Finally got a Plasma! What a disappointment!!!

COUGHCOUGH

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Got my delivery of a 50" Samsung PS50C96HD on monday. After being hyped for weeks I am actually saddened at how poor this picture quality is on a lot of channels.

I have a normal ntl (or virgin media as its now called) digital box with the full package. Some channels look acceptable (particulary channel 4 and 5) on my tv but a majority of them are very pixelated. There is a blocky affect on the whole screen which looks like you maximized a youtube video to full screen. This especially gets worse if there are fast moving objects and sometimes its gets worse than others.

Is this just how plasmas look, is there something wrong, or can I adjust something? i can't test if this is the same with analogue or freeview digital channels as the signal is so bad in my area, a scan pics up nothing. I do sit as close as adviseable (7-8feet from the screen) as this is limited by the size of my living room. All my settings are on default too (although I have tried adjusting a few of the options to no avail) as I was told to leave them like this for 200 hrs to let the tv run in. Will the picture improve with time?

Can anyone please help me???
 
Got my delivery of a 50" Samsung PS50C96HD on monday. After being hyped for weeks I am actually saddened at how poor this picture quality is on a lot of channels.

I have a normal ntl (or virgin media as its now called) digital box with the full package. Some channels look acceptable (particulary channel 4 and 5) on my tv but a majority of them are very pixelated. There is a blocky affect on the whole screen which looks like you maximized a youtube video to full screen. This especially gets worse if there are fast moving objects and sometimes its gets worse than others.

Is this just how plasmas look, is there something wrong, or can I adjust something? i can't test if this is the same with analogue or freeview digital channels as the signal is so bad in my area, a scan pics up nothing. I do sit as close as adviseable (7-8feet from the screen) as this is limited by the size of my living room. All my settings are on default too (although I have tried adjusting a few of the options to no avail) as I was told to leave them like this for 200 hrs to let the tv run in. Will the picture improve with time?

Can anyone please help me???

SD channels will look poor on a big screen coz it needs to strech the source resolution to fit your TV's resolution which degrades the PQ. When you probably viewed it in the shop, they were feeding it SKY HD or another HD feed ( Blu-ray or HD-DVD). Remember, SD broadcasts are at just over 500 lines vertically (576 or something ) in resolution, and it's interlaced ( every odd line is refreshed at 60 times per second ).

Now some channels do have better encoding and will therefore look "better" as you have just seen. It's not the fault of the TV, but the source ( SKY ).

Feed that telly of yours a HD feed and see the magic happen infront of your eyes !!!:clap::lesson:

Also, if you can afford it, get it callibrated ( tuned ) to get the best out of it coz most displays don't ship with optimal default configurations.:thumbsdow

So - don't fret, it's not the TV, but the source which is the biggest culprit - so - try to feed it something of better quality and you will deffo see an improvement !!:thumbsup:

All the best mate, and enjoy your new toy !:hiya:
 
Got my delivery of a 50" Samsung PS50C96HD on monday. After being hyped for weeks I am actually saddened at how poor this picture quality is on a lot of channels.

I have a normal ntl (or virgin media as its now called) digital box with the full package. Some channels look acceptable (particulary channel 4 and 5) on my tv but a majority of them are very pixelated. There is a blocky affect on the whole screen which looks like you maximized a youtube video to full screen. This especially gets worse if there are fast moving objects and sometimes its gets worse than others.

Is this just how plasmas look, is there something wrong, or can I adjust something? i can't test if this is the same with analogue or freeview digital channels as the signal is so bad in my area, a scan pics up nothing. I do sit as close as adviseable (7-8feet from the screen) as this is limited by the size of my living room. All my settings are on default too (although I have tried adjusting a few of the options to no avail) as I was told to leave them like this for 200 hrs to let the tv run in. Will the picture improve with time?

Can anyone please help me???

if the input is bad,the picture is bad,as simple is thta,If youre signal is that weak,you see blocks,I have it to,when the signal is bad,I changed cables,plugs and it's now good.The picture is very much inproved to.So first check those this.

These tv's are designed for viewing at large distance,In my opinion youre tv is to large for you viewing distance.When you sit that close to this kind of size screens,you will see every flaw ont the material,and the flwas of the plasma.

I would advice you to swap it for a 42inch telli,I think you get better results with an 42inch,espacialy with tv broadcast.
 
I think for you the cheapest way to get a better picture would be to upgrade to the V+ box which will give you a better SD picture as well as having all the benefits of a PVR. If you want to really improve things you could get an external video processor but that would cost a bit more
 
Plasmas take their time to improve picture but unfortunately, I doubt you will see a major improvement compared to what you are seeing now.

