Minimum viewing distance for 47" 16:9 Panny HDTV (1 Viewer)

[KevinO]

Subject says it all. If I got one of these sets, my viewing distance would be about 7.5 feet. Am I crazy?

 

[Carlo_M]

I saw a website (can't remember where, sorry) that said "ideal viewing distance is 3.5 times the VERTICAL height of your screen."
The vertical height of the 47" Panny (which I own) is 23"--round that up to 24" (2 feet) and multiply by 3.5 gets you to 7' viewing distance. Your distance of 7.5' will be just fine. I'm about 8.5' away and love the look of the set!
------------------
My dealer of choice (especially if you live in So-Cal, I highly recommend them): www.yawaonline.com

 

[Ron-P]

I sit 6' from my 46" Mits and love it. I also have a back row at 9'.
Peace Out~

------------------
The Green Room | Rons DVDs

 

[KevinO]

Thanks guys! Next question: I like to tweak my system (TV included). And I'm comfortable making service menu changes to my direct view WEGA. But when I read about the Panasonic specifically, and RPTV's in general, I hear things like 9 and 64-point convergence, color temperature greater than 10000K, etc., etc. It seems people have spent close to 24 hours tweaking their sets.
I don't know if I want to do this, and I'm fairly positive I don't want to pay someone $200 to do it for me. How hard is it to go through these convergence tweaks that people are talking about? Is this stuff typically covered in the service manual? In addition, I get the definite impression I won't be able to change the color temperature without ISF calibration. Is the Panasonic watchable if I don't. I'm fairly picky about things, but unless I know what people are talking about I can't tell if my "pickiness" is more/less/same as those on the board. I'll stop my rambling now!

 

[KevinO]

Thanks guys! Next question: I like to tweak my system (TV included). And I'm comfortable making service menu changes to my direct view WEGA. But when I read about the Panasonic specifically, and RPTV's in general, I hear things like 9 and 64-point convergence, color temperature greater than 10000K, etc., etc. It seems people have spent close to 24 hours tweaking their sets.
I don't know if I want to do this, and I'm fairly positive I don't want to pay someone $200 to do it for me. How hard is it to go through these convergence tweaks that people are talking about? Is this stuff typically covered in the service manual? In addition, I get the definite impression I won't be able to change the color temperature without ISF calibration. Is the Panasonic watchable if I don't. I'm fairly picky about things, but unless I know what people are talking about I can't tell if my "pickiness" is more/less/same as those on the board. I'll stop my rambling now! Thanks for any and all input!

 

[Carlo_M]

Kevin, convergence tweaking is not hard, but it is time consuming to get perfect. You may spend an hour or more just getting the procedure down pat.
Pickiness to color temp will depend on individual. Also, if you really don't want to spring the money for ISF (which I wholeheartedly think is worth it and will be getting it for my set as soon as it's broken in) you can try to approximate gray scale if you have a monitor that has a known 6500K setting and a DVD-ROM on your computer that can output to both the monitor and the TV. Run AVIA gray ramps on both the monitor and TV simultaneously and use the cuts and drivers to get the TV looking as close to the monitor as you can.
This is a totally inexact science and will not get you 6500K but at least it will be calmed down a lot from the factory settings. It'll be trial and error so write down all of your original service menu values.
There is a large 'net resource of info for this set. Check out http://change.to/panasonic for starters and go from there.
------------------
My dealer of choice (especially if you live in So-Cal, I highly recommend them): www.yawaonline.com