Response needed from those that see Panasonic "FLICKER"

davidmbell

Established Member
Joined
Jan 14, 2004
Messages
398
Reaction score
24
Points
85
Age
47
Location
Leeds/Bradford (depends which side of the road I'm
I am hoping those out there that are susceptible to the Panasonic Flicker can respond with what TV they ended up with?

I've had 1 Samsung PS-50B530 that had its PDP replaced and still have same issue, so that was returned (awaiting refund).

I upped the budget £100 and have now got a Panasonic TX-P50S10B - I was aware of the flicker issue as I've seen it on them in stores, but thought I'd give it a go.

Turns out I can't live with it. Anything quite bright flickers annoyingly, when looking at the screen and its even worse out of the corner of my eye.

So what are my options now?

My parents might take the Panasonic off my hands, but I really don't know what to go for.

Do I try another Samsung again? Or do I try an LG? I can't afford for the new 2010 models to come out, it needs to be around £700-£750 (paid £550 for the Sammy, paid £725 for Panny (inc 5yr warranty)). So you can see my budget.

I know the Panny fans will poo poo both of the above, and having seen the deep blacks and excellent lack of IR on the Panny I can see partly why.

I'd have kept the Samsung as I liked the picture but for the brightness flicker. So are there other Samsungs that don't have flicker, or are there models that don't have this 'tearing' issue i've read about?

Finally, LGs - seen a few with reliability problems, is it very much pot luck to get a good one?

Help...

David
 
For me the answer is easy.. The X10..

I am in the same boat.. I am very sensitive to flicker and bought a G10, but I couldn't live with it..

In the end, I went for the cheap (X10) option and the difference is night and day... The X10 still flickers very slightly.. But so did my PW4 and PX60 before it... But overal, its a great all rounder and its certainly nothing like the G10. And better still it performs almost exactly the same as the G10 in HD and looks better with SD...

I don't know how much the S10 flickers as I haven't seen one in the flesh, but if its similar to the G10 then I feel your pain and think the X10 will suit you nicely.. However, if the S10 is similar to the X10 and you can see the S10 flicker, then I would leave Panasonics well alone!!

Personally I am a huge Panasonic fan and would stick with them unless there is no other choice.. But for me the G10 was a step too far... I have now had the X10 for a few months and love it... Its by far the best TV I have owned to date and I many of my friends (And their friends) have bought one based on my recommendations and have also been ecstatic!

Jon
 
Last edited:
As Jon says the x10 is a fantastic tv. I also took back a g10 as the SD picture was soft and mine flickered too. The x10 does flicker slightly but I cant notice it unless I concentrate on looking for it, unlike the g10 where I could see it most of the time.
You can buy a 50X10 from dixons for £631 less top cash back 3.5% and possibly also less 3% that dixons were offering a week ago. Only problem would be if you want a 5 year warranty, as dixons charge hundreds, unlike richer sounds who would charge £63 but they are all sold out there. Richer sounds do have the 42x10 for £470 though or £516 with 5yr warranty. Like Jon, I cant recommend this tv highly enough.
 
And I think that the SD aspect is key.. Whilst we live in an HD world, most of what we watch is still in SD... (Atleast it is for me).

Other than the flicker, my initial disappointment of the G10 (fed by a SkyHD box over HDMI) was that SD looked soft.. I couldn't put my finger on it, but it just didn't look right.. DVDs also looked the same.. THere was just something missing. Even the menus from the Sky box lacked sharpness.

When I got my X10 my first reaction was how great SD looked.. The sharpness was back and it looked great...

BUT.. During this time I still had the G10 and I was able to do so some direct, side by side comparisons between the 50" X10 and G10 and to my surprise, SD looked exactly the same.. They did.. There was nothing between them.. However, when watching SD the G10 on its own I still felt that something was missing where as the X10 looked dynamic and sharp...

I initally put this down to something psychological, but in the end I proved to myself that when I watched SD on the G10 I just didn't like the picture. And I am sure that the reason was the flicker.. Something was going on in my brain which made by 'reject' the picture on the G10.. I can't explain it.. I realise that this makes me sound a bit of a mentalist, but there was something about the G10 that made me completely unable to watch it...

I have now had the X10 for many months and have watched for many 100s of hours (HD, SD and Games) and I am still as happy now as I was the day that I got it.

Jon
 
Sadly I've just spent my entire lunch hour in the local Currys looking at an S and an X - the X being above the S.

Difficult to do a decent comparison, but I could still see some flicker on the X. The S below it was v obvious.

Its hard to check for as I only see it on very bright scenes or white areas and the test content they have on only shows white every 10 mins!!

In comparison the LG next to the Panasonic was solid as a rock. Not even the slightest hint of flicker (think that was a 50PQ or something - not the full HD one).

