NEC VR5 owners walk this way

[BALLISTIX]

Hi people, VR5 owners (half a dozen on here?) seem to have gone very quiet of late so I thought it's maybe a good time for us to comment on our plasmas now the dust is settling from Hornys plasma shootout.

Lets have your thoughts out in the open chaps don't be selfish
Here's mine.
To say I'm pleased with this panel would not do it justice by a long long way, I admit to taking a gamble on the VR5 by buying blind (I could'nt make the time to demo it), though I did go and see lots of setups in different locations.

So far I have kept the brightness and contrast setting well below 30 (usually nearer 20) except for watching a couple of DVD's, and viewed in either theater 1 or 2.

Most of the screen time has been added by the missus playing pickmin 2 + Prince of Persia on the cube where I usually put it to default mode as it makes these two games quite colourfull.
I'm + 140 hours now and in the process of playing around with the settings to see what this thing can do, I have to say I'm impressed

Things I've noticed to date.

1) Only one instance of image retension after watching a DVD in letterbox, this was very faint and dissappeared after a couple of minutes.

2) The consoles (component leads) seem to be quite a bit darker than either DVD or TV watching.

3) No Ghosting/blurring/Haloing/Jaggies so far ( jaggies on games which I believe is down to the low resolution )

4) Slight banding? (not sure what this is) on some of the poorer cable channels, by no means upsetting to me.

5) Dithering is present but can be all but bannished by using theater mode 1 or 2, strange how I've not noticed any dithering whatsoever in games when set on the awfull (for anything else) default mode.

6) Progressive DVD from my Panny DRM-E85 via component is simply stunning IMO.

So, what do I think so far?

10/10 from me, I really think you would have to be rather anal/elitist to discount this panel from your wish list, go and demo is all I can say , I cannot see many people being dissapointed with the VR5, I know I'm not.

Judging the VR5 on how few negative comments there are from owners (and indeed Hornys megga test) speaks for itself IMO, which is why I've created this thread, so lets have it

Regards
Andy.

 

[Loada]

My short summary (see the closing paragraph in my post in the mega-test thread here.

 

[pajare]

Hi
Got my VM5 up and running last Sat. So far very pleased with picture quality but I have noticed one pixel that flashes red continually, contacted Matt at Nexnix today and I am awaiting his reply. Will keep thread posted as to progress.
Regards--------Will.

 

[peezee]

I'll try to do it. I think the grey black will be obvious in the dark environment
Will probably post in a new VR5 thread (which as far as I know is being cooked now).

Mojito (love yr pseudo btw, the drink I mean ), d'you happen to have had time to take pics as discussed (fully dark image on screen, in dark room). Actually, wonder how this will work without using the flash, but anyway...

One question from viewing the several pics here and there: seems to me that the NECs are somehow distorting some of the reds into some sort of orange colour, e.g. in HD's picture (Spiderman), on the Pio and Pana you see Peter Parker's costume is red, while it appears orange on the NEC (center screen)...

Same applies btw on a Dustin Hoffman pic on the "Pana vs NEC" thread, Dustin's shirt is red-ish on the Pana but appears orange on the NEC pic...! Well, at least that's how they appear on my LCD display.

Anyone else noticed?

 

[Mojito]

Yes, I made a bunch of shots yesterday. Just need to crop and resize them (from 6 MPix). I used I, Robot DVD, as it has a very good quality transfer and plenty of dark scenes. Have lots to do at the moment, so I'll just throw out a couple for a starter. Stay tuned.

 

[peezee]

Great, thanks Mojito. Incidentally I bought the I-Robot DVD last night for my NEC tests... interesting!

Btw I-Robot looks great on my Mac, that's a hell of a high quality transfer, colours are so realistic, details abound... wow!! Next step up would be 720p HD, really...

 

[Mojito]

Ok, here are some shots. They are not quite in focus, as I think I smudged them by pressing the button (no flash, low shutter speed). Shoud have used the autoshoot featre, but thought the tripod would help Anyway, there are some dark scenes here together with not-so-dark and light for comparison. The settings do have some dark detail loss, so some twaking is needed. I'm not quite there yet. But the idea was to show grey blacks on dark scenes. I think, you can see them now.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v645/romansuh/Walls.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v645/romansuh/Uphill.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v645/romansuh/Robot.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v645/romansuh/IMG_1193.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v645/romansuh/Driving.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v645/romansuh/Demolition.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v645/romansuh/Closeup.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v645/romansuh/Bright.jpg

 

[Mojito]

One question from viewing the several pics here and there: seems to me that the NECs are somehow distorting some of the reds into some sort of orange colour, e.g. in HD's picture (Spiderman), on the Pio and Pana you see Peter Parker's costume is red, while it appears orange on the NEC (center screen)...
Same applies btw on a Dustin Hoffman pic on the "Pana vs NEC" thread, Dustin's shirt is red-ish on the Pana but appears orange on the NEC pic...! Well, at least that's how they appear on my LCD display.

