Panasonic ZT60 (now ZT65)

[mr malarky]

Can i ask Mr M and Strapped why you chose to buy a plasma now considering OLED is just 'round the corner?

Not having a pop as i know how good the panasonics are

Same answer as BB basically, think we're at least three years away from affordable OLED screens - appreciate 'affordable' is a subjective term, but at £3.5k the ZT is the absolute upper limit of what I could justify spending on a telly and it will be a good while before OLED's even come down to that level. The failure rate for panels coming off the production line is reported to still be extremely high, and while panasonic claim to have solved that issue with their 'printed panel' method they've yet to prove that.

I don't think it helps that the TV manufacturers are going to spen dthe next few years deperately trying to shove 4K LED screens down our throats that have virtually no native 4K content to use with, which will take time and money away from developing affordable OLED screens.

 

[mr malarky]

I still have a CRT in the spare room, can I count that

That's not a TV, that's an artefact - you should be offering that to the science museum!

Yes, rocketrazor, you can still count your CRT in the spare room. I have two retired CRTs, one monochrome, that I can't quite bring myself to throw out yet.

And you, mr malarky, don't you dare diss CRTs and call them artefacts!! I'll show you an artefact, grrr!. This was actually taken in the museum, and is by the founder of television, John Logie Baird himself, before Pioneer, Pansonic and Samsung were even thought of. Now this is a big television!

No, that's a cupboard!

 

[GSB]

Thanks for responding BB,so when would you anticipate OLED to be the mainstream reference sets?

I'm not planning on changing my 2yr oled plasma for a good 5yrs

Already dreaming of OLED, eh?

You shoud be ok with your timeframe. I would expect OLED to become mainstream in the next 3-4 years. I usually prefer buying 2nd or 3rd generation sets of a new technology, to allow the manufacturers to iron out any problems that crop up in the first generation.

Well...when you jump i will

 

[mr malarky]

My ZT65 has just arrived!



According to the enclosed pack mine's number 00159 off the assembly line.

Just need to find a screwdriver to put the stand together now...

 

[Deleted member 2457]

My ZT65 has just arrived!



According to the enclosed pack mine's number 00159 off the assembly line.

Just need to find a screwdriver to put the stand together now...

Ah nice one! :clap: 159 of 20,000. How's it going?

 

[mr malarky]

Found the screwdriver, which was a good start - then found my HDMI lead wouldn't reach to the side inputs because of the larger screen size. So an hour round trip to the nearest Richer Sounds and now it's finally up & running.

Haven't played around with any of the picture adjustments as yet, have just left it running in 'EBU' preset for the time being; early impressions are good but to be honest am going to reserve judgement until its had at least 50 hours run-in and I've had chance to play around with the settings. The plan is to have it calibrated after around 100 hours so final judgement won't come till then.

Its a lovely looking piece of kit, and the jump up from the 50" pioneer certainly makes a impression in terms of screen size. With the ampt set to Mute there is a very faint fan noise, which was never there with the pioneer, but guess that's the trade off for a larger screen and its not at a level you'd ever hear during normal viewing.

Will post some more detailed thoughst once I've had chance to run a few blu-rays through it in a darker environment (we have a west facing lounge with large french doors, so the lounge gets flooded with light in the afternoons at this time of the year), but so far so good!

 

[Deleted member 2457]

Found the screwdriver, which was a good start - then found my HDMI lead wouldn't reach to the side inputs because of the larger screen size. So an hour round trip to the nearest Richer Sounds and now it's finally up & running.

Haven't played around with any of the picture adjustments as yet, have just left it running in 'EBU' preset for the time being; early impressions are good but to be honest am going to reserve judgement until its had at least 50 hours run-in and I've had chance to play around with the settings. The plan is to have it calibrated after around 100 hours so final judgement won't come till then.

Its a lovely looking piece of kit, and the jump up from the 50" pioneer certainly makes a impression in terms of screen size. With the ampt set to Mute there is a very faint fan noise, which was never there with the pioneer, but guess that's the trade off for a larger screen and its not at a level you'd ever hear during normal viewing.