I really don't know what to do now.

The Panasonics it seems I can't live with.

Samsungs either have 50hz smearing or brightness/gamma flicker issues and LG's are a bit hit and miss or have poor IR.

Did look at a lovely looking LED LCD Samsung for £2k. but even at that prices the reviews aren't that great.

Am now considering the LG 50PS3000 for around £600 and then changing it in a couple of years - needs ZAndy1 to chip in now and tell me his LG is great?

David
 
Hi david i've been following your problems with the samsung 530 for a few weeks now, as i had the same brightness problem too. So i rang currys. (who were very good by the way) And got sent a replacement two days later, Lo and behold this one didn't fluctuate so strongly, but did do it faster, which was even more annoying than the original one. So straight back on the phone to currys again and was offered another replacement, by this time i thought well they all must do it and asked for an lg ps8000 instead. I've only had it 2 days so far (crosses fingers) but i have to say i'm so glad i did, it's great, the picture is as good if not better than the samsung,it looks to me it's got a better scaling chip, and the colours where so good i haven't felt the need to tweek them yet, none of that overblown red the samsung had, all i've done is turn the contrast down to 50% until it's got some hours on it, and then it'll be straight on the thx mode, which looked superb but the contrast was locked to about 80%. So i hope this helps and doesn't confuse you even more, as i understand the ps3000 has the same panel just without thx mode and a differently designed chassis. Cheers.
 
42V10 , had bad flicker for the first 400 hours or so, now dont see it very often so I think it goes as the set beds in
 
Can somebody explain what this flicker is? Can only some people see it?
 
Can somebody explain what this flicker is? Can only some people see it?

It seems so, I can see it easily. Others less so. Some perhaps not at all. All these TX-P50G10 owners can't be wrong. ; )

I was the saddo going round the office increasing graphics card refresh rates when I started my new job in 2003 (ie before we all got TFT monitors).

David
 
Can somebody explain what this flicker is? Can only some people see it?

The flicker is not like you get on a CRT where you see refresh and the entire screen is affected all of the time.. its more of a "shimmer" which affects different shades/colours more than others.

And this leads to the 2nd problem.. Banding.. If you imagine an area of graduations between colour X and colour Y, each and every 'shade' of colour flickers at a different rate.. And this makes them stand out as a 'band' of colour.

The bizzare thing is that some people can't see it.. And others can.. I am one that can.. And believe me, i wasn't looking for it.. It was there for me and nothing I could do could stop me from seeing it.

I was in a fortunate position to have the 50" X10 and G10 in my house for a weekend so i could do some side by side tests.. And what I found was that the G10 was far worse on the flicker front.. But to those people who can't see it, they are oblivious to this fact as they simple can't perceive the flicker.

For me the G10 was impossible to live with.. I just found the flickering distracting and I couldn't watch it.. So it had to go back.

Jon
 
Go for the 50PQ6000

Black levels aside it's every bit as good as an X10 and even better in some respects (calibration, colour accuracy, design, usb). Some people have been unlucky with bad sets but most, like mine, are spot on :thumbsup:
 
The flicker is not like you get on a CRT where you see refresh and the entire screen is affected all of the time.. its more of a "shimmer" which affects different shades/colours more than others.

And this leads to the 2nd problem.. Banding.. If you imagine an area of graduations between colour X and colour Y, each and every 'shade' of colour flickers at a different rate.. And this makes them stand out as a 'band' of colour.

The bizzare thing is that some people can't see it.. And others can.. I am one that can.. And believe me, i wasn't looking for it.. It was there for me and nothing I could do could stop me from seeing it.

I was in a fortunate position to have the 50" X10 and G10 in my house for a weekend so i could do some side by side tests.. And what I found was that the G10 was far worse on the flicker front.. But to those people who can't see it, they are oblivious to this fact as they simple can't perceive the flicker.

For me the G10 was impossible to live with.. I just found the flickering distracting and I couldn't watch it.. So it had to go back.

Jon

I think there are two types of flicker though, certainly on the Samsung that David had:

Refresh Rate Flicker - which as you say is a shimmering effect that can give the impression of a dimly lit neon sign and most plasmas have this in some shape or form.

Brightness Flicker - where the screen ever so slightly darkens and lightens of no accord of its own. This is similar to a dynamic contrast setting where the TV is for some strange reason trying to adjust something.

I think David just saw the Refresh Rate Flicker on the Samsung and not the Brightness Flicker ... but he might have seen them both.:suicide:

Of course if you only saw the Brightness Flicker on the Samsung David why don't you go a model up from the Samsung which doesn't seem to be effected by it??
 
I think there are two types of flicker though, certainly on the Samsung that David had:

Refresh Rate Flicker - which as you say is a shimmering effect that can give the impression of a dimly lit neon sign and most plasmas have this in some shape or form.

