pioneer pdp lx5090 red tint to blacks

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mickru

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Hello, I've had my 5090 since may 2009, when I got it the screen would look dark grey in a totally dark room, and black with backlighting on. Over the last year this has now changed from grey to red, and is now becoming noticable even with backlighting on. Called pioneer who say this is normal for the screen (due to the improvements in contrast ratio), but they are sending an engineer out anyway to look at it for me. My set hasn't been calibrated, will be asking piers from H.C.E to do that sometime soon. I have seen one post on this forum about this problem, and quite a few on american and german forums, all of them seem to have had no resolution. What I don't want is to be told that this is normal for the screen and left with red looking blacks, so I suppose what I'd like to know is does anyone else have a screen of this age and does it look red or still grey like mine used to? Thanks in advance, mick.
 
Hello mate.

I have the same problem. One chap on here game me some ISF software so i could get the gamma rgb options up.

Sort of cured it for a while, but seems to be coming back again.

Though, sometimes it does look ok.

Ive noticed if you walk up to the screen, the reddish look goes.
Weird i know.
 
hello, had two engineers out yesterday to look at the set, they could both see the red tint, so they're going back to pioneer to ask about repairing it. I'll wait and see what pioneer have got to say and take it from there, thanks for your reply, mick
 
same problem here, I had a play around and got Chelsea fans. kuro Time app working and it's successfully reads the time temperature and serial number.
 
Mick, glad they see the red tint.

Let us know what the outcome is, if any?

Then maybe i'll get on to them knowing the actual problem.

I have heard its the black filter that looks red to keep the colours looking bright when the screen darkens down. I suspect thats just Pioneer's get out of jail card.

Only thing is, i have checked the red push on the avia dvd and its below the 0% mark. So the red level is normal. Also checked green and blue levels, and they were normal also.

***edit***
I have put colour back to low. I have used colour management to get a better grey looking picture. But without a colour meter, its not 100%, but looks good to the eye. Still have a slightly red background.
 
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Thanks for both of your replies, still waiting to hear from the service company. I'll give it till the middle of next week then call them. Can is ask what the build date of your sets are? My set was manufactured feb 2009, on some of the foreign av sites (america, germany), people who have this issue, say its to do with the build date and pioneer using parts from other manufacturers as they were coming to the end of production, don't know if that would be true, but it's worth looking into.
 
Service company called back today, pioneer have told them that this is normal for the display, and that no repair is required. They have said that the reason I can see it is due to me watching the set in a dark room and my eyes picking up on the mauve tint. I never used the word mauve when talking to pioneer, I used the word red, so this suggests to me that they know about this issue! They also said that it would also be down to the way that the set has been run, I've used bumptious settings from day one, so the contrast has been at 32 since may 2009. I've estimated that the set has been on for 6000 to 7000hrs approx, this may sound alot to some people, but you don't pay £2000 not to watch it. So does anyone else apart from lord bunky, ragnarok and myself, have a set of this age and hours usage that has the mauve/red tint, or are your sets still dark grey, any help on this issue would be appreciated. If it turns out that its part of the technology and is to be expected, then I'll live with it, but if it's not then I want pioneer to fix it!
 
same. have had mine since feb 2009 - used regularly, not sure how many hours. bumptious settings. must admit i do see red tint in dark room
 
Hi all.

Had a look at my TV, and the date is Feb 2009. Bought the TV in June 2009. TV has run for just over 2500 hours.

Mauve does look more like it than red. But i think we see something thats not black/grey looking and automaically think its due to too much red.

But like i have said, when upping the brightness by +3 there is no mauve on the black bars on the screen. Only problem is, you get grey boarders.

At normal brightness (mine is set to 0) there is no red push on the picture. In normal lighting, too, the black level looks normal. Might have to get some backlighting strips.
 
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Hello and thanks for your replies everyone.

I've got some blue backlighting already and it does help. I'm still going to ask piers from H.C.E to calibrate my set and see if it helps, if it does I'll let you know. From what everyone is saying so far it looks like this is something that is part of the technology, and maybe becomes more apparent the older it gets.
 
Its a shame about the red/mauve look. I remember starting the TV up and the background was normal black.

If it gets like this due to its age then its very poor from Pioneer.

I also have a Panasonic TH37PV500 and that set is nearly 6 years old. And, although the black level is nowhere near the Pioneers level, it still has a grey looking black background.

