The 2013 Plasma Discussion Thread!

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Looks like with black optimizer turned on F8500 can go as low as .002 to .001 but with black optimizer turned off it does go that low and stays at .005, the peak luminance however is double that of any panasonic plasma's achieve this year, so again blacks go to Panasonic this year as well. A lot of members have bought the F8500 and whats surprising is that many are kuro owners and their impression of this tv has been pretty amazing so far.

F8500 screens posted by a member.



Here are some of the user impressions.


I decided to take Ph8te's advice and check out the VT60 in person at Magnolia. I was lucky to have a truly fantastic salesman help me out. A 64" F8500 was directly above the a 60" VT60 and we spent almost an hour comparing the two panels in virtually every way possible. Here are my observations:

The first thing I must mention is that we have a VT50 in our bedroom, if you are familiar with that tv, you will be familiar with the VT60...to be perfectly honest, I could not tell the difference, although I did prefer the all glass design of the VT60. Aesthetically, it is a beautiful tv and would look great in any room. I should also mention the VT60 was only in the store for 3 days and had not even been broken in yet.

My salesman said the best way to compare tv's is not to just try the same settings and compare the picture, but to also put them through extremes and see how they perform. He started with the out of the box standard mode on the F8500 and the THX mode on the VT60. If you have experienced a horrible picture with the standard settings in the past, you will not with these tv's. Both looked very normal...not deformed in any way.

The first thing you notice is that although the VT60 has an all glass design, it is the F8500 that provides the effect of looking through a pane of glass. There is a slight haze with the VT60 that you do not see in the F8500. From a clarity and detail standpoint, we both preferred the F8500. You could see the gleam in peoples eyes form a distance on the F8500, while you could only see that gleam on close up views of a persons face on the VT60. Colors looked great on both sets. One advantage the VT60 had, as Ken had mentioned, is that you could see a little more detail through the blacks....better shadow detail. I specifically looked for that and had to point it out to the salesman for him to notice it. One other thing that could be considered an advantage is that the VT60 is not as bright in daylight scenes and not as dark in nighttime scenes, so the transition form light to dark is more comfortable. Although we both much preferred the F8500 overall, I would probably give the VT60 the advantage in dark scenes.

The salesman said now lets have some fun and put the tv's in a variety of extreme modes...maxing out the gamma and contrast etc... He was trying to show me how he could still get a clean, although extremely bright, picture by tweaking the settings. He cranked up the lights and in that environment, the F8500 dominated. The clearest, brightest picture you could imagine...with great detail. The Vt60 does not have the ability to do that...it looked fuzzy and washed out. In a bright environment the F8500 is just spectacular. On the other side of the coin, when reducing the settings to minimum levels, the F8500 could still be adjusted to produce a nice picture, but the blacks were more dominate than on the VT60. At very dim levels, the VT60 gets the nod.

ABL, popping, or whatever you call it, was visible on both sets in the extreme bright modes. You can see it more clearly on the F8500, in part because the the picture itself it's so much clearer in those modes. I didn't even notice it on the VT60 until the salesman said "there it is!". What we viewed did not produce very much ABL so I can't really give an a thorough comparison on that issue.

Finally, the salesman insisted I check the smart stuff, which has been so feeble in the past, I didn't really care, but I'm glad I did. The F8500 is so much better than anything you have experienced. To my surprise it was very fast and functional. The biggest surprise of all was how stunning HD YouTube videos looked...I was not expected it to look so perfect. It really blew me away. That was not the case with the VT60..no comparison. Okay, that's all, I've written enough. Thanks for your time : )
Click to expand...


http://www.avsforum.com/t/1463454/o...s-discussion-thread-no-street-price-talk/3120



So today I finally had my 64" set calibrated by one of the top calibrators in the country, Mr. Jeff Meier. Was an absolute privilege to get him scheduled during his Florida tour, and very cool to be the first F8500 he's laid his hands on! In short - his words - "It is a very impressive set."

He calibrated both my 2D and 3D Movie modes and I am absolutely blown away by the PQ. The accuracy, the clarity, the depth, the film-like presentation, all off the charts excellent! Extremely happy with the results. I won't share all of my settings here, because truthfully white balance settings in particular (and being the main portion of any calibration) do not translate exactly between sets so it would be a misleading representation of the extraordinary talent Jeff possesses (plus I didn't ask if he would be ok with it.) However, I'm more than happy to share some of his observations and comments during he calibration.

- Just to get it out of the way, he was hoping this would be a "kuro-killer" (he himself owns one but it's been out so long he'd love there to be a better plasma introduced just for a change!) but at the end of the calibration deemed it not to be, mainly because of slightly better color accuracy he's observed on the Kuro. However, he says its the best plasma he's seen otherwise, and extremely close overall, even saying that if he hadn't worked with so many Kuros over the years and known its subtleties so well it would be difficult to tell the difference, it's that close. He did think that motion, however, particularly in 24 frames with Cinema Smooth (which he had not been impressed with on previous Samsungs) was superb on the F8500 and slightly better than the Kuro, so there was a point on the board for us. :-) But again, don't despair, the differences were all subtle, not significant. He was still very impressed with the F8500.

