Panasonic plasma poor motion handling

[zzz]

I have seen this already in few different shops: camera panning and motion in general looks very poor on panasonic 100Hz plasmas, compared to 100hz lcds. The movie was cars 720p.

[Rob100]

Originally Posted by zzz

I have seen this already in few different shops: camera panning and motion in general looks very poor on panasonic 100Hz plasmas, compared to 100hz lcds. The movie was cars 720p.

I'm guessing they were running at 1080p60, instead of 1080p24 and what you are seeing is the 3:2 pulldown judder.

[alsina]

The 100Hz function on Panasonic plasma's is different to the 100Hz function on their LCD's.

The equivalent feature on the plasma's is called Intelligent Frame Creation and can be found on the PZ81, PZ85 and PZ800 ranges.

[zzz]

Originally Posted by Rob100

I'm guessing they were running at 1080p60, instead of 1080p24 and what you are seeing is the 3:2 pulldown judder.

Whatever it was, it probably was a default setting on the source and destination, since it was the same symptom across many shops. I know that default settings are never optimal, but this was way beyond. Few of those sets were definitely PZ series, behaving just as bad as those without IFC. One of the shops did not even have ambient light on at all in that particular corner, which should give some advantage to plasmas. I know pixar tends to look better on LCDs as someone pointed out, since nobody knows what Wall-E looks in real life , but still...

I am in process of replacing my PX60, and looking both at LCD and plasma sets. Whenever I go into shops to look at some model, I get some unpleasant surprise from plasma sets (apart from Kuro ones, they look good on every material).

[YellowSphere]

The PZ series mainly has motion problems in the form of phosphor lag in high contrast scenes (i.e. nightime, outerspace etc.). If you want to look for something to compare it to, the nearest LCD competitor currently is the Sony W4500, which should have better motion handling in dark scenes, but probably not in normal contrast ones.

[alsina]

The IFC function on the PZ plasma series can be turned off in the setup menu, the shop may have these set that way. The 100Hz on the LCD's is always on i.e. cannot be turned off by the user. Be sure of the settings before you make your comparisons.

Re the Sony W4500, a quick google search on 'clouding' on this model will likely steer you well clear.

[ro53ben]

Originally Posted by zzz

I have seen this already in few different shops: camera panning and motion in general looks very poor on panasonic 100Hz plasmas, compared to 100hz lcds. The movie was cars 720p.

Why was the source only 720p? This is a 1080p blu-ray, it should have been showing in 1080p/24.

I am in process of replacing my PX60, and looking both at LCD and plasma sets. Whenever I go into shops to look at some model, I get some unpleasant surprise from plasma sets (apart from Kuro ones, they look good on every material).

Sounds like you should either buy an LCD or a Kuro. Regardless of what anybody says, it's what you think that counts.

IMHO the Panasonic displays are quite excellent at showing up deficiencies in the source material. Other, not so clear, displays may smooth over the cracks so to speak - the Panasonic will show lovely beautiful cracks all over the screen.

Nobody complains about the colour on a Black & White TV, likewise people don't see deficiencies on many LCDs as they simply don't have the contrast to show it in some cases.

They've taken a 1080p/24 movie and then set the player to 720p/50 or 720p/60. This will require the movie to be downscaled, losing some quality. Then they pumped it into a 1080p panel which will require the 720p source to be upscaled again, losing more quality.

The end result is a crappy upscaled, downscaled image which should look quite poor and if it doesn't, I'd be very surprised.

[un1eash]

Cant say ive ever noticed motion judder on panning shots on a panny plasma, i was watching cars the other day in a store on a PZ80 and it looked excellent. Went to sony to view a W4000 and it was all over the place with slow panning shots.

[ro53ben]

Originally Posted by un1eash

Cant say ive ever noticed motion judder on panning shots on a panny plasma, i was watching cars the other day in a store on a PZ80 and it looked excellent. Went to sony to view a W4000 and it was all over the place with slow panning shots.