Will post some more detailed thoughst once I've had chance to run a few blu-rays through it in a darker environment (we have a west facing lounge with large french doors, so the lounge gets flooded with light in the afternoons at this time of the year), but so far so good!

Nice one.

 

[rocketrazor]

Don't forget some pics

 

[mr malarky]

Need to figure out how to post pics - am guessing a link to Flickr would work so will have a go at that. Mrs M has just got home so am taking her out for dinner first, to take the edge of that frown that crossed her face when she walked in the lounge just now...

 

[BenLaw]

When you get time, you do indeed upload pics to Flickr (or similar). You don't just paste a link tho, a link (ending in .jpg) needs to be pasted into the URL box that appears after you click the 'tree' icon.

 

[rocketrazor]

Need to figure out how to post pics - am guessing a link to Flickr would work so will have a go at that. Mrs M has just got home so am taking her out for dinner first, to take the edge of that frown that crossed her face when she walked in the lounge just now...

seems like a fair deal to me

 

[Deleted member 2457]

Need to figure out how to post pics - am guessing a link to Flickr would work so will have a go at that. Mrs M has just got home so am taking her out for dinner first, to take the edge of that frown that crossed her face when she walked in the lounge just now...

Signature looking good!

How's it going with the TV?

 

[mr malarky]

Need to figure out how to post pics - am guessing a link to Flickr would work so will have a go at that. Mrs M has just got home so am taking her out for dinner first, to take the edge of that frown that crossed her face when she walked in the lounge just now...

Signature looking good!

How's it going with the TV?

Thanks on the signature front! Have been out at work all day but be home in half hour to start playing around with settings again, was fiddling around for ages last night and got to a really nice place with PQ, but with a really annoying blur on fast panning shots - played around for ages and couldn't get rid of it, until finally turned off all video processing on the pioneer amp which seemed to solve it! By then it was about 1am though, so need to put a bit more time in tonight to see if that was the issue or not.

 

[mr malarky]

Am sat here now watching "coyote ugly" on ITV2 HD. Firstly, can I say what a truly terrible film it is - utter garbage! (It's what Mrs M was watching when I walked through the door). More importantly though, the blurring effect I was seeing last night has definitely disappeared since I switched off all video processing on the LX75 so can only assume there was some kind of conflict between what the amp and the screen were trying to do regarding motion processing. At some point will switch the amp's video processing back owned work backwards to find out what the issue was.

Till then, picture quality is excellent so far. In the past it might have been a case of picture quality being good "for a screen of this size", but as I think Ellisdj said about his VT65, the PQ is just really good - full stop. Extremely clear, fluid, and a pleasure to just sit and watch.

Only current criticism would be that the picture's lacking a little 'pop', which can no doubt be fixed by playing around with settings, and will certainly be fixed by calibration once it's run in, but in any event can't be fixed until this god-awful film has finished!

 

[mattmeer]

larger screen sizes in plasma, as your 60 inch zt60, lack brightness, which cause a lack of pop.
for example the 50vt60 has better brightness and therefor more "pop" than the 55vt60.

this is caused by energy consumption, bigger panels require more power, and when displaying bright objects, need to scale back in brightness to prevent extreme power consumption/overheating. the smaller panels have less scaling back in brightness.
that is why i will be going for a 50 inch instead of 55 inch.

 

[mr malarky]

Suspect your right that smaller screens can generate higher levels of brightness, but don't think the current relatively dim picture is an inherent issue with the screen size - am currently running the screen in the 'EBU' preset, if I change it to one of the THX out-the-box settings there's an immediate uplift in screen brightness; I'm avoiding those settings though until the screen has been run in for a while to try and avoid any potential IR/screen burn issues.

The other minor niggle, and one that I suspect isn't going to go away, is the fan noise - had initially felt the wouldn't be audible at normal listening volumes but there's no denying its there; would say its about the same level as a first gen PS3 (not as loud as a 360). This I suspect is definitely one that's directly attributable to screen size and doubt there's any way round this shy of returning the set and going back to the 50" kuro.

