Inconsistent Black Levels w/ Heavily Used 42" Samsung Plasma

[JLeonard]

Hello, this is my first time posting on the forums. Recently I got a 42" Samsung Series 4+ Plasma TV for $30 that claims to have over 30000 hours on it according to the service menu, and I have been noticing that the black levels aren't the true black that I was expecting out of a plasma, but today I put on a dvd screensaver and found that when the logo was near the bottom, the colours would be a bit messed up for a second, but at the same time the blacks would temporarily by the true black that I was expecting, and I was wondering if there is any way to restore these true blacks in a more permanent fashion. My apologies if I described it a bit odd, photos are attached for reference. Any advice on the matter would be greatly appreciated!

(While logo isn't at the bottom (note the poor contrast))

(While logo is at the bottom (note the logo not being coloured properly and the blacks being truly black))

 

[everettT]

$30 straight to the dumpster. Plasma had nice black levels but not all can compete with Pioneer and Panasonic. Dead pixels cause black color issues to be permanent in most cases, not worth fooling with. If you have a video test DVD you can find out just how bad it is.

 

[TLS Guy]

Hello, this is my first time posting on the forums. Recently I got a 42" Samsung Series 4+ Plasma TV for $30 that claims to have over 30000 hours on it according to the service menu, and I have been noticing that the black levels aren't the true black that I was expecting out of a plasma, but today I put on a dvd screensaver and found that when the logo was near the bottom, the colours would be a bit messed up for a second, but at the same time the blacks would temporarily by the true black that I was expecting, and I was wondering if there is any way to restore these true blacks in a more permanent fashion. My apologies if I described it a bit odd, photos are attached for reference. Any advice on the matter would be greatly appreciated!

(While logo isn't at the bottom (note the poor contrast))
View attachment 78001
(While logo is at the bottom (note the logo not being coloured properly and the blacks being truly black))
View attachment 78002

End of the road for that TV. You are lucky it lasted that long, those TVs were not known for longevity.

 

[JLeonard]

End of the road for that TV. You are lucky it lasted that long, those TVs were not known for longevity.

Ah well... thank you for the input though.

 

[JLeonard]

$30 straight to the dumpster. Plasma had nice black levels but not all can compete with Pioneer and Panasonic. Dead pixels cause black color issues to be permanent in most cases, not worth fooling with. If you have a video test DVD you can find out just how bad it is.

Guess I'll have to be more careful next time I buy a plasma, thanks for the advice.

 

[lovinthehd]

Many plasmas don't have true black, even the later and much better Samsung plasmas (which I have a couple of, PN59D8000 and PN59D7000). Just got an LG OLED (C5)....now these are blacks! Depends how the black is being generated by the content to an extent, or whether it's just an idle screen.

ps Even tho I got the C5 due to failure of the 59D8000 (power supply, screen was fine), I had no degradation of pic from new in 2011 til now....and last I checked had 24,000 hours on it 7 years ago, probably over 50,000 now.

 

[highfigh]

End of the road for that TV. You are lucky it lasted that long, those TVs were not known for longevity.

What is your definition of 'longevity'? AH members have commented that their plasma TVs are still working fine and this one, at 30K hours, seems to have lasted a long time. I have a 42" and a 50" Panasonic- both work great- the 42" is from 2013 and I originally installed the 50" in 2011.

I installed two Hitachi plasma TVs for a customer in 2003- both are still being used and they have had zero problems with them.

 

[Eppie]

I agree, for good black levels with plasma you should stick to Panasonic or Pioneer (Kuro) TVs. There's not much more you can do besides going into the picture settings and adjusting things. It helps to have a setup DVD or if you can stream material you can download setup videos that help adjust the picture. Modern flat panels in that size are so cheap now, though, and much more energy efficient. I still have a Panasonic plasma in use and it helps to heat the living room in winter.

 

[lovinthehd]

I agree, for good black levels with plasma you should stick to Panasonic or Pioneer (Kuro) TVs. There's not much more you can do besides going into the picture settings and adjusting things. It helps to have a setup DVD or if you can stream material you can download setup videos that help adjust the picture. Modern flat panels in that size are so cheap now, though, and much more energy efficient. I still have a Panasonic plasma in use and it helps to heat the living room in winter.

