New Panasonic Plasma monitor

[Eugene Lehnert]

Has anyone seen this new monitor? The old Plasmas had terrible 8-bit banding in the images.

 

http://www.hdtvmagazine.com/columns/2011/09/hdtv-expert-sneak-peek-panasonics-th42bt300u-referencegrade-plasma-monitor.php

[Phil Rhodes]

I doubt it had terrible 8-bit banding. 8-bit displays are entirely acceptable as long as they're competently driven using higher bit-depth data. It might have had terrible banding due to a poor internal DSP implementation.

 

10-bit monitoring is, or at least should be, unnecessary.

 

P

[Eugene Lehnert]

Phil-

 

Have you seen the TH-42PF11U or TH-42PF20U models? Fade up and fade downs are filled with banding artifacts. Colorists would always be second guessing their work and double checking the material on our last CRTs. We have since purchased the new Dolby monitor as a replacement. But these might be a nice addition if the banding problem has been fixed.

 

Thanks

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

No, I haven't seen those particular models. My point was not to say there wasn't banding, I'm sure there was. The issue is if they implement the entire internal electronic pathway at 8 bit, you can end up in terrible trouble if you have to move any of the image controls. Just having it be an 8-bit device is not necessarily the issue. If you've got a 10-bit signal you need to correct (especially a big correction such as log to lin plus a really hi con print emulation, or something of that sort), doing it externally on something like a Blackmagic HDlink then putting the resulting 8-bit DVI into an 8-bit panel should be fine. Doing all that in 8 bit would be the problem.

 

That said, buying only 10-bit devices will ensure you rarely have a problem. I am picking hairs really.

 

P