Panny PW7 arriving tomorrow - PW6 owners please help

Tony8377

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I am having my PW7 delivered at 11 am tomorrow morning and I am trying to prepare for it tonight. First venture into high end displays so thought I'd ask for anyones thoughts on setup. Being delivered tomorrow is the screen, mount, JS Labs RGB to VGA convertor, and Van Damme VGA lead. I need to connect a Netgem freeview receiver, Tivo & DVD Player. My thoughts are Daisy chain freeview into Tivo then into convertor into VGA socket. I only have a cheap toshiba DVD player at the minute but am going to try connecting my housemates Lexicon RT-10 DVD transport via component using Mark Grants Belden Component Cable.

In addition to this my housemate owns the following video processors; TView Quad Scan Pro, I Scan Pro & Centre Stage Video Processor. Can I connect any of these up with the current cables I own and are they likely to make much difference?

I have access to the Avia DVD but aren't I suppose to tone down the contrast and brightness for the first 200 hours. Can anyone tell me the exact settings I need to remove any chance of long term damage but still maintain a good picture.

I don't have a surround sound processor at the moment so will just be using my HiFi (ATC CA2 Pre, Michell Alecto Power Amp, Proac Floorstanders, all on Nordost Pulsar Point with Blue Heaven throughout). Am I likely to suffer from the sound being out of sync?

Any help would be much appreciated as I only have two hours to set it up and have a quick look before I need to be back to work. Thanks in advance.

Also, I am going to be placing the speakers right next to the Plasma but am I right in thinking it wont affect the Plasma in the same way it does A CRT TV
 
turn the picture settings to "Cinema" mode and the screensaver to peak limiting and turn the lights down. (Normal and Dynamic are way too bright IMHO) Then enjoy the fantastic PQ and laugh at all those who thought they would save money and buy a LG
 
Thanks, so the Cinema setting is dark enough for the first 200 hours?
 
Tony I've had a PW6 for almost a year. I used it in auto mode (still do) right from the off - it will adjust brightness and contrast to suit the ambient lighting. It doesn't seem to have suffered from not running it with the contrast and brightness turned right down and the benefit was I could see what I was watching for the first 200 hours. Also I've never seen a hint of screen burn although I was nervous of logos on digital TV burning in. I suggest you set the screen saver option to 'wobble' to move the picture a few pixels up/down and left/right every now and then. I hated the grey side bars when viewing 4:3 material and tend to watch all 4:3 stuff in 'just' mode - an intelligent stretched picture to fill the screen - saves worrying about screen burn from the edges of the 4:3 image.

The JS boxes seem to provide a very clean image, far better than RGB scart, the only downside of using VGA input is that autoswitching aspect ratios is not available (at least on the PW6).

Speakers placed right next to the plasma will have NO effect on it (useful if they're unshielded with big magnets like mine!)

Daisychaining sources via scart works well - if they have RGB pass-through capability. I don't know if Tivo will do this.

I can't advise re: processors as I've never tried one but the prog scan circuits in the plasma do a pretty good job for starters.

Hope this helps, enjoy!
 
Tony8377, first off congrats on yr purchase, hope everything will be allright with delivery and setup!

I'm also very interested with this screen, however found out in a PDF brochure (posted on a Panasonic site) that the DVI board only supports 3 resolutions, which is very, very limited for most users.
(there's another thread around this pbm:
http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=153327 )


Would it be possible for you to have a look at the documentation you'll probably get with the PW7 screen to see whether it covers the optional DVI (and HDMI) boards, and if it does what supported resolutions are mentionned in there?

I'm sure you'll have other priorities today, but whenever you can do this quick check will be just fine.

Thanks a lot in advance, :)
 
Thanks all for the feedback.

Well it arrived at 11.15 this morning and after an hour of playing around with the connections and stand I got it up and running. I can tell you these things weigh a lot when you have to lift then onto a high stand on your own. I think my back is going to be hurting a lot over the next couple of days. Had to leave for work at 1pm so I've only had a very breif look at the picture. First look was at TV as this was my biggest concern. Picture from freeview via Tivo was actually surprisingly good. CSI Miami recorded last night on high quality looked OK, some digital artifacts but I used to get this on my old 28" from channel 5 anyway - more the quality of channel 5's transmission than the Plasma. A quick look at whatever was showing on BBC 1 and I was mighty impressed - there certainly weren't any lines or banding from initial looks. Then I switched over to Bad Boys 2 on DVD (as I watched it the other day) using the cinema setting. Unfortunately they forgot to deliver the Component board so it was only through RGB (into the VGA Socket). Never the less I was amazed at the picture quality. Blacks were very black and skin tones were excellent. I'm no expert but it gave me a much better pciture on DVD than my 2 year old phillips TV and a similar picture whilst on TV. Haven't had a chance to look at Avia yet, that will be the weekend.

