Panasonic 37/42 PX80 Series Owners thread - Part 3

Ok I went into a currys store today and checked there display models, the th42px80 was silent but there th37px80 did have a small buzzing sound from the back of the panel. I can only bring this down to the fact the bigger model has a deeper back cover hence probably not touching any of the components inside.

I spoke with a few of the management team who agreed the tv can be bought back for a exchange as is still under 28 days since purchase. I can wait for the newer models being released next month but dont really want to spend another £150 for what may only be minor upgrades.

I think I wil exchange the tv tomorrow and whatever the results so be it. As long as it doesnt have any dead pixels :rolleyes:. Also I have realised the buzzing gets worse after a few hours of use and I dont even have the settings turned up.
 
Just hit 200hrs on the 42""px80
picture bang on and no noise or problems (so far)
played dead space on the 360 last night totally blown away
this game was made for this sceen very dark and dramatic flashing scenes
well happy
 
the 37PX80 is £449 in my local sainsburys. let me know if you want the location, dunno what warranty is included for that price.

I got the last one at my local HoFrazer last week for £499 with 3 years cover.
 
Got my 37PX80 in HoF last week for £499 inc 5yr warranty - they wanted to charge £599 (price went up on 1st Feb) but as their website still had the old price they gave it to me for that.

Noticed that M&S have removed this model from their site this morning...supplies must be drying up pretty quick.
 
the 37PX80 is £449 in my local sainsburys. let me know if you want the location, dunno what warranty is included for that price.

I got the last one at my local HoFrazer last week for £499 with 3 years cover.

I'm interested to know where this is! Please tell, :lease:
 
the 37PX80 is £449 in my local sainsburys. let me know if you want the location, dunno what warranty is included for that price.

I got the last one at my local HoFrazer last week for £499 with 3 years cover.


Anyone considering the Sainsburys offer might want to double check that before they go and spend their money. I only saw the 37PX8B (matte black frame) which has a lower spec than the 37PX80B (with the piano black - shiny frame)
 
the 37PX80 is £449 in my local sainsburys. let me know if you want the location, dunno what warranty is included for that price.

I got the last one at my local HoFrazer last week for £499 with 3 years cover.

That's a PX8 not 80 in sainsbury's they only have 2 HDMI's + other lower spec features compared to the 80 model still good & cheap got to better most 32-40 lCD's too with it's 0.001 msec refresh not sure if it's 100HZ ?
 
the 37PX80 is £449 in my local sainsburys. let me know if you want the location, dunno what warranty is included for that price.

Anyone considering the Sainsburys offer might want to double check that before they go and spend their money. I only saw the 37PX8B (matte black frame) which has a lower spec than the 37PX80B (with the piano black - shiny frame)

Hmmm, might give this a miss after all! :suicide:
 
the 37PX80 is £449 in my local sainsburys. let me know if you want the location, dunno what warranty is included for that price.

I got the last one at my local HoFrazer last week for £499 with 3 years cover.

I haven't seen the PX80's in either of my local Sainsbury's. They do however have the PX8 which is the lower spec version. I think the main differences are a matte frame rather than glossy, not so advanced picture processing, no SD card slot and 1 less HDMI.
 
At the other end of the spectrum, our local Co-op has the TH42PX80 at a 'reduced' price of £749, with 1 year warranty! :eek:
 
Coulda sworn it was the same model number as mine 37PX80BA as I mentioned to SWMBO that i just spent £50 more the week before...then again I got 3 years warranty which is worth £50 probably.

Sorry to have wasted time if not, feel free to give the Sainsburys Regent Road salford (manchester) store a call to confirm I guess.
 
Coulda sworn it was the same model number as mine 37PX80BA as I mentioned to SWMBO that i just spent £50 more the week before...then again I got 3 years warranty which is worth £50 probably.

Sorry to have wasted time if not, feel free to give the Sainsburys Regent Road salford (manchester) store a call to confirm I guess.

Hi, thanks for the info and the PM.