LOL that's one thing I have noticed, that the new OLED is not putting out near the heat of the plasma it replaced. IIRC the upper end Samsungs towards the end (of plasma production) competed well with the Panasonics/Kuros.

 

[JLeonard]

Hello, this is my first time posting on the forums. Recently I got a 42" Samsung Series 4+ Plasma TV for $30 that claims to have over 30000 hours on it according to the service menu, and I have been noticing that the black levels aren't the true black that I was expecting out of a plasma, but today I put on a dvd screensaver and found that when the logo was near the bottom, the colours would be a bit messed up for a second, but at the same time the blacks would temporarily by the true black that I was expecting, and I was wondering if there is any way to restore these true blacks in a more permanent fashion. My apologies if I described it a bit odd, photos are attached for reference. Any advice on the matter would be greatly appreciated!

(While logo isn't at the bottom (note the poor contrast))
View attachment 78001
(While logo is at the bottom (note the logo not being coloured properly and the blacks being truly black))
View attachment 78002

Update, I reduced the Vrr to its minimum and lowered the Vs a tad and while it still doesn't have true blacks, it had somehow solved my burn in issues, colour sparkles in dark scenes, and even reduced the black levels a decent amount. I appreciate the comments on this post, but it appears that this was all simply a bit of miscalibration by those who had previously used this Plasma. Again, thank you all for the advice.

(Should note for others with this issue, you will wanna open the back of the Plasma (WHILE OFF) and make small decrements to the Vrr and Vs potentiometers (They are labeled on the boards), doing one at a time and powering on after each adjustment to check the image quality. If it suddenly acts like it has bad burn in, you have set the Vs too low, and if the whites start misfiring, you have set the Vrr too low. Hope this information helps someone, no matter how niche it may be.)

 

[lovinthehd]

Update, I reduced the Vrr to its minimum and lowered the Vs a tad and while it still doesn't have true blacks, it had somehow solved my burn in issues, colour sparkles in dark scenes, and even reduced the black levels a decent amount. I appreciate the comments on this post, but it appears that this was all simply a bit of miscalibration by those who had previously used this Plasma. Again, thank you all for the advice.

(Should note for others with this issue, you will wanna open the back of the Plasma (WHILE OFF) and make small decrements to the Vrr and Vs potentiometers (They are labeled on the boards), doing one at a time and powering on after each adjustment to check the image quality. If it suddenly acts like it has bad burn in, you have set the Vs too low, and if the whites start misfiring, you have set the Vrr too low. Hope this information helps someone, no matter how niche it may be.)

Yeah sometimes you just have to go thru settings, altho never heard about adjusting potentiometers directly like that! Still, the plasma compared to OLED black is quite a bit different....

 

[JLeonard]

Yeah sometimes you just have to go thru settings, altho never heard about adjusting potentiometers directly like that! Still, the plasma compared to OLED black is quite a bit different....

Yeah, I'm finding that OLED is definitely much better at handling blacks, just a shame that there will probably never be either a 480p or 720p native OLED TV, but one can hope...

 

[highfigh]

Many plasmas don't have true black, even the later and much better Samsung plasmas (which I have a couple of, PN59D8000 and PN59D7000). Just got an LG OLED (C5)....now these are blacks! Depends how the black is being generated by the content to an extent, or whether it's just an idle screen.

ps Even tho I got the C5 due to failure of the 59D8000 (power supply, screen was fine), I had no degradation of pic from new in 2011 til now....and last I checked had 24,000 hours on it 7 years ago, probably over 50,000 now.

The alternatives to Plasma really improved- the other complaint was off-angle fade-out and that's no longer a problem.

Because of this thread and the power consumption comments, I decided to place my Kill-A-Watt ahead of my 42" plasma TV- it showed about 117W most of the time, with peaks up to about 200W. It shows .77 HWh after using it for more than 6 hours- not as bad as I had expected.

