Pioneer PDP 504 has noise in image?

P

Plasmaboy

Guest
I've just bought my first plasma, a 504. It seems pretty good, but there's one problem. There is a fair bit of noise visible, and it's being introduced by the display itself. The noise is visible from 2-3 feet in a soft-focused image and the grey side masks and on-screen menus. On sharper images and those with fine lines (like a PC desktop) this noise causes a shimmering which is visible around 3-4 metres away.

This is present no matter which input our source is used (I have tried tuner, dvd, and PC so far.) The same noise is present in the Pioneer's internal freeze frame image and the grey side masks, so it can't be from my sources or poor cables. (The noise is moving in the freeze frame.)

I have switched off everything in the house apart from the plasma and I can still see this noise. I have the supplied ferrite fitted to the power cord.

The noise seems to be uniform white noise, no particular pattern. It's visible all the time in every image.

Can anybody tell me if this is normal for a plasma? Is it normal for the 504? How bothered about it should I be (given that most of the time you can't really see it, unless you display an image with lots of straight lines?)

TIA.
 
absolutely not normal. There should be no noise visible esp. not on grey areas. As these are not source dependend there is probably a problem with your media receiver or screen.
 
Originally posted by Plasmaboy


Can anybody tell me if this is normal for a plasma? Is it normal for the 504? How bothered about it should I be (given that most of the time you can't really see it, unless you display an image with lots of straight lines?)

TIA.

Plasmaboy,

I have the ealier generation of this screen and it has absolutely no noise problems at all. I use it a lot as my PC monitor with small fonts and any image interference would be very noticable. It is rock solid!

There are one or two 504 owners on this forum so that may be able to give you their opinions but failing that I would seek some assistance from the supplier if possible.

regards
 
Thanks for your swift responses! That's very helpful. Nobody would consider my 504 used as a PC display to be rock solid...

I have since been in touch with Pioneer UK. Both Pioneer and my dealer have been very helpful, but the situation is not resolved. Pioneer think this is a normal effect with all plasmas, due to the fact that each subpixel can only be on or off and is therefore driven PWM, which is supposed to generate the noise I'm seeing.

While it may be true that a plasma display is not up there with a CRT for PQ, and I accept that, I still can't quite believe the noise I have is normal.

My dealer says he can't see any noise in his display 434, and he's a geek/audiophile type, if you know what I mean... I've had 2 friends look at mine and both can see the noise so it's not a figment of my imagination...

Any more comments would be gratefully received :D

Cheers
PB
 
Plasmaboy,
I also have a 504, and though I am happy with certain aspects of PQ, there is plenty of room for improvement.
Not being a techy, could you explain what you mean by 'seeing noise'?

Thanks
Cos
 
Noise: This is what you see on an (old) television when it's not tuned, black and white static.

On my 504, obviously it's not this bad, the correct image is there but it has a very small amount this moving noise mixed in, so the image isn't perfectly still but is 'noisy'.

I can see this moving noise on any image on my 504, from 2-3 feet away, and on some images from much further away.

Don't get me wrong, I think the 504 is great, but mine's not quite perfect under certain circumstances.
 
i think what your seeing is normal. from2-3 feet thats just to close to the screen. from there you would see screen door as well. infact what your seeing can be described as dither in a way.

you get the same effect with dlp projectors but you only see it 2-3 feet away. i had a 503 HDE and from that distance could see the same thing. However stand about 10ft back (where u should be for such a size screen) and this effect will completly disappear.

if not then there is a problem.
 
Gandley - I accept that 2-3 feet is too close, obviously I never watch from here. Pioneer claim a 10 bits per channel resolution on their hardware, so if there were only 1 or 2 bits noise I wouldn't be able to see it anywhere. My 2-3 feet distance arises because that's te range at which I can see noise in every image. In a typical freeze frame off the tuner I can see noise about 8-10ft away but that's the limit and I have to look hard. It rises to maybe 12-15 ft if I'm displaying sharp images, off a PC (again freeze framed).

Thanks for your input...

