help me achieve a reference
setting, I can feel good about adjusting everything else.
I have notice that overscan in normal mode also. I never
tried the horizontal size, but the vertical size overscans
quite a bit when set to the default setting of 100.
I guess as long as you can keep the aspect ratio correct
you can bring it in a little. Maybe by displaying a
perfect circle or square in the center of the screen, then
adjust the picture in a little???
I'm glad your happy with the results so far. Everything
else after this is just a bonus.
George
[email protected]