- In his expert opinion this is the best 3D of any TV, plasma or otherwise - period. He says Samsung plasma always does it better but this is the best of the best. Clear, zero crosstalk, bright, and just... Correctly executed.

- He expects it will be better than the ZT60.

- In terms of black levels he measured .002 with Optimizer in Dark Room and .005 in bright room. At first he calibrated with Dark Room, but during post measurement adjustments identified that Dark Room clips at near black, limiting white to come through in the low end and effecting flesh tones and overall color hues. This was clearly noticeable by all three of us in attendance. Bright room ended up being the better option to give a much more accurate picture still with awesome blacks (the difference in black level in bright room was measurable but in practical viewing not noticeable given the accurate greyscale calibration. The change in hues in dark room was definitely noticed though.)

There was a ton of other stuff too but these are a few things that come to mind as i write this at 2am. :-P Any questions let me know! I'll be here... Probably watching a movie and drooling at the best PQ I've ever owned. Thanks Jeff, and thanks Samsung!!
Click to expand...

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1463454/o...s-discussion-thread-no-street-price-talk/3150


In the mean time another amazing review for VT60, so overall a great year for plasma again.

Google Translate
 
For information plasma lovers, I happened to go to near east street area of pune today, and there is a panasonic exclusive showroom there just opposite to Huns electronics / maharashtra electronics, I wascurious to see pana plasma st50, so bumped into the showroom and could see the tv 42 incher on display. Yes pic quality was amazing... Was kept side by side to et50 led...
Anyways wanted to inform that the st 50 and ut50 is available in that showroom...in 42 and 50 incher...newbrand piece...available on order ... Thought of informing , as I am reading that tv is not available in the market...and the guy is ready to negotiate..
 
Last edited:
sandesh1978 said:
For information plasma lovers, I happened to go to near east street area of pune today, and there is a panasonic exclusive showroom there just opposite to Huns electronics / maharashtra electronics, I wascurious to see pana plasma st50, so bumped into the showroom and could see the tv 42 incher on display. Yes pic quality was amazing... Was kept side by side to et50 led...
Anyways wanted to inform that the st 50 and ut50 is available in that showroom...in 42 and 50 incher...newbrand piece...available on order ... Thought of informing , as I am reading that tv is not available in the market...and the guy is ready to negotiate..
Click to expand...

That Panasonic brandshop is on M.G. Road and owned by Sakura (the other one is at Baner).
Only 50 inch option at the moment is UT50 (never bothered to check with lower variants), as per the regional manager for Panasonic (for Pune).
So, the "available on order" part is a bit surprising. I am out of country at the moment. Can you ask them over phone, how many day will they take to deliver a 50ST50?
 
vakharia said:
That Panasonic brandshop is on M.G. Road and owned by Sakura (the other one is at Baner).
Only 50 inch option at the moment is UT50 (never bothered to check with lower variants), as per the regional manager for Panasonic (for Pune).
So, the "available on order" part is a bit surprising. I am out of country at the moment. Can you ask them over phone, how many day will they take to deliver a 50ST50?
Click to expand...

I do not have the number and I stay a way far from that place, so I office hrs that is weekdays it is tough, but I will try on coming weekend
 
Re: The 2013 Plasma Discussion Thread! [Updated with Information]

Whathifi speaks about panny vt65.
:p
 

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Re: The 2013 Plasma Discussion Thread! [Updated with Information]

u5y8asub.jpg


Cool...
 
I've been told 2013 series won't be launched till July or near festive seasons and no one knows yet which models will come to India. My contact told me Panasonic in India is concentrating more on LED-LCD than Plasma so I've a feeling we won't see many 2013 plasma this year either. Which is a shame.
 
I think Panny fans will be fed up with its India strategy.
They will embrace the f8500 plasma.
May be it only shows that the GODs(st60/vt60/zt60) cannot be bought afterall.:lol:
 
alljunkie said:
I've been told 2013 series won't be launched till July or near festive seasons and no one knows yet which models will come to India. My contact told me Panasonic in India is concentrating more on LED-LCD than Plasma so I've a feeling we won't see many 2013 plasma this year either. Which is a shame.
Click to expand...

Are you sure about this?
I am told that new models will be available by end of this month, and that should include plasma as well.
 
Re: The 2013 Plasma Discussion Thread! [Updated with Information]

I know that people (dealers) say that new Panasonic models will be arriving shortly and perhaps they will. However, the 2012-13 record was quite bad. That makes me not very hopeful of their performance in thus regard. Kind of Pune Warriers India team really, if I may put a fine point on it.
 
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