I wouldn't warry too much about it. NEC has soooo many colour tweaks that it's even scary to touch them

 

[Rahmorak]

Any chance you could link to the uncompressed/original sized images mojito? I can see vertical ines on some of those images which I assume aren't displayed on the screen but it would be nice to see a larger sample if possible.

 

[Mojito]

Yes, I think I made them too small I'll try to upload the originals somewhere. Meanwhile, here are some bigger ones:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v645/romansuh/lab.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v645/romansuh/Granny.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v645/romansuh/Coffe.jpg

Yes, the lines are only visible on photos for some reason. I don't know how to get rid of them

 

[Rahmorak]

Thanks, look forward to seeing the originals (some bad solarisaton in one of the images which could be due to the way jpegg compresses according to areas of low contrast))

BTW, if you want to email me the images I can host them if needed.

 

[Mojito]

Thanks, look forward to seeing the originals (some bad solarisaton in one of the images which could be due to the way jpegg compresses according to areas of low contrast))
BTW, if you want to email me the images I can host them if needed.

I've pm'ed you the link to the originals. If you can hots them, please do.

 

[peezee]

Mojito, thanks a lot for these pictures. From what I see I'd say maybe only a couple of them I feel are really "problematic" (for what I expect anyway).

BTW - I made a brief stop at an HC shop late pm today, they have a VR5 on demo connected to a DVD player via Component. I tried the I-Robot DVD I just bought and spent a few mns going thru several scenes, fiddling with the NEC's contrast/brightness/sharpness controls a bit, etc...

My initial impression is quite good, very agreeable and cinema-like picture, almost zero solarisation or pixellation, blacks "look black" as soon as there's some contrast on the scene. However I feel there's some lack of details in dark areas as has been mentioned here before, as well as some rare fast-motion artefacts of some kind (looks like a bit of remanence). I was expecting a bit more of a "3-D" depth to the picture, probably the whole setup wasn't quite right, and didn't spend enough time anyway, so:

I'm going back there to go thru my own brewed mini-Mega test - I'll bring my Powerbook laptop, DVi and VGA cables, loads of pictures, video test patterns, cable TV captures, some great HD clips (concerts, NASA stuff, Coral Reef etc...), couple of Web pages, and of course a few DVD's. Will run evaluation mostly via DVi input.

I'm really hoping I'll walk away from that demo with a decision made, preferrably in favour of the VR5... but we'll see.

 

[simonpickard]

Hello all,

I have just got a new NEC 42VR5W 42" plasma screen and love it! I'm really happy with the colour, the blacks, everything really apart from...

There is a lot of interlacing (some lines moving slower than others) on moving images (reds and skin tones mainly) but this is only happening on the bottom half of the screen. I understand that plasmas do have slight problems with moving images and ghosting but, and I see this very slightly on the upper half of the screen, but the lower half really looks like it's out of sync. I would also expect the whole screen to act this way if that is how it should be.

Does anyone else with this screen get this? Maybe I've got a setting wrong somewhere but I've played with everything and I just can't shift it.

Could you please advice what I should do about this?
Should the screen go back or do they all do this?

Regards,
Simon Pickard

 

[Mojito]

Could you please advice what I should do about this?
Should the screen go back or do they all do this?

If what you are describing looks like deinterlacing artifacts, then try turning off Cinema mode. I think it works good with NTSC video sources, but not with PAL.
If what you see is "tearing" which is often seen on PC videogames when vertical sync is turned off then I'm not really sure. What source are you using? What connection?

Peezee,
I discovered today that I accidentally turned brightness limiter on to 75% when I did the shots. So that's pretty much screwed up my settings.
I thought something wasn't right and I noticed loss of black level details. When I turned the brightness up they showed up, but then the brightness should have been set to about 3/4. I thought, that couldn't be right. Now I know why it happened.
Since the purpose of the shots was to show grey blacks, may be it's worth keeping only problematic ones and delete the rest to avoid confusion?

 

[peezee]

Mojito, looked into the VR5 user's manual in the "brightness limiter" section (which is part of the screen saver functions like orbiter or screen wiper) but still not sure what your post means...

Are you saying this set of pics was taken under wrong brightness settings on the NEC screen, therefore should be discarded (except maybe for a couple of 'em)? Was the brightness set too high or too low then? (I guess it was too low because of the brightness limitation set to On at 75%, but not sure).

 

[peezee]

Before going back to further evaluate the VR5 (it's a 42VR5G model from what the guy told me), I'm trying to understand which controls would allow me to enhance the level of details that can be seen in the dark areas - w/o compromising the rest of the picture.

From scouring the VR5 user's manual it looks like I could/should play with the following controls:

-> Contrast
-> Brightness
-> Gamma
-> Low Tone
-> Set Up level (Pedestal/black level)
-> Peak Brightness
-> DVI Setup: Black Level

is that right? Any other control you think I should consider adjusting?

