santanusinha
New Member
I don't want to ruin it for the already owners, but this should act as a note to the potential buyers.
I noticed some black level fluctuations on the P42V20D plasma screen while watching some movies. I give the accounts of the incidences below:
1) Book of ELI: DVD upscaled using Sony DVD player. In one of the night scenes, the whole screen (both movie area as well as the black bars at top and bottom) changed black levels to a lighter shade suddenly.
2) The Prestige DVD upscaled from Sony PS3. In one of the night scenes the black level decreased (brightened) suddenly all over the screen as in the previous instance. I rewinded the DVD, black levels became normal before the scene. At the same scene the black level fluctuation occurred again.
In both these instances, the black level decreased once we got to a brighter scene. It seems that the V20 suffers from a bug somewhere that is triggered by some special dark scenes.
Coming from a strictly CRT background I was a little taken aback by the lack of total darkness on the screen even in the darkest situation generally. Having come to terms with that and accepting that this is a part of the plasma technology, these random(well deterministic in a sense) fluctuations in the black level will take some more away from the viewing pleasure. This is an issue that may be visible to the careful viewer, specially those that love to watch movies in completely dark rooms.
Otherwise the picture quality, color balance/saturation still seems rock solid on this. Also, the brightening is by a very minuscule amount, but obviously, the pictures loose some depth during that time.
I did not notice similar problems on any purely HD content that i saw ( Planet Earth BDs, Avatar BD, Saving Private Ryan BD nd PS3 games), but that may just be coincidental.
It would be nice if others can corroborate on this. Otherwise I have to assume that i have a faulty set and act accordingly (it would be difficult to make the service buffons understand the problem though). Now, I noticed on AVS forums that post april 2010 US G20 don't have this problem, so is panasonic dumping the older infinite black panels in India packed in a V20 body?
-Santanu
I noticed some black level fluctuations on the P42V20D plasma screen while watching some movies. I give the accounts of the incidences below:
1) Book of ELI: DVD upscaled using Sony DVD player. In one of the night scenes, the whole screen (both movie area as well as the black bars at top and bottom) changed black levels to a lighter shade suddenly.
2) The Prestige DVD upscaled from Sony PS3. In one of the night scenes the black level decreased (brightened) suddenly all over the screen as in the previous instance. I rewinded the DVD, black levels became normal before the scene. At the same scene the black level fluctuation occurred again.
In both these instances, the black level decreased once we got to a brighter scene. It seems that the V20 suffers from a bug somewhere that is triggered by some special dark scenes.
Coming from a strictly CRT background I was a little taken aback by the lack of total darkness on the screen even in the darkest situation generally. Having come to terms with that and accepting that this is a part of the plasma technology, these random(well deterministic in a sense) fluctuations in the black level will take some more away from the viewing pleasure. This is an issue that may be visible to the careful viewer, specially those that love to watch movies in completely dark rooms.
Otherwise the picture quality, color balance/saturation still seems rock solid on this. Also, the brightening is by a very minuscule amount, but obviously, the pictures loose some depth during that time.
I did not notice similar problems on any purely HD content that i saw ( Planet Earth BDs, Avatar BD, Saving Private Ryan BD nd PS3 games), but that may just be coincidental.
It would be nice if others can corroborate on this. Otherwise I have to assume that i have a faulty set and act accordingly (it would be difficult to make the service buffons understand the problem though). Now, I noticed on AVS forums that post april 2010 US G20 don't have this problem, so is panasonic dumping the older infinite black panels in India packed in a V20 body?
-Santanu
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