Just called the store and they deny selling any 37" or 42" Panasonic plasmas! Not sure whether the person I got on the phone was wrong or whether the one you saw was the last they were planning to sell. If anyone else wants to check their number is 0161 839 2441.

Thanks anyway! :(
 
Does anyone have their 42PX80 connected to a PC via HDMI to DVI ? Do you use 1024x768 or 1280x768 ?. What media player do you use and have you changed the media player aspect ratio ?. I had the resolution on the PX80 set to 1280x768 and text is excellent but when using Windows Media classic I got Full screen stretched image which did not look right, and when I use DivX 7 or WMP I only get video on half the screen..
 
I subscribed today just so as I could post a big thank you to you all for your posts to this Panasonic 37/42 PX80 thread (and others). I confess I have been a lurker here for a long time whilst I have researched which TV to buy. A familiar story I suppose.

I took the plunge and grabbed one of the last TH-37PX80BA units in the shops in NW England. Could not justify the inevitable extra £££ (to the other 'arf that is) for the equivalent unit from the new range out shortly and had to decide not to wait for some emergency robbing the kitty.

It has been very difficult to find retail stock that is not ex-display & damaged (I mean cosmetically like scratches or cracked pedestal) and no-one seems keen to offer any sort of reasonable discount on these. [Read store employees ready to pounce on manager's special]. Anyway found a mint one.

Hooked it up to a Sony 5.1 sound sytem. Well impressed with the 37PXBA, as you would going from a 21" 4:3 Sony CRT (circa 1995) especially on BBC Freeview channels. What is daft we were glued to Shrek2 on BBC3 or 4 last Sunday which is amazing as we never really enjoyed or rated it before.

But anyway thanks to you all for participating on this site and allowing me to listen in to your conversations and shared experiences, links and reviews. I do have a question which I will save for another post...
 
How to you mount the 37PX80 on it's stand?Am I missing something here?It seems that the screws to fasten the back of the tv to the metal supports are too short:confused:
 
How to you mount the 37PX80 on it's stand?Am I missing something here?It seems that the screws to fasten the back of the tv to the metal supports are too short:confused:

I only did this two days ago but I don't remember if the screws that fix the spikes to the base are longer or shorter than the screws for the stand to the panel. Have you mixed them up?

EDIT just checked pdf manual the 4 shorter silver screws are for the base (18mm) and the longer black ones (25mm) are for the back. They have the same thread I think so you could have mixed them up.
 
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I've done it now.I thought the tv sat in front of the metal supports,I didn't see at first they went into the bottom of the tv.Doh!:oops:
 
Heh... it took me a little while to work out how the stand all went together too. The one on the LCD I replaced was much simpler.

*sigh* Two days until the engineer comes to investigate the buzzing from my set. I know he's just going to fob me off and say it's normal. I hate him already. The git. :(
 
Heh... it took me a little while to work out how the stand all went together too. The one on the LCD I replaced was much simpler.

*sigh* Two days until the engineer comes to investigate the buzzing from my set. I know he's just going to fob me off and say it's normal. I hate him already. The git. :(

You can easily fix this yourself by adjusting the tightness of a couple of screws on the back of your panel near the side where the power supply is connected.
 
Is it ok to use the eco viewing mode?I'm not gonna use dynamic as I know you shouldn't,plus it looks horrible.People have said to use cinema but I just don't like how that looks.Eco gives the best picture for me.
 
Heh... it took me a little while to work out how the stand all went together too. The one on the LCD I replaced was much simpler.

*sigh* Two days until the engineer comes to investigate the buzzing from my set. I know he's just going to fob me off and say it's normal. I hate him already. The git. :(

Hi mate, my 37px80ba buzzes as well, more or less so depending on the brightness and contrast of the picture being displayed at the time. There is an audible buzzing sound there all the time when you put your ear near to the set and this becomes louder and can be heard from around 6 feet away when the screen gets brighter etc.

Can you let me know what you engineer says about it, would be interseting to know what he says. I dont think it has anything to do with vibration of the cabinet as some other people have said, I think it is more to do with the power regulator inside, as the screen must draw more power the brighther the picuter becomes. My screws are all fully tightened so I do not think it is vibration related.

