Plz help, why is my 434hd pic so bad.

leedsfireman

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Hi, i got a pio 434hd last week & I'm v dissapointed.
My set up is;
Sky via Qed sqart RGB into input 1 rgb enabled.
HK dvd30 via Qed component progressive enabled.

I owned a panny w4 before i got the pio & up to now the panny gave a much better picture.

Sky is OK on some channels & not so on others, which is expected, but not as good as the panny. Although there is no shimmering on large bright background scenes as on the panny.

DVD v dissapointing. I watched 'Finding Nemo' tonight as a bench mark as so many people state what a good pic it gives.
For starters on the menu screen the different white sections seemed to be jumping on the screen.
The actuall film was as good as composite on my other plasma.
I've tried tweaking the settings but if i increase sharpness to get some detail the screen goes all grainy.
No edge defination, colours soft, Jagged edges, colur bleeding, no so called 3d effect, infact some Sky channels are better than the DVD.
Am i missing some thing in the set up or with this panel being a 'HD res' does it need a hi def signal to come into its own.

Any other 434hd owers who can give me advice plz help so i can get the best out of my new plasma.

Andy.

P.S I forgot to add why is the picture so 'jerkky' when it pans across a scene, i'm thinking that my panny w4 was a better screen.
I decided to get the pio on recent highly praised reviews, the pannel being HD & it having the HDMI input for later dvd uprade.
Have i made a wrong choice?
 
Something is wrong. Some ideas:

cables problems? (eg not properly plugged in)
you are seeing what's wrong with the Sky signal when you didn't before
you are still using composite when you think you aren't
jumping menus - interlaced and not progressive as you thought?
jerky pans - something to do with source frame rate vs panel refresh rate; there's something about it
here, and I've read about it elsewhere too (AVSforum?).
 
Of course the Series 4 Panasonic was possibly the best unit they made. Certainly better than the 5 and 6 imho. It is/was a FANTASTIC plasma.

There are a minefield of settings in the newHDE's all of which could add to soft image quality and possibly jerkiness. I'm not that familier with the HK DVD, does it have the ability to do frame rate conversion, if so make sure it's off.

Did the folk you bought the Pioneer from not install it and set it up for you?

Did you view an HDE prior to purchase or was it completely review lead?

Gordon
 
I think it is the settings minefield that has caught you out so far although the interconnects must also be of a reasonable quality.

Whe I got my 504 I was lucky in that I hit on perfect settings within 10 mins of turning it on. Then when I played with it, everything I did made things worse.

I can't give you my settings currently as the screen is packed away whilst decorating but I'm sure if you do a search you'll come up with some.
 
Hi,

After running the DVE calibration disc, I got these settings on the Pio.
I had a Panny 5 series and the Pio beats it hands down.

Av selection: USER
Contrast: 26
Brightness: +5
Colour: -8
Tint: 0
Sharpness: +1

I recommend these settings in the Pro Adjust settings:

Pure Cinema: ADV
Colortemp: Mid
MPEG NR: Off
DNR: Off
CTI: Off
DRE: Off

These settings are with the 434 and the 868 running 720p, via HDMI

Hope this helps!

Claus
 
Sorry for the delay in replying i've been away.
The jerrkiness i think i sorted out due to my mistake, the dvd player & pio were set on PAL when it was actually a NTSC disc i was playing.:clown:

I agree that i think it needs setting up right to get better results but i was just comparing it to my old panny.

Is the picture quality on the pio greatly improved when sent a 720p signal on HDMI?

Could it be that my old panny, having 480 lines, was producing a better picture due to it downscaling the picture from PAL dvd's & a normal 625i from sky?

Any help welcome.

Andy.
 
Sky on mine was a little rough at first but it has settle down to a very respectable picture approaching high quality CRT standard.
DVD has been amazing from the word go with nemo 3D like! but i've only been using hdmi with my 868. Overall the colour is a little to strong but that is easily toned down a touch
i have used Claus's settings too!
 
Give it time as chillo said, it will get better. Mine was all jerky and stuff at first but then it just dissappeared after a while. I'd double check everything, leads and menu settings.

I'm very happy with my 434, PQ changes from one day to the next, some days I think mmm that sky chennels pants and other days I think thats bloody good, there are so many factors involved with Picture and Sound quality these days, even time of day!

As a comparison I had a Sony 36FS70 CRT before my Pio and it blows that out of the water no question, especially DVD. Also, I had a Pio 565 DVD player and there was a deffinate PQ hike when I swapped it for the 868, even with just component.

Get HDMI you won't regret it.
 
For normal viewing (Sky etc...) turn Pure Cinema to OFF (along with all the other picture processing options, except perhaps for DRE, which I have left on MID after loads of fiddling). This will minimalise the jerkiness you are seeing (esp. on footy, slow pans, scrolling banner headlines on news channels, etc..)

You will also see a marked improvement in the overall pq by the time you have put 200+ hrs on the screen. (You can check the hrs in the service menu.)
I found after 200+ hrs there was much less "noise" in the image. It was as if the individual pixels had been over sensitive when the panel was new, and they needed to de-sensitise somewhat in order to stop "firing" even when it was one of the adjacent pixels that was being activated - hence the impression of "noise" in the image (a fizzing effect).

For the first three or four weeks of ownership I was convinced I had made a mistake in choosing the 434 (check some of my previous posts, esp. "radical settings"), and my a/v savvy mates also confirmed my worst fears upon viewing my screen. Yet by the time the Pioneer man came (276 hrs) the screen had bedded-in nicely, to the extent I felt rather embarrassed that I had arranged for the service call in the first place.

You will probably find you'll need to re-calibrate your settings as the screen does bed-in, I know my settings were an ongoing labour of love/frustration for the first month or so, more than a few 2:30-3:00 am tweaking sessions! :zonked:

Hope this helps,

drago.d
 
I'll echo everything drago.d said. On two 434 screens now, I've seen the "noise" in the image decrease drastically over the first 200 hours or thereabouts -- the quality of the image really does get much better over that period.

I know all about those 3:00 am sessions as well!!

Si
 
The Mark Grant power cable for the Sky+ box might be helping things a bit, too ;)

Anyone tried one on the plasma panel or media box, yet?

drago.d
 
BTW,

I'm still using power save set to "On". I thought it might help during bedding-in period, re: minimising the possibility of screen-burn on the new panel.

Has anyone found it improves the image with it set to "Off"? (I would expect to have to re-calibrate brightness & contrast, so have been too lazy to fiddle around further :zonked: )

drago.d
 
Drago.d I did all my settings and calibrations on my 434 with the power save "off". Then for general viewing I set it to "on" and never change the settings. You can olny spot it the difference on very bright scenes. I tend to put is back to off to watch a film, DVD or a program of "cinematic value"...
 
Interesting thread, many thanks for the settings info.

Bit of a fiddle to setup and get working right, these screens :rtfm:
 
ARe you sure your media box is not faulty. I had one of the first ones and it was not working properly. The engineer replaced it and no prbs since.
 

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