 

[Eppie]

Yeah, I'm finding that OLED is definitely much better at handling blacks, just a shame that there will probably never be either a 480p or 720p native OLED TV, but one can hope...

Not sure why you would want a 480p or 720p native resolution any more, unless it's for compatibility reasons. If the TV accepts a lower resolution signal, the upscaling is so good now that there is no need to make lower res panels. I still had a VCR connected to my AVR when I used the plasma and the quality of 480p material was way better than I expected. The Denon 2310ci did a great job of upscaling lower res material to 1080p. The issue for retro gamers will be finding devices that can still accept a composite or component signal. Chinese manufacturers will make converter boxes for a while but eventually legacy support will dry up.

 

[lovinthehd]

The alternatives to Plasma really improved- the other complaint was off-angle fade-out and that's no longer a problem.

Because of this thread and the power consumption comments, I decided to place my Kill-A-Watt ahead of my 42" plasma TV- it showed about 117W most of the time, with peaks up to about 200W. It shows .77 HWh after using it for more than 6 hours- not as bad as I had expected.

I hooked up one of those to my D8000 plasma once, been a while but believe the power consumption was 200-220 ish? A lot of that sure came out as heat . I haven't tried the OLED yet but definitely a lot less heat.

 

[highfigh]

I hooked up one of those to my D8000 plasma once, been a while but believe the power consumption was 200-220 ish? A lot of that sure came out as heat . I haven't tried the OLED yet but definitely a lot less heat.

Definitely cooler, but 200W-220W isn't much current- I don't know your energy cost, but here, it ranges from about 10-1/2 to a bit less than 30 cents/KWh (time of use billing) or just under 20 cents/KWh for normal billing and at 200W, 10 hours doesn't cost much. I just checked the energy use for a 65" LG OLED evo and the specs page shows 169.9W, <.5W in standby- the Kill A Watt shows 0W for my plasma when it's in standby.

 

[j_garcia]

Guess I'll have to be more careful next time I buy a plasma, thanks for the advice.

We are 4 or 5 generations of technology past Plasma. They haven't been around for a while now.

Yeah, I'm finding that OLED is definitely much better at handling blacks, just a shame that there will probably never be either a 480p or 720p native OLED TV, but one can hope...

Pretty much all current TVs will upscale quite well to their native resolutions now. Your old content will look better on a good quality current gen TV. You may have a problem connecting 480p devices to a newer TV though.

 

[highfigh]

We are 4 or 5 generations of technology past Plasma. They haven't been around for a while now.



Pretty much all current TVs will upscale quite well to their native resolutions now. Your old content will look better on a good quality current gen TV. You may have a problem connecting 480p devices to a newer TV though.

And the weight of newer TVs- big difference. I had to move a 50" Panasonic from the basement to the 3rd floor of a house and at 80lb, while it was a great bit of exercise, it wasn't what I would call 'a good time'.

 

[j_garcia]

And the weight of newer TVs- big difference. I had to move a 50" Panasonic from the basement to the 3rd floor of a house and at 80lb, while it was a great bit of exercise, it wasn't what I would call 'a good time'.

Yep. We are donating her old TVs that are at the house. One is a 42" and one is a 46" LCDs. They are probably ~15 years old and they are surprisingly heavy. They both still work, but they're old. The older 40" LG 4K LED in the bedroom here will go in the office and I will buy a new TV for the bedroom there; 55" or 65"

 

[Kingnoob]

Yep. We are donating her old TVs that are at the house. One is a 42" and one is a 46" LCDs. They are probably ~15 years old and they are surprisingly heavy. They both still work, but they're old. The older 40" LG 4K LED in the bedroom here will go in the office and I will buy a new TV for the bedroom there; 55" or 65"

Some old LCDs are pretty decent . And new TVs don’t have the red & white /yellow inputs etc .. I wanted the one my dad gave to my sister it costed more than my 4k tv … and she could afford new . I was broke at the time and still low on $$$ because it seems no one is hiring . And they pay to little ..
I wasted $55 on a used Plasma once it looked great but it was full of dust thenn the power supply failed when it sat too long unused . About a year of no usage .