I have my TV cet to Cinema mode and WARM at present and I just know that changing it to NORMAL after the run in period will make the buzzing worse. It's a shame a this spoils what is otherwise and fantastic TV as the picture is superb.

The sound is however its weakest point along with the buzzing. Despite what I said earlier about vibration not being the cause of the buzzing, I do get some speaker vibration when there is someone speaking with a deep voice or one with a lot of bass. I have even tried turning the bass down to half of that of the preset value and lowering the trebble by a quarter but it makes no difference and neither does the surround or speaker distance settings. It is most annoying.
 
You can easily fix this yourself by adjusting the tightness of a couple of screws on the back of your panel near the side where the power supply is connected.

Hi, can you elaborate a little more on this please. Do you mean the screws near to where the mains lead plugs into the TV and if so which ones in particular and do you mean to fully tighten them or maybe even loosen them a little. Cheers.
 
Wii and TH-37PX80BA via component cable (YPbPr)

Yes that chestnut. A longish post but I have tried to be precise in the details.

I have hooked up our UK Wii with a new Wii component cable, the one with 5 plugs (YPbPr + L-R audio) to our new Panasonic TH-37PX80BA.

Here is what surprised me: To my eyes setting the TV type on the Wii to 480i (60Hz) looks so much better on this set than than the Wii 480p EDV setting. I thought it would be the other way round. Yes, I know about the limitations HD wise of the Wii and that XBox360 and PS3 have got bigger pencils.... I just want to stick to engineering explanations here.

I realise different games may handle resolutions differently but I can see the difference even in the main Wii menu screens with the white backgrounds (buttons, channel icons and text) without even putting a disc in.

So here are the viewing setups I am including the Nintendo supplied composite SCART as a reference. All Viewing on Panasonic viewing Mode "Normal" settings with contrast and brightness down slightly from halfway (in fact calibrated using THX optimiser on a Finding Nemo DVD) and sharpness set one up from zero. Colour balance normal, management off, PNR off) CoD WAW= UK Wii version of "Call of Duty: World at War"

[Setup 1] Composite 50& 60Hz over Nintendo Wii SCART cable:
(Top 50Hz or middle button 60Hz in TV Wii settings)Terrible, dark & very fuzzy. Wii menus white background is very noticably dull & off-white maybe so far as to say grey. Button outlines and text very soft looking. CoD WAW text only just readable, MAKIN arena way to dark to play and score. [ Yes I looked at the picture via standard supplied scart cable and as my son says it truley is pants (it uses composite after all) which is why I got the component cable ].

[Setup 2] New Component (YPbPr) cable. Wii set to 480i 60Hz
(middle button in TV Wii settings) Crisp and bright. Wii main menu backgrounds nice clean white, text and button outlines crisp. CoD WAW text clear and very readable, MAKIN arena easy to play and score well. Maybe I would say overall a little too bright as my scores are up! Maybe I will even give the Wii its own viewing mode toned down a little. My sons verdict: Mint. (whatever that means, Good I think). More than Happy... wait till we try 480p!

[Setup 3] New Component (YPbPr) cable. Wii set to 480p
(bottom button in TV Wii settings) Wii main menu backgrounds still nice clean white, but text and button outlines and channel icons somewhat softer look than 480i. CoD WAW text still readable but definitely not as crisp as 480i and so I have to say again a bit too soft, MAKIN arena still easy to play and score well but even my son says it looks a bit soft. Don't get me wrong, 480p is way better than the composite nightmare but not quite as good as 480i. Tried messing a bit with the Panasonic sharpness but not convinced I was getting any place with that. Maybe if we had only seen 480p and not 480i we would have even been content. However 480i looks perfect.

Is this what other 37" owners see? 480i better than 480p? I know other TV sets do image Wii 480p better than 480i. My conclusion at the moment is that the 37PX80 upscales 480i better than 480p.

Actually I am fortunate that I don't have a problem here because the 480i setting looks so good I am leaving it at that.

Does anyone have a good technical reason for this behaviour?
 

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