Peezee, I'll try and have a look at the manual at the weekend.

One other thing was I noticed it had Viera written on the box similar to the TV model based on the PW6 panel. Did the PW6 Panel have Viera or is this one of the small improvements on this model.

So far I'm very happy and would recommend. Will keep you posted when I have a chance to play with it. Only 3 hours to go and I can go home and watch some more :clap:
 
Congrats on your purchase, keep us posted as im also in the market for a PW7 :)
 
Quick question if I may....

Does the PW7 series have any L/R audio out sockets? I would be wanting to pipe the audio from whatever input the display is showing to a pair of speakers or my hi-fi until I have some extra cash for a decent amp etc.

Cheers,

Andy.
 
Im pretty sure it does
 
Hi

If it is the silver TH-37PW7B you are interested in - stocks were released from Panasonic this week so you should find display units appearing on the shelves at stores throughout the UK.

Regards

Alastair :hiya:
 
Andy,

As far as I can see there aren't any audio outs on my plasma but you may want to check that with Alistair @ AV Sales.
 
Tony, do you notice any flickering on your pw7 on bright scenes? I really hope they fixed this problem.
 
The display one i saw looked fine on bright scenes, both sky and DVD, but i didnt get to see it for that long.
 
Sat down and watched Return of the Jedi and Attack of the Clones last night. Both looked excellent on dark and light scenes with no flickering. Then turned both the contrast and brightness to -12 so thats it for perfect viewing for the next 200 hours but still a very watchable picture. I have to admit the more I watch Tivo through it the more I hate it. The piture quality is really bad - to the point of being almost unwatchable. Direct from freeview it is OK. I saw a thread on here last night that said you could up the resolution on Tivo to match the plasma and reduce the compression so I am going to have to look into this. If anyone knows anymore about this please let me know.

P.S. I posted a photo on the get your plasma out thread but its not the best quality.
 
how are you watching DVD's? through component? as i saw one on tuesday throught scart and didnt think it was particularly stunning, but i couldnt get the remote to see if it was RGB or not. The picture was soft, as people have mentioned with the PW6 scart board, so i reckon its the same board, or as good as.
 
As I mentioned earlier the component board is due to arrive today so I am watching it through scart but via the JS Convertor into VGA. I thought it produced a very sharp clear detailed picture. Didn't even bother buying the scart board as it's roughly the same price as the convertor. It will be interesting to see if I notice much difference when the component board arrives. :)
 
Cheers tony, thats what i wanted to hear :)
 
Not sure yet really TBH. Funds permitting within the next month, i wasnt 100% impressed (as i thought i would be) with the unit i saw setup the other day, but it wasnt setup correctly, it was via scart, etc etc.

I want to see another one in action (that is setup right) first. On the unit i did see the contrast and brightness were all over the place so that didnt bode well for a start, i adjusted those and got a good picture from sky+ via scart.

I was just a bit disappointed when i played a DVD (again via scart, hopefully this is where the problem was). Although saying that i played the opening sequence of MIB and i was VERY impressed with the blacks, far better than i had imagined.
 
UP!

There's now a bunch of us around here anxious to learn about resolutions/refresh rates combinations supported via DVI on this PW7 plasma...

Tony8377, this is just to make sure you haven't forgotten about us poor sods... :D ;)
 
I dont think he has the DVI board though
 
Peezee, I have to admit I almost forgot about this. I have had a good look through the manual but unfortunately there is nothing about the specs for the DVI input. The manual supplied with the Component board gave a detailed list of applicable input resolutions for the board so I am guessing that the only way to find out is to ask for a copy of the manual for that input. One other word of caution is my component board is the TY-42TM6Z which I assume was originally for the PW6? I don't know if there should be a new component board for the PW7 or not but if you can get someone in the shop to look at a manual makes sure it's for the PW7.
 
Hi tony I`m thinking of getting a pw6 and I watch all my stuff through tivo I was wondering if you sorted the picture quality problem
Is it just the compression of tivo or is it a feed problem :clap:
I you do an advanced search for mark ward there is some links on bigger resolutions for tivo (but will use lots of space)
 

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