HD on a UK PD30/PD50

Phinn

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Anyone got any information on this? Seems to hovering between 'possible' and 'urban legend' at the moment :(

I'll just add my 2p to the debate though. I was in a Shop@Panasonic the other day, buying a PVR for my grandfather, when I asked about the PD50s being discontinued and their replacement. The guy said that they were and Panasonic were unlikely to bring out another high-end CRT set since LCD/Plasma are now taking over. This brought on a little rant from me about superiority of CRT images IMHO, though I did concede that the PD50 wasn't HD.

"Actually, that's the only one that is" came the reply.

At the time, I thought he was talking rubbish, as I'd never heard anywhere that the PD50 was HD, though I didn't say so. Now having checked a few threads on this forum, I'm wondering...
 
The guy may well have been thinking of the 833 lines it is capable of which makes it 2/3rd's the way there to HD. When HD broadcasts comes out this mode may actually look substantialy better.
 
so i see you live in sheffield hope,so was it shop@panasonic sheff you came to,if so hope you enjoyed my store and thought the service was good :) .

now the thing is with the pd30/50 and its acuity processing in 75Hrz it scans with the line structure of 2376x833 but only in this scanning mode not in 100Hrz or 100 Hrz plus and obv not progressive,which stick to the normal 1024x625 ratio.

So in theory the pd30/50 would be able to take a HD source of 720P at least through its component input and a possiblity of 1080I. Because as we know plasmas can scan that many lines with lower resolutions such as 852x468 and can scan that type of signal.

But the only problem is the tv dosent have HDMI so not real compatibility with HDCP so in turn most of the sky HD will not be avaliable to view or possibly all of it after a while when the recievers for HD stop having a component output on there.

hope that answers a your questions.
 
Sorry to bend this subject a little, actually a lot :) but as llg is in the know about this Panasonic have you come across anyone moaning about faint flickery lines on the picture when viewing via scart RGB/S-VIDEO? I know some on this forum have but only appears to be correctable on a PD30. On a black background they appear white and on a white or strong coloured background they appear black. Not normally terrifying while whatching but appear on scenes from time to time sporadically in different levels of intensisty and annoyance. A black background normally shows it up quite well...... but alas a 2nd engineer visit showed little once more.

I'm dearly in need of a resolution otherwise I'm reluctantly gonna have to send the damn thing back... even if I have to kick up a stink.
 
not come across it through scart RGB or SVIDEO before,only through component. so does it occur on all signal feeds and all various scan settings of picture.

never even had anything like this on a PD30 OR PD50 like i say just through component. But that was to do with settings of a DVD for some strange reason.

so out of interest what did the engineers say to you.
 
llg, This occours only using my Sony Freeview box via the signal methods mentioned. Switching the box to composite rectifies it completely. Same result whatever scan mode you use.

Since the posting I've actually managed to find another PD50 in a shop and took my Sony along to test where it seemed to work wonders so at this moment in time it appears to be a TV fault, as odd as it seems being the only component to create this effect but not so odd when you consider it works fine on a Sony TV too and no Sony box owner has complained of such a fault.... 2 boxes here same fault.

The engineers didn't really take out much time to notice the fault. The response was that as they could not see what I was talking about the TV was fine and suspected it to be the box rather than the TV? I can understand their POV, being an engineer myself I would probably come to the same conclusion. The box being faulty rather than a characteristic of it but since 2 boxes exhibit the same problem on the Panny and work fine on other TV's it has to be something peculiar with the TV.

Anyhow after a little rant yesterday I'm now getting it picked up for workshop repair. I just hope they understand what they are looking for and it does not come back in the same faulty condition as it leaves.
 
llg said:
so i see you live in sheffield hope,so was it shop@panasonic sheff you came to,if so hope you enjoyed my store and thought the service was good :) .

now the thing is with the pd30/50 and its acuity processing in 75Hrz it scans with the line structure of 2376x833 but only in this scanning mode not in 100Hrz or 100 Hrz plus and obv not progressive,which stick to the normal 1024x625 ratio.

So in theory the pd30/50 would be able to take a HD source of 720P at least through its component input and a possiblity of 1080I. Because as we know plasmas can scan that many lines with lower resolutions such as 852x468 and can scan that type of signal.

But the only problem is the tv dosent have HDMI so not real compatibility with HDCP so in turn most of the sky HD will not be avaliable to view or possibly all of it after a while when the recievers for HD stop having a component output on there.

hope that answers a your questions.

This is interesting.

You say "in theory" a 720p signal could be displayed by a PD50 set - do you have any way of trying it, say with a progressive scan DVD player with component outputs?

Has anyone else actually tried it?
 
hello daklone yes i have put a progressive scan DVD through many of this model of tv and the PD30 and it works wonders. Also i do have a HD rec-pot and STB system from japan in store which gives of a HD Signal through Component.

However i cannot test anymore due to the fact that ive sold all of the last remaining stocks of the 32" PD50. But i do still have an old 36"PD30 in store which would be good to try it on.
 
Cheers llg, thats interesting.

So if it displays the 720p from a DVD player well, is there any reason to think that it wouldn't cope with the 720p HD broadcasts from Sky next year in a similar fashion?

Does this not make the set "HD-Compatible", if not "HD-Ready"?

