Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler OT Panasonic 42PWD7UY Plasma Owners

OK, I have this plasma and love it. Now it's someone else's turn to promote something besides those d*&n MX remotes... HA! I'm a Harmony believer BTW.

I have the 6UY but it's pretty much the same thing as the 7UY. I also purchased the DVI blade.

1) Where'd you get it? Visual Apex seems to have the best pricing.

2) Yes, there's an svid problem on the 7UY but it's been fixed. HOWEVER, not a prob for me cause I have the 6UY and I don't use anything via svid anyways. Why would you?

3) I have the following connections:
Denon 2200 via component
HD DirecTivo via DVI (using Panny DVI blade)
VCR via composite
Used to have SD DirecTivo via composite
Desktop PC via RGB
Nintendo Gamecube via component

4) W/ SD DirecTV, I found (as well as many AVS forum members) that composite looks much better than svid. YMMV, you'll have to play w/ different sources and see for yourself.

5) Yes, this is ED but my HD Tivo looks stunning. My viewing distance is about 8' to 9' and it's wall mounted. I will post pix wed nite of my new config, as my VP150 black grille should arrive then from Axiom. It's not true HD (only the purists who've bought full HD complain...), but from 8', the difference isn't worth the cost, at least for me.

6) From DirecTV, SD can look VERY good. You have to do a bit of calibration to get it right. And calibrate each input type. I used Avia and then the steaming rat method. The rat method has produced more dramatic improvements than Avia itself. HD is fantastic, even OTA. Haven't tried cable though.

7) DVDs look great. I've been watching the Incredibles and the transfer comes across very well.

Any questions, let me know. I've had mine for over a year.

steaming rat method?

yeah, haven't you ever had Chinese take-out??

Great input. Please - WHAT is the "steaming rat method"????

Here it is. BTW, from my understanding, it should work for all displays, not just plasmas. Heck, it's worth a shot.

His basic premise is that your display should look like a window. PQ should look lifelike.

Steaming Rat

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PQ should look lifelike.

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Does anyone not have this as their goal?

In reply to:

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On screen, Peter Parker in Spider Man lifts his hand into a close up. I lift up my own hand: "What is the essential difference between how my hand looks, Vs how his looks on the screen?"

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CAVEAT: This does not work unless you are of the same general skin tone as the actor. It took me hours to try to match Will Smith's skin tone to my own.

Also, I wonder how he takes care of the most artificial looking part of any movie. I can never quite capture that 3:2 pulldown telecine effect in my day-to-day life. Which is probably good - I'd never be able to hit a baseball with the motion blur and only a dozen or so chances to see it in the .48 seconds it takes to reach the plate.

Bren R.

Many people are used to the bright picture settings from the stores. This "torch" mode creates 'oohs' and 'aahs' but doesn't convey reality.

But, I would assume (and I know I should never assume) that anyone involved enough in HT to be reading these forums knows that the default setting on the TVs suck?

I guess I just didn't "get" the article, though I admit I skimmed it. Saying that a TV should be set up to portray an image faithfully or realistically is like saying that ideally, speakers should reproduce sound faithfully.

I'm not trying to sound like a jerk, but isn't that kinda obvious to anyone involved just a tiny bit in HT?

I thought that was a very interesting read.

The crux of it seems to be this part:

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the calibration rendered by an ISF technician does not have the goal per se of “creating a real-looking picture.” It is instead goal number one for an ISF technician to bring the performance of your display in line with NTSC imaging standards. A smoother, more realistic image is often the happy by-product of a display calibrated to NTSC standards, especially compared to most artificial-looking factory settings. But the essential idea of such calibration is that a movie image should look the same on my display as it looks on your display, as it looked on the original broadcast monitors used for transferring the image. Whereas my goal is strictly that of realism: picture settings that are specifically created to my taste, in a way that best fools MY own eyes in to believing the image

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In order to buy-in to the Steaming Rat method, you have to also believe a couple things. First, that subjective adjustments can be more realistic than NTSC standards as implemented by ISF technicians, and second, that your enjoyment of program material is enhanced by making it more "realistic" rather than viewing a purer representation of the intent of the artist/director.

Obviously, the author's enjoyment was much enhanced by his adjustments and I truly believe that his shared experience could help other people. Only he sees out of his eyes, so who am I to quibble?

The whole thing does seem more than a little like the tube debate. In either case, I enthusiastically support subjective evaluations like "more enjoyable". I'm not sure I can be equally supportive when people use terms like "better" or "more accurate".

Perhaps I find it hard to get too worked up about this stuff since I have an old CRT RPTV. Or maybe it's because I really have always liked those super-saturated Technicolor movies. To me, making "The Wizard of Oz" look more "realistic" would not enhance my personal HT experience.