PB
 
I don't especially want to be flamed, and your "noise" may be an indication of something else like interference etc, but from what I have seen of the 434/504 they always looks a little noisy from most sources..IMHO or course ;)

I think when you choose the pioneer, you sacrifice this noise to some degree in order to get the level of detail that the pioneers are famous for...

Personally I couldn't live with it from the demo's I did of the 434/504 and much preferred the smoother and cleaner image of the Panny's, albeit quite without the same detail level...everyone is differnent and hence why I made a big effort to demo screens with similar sources to me. I even found side-by-side comparisons before buying, although this is hard (unless you go to someone like av-sales who have both ;))

There are quite a few 434/504 members now, so hopefully they can help you decide if your symptoms are normal or something like interference...good luck :)

JJ
 
A lot also depends on how high you have Contrast and brightness set.

Setting them too high seems to exaggerate noise
 
Thanks to all who have replied. I have turned the brightness + contrast down slightly, this may help a bit. Thanks for the tip. It's not like the 504 lacks brightness... it lights the room up even when the sun is shining in.

I should point out I am very sensitive to flickering screens, I'm a professional software engineer and looking at monitors all day and night has done something to my brain. I can't look at a monitor at anything less than 85Hz without seeing it flicker. I know people who look at 60Hz monitors and are happy, so peoples sensitivity to this kind of thing does vary quite a bit.

Thanks again for the comments.
-PB
 
Originally posted by MAW
strewth Huss, are your speakers smoking? Or do you never turn the amp on?

MAW

I presume your are referring to my Denon/FS2 Combo?

It should read FS2AV but nevertheless, and as you summise, the Amp is just a teensy winsy bit too powerful for the speakers - having said that they handle it quite well.

It is a small room though just 14'x11' ish.

Must admit have been thinking of upgrading the speakers recently - any suggestions ?
 
That may be so, but they are essentially black boxes, and have low WAF. I agree they sound better, but not much, and they score nil points for style. As you are perfectly aware, more than some!! plasma is a lifestyle product, not high end video device. Match it with some lifestyle speakers. They have more high end credentials than a plasma will, having said that. Just they are not traditional hi fi. The 504 HDE is the perfect example of a lifestyle plasma, it's meant to make things easy, but it sacrifices a certain something in return. All the HDE's I've seen have been 'noisy' except on HDMI, which looks amazing.
 
Give the screen time to "bed-in".

I know exactly the effect you are talking about, and by the time I had put about 3 weeks use on the screen it had begun to settle down noticeably.

I eventually had a Pioneer engineer come out to see the pq issues I'd had from new, and as the screen was 6 weeks old by the time he came, it was a bit embarrassing not to be able to show him anything amiss. (He told me that the new generation Pioneers need 200hrs + on them to settle down, and when he went into the service menu, my screen showed 267hrs.)

Check out my thread detailing the settings I adopted whilst the screen was bedding-in:
http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=105529

By the time the engineer came, I had changed the settings again, to take advantage of the changing screen characteristics. In fact, he had a go at using different settings, which he expected to give a better picture, but ended up resorting back to mine, as his settings didn't improve on the picture I already had :smashin:

On thing to try in particular, though, is to turn off ALL picture processing options (except DRE which I've found to work well on Mid.) as they all affect the image adversely. This includes Pure Cinema - selecting 'off' will reduce the judder on slow pans, football, snooker & banner headlines scrolling across the screen.

Also, reduce the colour setting by some considerable amount (see the above mentioned thread for some initial settings to try). This helps to reduce the level of noise in the image as well as making the colour balance more natural. I tried to optimise for skin tones and foliage on DVD.
Sky requires it's own settings, but as the pq is so variable, as is the changing colour balance from one programme to the next, this has taken me a lot longer to come to a set-up which is an acceptable compromise for most of the time.

Hope this helps,

cheers,

drago.d
 
Thanks Drago that's a big help - gets some weight off my mind too. I probably only have 30 hrs or so on it, if that.

I'll report back after the 200hr mark. I'm almost tempted to leave the thing on overnight, but I'd be paranoid about some testcard coming up and getting burned into it... :suicide: And there's the issue of the 400W power consumption.

Cheers
PB
 

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