Panasonic GZ OLED Series Owners Thread

I would still do the 2 connections as it should allow uncompressed atmos if the player is connected directly to the soundbar. Atmos would be lossy if connecting to the tv and then to the soundbar via arc...
Would you be able to tell the difference on a soundbar? I'm sure I wouldn't!

The convenience of having to only need to select one source rather than two would probably be more important for me. :p
 
The crackling appears on a soundbar too?

That's worrying. I was keeping an eye on the GZ950 but may have to reconsider now. I can't live with spending so much money for something to have such a noticeable effect on my viewing experience.

It's a shame, I was looking forward to purchasing it
 
I was very close to buying the GZ950 simply because it doesn't suffer from near-black-chrominance-overshoot issue that affects LG OLEDs despite it showing up only on few occasions with my ex-LG 65C8.

Looks like I will have to back LG again as this crackle on the Panny sounds quite fundamental.
 
Would you be able to tell the difference on a soundbar? I'm sure I wouldn't!

The convenience of having to only need to select one source rather than two would probably be more important for me. :p

Yes I completely agree with you. But for me, knowing that I could set it up like that would override the inconvenience. Either way, DV should work fine, as well as Atmos, so it should look and sound great :)
 
The crackling appears on a soundbar too?

That's worrying. I was keeping an eye on the GZ950 but may have to reconsider now. I can't live with spending so much money for something to have such a noticeable effect on my viewing experience.

It's a shame, I was looking forward to purchasing it

Just to clarify it does happen on some soundbars and not on others. I don’t get it on mine but the risk is there for any configuration I’m afraid.
 
The crackling appears on a soundbar too?

That's worrying. I was keeping an eye on the GZ950 but may have to reconsider now. I can't live with spending so much money for something to have such a noticeable effect on my viewing experience.

It's a shame, I was looking forward to purchasing it
The crackling appears to have the potential to show up on a soundbar (or any surround sound speaker system) where the audio is being processed by the TV. So the built-in apps, or devices plugged into the TV and the audio going out over ARC. Where the devices are plugged into the soundbar, there shouldn't be any issue at all.
 
The best guess about the crackles is it's to do with processing audio formats, mostly surround ones. So if your TV is connected to a sound bar and using ARC or what ever Panasonic call their variant, you should still be able to get the crackles as the TV introduces it when it's processing the Audio before sending it to the soundbar.
Only time I've ever had it was on shows that were in theory 5.1 on Sky, and setting my Q box to Normal for audio totally fixed it.
Hopefully the firmware fix coming at the end of the month will fix it for good.
 
Only time I've ever had it was on shows that were in theory 5.1 on Sky, and setting my Q box to Normal for audio totally fixed it.

What effect would that workaround have on the sound for anyone with a 5.1 surround system. Do you end up with 2.1 ... or stereo sound instead of 5.1 ?
 
The crackling appears to have the potential to show up on a soundbar (or any surround sound speaker system) where the audio is being processed by the TV. So the built-in apps, or devices plugged into the TV and the audio going out over ARC. Where the devices are plugged into the soundbar, there shouldn't be any issue at all.
That's right. I've got my Sky Q connected by HDMI into a Sky Soundbox ( essentially a soundbar ) and there's no problem at all with the sound. However I use a Yamaha Soundbar connected by optical from the TV and get sound dropouts and crackling with the internal apps as in this case the sound is processed by the tv.
Interestingly, when the crackling starts if I turn Viera Link off the crackling immediately stops. The other way of stopping it is to turn the Sky Q box sound from DD to NORMAL and it doesn't happen. Really weird but at least I can stop it happening until hopefully this firmware fix arrives.
 
What effect would that workaround have on the sound for anyone with a 5.1 surround system. Do you end up with 2.1 ... or stereo sound instead of 5.1 ?
Off the top of my head I'm not sure what the Q box down mixes it to, but I would think it would be 2.1 Certainly not perfect, but it's a work around for me until the firmware arrives.

Plus I only use the speakers on my 950, so stereo isn't an issue. I have my 7.1.4 setup in my cinema room if I want "proper" sounds :)
 
Cracking issue is a strange one. Just a 2019 thing? Did anyone have this issue or similar on the fz802?
 
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Would you be able to tell the difference on a soundbar? I'm sure I wouldn't!

The convenience of having to only need to select one source rather than two would probably be more important for me. :p
Panasonic TV's don't support DTS formats so by using ARC rather than a second HDMI from the BluRay you would loose out on DTS:X.

The conversion of the Atmos/TrueHD to Atmos/DD+ by the TV may also add latency and cause lip sync issues. Although hopefully not since it should just be able to pass the "core" component of the TrueHD without any decoding/re-encoding. It was an issue for Atmos/Dolby MAT from my Xbox, although this has no DD core.

Last but not least, using any DD+ source through this TV may introduce the dreaded crackling issue :eek:.

