Panasonic Plasma 58-inch (TC-P58S2) – Custom Settings? (1 Viewer)

[IronMaiden]

Hello All,


I recently bought a Panasonic Plasma 58-inch TV (Model Number TC-P58S2). I did the suggested break in and kept the contrast and brightness low. The picture looks great but I’m looking for some professional opinions on the settings.


I have the settings for the Cinema Setting (off of Tweak) but does anyone on here recommend settings for the Custom Picture Settings (Color, Contrast, etc). Thanks.

 

[GeorgeAB]

This brings up a stubborn and pervasive fallacy in the home theater hobbyist community. Copying settings from even a fully calibrated display is NOT calibration. All that such practice will get you is a TV picture that might look a little like someone else's TV (which you have likely never seen). Then again, it might not. How do you know your viewing environment conditions will be identical? Will you also insist that they used the same DVD/BD player that had its picture options menu set the same as yours? Some basic "picture modes" may be superior on certain displays. These can be used in common for better performance, but actual picture adjustment values can vary significantly.

Electronic component tolerances used in consumer TVs and source components are not very precise (+/- 10% or worse). Such devices are not built to military spec or for aerospace. Because these tolerances are so imprecise, two samples of TV can come off the same assembly line and require very different picture settings to look near the same. The latest, state of the art, reference professional video monitor from Dolby Labs, is a 42" LED LCD that weights 150 lb. and cost $55k. Such a high precision device still requires calibration, by the way.

I was called in as an image quality analysis consultant for one of the largest national cable TV companies. They were doing a research project, using three new higher-end Panasonic 50" plasmas of the same model, and set up in ideal viewing conditions. Their engineers had gone over the picture settings on each display and set the menu items all identically. Two of the plasmas looked nearly like each other (still not identical), but the third one obviously looked quite different.

Widely respected professional calibrators, who have aligned thousands of consumer and professional displays in their careers, agree on this point. Using other equipment's settings have even been seen to render a worse image than using the default, out of the box, pre-programmed, picture modes (such as THX). The only way to reliably attain a more accurate image from any consumer display is to use reference test signals, NOT another display's settings. At minimum, read the manual, use a calibration DVD/BD on YOUR player, to adjust YOUR television, follow the tutorial instructions, set the picture controls for YOUR viewing environment conditions, and learn something from the experience. The simplest remedy is to hire a professional. Excellence in any endeavor requires extra effort. The learning curve for competent video system calibration, plus the investment in instruments, is substantial. Copying others' work on your display equipment is a poor substitute for alignment using test signals, with no assurance of improvement.

Best regards and beautiful pictures,
G. Alan Brown, President
CinemaQuest, Inc.
A Lion AV Consultants Affiliate

"Advancing the art and science of electronic imaging"

 

[IronMaiden]

Thank you for your input. With all that being said, what Calibration DVD do you recommend? I've seen Spears and Munsil High Definition Benchmark Blu-ray Edition and several others. I will eventually get the set professionally calibrated but I'm looking here at the short term. Thanks Again.and ac I will

 

[Gregg Loewen]

sure...the S and M disc is fine.

Also HD Basics in BD.

Or the THX optimizer patterns off of any THX Certified BD.