The main reason why people get disappointed with large screen TVs (even HDTVs) is because people expect it to look great.

Simple (hopefully) explanation of this is that you need to have a good source in order to take advantage of your big screen TV. Also, 50" TVs are normally used for at least 10 ft away viewing distances, 7 ft is normally for 40-42". The closer you are to your TV, the more of the blockiness and imperfections you'll see.

Please check the images below as an example, picture 1 being your small TV with a small resolution image; picture 2 is your big hdtv 1080p whatever but with a small (and pants) source. It will expand it, not make it look Hi-Def. I hope my explanation works well without the technical jargons.



 
You mention being 7 to 8 feet from the screen thats very close for a 50" screen especially with SD material. Its a bit late I know but 42" would have been more appropriate or even smaller. This is your main problem unfortunately and the only cure apart from sitting further away is HD material. Certain channels will always look poor due to the low bit rate used ( they pay less for broadcasting).

As for settings look for one called normal or cinema and check contrast and brightness are not set too high, as a start have contrast just under 50% and brightness around the same as for colour watch a football match or something with a lot of grass and adjust till the grass looks as realistic as possible. The sharpness control will add horrible artifacts if set high so reduce it to zero then increase to full to see what I mean. Likely the set will have some picture processing modes which can actually make things worse so turn them off until the above adjustments are done then see how the effect the picture.

I dont have a Virgin media box so all I'll say is make sure it is set to output RGB and you have the scart plugged into an RGB compatible scart socket on the plasma. Or as mentioned above upgrade to V+ box
 
Thanks for all your replies! :smashin:

I changed cables,plugs and it's now good.
Which plugs and cables did you change? I have just the standard scart that came with my ntl box.

upgrade to the V+ box which will give you a better SD picture
Why does the V+ box have better sd pics? Is it just because its linked up via hdmi or are there any other features? I thought about getting one for the hd content but once I found out it only has a few hd channels I didn't think it was worth the extra.

I dont have a Virgin media box so all I'll say is make sure it is set to output RGB and you have the scart plugged into an RGB compatible scart socket on the plasma
I did adjust the box to output rgb but didn't ensure it was in the correct scart on my tv. Will try this tonight thanks.

Virgin media are particulary awful so I take it (this coming from an ex-employee too) so I guess this is probably my biggest issue. Come to think about it, movies played on my laptop via an s-video cable don't have the same problems as a lot of my channels so maybe its worth me investigating the problem with virgin. AS explained though its probably something to do with low bit rates or encoding issues! (Still in denial about sitting too close until I move house!!!)

Thanks again for all your replies!
 
As above I would consider the main problem to be the signal BUT as has been said, no matter how good the signal is you are way too close to get a good view of the screen and it will still appear pixellated. Is there no way you can downsize? Some stores have a no quibble return policy that you could take advantage of.
I have the Panny 37PX70 and view it from your distance and the picture is fantastic. (although reception here is good and I use SKY for all my telly needs).

You make no mention of how it looks with DVDs?? A good rGB scart or HDMI connection should give you a better idea of the panels properties when it is given a good signal so try these out.

Lose those default settings too! The ones set up for the showroom are to accomodate flourescent lighting and are no good in your front room.

Turn OFF anything that artificially 'enhances' the picture such as 'sharpness' 'noise reduction' etc as these can make pictures look WORSE.
 
Just a thought... You have not got it set to "Wide Zoom" and you are viewing a 4:3 source are you?
If this was set to "Burn in" for 200 hours for you, the installer may have done this (it would prevent getting any area of the screen displaying black bars and therefore not get as "burnt in" as the rest.

I can imagine a 4:3 source blown up to the full screen would be horrible.
 
Yeah afraid it's just a case of crap in, crap out. Plus I think that screen is 1080p? which gives it even more work to do with SD. Or have I got the wrong one? Either way, 50" shows up all the horrors of low bitrate digital channels.
 
Either way, 50" shows up all the horrors of low bitrate digital channels.

Hmm not sure. Not all 50" TVs are bad for SD material. My friend (who is currently an AVF user revilospud) has a 50" Samsung DLP Rear Pro and he is only using Freeview at the moment but quality is a lot better than my LCDs capabilities to produce good SD quality. Of course it's not proper upscaling but the picture quality it can produce is less blockier and better colour reproduction than mine (bearing in mind that my 40" compared to his 50" is a fairly big difference!)
 
