vanishedthought

I just bought a Panasonic 39" LED TV TC-39A400U I've turned to a lot of sources for help and so far come up empty handed. I have the TV connected via HDMI (Bluejeans Tartan 4' cable) to a Sony 470 Blu-Ray player. Picutre AI is off Noise reduction is off using Custom mode (also tried Cineama and standard as well) The TV does have BLB (black light blinking) and no way to disable that feature, I honestly don't understand that tech and if maybe that's what I'm seeing or not, Panasonic hasn't been of much help when I call them.

The problem: From a minium viewing distance, especially on the home screen for my Sony Blu-Ray (or the netflix menu in the blu-ray player) as well as any Blu-Ray I've watched with bars on the top and bottom I see flashing or strobing in the blacks. It just flashes brighter and dimmer pretty quickly. If I go to my normal viewing distance about 9' I'm not seeing this flashing/strobing in the blacks only when I'm closer to the set.
I've also noticed it on my Roku using a different brand HDMI cable but I don't use the Roku all that often.

I don't own any component cables so I haven't tired it via Competent to see if I noticed the same thing or not. The TV is close to 3 months old now so exchange I don't think is going to happen (got it at Bestbuy) but I do have there extened warranty service FWIW. I guess I'm just wondering if there is a problem with the TV.

Room is 9' x 10' kept relativity dark one incandescent 60 watt bulb, viewing distance is usually about 9'. I have the TV calibrated using the Disnet WOW disc Backlight 75 Contrast 82 Brightness 48 color 50 Sharp 30 all options out of a max of 100.

vanishedthought

I called Panasonic back they stated they don't know why I haven't gotten any call backs they've escalated it and from there it was never followed up on. But there escalating it again and to wait for a call back.

They just keep telling me "This is a new TV, there is no information on it" Ok I didn't buy into a product to be a Beta tester if your releasing a product to the market there should be some kind of information on it? I asked if they could at least explain black light blinking after 10 minutes of searching around they couldn't come up with anything about it or if there is was some sort of way to disable it. "I never heard of it" is all they told me.

Dogg

Sounds like a fault, not an option. And (phone) support is often slow to get updated on new models.

Spiky

I have seen dynamic contrast modes on projectors, and on certain high-contrast movies they can flash like this. That mode simply doesn't work for some scenes. This may be similar on your LCD. Disclaimer: I haven't seen this kind of display, everything I'm saying is theory.

Something you could try is to bring a movie that demonstrates this problem to the store and try it out on a display model to see if it looks the same. Might be tricky with a bright store, but you can try, maybe drape a coat over you and the screen (like a camera 130 years ago) to give some ambient darkness. Also, ask other people if they can see this effect. It may be that your eyes are too fast, just like some see artifacts on DLP TVs and some don't.

It appears the BLB is the same as a more common term: BFI, Black Frame Insertion, where a black frame is inserted at regular intervals. Theoretically, that could be what you are seeing. So, Panny's BLB shuts the backlight off for this frame, giving a truer black than the LCD panel can probably display when the backlight is on. Hence, darker/lighter flashing blacks, if you have fast eyes, and contrast set too high for your dark room.

BTW, this isn't new. Panasonic's reps aren't doing very well if they haven't heard of a tech that has existed for several years, now.

vanishedthought

Thanks for the replies, I thought about going back to Bestbuy and looking at the display but since it's a 39" they just have it thrown on one of the bargain shelves with the smaller TV's not on the main display wall. Before I make the 80 mile round trip going to call and see if they can hook a blu-ray or some sort of media up to the TV so I can look at it.

Good idea on the lighting, I do something similar when I do any kinda photography and it's bright out I wear a big hoodie pull over my face and camera.

Also I may try running the WOW disc again and see if I can get a tighter calibration see if I notice any difference. Not sure if the backlight setting has any overall difference on contrast/brightness settings.

vanishedthought

Well I messed with the settings some more last night using WOW calibration disc..I ended up turning the contrast up a few notches and the brightness down a few notches. Amazingly I'm not seeing the strobing as bad/barely at all. I want to run it a few more days before completely ruling it fixed.

Spiky

Silly me. I should have said brightness above.

Brightness level = black level
Contrast level = white level