Edit: Another thought - although Sky may indeed remove the component outputs from thier recievers, I can't imagine that this will happen quickly - I'd guess at 2 or 3 years at least. Although I suppose that the lack of HDCP could cause problems sooner...
 
Hold on a minute, if I understand this right I should be able to set my XBox 360 up to HD output 720p and my 36pd50 will display it if I set the scan mode to 733i?

Will it do any damage if I try this and it is not correct?

Getting excited now!!!!

DR1V3R

Forgot to say I am using component connections.
 
i have panny PD50 and xbox360. I plug my 360 to PD50 using component cable but HDTV modes doesnt work(720p-1080i), only i can view image in 480p.
Im using progessive scan, i cant change scan mode when i use component cable.
 
I would be very interested to know if the 720P feed from an XBox 360 will work on my PD50.

Should be getting a new XBox 360 soon and I hear the 720P looks awesome!
I am not hopeful though as I have tried giving a 720P feed from my MCE machine via Component connection using powerstrip with no luck.

But I'm still hopefull!

Driver, please give it a go and let us know how you get on. There is no harm intrying, if it doesn't accept the feed, it doesn't accept the feed!
 
Hello! Sorry, my english so bad...!

I have TX-32pd30F/P (model for Russia) and I want to buy HDV camcorder sony-hc1e.
I downloaded service manual for TC-29P700 (http://www.eserviceinfo.com/download.php?fileid=3732). This model has GP1 chassis too.
Description of option 11 in service menu 2: bit7 - enable 1080i. In my tv set options in service menu 2 (from 1 to 13) is: 0F, 00, B9, 11, 00, A0, 7F, 50, 0E, 80, 19, 40, 01. Option 11 in my set is 19 -> bit7=0 -> 1080i disable. I don't change this parameter in my tv set, because I have not HD sources now.
 
Intersting post above, the PD30 does have a HD tube as the Austalian PD30/50 model is highdef enabled through the component inputs and looking around the site its linked too the PD30 does have the GP1 chassis. Surely it can't be as easy as changing the option to enable HD, does anyone have the UK service manual for the PD30 that may show what each of these options in the 2nd service menu is for on our sets ?
 
OOoo, this is sounding promising! :thumbsup: :clap:

But if this works on a PD30 will it work on a PD50? Do they have the same Chassis? :confused:
 
Remember with the Xbox 360 you have to flick the switch on the cable to enable the high def signals via component.
 
benbtg said:
OOoo, this is sounding promising! :thumbsup: :clap:

But if this works on a PD30 will it work on a PD50? Do they have the same Chassis? :confused:

I'm a wondering..... I've just had a *new* chassis stuffed into my PD50 and the engineers paperwork quoted a D1 or D01 chassis :eek: Complete waste of time tho' as it's still the same :eek:
 
hossacd said:
Intersting post above, the PD30 does have a HD tube as the Austalian PD30/50 model is highdef enabled through the component inputs and looking around the site its linked too the PD30 does have the GP1 chassis. Surely it can't be as easy as changing the option to enable HD, does anyone have the UK service manual for the PD30 that may show what each of these options in the 2nd service menu is for on our sets ?

Is the Australian PD50 called the 32F250A ?
 
As far as I know, 3XPDX0 all have GP1 chassis
 
I looked into this when I got my 36PD30 about 3 years ago.

I believe that the HD compatibility rumour for the PD30 comes from a review of the TV in Home Cinema Choice that stated that the PD30 was "upgradeable" to HDTV.

After contacting the author of the article for details on this upgrade I eventually got a response. Aparently the PD30 tube is capable of displaying a 1080i (not sure about 720p) signal but Panny chose not to fit the necessary electronics into the chasis for certain countries, such as the UK. There is no official way to get the electronics in the UK set upgraded.

This is unfortunate as during a trip to the States I saw a US Panny 36PD30 displaying 1080i material and it looked great.

Back when the PD30 was released, various people attempted connecting 720p and 1080i sources to the Panny PD30 without success.

BTW for anyone out there with RGB issues with their PD30 my cure has been to route the RGB output of my Sky+ box through a DVD recorder (Pioneer 530) that converts RGB to component. This instantly cured the solarisation (limited colour palette) issues that I was getting with RGB. This particular DVD recorder also has gamma correction which cured the black/white crushing problems - i.e. losing all detail in very light or very dark areas of the screen.
 
garydhooper said:
BTW for anyone out there with RGB issues with their PD30 my cure has been to route the RGB output of my Sky+ box through a DVD recorder (Pioneer 530) that converts RGB to component. This instantly cured the solarisation (limited colour palette) issues that I was getting with RGB. This particular DVD recorder also has gamma correction which cured the black/white crushing problems - i.e. losing all detail in very light or very dark areas of the screen.

That's very interesting I've been fighting RGB issues since the TV was new(PD50/6 months)... RGB actually seems/does work fine for most equipment but bliddy just wont work in tandom with my favoured Sony Freeview box :mad: Faint flickery line issues is the common problem with mine despite even having the chassis replaced with new (apparently). I just don't know whether to out the TV or the Freeview box or as one suggests get a RGB to component converter.
 
garydhooper said:
..... This instantly cured the solarisation (limited colour palette) issues that I was getting with RGB. This particular DVD recorder also has gamma correction which cured the black/white crushing problems - i.e. losing all detail in very light or very dark areas of the screen.

BTW this just sounds like a badly set sub bright setting in the service menu.
 

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