Don't know if this helps, but I had a pretty poor picture from my Panny Plasma once i'd introduced my DVDR. Did loads of tests and found out my aerial was weak. New ariel fitted and the picture strength and quality improved.

See my original thread here
 
Just though I would add to this thread, I had the same panel delivered yesterday, and I can see where COUGHCOUGH is coming from, my set is replacing an old 42" plasma, which has a much better picture with Sky, especially if you view it from too close.

I'm viewing from 9-14ft depending where I sit, and it's fine from that distance, but any closer and you start to see the flaws.

Ont he other hand, turn on the xbox 360 and you can see the quality the set can produce, it looks fantastic!

In the end it's down th what you can live with, I'm happy to have an OK picture when watching Sky just so I can have an amazing picture when gaming or watching DVD's.
 
as touched on i think its seating distance.
sky on mine from anything closer than 8ft is not nice lol

xbox is fine, however because of the compresion etc sky is a no no that close
 
Sky is actually quite good on mine thro good quality QED RGB Scart with some channels being very noticably better than others :smashin:

The difference though viewing DVD thro component is like chalk and cheese so much better.
 
Although I'd partly agree with some of the comments here concerning the source, it's not a given that SD will look as bad as the OP is describing on a 50" screen at the stated viewing distance. Previous RPTVs I've (briefly) owned produced good results from Freeview at 9-10 feet, and that was on 50" and 55" screens.

One thing that shocked me (in a good way) was the quality of the SD picture on the Pioneer 5080XD my Dad recently bought. After having prepared him with "well, you can't really expect it to be near the quality of your CRT in this respect" the image from Freeview, at around 10-ish feet, was actually very good on the high bitrate channels of BBC1 etc, and still reasonable even on the lower bitrate ones. Dare I say on a par with his old CRT? Certainly on the BBC channels... Put it this way, even the lower bitrate channels looked far better than what seems to be described in the first post here, but then the new Pioneers do seem to make a good job of SD and I can't comment on the bitrates on Sky broadcast channels...
 
I can't comment on the bitrates on Sky broadcast channels...

Sky is a mixed bag, anything from the main channels BBC ITV Channel 4 will look good. But its up to the channel owners to decide what bandwidth they get. Most of the crap channels on sky like the God TV Asian channels are awful looking and youtube quality!. What you are doing is simply using a magnifying glass to see SD pictures, of course you will see imperfections on that size.

Besides I have a Samsung and a 50". For me SD viewing is good. BUT I have sky HD so I am using HDMI to see it. The majority is SKY HD is still SD viewing - it doesnt offer upscaling. Ps the set you have is not a 1080p, whoever thought it was.

My samsung is 5 feet away only! Still looks very nice. I bought it for myself but had family considerations too. So I use it for upscaled DVD's and PS3 movies blu-ray. Thats why I bought it. But actually the majority of viewing is SD material now. It looks fine, but when I see my 24" CRT Television is beats it everytime. But I knew going in to buy it that SD would not be brilliant compared to CRT.

But I did my research, knew what I wanted to buy and my expectations were matched accordingly - yours aren't it seems! It seems you're using this for mostly SD viewing you should have gone for pioneer, heck you'd pay a premium for it! I always knew that if I wanted brilliant SD then the pioneer is up there, but I think my Samsung is better in other areas.

Its hdmi 1.3 and offers 1080p with 3 hdmi inoputs. Im happy you will be too once you sort out decent signals/sources. Why buy a HDTV for only SD viewing. Its like installing pedals and chains on a motorbike!

I think you're warm to it, and you need to settle in for the first 200 not the machine! :D
 
Hmm not sure. Not all 50" TVs are bad for SD material. My friend (who is currently an AVF user revilospud) has a 50" Samsung DLP Rear Pro and he is only using Freeview at the moment but quality is a lot better than my LCDs capabilities to produce good SD quality. Of course it's not proper upscaling but the picture quality it can produce is less blockier and better colour reproduction than mine (bearing in mind that my 40" compared to his 50" is a fairly big difference!)

It's all relative though. I would expect a 40" rear pro DLP to be more forgiving than a 50" rear pro from the same distance.
 
Got my delivery of a 50" Samsung PS50C96HD on monday. After being hyped for weeks I am actually saddened at how poor this picture quality is on a lot of channels.

I have a normal ntl (or virgin media as its now called) digital box with the full package. Some channels look acceptable (particulary channel 4 and 5) on my tv but a majority of them are very pixelated. There is a blocky affect on the whole screen which looks like you maximized a youtube video to full screen. This especially gets worse if there are fast moving objects and sometimes its gets worse than others.