I've seen image issues on my Panny PZ85 from time to time, but all of them were source related.

I've never seen a single issue from a blu-ray 1080p/24 source.

Playing downloaded stuff on my NMT media player varies considerably. A lot of the TV show downloads are 720p, my panel is 1080p. If I set the NMT to output 720p, all is fine and looks lovely - the TV does the upscaling. If I set the NMT to 1080p, I get occasional judder on panning shots. This is caused by poor upscaling within the NMT - NOT the Panny. The Panny is just showing up the deficiencies in the source material.

It's clear that some display panels have considerable post-processing to remove source deficiencies and make them less obvious. Whether you like this is personal preference.

To me it's like an old tape deck with Dolby Noise Reduction. Turn it on and you lose some background hiss, but it muffle the top range frequencies too, ruining the music. I prefer my panel to show the source clearly and strive to get a better quality source instead.

[rewerb]

Originally Posted by zzz

I have seen this already in few different shops: camera panning and motion in general looks very poor on panasonic 100Hz plasmas, compared to 100hz lcds. The movie was cars 720p.

Judder is nothing to do with the 100Hz system in the Panny. The movie wasnt played at 1080/24p which elliminates any judder.

[choddo2006]

Originally Posted by un1eash

Cant say ive ever noticed motion judder on panning shots on a panny plasma, i was watching cars the other day in a store on a PZ80 and it looked excellent. Went to sony to view a W4000 and it was all over the place with slow panning shots.

There's 4 main motion handling problems in my experience;

1. blur from the pixels not changing fast enough. Classic LCD flaw.
2. phospor lag/lead. Classic plasma flaw.
3. 3:2 judder. Affects everything. Only solved by converting a 60Hz source to a multiple of 24. Which the W4000 doesn't do afaik.
4. Double-image judder. I've seen this on Panny plasmas primarily and it's far more noticeable on fast pans (like in lowish-framerate video games where there's no "cinematographical" respect for carefully limiting distance moved each frame) - maybe related to phospor lag, not sure what causes it.

[jonjon10]

[FONT=Verdana]I have a Panasonic TH46-PZ85B and think it's fantastic. Very very rarely i have noticed motion blur from my ps3 blue ray, but i see motion blur in SD CRT's. I can't help it i constantly look for it and drives me nutz wish I could stop lol[/FONT]

[audiphile76]

There is no technology that perfects the panning motion. I would say that this is attributed to difference in the speed with the camera used. One should not judge a panel based on panning. As mentioned before IFC in plasma is definitely the 100Hz in LCD, but then Plasmas can do better at fast action movements(except panning) better than LCDs.

100Hz in LCDs might depict a good panning but then 100Hz does not work at other situations and hence most LCD owners keep this feature off, and enable it only for some football but again moving football has some kind of unwanted effects.

[punkymunky]

I wouldn't take much notice of what you see in a shop, might as well have them all switched off.

You will be disappointed with an LCD, I am.

[zzz]

Went back there again, and looked at few sets. The one I watched yesterday was PZ82. I could not notice any more motion issues, but since it was dark corner again, I could very well see how LE40A656's blacks glow in the dark, even at 90 degrees. I guess that's on top of my list for pissing me off. By the way, it was 1080p source playing.

Unfortunately, LE46A856 was in the very bright area of the room, along with PZ800 and Kuro, so naturally was excelling in contrast. PZ800 was reflecting bright light with phosphor so it looked quite washed out. Kuro looked quite good even in bright light, as it does not seem to reflect near as much as Panasonic panels.

Kuro is out of the question for one simple thing - 50" cannot fit in the location and budget.

Right now it's a deathmatch between LE40A756 (40W4500), 42PZ8 and 42PZ81. I thought that two years later decision between plasma and LCD would be easier, but it's same old dilemma as it was when I was buying PX60 As a tie breaker, I usually use the price. PZ8 is on sale everywhere for 874 eur, so that's probably going to be it