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Panasonic TC-P54V10
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I had the opportunity to go to Cleveland Plasma to calibrate and review the new Panasonic 54V10 plasma. Chris had it on and breaking in when I arrived. I started by checking out the user menu presets and settings. In addition to the THX and Custom modes that I use on the G10 series, there is also a Studio Reference mode. I measured the performance of each mode with the factory default settings.
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Attachment 1 is THX, 2 is Custom, and 3 is Studio Reference.
THX showed very similar performance to the G10 THX mode; pretty accurate grayscale, color gamut, and gamma, but poor color decoding (negative red, which gives the yellow/greenish "antique" look, and skewed magenta) and lowish light output. Studio Reference surprised me. It had good color decoding, good color gamut when I turned off Digital Cinema Color (attachment 4), surprisingly high gamma, and very low light output. This mode, along with THX, both gray out the Pro Setting submenu, making it impossible to adjust gamma and panel brightness. It's default contrast level is 100, so the only hope of raising the light output would be to get into the service menu and maximize the drives. I went in the service menu and checked, and the drives were pretty close to maxed out as they were in this mode, so the most I would expect would be about a 5-10% increase. The very low light output combined with high gamma of this mode means the average picture level is very dim, and in my opinion would barely be passable even for a totally dark room. Any light in the room would make Studio Reference mode dull and hard to see. Because of the low light output/high gamma of Studio Reference and color decoding/light output issues with THX mode, I decided to concentrate my efforts on Custom mode. Custom opens up the Pro Setting submenu, which contains panel brightness, gamma, AGC, contour emphasis, black extension, and fine white balance adjustments. AGC, contour emphasis, and black extension should be left off for the most accurate pic. Black extension does not lower the black level of the panel itself. Going by memory of some Panasonic 850u's I have calibrated in the past, I expected fairly dramatic changes in black level and light output with the panel brightness adjustment. I was surprised. They all had the same black level, and the mid and high settings had only slightly higher light output with small measurement windows. The light output with a full field white screen was not effected. The mid and high settings both had a bit of pumping visible with certain test patterns. They also changed the white balance somewhat more than I would like to see when comparing a small (12%) window to a full field, but neither of these flaws were very distracting with real program material. The low setting reduced the light output some with the small window, but it had the same output as mid and high with a full field. It had slightly less color shift and no pumping. With all settings, the color shift was very minor compared to the large positive green older Panasonics (700u and earlier) show when enlarging window size or going to full field. I decided to use low, but I could see using high for use in bright rooms. With a contrast setting of 73, I ran measurements for each setting, recording the light output, gamma, and color shift. I will post these results later if there is interest.
THX showed very similar performance to the G10 THX mode; pretty accurate grayscale, color gamut, and gamma, but poor color decoding (negative red, which gives the yellow/greenish "antique" look, and skewed magenta) and lowish light output. Studio Reference surprised me. It had good color decoding, good color gamut when I turned off Digital Cinema Color (attachment 4), surprisingly high gamma, and very low light output. This mode, along with THX, both gray out the Pro Setting submenu, making it impossible to adjust gamma and panel brightness. It's default contrast level is 100, so the only hope of raising the light output would be to get into the service menu and maximize the drives. I went in the service menu and checked, and the drives were pretty close to maxed out as they were in this mode, so the most I would expect would be about a 5-10% increase. The very low light output combined with high gamma of this mode means the average picture level is very dim, and in my opinion would barely be passable even for a totally dark room. Any light in the room would make Studio Reference mode dull and hard to see. Because of the low light output/high gamma of Studio Reference and color decoding/light output issues with THX mode, I decided to concentrate my efforts on Custom mode. Custom opens up the Pro Setting submenu, which contains panel brightness, gamma, AGC, contour emphasis, black extension, and fine white balance adjustments. AGC, contour emphasis, and black extension should be left off for the most accurate pic. Black extension does not lower the black level of the panel itself. Going by memory of some Panasonic 850u's I have calibrated in the past, I expected fairly dramatic changes in black level and light output with the panel brightness adjustment. I was surprised. They all had the same black level, and the mid and high settings had only slightly higher light output with small measurement windows. The light output with a full field white screen was not effected. The mid and high settings both had a bit of pumping visible with certain test patterns. They also changed the white balance somewhat more than I would like to see when comparing a small (12%) window to a full field, but neither of these flaws were very distracting with real program material. The low setting reduced the light output some with the small window, but it had the same output as mid and high with a full field. It had slightly less color shift and no pumping. With all settings, the color shift was very minor compared to the large positive green older Panasonics (700u and earlier) show when enlarging window size or going to full field. I decided to use low, but I could see using high for use in bright rooms. With a contrast setting of 73, I ran measurements for each setting, recording the light output, gamma, and color shift. I will post these results later if there is interest.
Resolution with static 1080P patterns was on par with other Panasonic plasmas: good enough, with every line visible, but slightly less defined than Samsungs or Pioneer Elites. The resolution difference was so minor it is invisible with real program material.
While I performed most of the calibration with the i1Pro meter, I used my Milori Trichromat-1 to measure contrast ratio. Contrast ratio, after calibration, was approximately 5341 full on/off and 1571 modified ANSI. The full on/off could have been made quite a bit higher if I had pushed the contrast control higher than my chosen setting of 73. I chose 73 because setting higher caused the set's limiter to visibly compress some test patterns, but it would not be bad if the set is in a bright room. Black level measured approximately .007 fL. My calibrated light output with a small window was around 38 fL, but increasing the contrast and panel brightness could easily raise it to around 50-60 fL with only slight compromises.
Attachment 5 is the final results of calibrated Custom mode. Gamma is very good and could be raised if desired, and color decoding and grayscale are both good. The color gamut, however, shows that the red and green primary points are over saturated (too "pure").
Have I overloaded everyone with the technical jargon yet? ;)
Looking at the DVE Essentials Blu Ray demo material and the Dark Knight Blu Ray, I was quite impressed with the picture. I was able to do the viewing in a light controlled room. The image had plenty of "pop" and dynamic excitement. Contrast looked excellent; though for dark, inky blacks, the 9G Kuro still reigns supreme.
Shadow detail looked great; dark suits were not turned into black blobs. The picture had very good three dimensionality and depth, and motion and resolution both looked great.
However, I felt the color looked a bit overdone. This was most likely the result of the wider-than-spec color gamut. Faces looked a little too red, and greens had a bit of the "neon green" look. Bringing the color saturation down more would help eliminate this, but it would make color decoding less accurate. It would be worth experimenting with.
I compared it with a Samsung 63B550 that I had reviewed and calibrated a few weeks ago. When I reviewed the B550, I felt the colors were nicely rich- not overdone, but richer than a 9G Elite Kuro. The color of the B550 looked more natural to me than that of the V10, and looking back I should have experimented with reducing the V10's color saturation lower than what the measurements called for. However, some people will prefer the hotter colors of the V10. The hotter color, along with the higher contrast ratio, made the V10 look very punchy. Some dark scenes looked a little bland on the B550 in comparison, though surprisingly the black level subjectively didn't look much different. I believe the reason for this is the difference in how fast the two sets come out of black. The B550 comes out of black slower, so dark images blended in with the black level more and therefore the B550 looked less exciting in those scenes. This was not the case as much with brighter images, which had good impact on both sets. Shadow detail seemed more defined on the V10. Overall, both sets looked good, and seeing them one right after the other brought out their respective strengths of color on the B550 (though the B860 is even better) and contrast on the V10.
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