Actually I'd be interested to know to what value you (and others) have set each of these parameters on yr VR5:

One last thing: any comment you'd have on some pic degradation during fast-motion scenes? Looked like the edges of moving object have some remanence issue, a bit like on LCD screens (sort of trailing effect, with a green tint on moving edge, but this really lasts a small fraction of a second).

 

[Loada]

The effect you're describing sounds like "false-contouring" which visually, is similar to the DLP "rainbow effect" but not quite as pronounced. On the VR5 its particularly noticeable if the service-mode has been used to get the screen to select the FRC automatically (instead of the default 60hz) displaying PAL images. I've not noticed it @60hz but I think all plasmas exhibit the effect to some degree on fast motion with a lot of contrasting colours.

Mojito, feel like going through all of your menus and posting your current settings?

 

[peezee]

Ok, I'll check if the screen is set to 60Hz or "Auto FRC" - btw too bad there's not a fixed 50Hz setting too, always a bit suspicious of any "auto switching" parameters, sometimes not fast enough or subject to false triggering (switching when it should not).

As for posting own settings, doesn't have to be time consuming, could use this as a basis: (just copy/paste for yr use)

CONTRAST:
BRIGHTNESS:
SHARPNESS:
COLOR:
TINT:
NR:
COLOR TEMP.:
GAMMA:
LOW TONE:
SET UP LEVEL:
COLOR TUNE:
CINEMA MODE:
PICTURE MODE:

 

[Mojito]

Are you saying this set of pics was taken under wrong brightness settings on the NEC screen, therefore should be discarded (except maybe for a couple of 'em)? Was the brightness set too high or too low then? (I guess it was too low because of the brightness limitation set to On at 75%, but not sure).

Yes, the brightness was too low with the limiter set to 75%, but, again, the purpose was to illustrate dark scenes and to show grey blacks for which they are OK. I didn't do many bright shots, but yes, the ones I did should be discarded due to improper brihgtness setting. The screen BTW was in Theater 2 mode, which also reduces brightness.

These are my settings for NTSC disks via DVI input (480p) for complete darkness. I'm still struggling with PAL (I don't have any calibration disks yet) and I am also experimenting with color settings submenu:
CONTRAST: 48
BRIGHTNESS: 29
SHARPNESS: 1
COLOR: 28
TINT: 31
NR: Off
COLOR TEMP.: Middle
GAMMA: 2.2
LOW TONE: Auto
SET UP LEVEL: 0%
COLOR TUNE: In progress
CINEMA MODE: Off
PICTURE MODE: Theater 2

 

[Mojito]

From scouring the VR5 user's manual it looks like I could/should play with the following controls:

is that right? Any other control you think I should consider adjusting?

I think, brighness, gamma, set-up level and low tone will have the most effect on dark detail. I wouldn't touch peak brightness while evaluating as this is a screen saver function and doesn't help performance. Otherwise, you've covered pretty much everything as far as I can tell.

 

[peezee]

Cool, thanks Mojito, copied yr data to my handheld so I'll have it handy for my next and final VR5 tests.

Hoping to get better performance from the screen, first off a punchier picture (guess I had too much expectations there?), more depth to it, and certainly a little more details in dark scenes (I should be able to pause on a dark scene and compare what I'm getting on the NEC vs what the Mac laptop shows, to avoid trying too hard to expose details that just don't exist on the source material...

Also I'd want to see if I can reduce the fast-motion artefacts I saw yesterday (though they're pretty light and I think I can live with them, actually I'll check how footie -captured on cable TV as uncompressed HuffYuv and played on laptop- will look like...), as well as at this weird "orange push" or s'thing (again comparing with laptop picture will be key here).

 

[NonPayingMember]

Beware playing with the advanced colour tune settings - these are for people with light intensity meters... near impossible to do by eye.

Theater Mode 1 in most circumstances is better, slightly higher black level but more detail.

Try moving SETUP LEVEL to 3.5%...

 

[creative-av]

When are you going to be performing your final test run peezee? Will be very interesting to read for us people sitting on the fence!

Steve

 

[peezee]

SteveJr, wish that would have been today, but too much to do and too much information to gather... Actually I'm pretty happy that I got the chance to read Liam's explanations today *before* going back for a complete and final test...
Should be able to run it tomorrow hopefully...

Liam, upon reading your post and RTFM'ing the section on "Set Up Level", I kind'a understand that this specific control allows one to decide what the "standby" voltage level for the pixels is, and therefore how black the deepest achievable blacks are - is that right?

Kinda' like, Ok, set this to "0" and you have a "default NEC black". Set this to 7.5% and you have Pioneer "black" , set it to 3.5% and boom! you get Panasonic blacks (kinda' "Panny Real Black Drive only if I want it" control... )

If that's what it is then I think it's great, don't know of any other plasma screen that allows this (might be wrong of course)...