Kaku Ito
Well-known member
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- Feb 20, 2008
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Aside from our main suite equipped with Sony BVM-D24 and Panasonic TH65-PF12, I got myself a TH-P42V2 for the non-critical work. My personal system in consists of Mac Pro 4,1, Matrox MXO2 LE, TVLogic LVM-173W (used as easy waveform and histogram display) then now TH-P42V2 is added to replace Sony Bravia LCD display. My monitors are calibrated with either Calman/Klein K10 or Eyeone Display 2 (for the desktop).
From the MXO2LE's HDMI output, I playback the charts came with Calman to calibrate the TH-P42V2. I have done numerous calibration with BVM-D24 and all of the other displays we own and owned (including TVLogic XVM-245W), so I thought calibrating TH-P42V2 was pretty much straight forward....
To make long story short, unfortunately, although TH-P42V2 seems to adopt newer technology than TH-65PF12, in calibrating process, it is harder to get the reference level settings on RGB balance and the gamma through out the entire range. Putting everything to normal then working from there couldn't get the calibration quality that I'm used to over other displays. Don't get me wrong, it is a great great value, but not as well as I expected.
First, use the same practice as usual, set everything to normal, turning off the auto gain and everything, I usually set the RGB gain and the cutoff so the target color temp. (6500K) is achieved on entire range. Then I go to the gamma setting menu on Calman to set the gamma level I want. To get the right gamma level, you can change the gamma, contrast, brightness, lift but as soon as changing these controls, the RGB balance on certain grey level, say like 30% or 40% and 90% gets really off. This does not happen as much on TH-65PF12. Although PF-P42V2 looks pretty solid as is but since Japanese models are shipped with "standard" being higher color temp. than 6500K, so I always have to calibrate it to 6500K through out the different grey level. The preset 6500K (Low temp. as verbal choice) is way too red.
Then by changing the RGB balance starts to mess the smoothness of the gamma curve and RGB balance on certain grey level.
At this point, the best I could do was to set the preset as Cinema first (which is usually biased to be lower number in gamma, less contrast and less saturation:Cinema preset throw you off, it is not for cinema, it is actually to make "video look" looking like cinema), then set the gamma curve as 2.4 and adjusting the RGB gain and cutoff to match 6500K. By this way, I got pretty smooth 2.2 gamma curve, but the 10% and 20 % grey area shows RGB balance messed up. But this is the best overall at this point.
I'm wondering the consumer black area improving circuitry is doing something wrong, but for the RGB balance and gamma curve relation, setting TH-P42V2 wasn't easy even to compare with LED backlit LCD display.
It's greatest value in its price range, but if you were expecting more, the critical grading judgement won't be possible with this consumer plasma display in my opinion. I will work on it more and let you know if I find any way to improve this.
Note:I'm not using the MXO2 LE's HDMI calibration scheme at this point because I wanted to match and rely on MXO2 LE's HDSDI output via LVM-173W's waveform and histogram display. I didn't want to alter the signal coming out from MXO2's HDMI and HDSDI. However, if it needs to be done, I should use the MXO2's video EQ to get the right result as long as the final calibration is correct with Calman. I will look into this, too.
From the MXO2LE's HDMI output, I playback the charts came with Calman to calibrate the TH-P42V2. I have done numerous calibration with BVM-D24 and all of the other displays we own and owned (including TVLogic XVM-245W), so I thought calibrating TH-P42V2 was pretty much straight forward....
To make long story short, unfortunately, although TH-P42V2 seems to adopt newer technology than TH-65PF12, in calibrating process, it is harder to get the reference level settings on RGB balance and the gamma through out the entire range. Putting everything to normal then working from there couldn't get the calibration quality that I'm used to over other displays. Don't get me wrong, it is a great great value, but not as well as I expected.
First, use the same practice as usual, set everything to normal, turning off the auto gain and everything, I usually set the RGB gain and the cutoff so the target color temp. (6500K) is achieved on entire range. Then I go to the gamma setting menu on Calman to set the gamma level I want. To get the right gamma level, you can change the gamma, contrast, brightness, lift but as soon as changing these controls, the RGB balance on certain grey level, say like 30% or 40% and 90% gets really off. This does not happen as much on TH-65PF12. Although PF-P42V2 looks pretty solid as is but since Japanese models are shipped with "standard" being higher color temp. than 6500K, so I always have to calibrate it to 6500K through out the different grey level. The preset 6500K (Low temp. as verbal choice) is way too red.
Then by changing the RGB balance starts to mess the smoothness of the gamma curve and RGB balance on certain grey level.
At this point, the best I could do was to set the preset as Cinema first (which is usually biased to be lower number in gamma, less contrast and less saturation:Cinema preset throw you off, it is not for cinema, it is actually to make "video look" looking like cinema), then set the gamma curve as 2.4 and adjusting the RGB gain and cutoff to match 6500K. By this way, I got pretty smooth 2.2 gamma curve, but the 10% and 20 % grey area shows RGB balance messed up. But this is the best overall at this point.
I'm wondering the consumer black area improving circuitry is doing something wrong, but for the RGB balance and gamma curve relation, setting TH-P42V2 wasn't easy even to compare with LED backlit LCD display.
It's greatest value in its price range, but if you were expecting more, the critical grading judgement won't be possible with this consumer plasma display in my opinion. I will work on it more and let you know if I find any way to improve this.
Note:I'm not using the MXO2 LE's HDMI calibration scheme at this point because I wanted to match and rely on MXO2 LE's HDSDI output via LVM-173W's waveform and histogram display. I didn't want to alter the signal coming out from MXO2's HDMI and HDSDI. However, if it needs to be done, I should use the MXO2's video EQ to get the right result as long as the final calibration is correct with Calman. I will look into this, too.