I know this might sound stupid, but i wish i could turn off the black filter on the Pioneer. As when you start the TV and see the brighter black level, there is no red at all. I could live with that lol.
 
I've just watched a dark film (30 mins ago) in a dark room for the first time in ages. I spotted the red hue on blacks and immediately and knew straight away that I'd never seen this before. My first reaction was that it had to be a fault only to find this thread reporting that Pioneer believe it to be 'normal'. The TV gets a lot of use but I use Bumptious settings too and I never use it for gaming. I'll be sooo disappointed if this can't be fixed. I'll be wathing this thread closely to see if anything can be done to improve it.
 
Hi Matty, It does get you a bit p***ed off when you notice it.

I have tried everything and it just wont change from the dark red looking background.

I think if i have the set ISF'd it would still look the same on the black level. So im not gonna waste £300 plus to still see a dark red black background.

I must stress though, that its only on the dark black background and black boarders that i see this. Picture is fine and free from red push, so its more than likely that Pioneer use this tint on black.
 
thanks Lord Bunky.

This does seem to be the symptom. The TV looks fine in every other regard.
I suppose I'm just dissappointed that the USP for this TV was always the black level when compared to other TV's, even TV's available to buy new today.
It's still the best TV out there though IMO.

My friend just bought the latest Sony flagship model and it's not as good as my 3 year old Pioneer. Good, just not as competent overall. And 3 years is a lifetime in TV years. I'm very happy with it even with the red on black tint
 
Does your whole panel look evenly red or are some parts/areas redder than others?
 
Hi,

The whole screen looks evenly red, but like lord bunky said, sometimes you don't notice it and when you are close up to the screen you can't see it, strange!!
 
Hi,

Have the same problem, KURO is gone and got the same red glow. Pretty bad quality from Pioneer, advertising with the blackest black that will only last for 2 years. Will try to make it a warranty claim but pioneer only has 2 years warranty?
 
tapmeester said:
Hi,

Have the same problem, KURO is gone and got the same red glow. Pretty bad quality from Pioneer, advertising with the blackest black that will only last for 2 years. Will try to make it a warranty claim but pioneer only has 2 years warranty?

Let us know how it goes mine also exhibits the red tint would be curious to hear pioneers take on it.
 
Hey guys did you ever figure out what the problem was or able to fix/improve it any? My KRP-500M all of a sudden also exhibits the same problem. I first noticed it in the side bars while watching a movie. It seems to be the worst on the right side and especially the upper right corner. As mentioned by someone else, the black levels on these Pioneers are supposed to be the selling point and now this is messed up :(
 
just noticed the same now with mine(508xd),only in the corners and along the bottom edge.set was new in august 07 and has about 12000 hours on it now,used with bumptious settings from day one. as it has the JL extended warranty on it i might try to claim them,that said im still really happy with the set but something is clearly changing with the black level(panny g10 anyone?),and i really dont want it to get any worse.would be interested to know if anyone has had a calibration make any difference,possibly a claim and the latest Panny might be the way forward for me....not impressed though.
 
I dont know if its me or my eyes playing tricks, but have recently set my colour temp to mid-low for the last week.

I was watching Rango and normally on the black titles you see that red tint. Also when the disc is stopped, my pio bd player shows a black background, which always looks red. Well, lastnight, it looked normal black.

Was a bit shocked, as i normally hate looking at the black on the TV. It looked fine. All my lights were off, inc backlighting on the wall behind the TV.

I also had Sky HD on, then turned off the system and looked at the black background. It looked fine again.

Could these colour temps have anything to do with the black level?

From what i read, most of us have colour set to low or manual, which defaults to low when first used.

Could this be an issue?

Will look at the set again tonight, just to make sure it wasn't my eyes playing tricks.
 
Interesting. Definitely let us know what you find out.
 
Right all,

Sorry the reply is late...been really busy and totally forgot about this.

Black is better with a cooler setting, but there is still a slight tint. To get rid of the red totally, i pushed brightness up to +2.....gone.

I can live with the +2 setting. Still looks darker than say a Panny or Samsung plasma.

So it does seem like a problem with the black filter they use.

No more reddish black boarders on movies. And if you use back lighting, it looks even darker, but without the reddish tint.
 
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