Is this just how plasmas look, is there something wrong, or can I adjust something? i can't test if this is the same with analogue or freeview digital channels as the signal is so bad in my area, a scan pics up nothing. I do sit as close as adviseable (7-8feet from the screen) as this is limited by the size of my living room. All my settings are on default too (although I have tried adjusting a few of the options to no avail) as I was told to leave them like this for 200 hrs to let the tv run in. Will the picture improve with time?

Can anyone please help me???

try reading the thread, keep all settings below 50 for first 200 hours. then try
Here are settings I'm using at the moment

Unless mentioned everything else is off ,

Component (DVD) in Movie Mode
Contrast = 66
Brightness = 55
Sharpness = 10
Colour = 42
Tint = G51/R49
Colour tone = Normal

Black Adjust = off
Dynamic Contrast = off
Gamma = -2
White Balance

R-offest= 14
G -offset= 17
B-offset= 14
R Gain = 14
G Gain = 16
B Gain = 12

Colour control = normal
edge enhancement = off
Colour space = auto

pink = 12
green = 20
blue = 13
white = 17

these settings are what I came up with using the DVE disc, I was surprised how high the colour was as I usually have it below 30...
I am trying these settings on all inputs as a test...
hope this helps if you are struggling :thumbsup:
 
Can anyone comment on the quality of the DVB-T tuner in the PS50C96HDX ?

I came across this plasma last week & am very curious. Have seen it in the flesh though not too sure what to think about the PQ.

Comet had one running with a LG all-in-one home cinema jobbie connected via Scart & the picture was a bit poo. Then again it may not have been set to output RGB & the unit was probably not tweaked :rolleyes:

After a bit of a disappointment with a commercial Panasonic 50" PH9 plasma a few months ago I'm getting pretty weiry about spending £hundreds on this sort of stuff. The Samsung PS50C96HDX on the other hand looks like a decent package at a decent & affordable price without going over the top, though it's probably in a slightly different league to the commercial Panasonics.
 
i have the mentioned television.... have had it for 2 days now.....

the dvb is equal to at least the samsung m87 lcd which although is 1080p is currently top of the range... as i used to have that....

But you do have to sit further back as I used to have the 40 inch version.... so an extra 10 inches is massive!

Games via the xbox 360 look stunning and again equal to the m87 i had.... I did have the xbox setup in 1080p on that tv and 720p on this tv..... [guess due to majority of the games being 720p native]....
 
Thanks for the replies.

Since my last post I have put my ntl box into my rgb scart socket and this has made a visible difference. The picture is a lot less blocky and is much better to view. Its seems more hazy than before as if the blockyness is much smaller but this makes the picture look much better. I think my eyes have gotten used to it more which has made a difference too.

Thanks to bellaly who's was the thread i was reading. i will adjust my tv tonight!

Can anyone please still answer these questions I still have....

1. Will my sd picture be better since my tv is 1080i not 1080p. I didn't think this mattered when viewing sd sources but some comments on this thread say otherwise.

2. My scart lead that I use is a cheap one that came with my ntl box. Would I see much of an improvement should I get an entry good quality one (£30 tops for my budget) or wouldn't it really be worth it.

3. If i were to upgrade to a V+ box, how would this improve my sd picture quality apart from it being delivered by hdmi? Is there any reason why I would get a better picture? Also since I'm using rgb already would there be much of a difference anyway?

Thanks for all your help guys!
 
1.Your TV is 768p. It's less processing to make a 720x576 pal signal fill this than a full HD screen. The benefits with 1080 signals are IMHO overrated, 99% of TVs overscan like crazy, rendering the 'no scaling' argument void.
2. Buy a better scart. In the right shop, even £30 is OTT. Try www.lektropacks.co.uk silver range, they are good for the money. Or anything like that, if it looks well made, decent non flexible plugs, you are on a winner. You will see a difference for sure. Might get rid of some background noise, improve the real world sharpness.
3. HDMI is not intrinsically better, but in this instance, a digital cable signal, a digital output to a digital display, it will certainly be a cleaner signal, and you'd get away with a cheap cable if it's a short-ish run. Samsung will have saved money on the analogue/digital conversion of this 'built down to a price' TV, and no doubt V media will have done the same on their set top boxes. Taking the conversions out of the signal can only be a good thing.
 
i would upgradwe the scart to a qed scart, personnaly for about £30
 

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