Having said all that, I had to disable CEC on my UB450 because my TV kept fighting for the right to handle the audio and kept switching the input on my AVR to ARC! Also, the UB450 has no audio-sync manual adjustment to correct any latency differences between the TV and the soundbar.

It's at least worth trying each way before settling though.
 
Watching a World Cup Qualifier in 4K & felt like a brighter picture. Surprised to see “Custom” appeal to my eyes in terms of grass colour & jerseys etc, but upon switching between it & “Pro 1”, I found “Custom” didn’t handle the darkness as well, losing detail of the trees in the background in the night sky.

So “Pro 1” wins again, for when THX Cinema‘s too dark.

Back to enjoying the Socceroos smash a minnow in 4K. 😏

I hope you guys aren’t going to start whooping us at footy too :confused:
But the 4K footy games I’ve watched recently look, and sound, really impressive. Still Pro1 or 2 for me...:)
 
I hope you guys aren’t going to start whooping us at footy too :confused:
But the 4K footy games I’ve watched recently look, and sound, really impressive. Still Pro1 or 2 for me...:)
You’ve got nothing to worry about there.

We’ll just stick to beating you when it comes to the GZ Remote Control 😂 <—To keep things on topic. 😉

But yeah, I’m now converting to Professional 1 for all content bar films I think. THX Cinema for movie night only maybe...
 
The crackling appears on a soundbar too?

That's worrying. I was keeping an eye on the GZ950 but may have to reconsider now. I can't live with spending so much money for something to have such a noticeable effect on my viewing experience.

It's a shame, I was looking forward to purchasing it

It's a very difficult position really. I would probably wait a few weeks and see if the fix comes out and works. The TV is phenomenal and such great value as well and a lot of us don't have any sound issues at all (I did with a sound bar but not with my Denon amp).

Having one I could easily say just get it and hope it's a good one but as I said above maybe wait a few weeks if you can.

On the plus side everything else about this TV is stunning, perfect screen uniformity, amazing picture with pretty much everything put into it and decent price :)
 
We’ll just stick to beating you when it comes to the GZ Remote Control 😂 <—To keep things on topic. 😉
Yeah the remote is really really bad. You would think that at this price point they would have made some effort to upgrade it and at least make the line of sight a bit broader or use bluetooth as the TV has that built int.
 
Yeah the remote is really really bad. You would think that at this price point they would have made some effort to upgrade it and at least make the line of sight a bit broader or use bluetooth as the TV has that built int.

I'm lost with people complaining about a remote...since when was this a thing? ;)
I maybe touch the TV remote once or twice if I'm changing the picture settings or maybe a quick scroll through Netflix but it seems perfectly fine. Even if you use it for the built in TV etc... would it really get used that much?
 
I'm lost with people complaining about a remote...since when was this a thing? ;)
I maybe touch the TV remote once or twice if I'm changing the picture settings or maybe a quick scroll through Netflix but it seems perfectly fine. Even if you use it for the built in TV etc... would it really get used that much?
If you've used a remote for any other modern TV the Panasonic is very out of date in my opinion. A friend of mine has the LG B9 and the remote is much nicer.

My sister has a mid range Samsung and that has two remotes the second of which is minimal and smal and much more forgiving for line of sight.

I had a 10 year old Panasonic LCD before I bought my GZ and I didn't need to point it DIRECTLY at the TV for it to work.

The buttons on the Panasonic remote are annoying as well.
 
The buttons on the Panasonic remote are annoying as well.
Time to come into the light and buy a Harmony.

Your relatives will be impressed :)
 
If you've used a remote for any other modern TV the Panasonic is very out of date in my opinion. A friend of mine has the LG B9 and the remote is much nicer.

My sister has a mid range Samsung and that has two remotes the second of which is minimal and smal and much more forgiving for line of sight.

I had a 10 year old Panasonic LCD before I bought my GZ and I didn't need to point it DIRECTLY at the TV for it to work.

The buttons on the Panasonic remote are annoying as well.

Fair enough, I've never really though about remotes as I rarely use them (usually just watching TV).
Alexa does all the TV switching and main features for me and then for Sky I use the Sky remote. Don't think I've had any direction issues with it but then I tend to have the remotes pointed roughly towards the TV anyway. Have pretty much the same remote on both my Panasonics and both have been ok with line of site.

You can buy the brushed steel remote separately to use on the GZ950
 
Time to come into the light and buy a Harmony.

Your relatives will be impressed :)

Well I hate the harmony remote (only remote I think I've ever hated) but having the Alexa skill is fantastic - switches everything on, switch to Netflix, BluRay, Playstation etc... love it.

Think my harmony remote has been left in a box since I moved :)
 
Think my harmony remote has been left in a box since I moved :)
It's funny, the first thing I did when I unpacked the GZ950 was to chuck the remote into an Argos plastic bag I keep of unwanted wands. Didn't even bother putting the batteries in so I could not tell anyone how it performs. Same with every other remote that I've had in the last decade. I switched off the Harmony Alexa app since it was not adding much but might add it back for fun.
 

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