Seeing double on my Panny HDTV! (1 Viewer)

[BenWW]

I've got the 53" Panasonic 53wx42. When I turned it on the first time, I was seeing a lot of double....everything had it's own ghost image. After setting the convergence, the problem is nearly gone but sometimes I can still see the ghost images. This is only when watching TV, not DVD. It's not the cable though, because my old TV did not do this. Will Avia help fix this problem, or how do you fix it? Why doesn't it show up when watching DVD's?
Thanks for any help you can give!

 

[Jan Strnad]

How are your settings? Did you turn down the contrast and adjust the color with the user settings?

Also, notch down the sharpness (to 0 if you want) and disable the SVM (aka VSM.

Jan

 

[Kevin. W]

Do as Jan says and use AVIA to calibrate the set. Your probably in need of a 64pt convergence, which can be done buy yourself if you feel up to it. Or call in a Panny Tech. The user level convergence only goes so far.

Kevin

 

[BenWW]

I've adjusted my settings a bit, and the picture itself looks pretty good. I didn't see any adjustment for "contrast" in the picture or setup menu. You can adjust color, tint, sharpness, brightness, picture, etc. but no contrast. Is there a contrast level on the 53wx42? How do I disable SVM? There's no option for that either. There is an option which says VM, but don't know what that's for. Thanks for the help

 

[Allan Jayne]

From your description, I'd say that the "picture" control is the contrast control. See if you can get this down to a third of the maximum.
Video hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/video.htm

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Yes, the "picture" control is contrast control--turn it way down(!). And the VM setting is for SVM. You should probably also turn your sharpness setting to 0.

Anyway, I also see a ghosting effect primarily w/ black lines and outlines of credits on medium-to-light solid color backgrounds, eg. typically found in tradition-style animated movies The effect is less pronounced or not noticeable otherwise although it's noticeable in the opening credits for MIB 2--so far, I've only tried a few different movies.

Also, the effect I see seems to only show up ~3/4" above and below the black lines or credits. I'm wondering if this is not an issue w/ the internal linedoubler since the effect is pretty much vertical only and I'm seeing this w/ my 480i player.

Ben, are you sending a progressive scan DVD image to the TV or just plain old 480i?

_Man_

 

[BenWW]

Man, yes I have a progressive scan and the DVD looks great, although sometimes it's very dark. So I should disable VM? What exactly does it do? The manual says it's velocity modulation, but I'm a newbie when it comes to this stuff. I'll also turn down the picture/sharpness. Where do you set your color/tint/brightness? Thanks.

 

[Jan Strnad]

Go here to see what SVM/VSM/VM does.
Jan

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Ben,
You should probably do your settings for all 3 modes: Vivid, Standard and Cinema. I suggest turning down picture/contrast for all 3.
I haven't gotten my copy of Avia yet, so I tried fiddling w/ the settings using the THX Optimode test patterns from one of the Disney DVDs--it's under Setup for the Toy Story DVDs, Monsters Inc, Lilo & Stitch and a few others. You should set your lighting environment to the way you want to watch your DVDs before doing the settings. I prefer low lighting for watching movies, which is my primary concern, so that's what I do.
When you use the THX Optimode setup (or Avia or something else), it'll tell you what to do in a particular order. Note though that the THX Optimode is not as good as Avia and other dedicated setup discs, but it's better than nothing.
FWIW, I ended up leaving my color, tint and brightness settings at 31 and turned the picture/contrast down to 21 via the THX Optimode setup. Your settings may vary due to various factors, especially lighting condition.
For color and tint, I couldn't really find good settings via the color bars--31 for both seemed like a fair compromise although maybe color could be a tad lower. I ended up just leaving both of them at 31 since it seemed like an ok compromise. The few DVDs I've tried looked good, and flesh tones looked natural enough to me.
BTW, you might want to make sure the Natural Color setting is turned on.
I think I've reduced the ghosting effect I saw by moving my component cables away from my surge protector and all the power cords, etc. But the effect is still quite visible w/ movie credits. I also tried using an s-video connection via different input to verify that the cause is not my component cables or specific to that input and got the same results. I really wonder if the internal linedoubler is maybe compounding any edge enhancement effects since the ghosting effect is not quite always visible around black lines--just most of the time, especially for outlines for movie credits.
_Man_