 

[rocketrazor]

Suspect your right that smaller screens can generate higher levels of brightness, but don't think the current relatively dim picture is an inherent issue with the screen size - am currently running the screen in the 'EBU' preset, if I change it to one of the THX out-the-box settings there's an immediate uplift in screen brightness; I'm avoiding those settings though until the screen has been run in for a while to try and avoid any potential IR/screen burn issues.

The other minor niggle, and one that I suspect isn't going to go away, is the fan noise - had initially felt the wouldn't be audible at normal listening volumes but there's no denying its there; would say its about the same level as a first gen PS3 (not as loud as a 360). This I suspect is definitely one that's directly attributable to screen size and doubt there's any way round this shy of returning the set and going back to the 50" kuro.

whats 'EBU'

ta

 

[Deleted member 2457]

Suspect your right that smaller screens can generate higher levels of brightness, but don't think the current relatively dim picture is an inherent issue with the screen size - am currently running the screen in the 'EBU' preset, if I change it to one of the THX out-the-box settings there's an immediate uplift in screen brightness; I'm avoiding those settings though until the screen has been run in for a while to try and avoid any potential IR/screen burn issues.

The other minor niggle, and one that I suspect isn't going to go away, is the fan noise - had initially felt the wouldn't be audible at normal listening volumes but there's no denying its there; would say its about the same level as a first gen PS3 (not as loud as a 360). This I suspect is definitely one that's directly attributable to screen size and doubt there's any way round this shy of returning the set and going back to the 50" kuro.

I seem to recall someone saying the ZT65 was not as noisy as the VT65, so perhaps with the ZT65 it does vary from screen? Perhaps just takes time getting used to?

 

[mr malarky]

whats 'EBU'

ta

Have copied this from the HDTVtest review of the ZT:

"There is one new interesting picture preset on the European ZT60s and British ZT65s, called “EBU Default”. It turns out that the European Broadcasting Union has had a recommendation on the performance characteristics of consumer displays since 2007, the tech document being EBU 3321 (link). (By the way, if you’re reading from outside this continent, then just think of the EBU as Europe’s equivalent to SMPTE). This mode is designed to comply with EBU tech doc 3321, although the EBU’s guidelines call for the same ITU-approved base picture characteristics as any other professional video institution. So, like both ISF and THX, this mode targets a Rec709 colour gamut and D65 white point. The only difference is the default gamma, which targets the EBU’s favoured 2.3, rather than the 2.2 or 2.4 we’re used to seeing. In reality, that difference is very small, however. Also, the EBU mode has a limited light output, similar to last year’s “Professional” modes, meaning that like a studio monitor, it favours supreme gamma accuracy at the cost of light output."

 

[rocketrazor]

whats 'EBU'

ta

Have copied this from the HDTVtest review of the ZT:

"There is one new interesting picture preset on the European ZT60s and British ZT65s, called “EBU Default”. It turns out that the European Broadcasting Union has had a recommendation on the performance characteristics of consumer displays since 2007, the tech document being EBU 3321 (link). (By the way, if you’re reading from outside this continent, then just think of the EBU as Europe’s equivalent to SMPTE). This mode is designed to comply with EBU tech doc 3321, although the EBU’s guidelines call for the same ITU-approved base picture characteristics as any other professional video institution. So, like both ISF and THX, this mode targets a Rec709 colour gamut and D65 white point. The only difference is the default gamma, which targets the EBU’s favoured 2.3, rather than the 2.2 or 2.4 we’re used to seeing. In reality, that difference is very small, however. Also, the EBU mode has a limited light output, similar to last year’s “Professional” modes, meaning that like a studio monitor, it favours supreme gamma accuracy at the cost of light output."

cheers dude

 

[mr malarky]

No worries - I'd never heard of either till the ZT came out but it seemed the safest setting during the run-in period

 

[ellisdj]

My dealer rang me earlier with my ZT - but I have already bought the 65VT. I feel bad on the very helpful sales lady and would like to help her and a buyer who is trying to get one

if anyone is interested in this dealers details I will give you the name of my contact while they have stock. I did have the set at an amazing price

 

[mr malarky]

Think you need to update that signature, given that your VT is now very much up & running?

 

[Deleted member 2457]

I was watching Bad Boys 2 last night, and I thought the picture was great:

 

[Deleted member 2457]