I will be having my new rptv delivered tomorrow, and want to get it set up quickly. What are the options to change first, contrast, color, brightness..... In case you need to know, it's a new panasonic 47incher. Any one with Panasonic, feel free to tell me your settings.

Go out tonight and buy a calibration disc. This is essential.

The Sound & Vision Home Theater Tune-Up costs about $18. There is no excuse not to buy it.

first day do nothing... don't set the color right away because it's going to change over time and when you do set the color let the tv warm up for 30 mins before setting anythign. make sure it's at the time of day you watch movies most of the time. so your color settings are set for that time of day. If it has more then one color setting option like my sony has, I like to have one setting for day time tv, and another for Movie's at night setting.

don't worry too much about buying dvd's to set your tv, if you already have a collection of dvd's you already own a setup disc with THX program on it. just search the net for a how to use that or follow the screen wiz. unless your lazy then buy the dvd.

if you haven't got it already go out and buy some good monster cable's for the dvd player to tv and recevier too. if your dvd player lets you use Component . I spent the money and was so happy with the image I got. progressive scan is the only way to go, with a widescreen tv so upgrade that if you don't have one. things looked so much better once I turned it on, star wars episode 2 was like really 3d looking everything looked so much better once I did that. I mean it looked good to begin with but after setting progressive on it was so much cleaner.

my view point on good cables is buy them once and buy them good so you don't have to replace them. Unless you have a small rabbit that likes to chew them then buy the good cables.

Errr... Wait a sec, back it up and let's start there... The first thing you must do is kill the contrast, this will come from the factory in full blown torch mode. On a Panny this is called "picture" and will be set on 63 - max - out of the box. You need to knock it down, a good calibration disc - not a THX optimode - will tell you exactly where your contrast should be... All RPTVs are not created equal. For a reference point, until you get a good calibration disc, turn that contrast down in to the low 30s.

Other than that, I agree that there's not a whole lot that needs to be done on the first day, or week(s) for that matter. The set needs to "break in" and "settle". Do a basic 9 point convergence - it's covered in the owner's manual - and let it be for a week or two... Post back then and let's go from there.

Oh yeah, if you don't have a progressive scan DVD player and a good set of cables, you'll be needing them...

As the previous poster mentioned, one of the first things you should do is lower the contrast, but you should also lower the brightness, which is usually set at max at the factory. You should probably lower the sharpness too, since having the sharpness too high will make the picture grainy and accentuate motion artifacts, etc. (at least in my experience).

If the set has any settings like "flesh tone" , "SVM" (Scan velocity modulation), "DNR" (Digital noise reduction) - you may want to turn those off too - or at least play around with these settings to see what looks best to you.

Other than that, as mentioned above, you should adjust the convergence (let the set warm up first), and eventually invest in a good calibration disc to fine tune everything. Most sets usually take around 100 hours or so of use to "break in" - so around that time you should do another convergence and fine tune the settings again.

If the set has custom modes like "Movie", "sports", "standard", etc. - you may want to start in "Movie" mode and make your adjustments from there.

I have a Toshiba, not a Panasonic, so all of this may or may not appy to your particular tv. A good place to look for setup/tweaking information is the Home Theater Spot - go to the forums and look in the "manufacturers spot" - there is a forum specifically for Panasonic.

Roy

As a ballpark estimate, turn contrast and brightness down to about 40-50%, and sharpness to about 25%. Adjust color/tint by eye, and watch it a lot to help burn in the components. In the meantime, pick up an Avia or S&V calibration disc. Also check out hometheaterspot for lots of hints and tweaks.

And I wouldn't run out tho throw money away on Monster cables, as suggested above. There are several other brands that re fine and much less expensive (AR, Python, etc.)

I have a Panny 47" as well. I picked up the Avia calibration disc and tweaked everything. Sadly, I'm not at home, so I can't tell you what my settings are...

Good luck.

I would give almost the exact opposite advice from jarryjayo.

Yes, color is going to drift after you buy your set, but you might as well adjust it to your liking when you get home. I mean really, how hard is it to tweak the color and tint? Do it when you first buy the TV, then do it again after the TV has been broken in awhile. You also should check settings about every six months after that, because TVs do drift over time.

THX Optimode is a decent quick set of test patterns, but to make use of them you will have to mail away to THX for a blue filter. This will cost you a couple of bucks and will take several weeks, so go ahead and pop for one of the much more comprehensive calibration DVDs. I use AVIA, but the much cheaper S&V really has everything you need.

Buying good quality cables is also a good recommendation, but you will find much heated debate over whether or not Monster Cable qualifies. They do make some good stuff, but they are quite expensive for what you get. Most people have found Acoustic Research (AR) cables to be every bit as good but for a lot less money. Bettercables.com also get raves.

Well, the set came last night, and it looks pretty good. Most of the settings were less than 50%, but I went ahead and backed them down further just because it looked better. I still need to play with them a bit, as well as the other features.

Also, I threw in FOTR, just to see what it looks like. It looks like a completely different movie than it did on my 27in. The part that sucks is it scared my 16 month old daughter. That's the first time it's happened. Guess I need to be careful what I watch around her from now on.