Brightness Flicker - where the screen ever so slightly darkens and lightens of no accord of its own. This is similar to a dynamic contrast setting where the TV is for some strange reason trying to adjust something.

I think David just saw the Refresh Rate Flicker on the Samsung and not the Brightness Flicker ... but he might have seen them both.:suicide:

Of course if you only saw the Brightness Flicker on the Samsung David why don't you go a model up from the Samsung which doesn't seem to be effected by it??

No, the issue I had with the Samsung was the brightness flicker (as seen in this video I took of my TV). Watch for the books in the background.

The flicker I see on the Panasonic, is more of a refresh rate type flicker. But its only on certain shots - mainly bright solid colours/scenes.

You mention one of the higher Samsungs? Which higher one doesn't have flaws? The 551/560 etc have this 50hz 'tearing' issue - which are you suggesting?

Cheers

David
 
I am considering buying a 50" S10 - is this model affected?
Can anyone provide a scene from a movie that I could test in shop?
 
Its only affected if you see it mate, best to demo something with a bright scene to find out,maybe a sunny sky or something with bright white lit studio.
 
Yeh, you'll either see it or you won't.

I see it on all Panny's inc the X *which some say doesn't have it.

I find its even worse if I look at something else and have the TV in the corner of my eye.

I've actually sold my TV to my parents, who were planning on a new one anyway. So am now minus tv deciding what on earth to do next.

David
 
I received an erroneous reply from Panasonic UK regarding flicker : "it has been said to you that you an unusual ability of being able to see flicker at higher than normal visual range. This will mean that it will be difficult for you to fully enjoy the picture performance of the product.

I hope that the above assures you that we are making every attempt to support you as a loyal customer. There are circumstances outside of our control that are impacting your viewing, namely your vision ability...........
"

I never reported flicker of any kind but one can deduce from that response, that resolving this issue for those who perceive it, is not a priority for Panasonic!

It looks like you either suck this lemon and live with it, or buy another make.:rolleyes:
 
I see it on my friends V10. It's only apparent in very bright scenes, such as snow covered mountains.

I am thinking about getting a G20 or V20 this summer.. I'm not sure whether it would bother me long term... I suspect that it might so I'm unsure whether to shell out a large amount of money on something that may end up doing my head in.
 
I received an erroneous reply from Panasonic UK regarding flicker : "it has been said to you that you an unusual ability of being able to see flicker at higher than normal visual range. This will mean that it will be difficult for you to fully enjoy the picture performance of the product.

I hope that the above assures you that we are making every attempt to support you as a loyal customer. There are circumstances outside of our control that are impacting your viewing, namely your vision ability...........
"

I never reported flicker of any kind but one can deduce from that response, that resolving this issue for those who perceive it, is not a priority for Panasonic!

It looks like you either suck this lemon and live with it, or buy another make.:rolleyes:

It's not that unusual - my wife and 2 of my 3 close friends can see flicker. The reason for 100Hz TVs in the CRT days was to combat 50Hz flicker so it has been a known problem for a long time.

It is expensive to make everything perfect (aka Pioneer Kuro) and I feel this is part of the problem.

The G10 and V10 Panasonics are unwatchable to my wife and I. It is not a case of getting used to it. If it were a choice of a V10 or a £80 LCD screen that I would have to keep, I would have to take the LCD screen - the flicker is really that bad to our eyes.

By all accounts, the new G20 also shares the G10s flicker issues.
 
It is expensive to make everything perfect (aka Pioneer Kuro) and I feel this is part of the problem.

Yet my Kuro gave me more headaches than my V10 has. Individuals' responses to different TVs is indeed complicated.
 
I used to see some flicker on my older Panasonic 32" CRT, i think i see about the same amount on most TVs to date, doesnt bother me as its so rare and when i do seeit its not off putting.
 
Went into dealers at lunch time - looked at 50" S10 on an SD signal - I couldnt spot anything that would put me off buying - £799 with five year warranty.
 
Last edited:
Flicker ruined the enjoyment of the G10, John Lewis took it back and I got an LG instead. Black levels are not as good with the LG, and there is some image retention, but overall, I'm really happy with the LG. There is no perfect TV, so I guess you have to choose what you can live with, which in the case of last years models, was not Panasonic.

I don't think they get better with use, as all the ones in shops are on all day, and they still flicker. I think viewers might get used to it though?
 
I thought the last firmware update sorted that problem out......it certainly did on mine.
 
Yet my Kuro gave me more headaches than my V10 has. Individuals' responses to different TVs is indeed complicated.

What was wrong with your Kuro? - Other than buzzing, I have not heard of any issues with the Pioneer.
 

The latest video from AVForums

Is 4K Blu-ray Worth It?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom