2009 Panasonic HD Plasma Superb 480i handling (vs DVDO VP30)

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tongshadow
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2009 Panasonic HD Plasma Superb 480i handling (vs DVDO VP30)

Post by tongshadow »

If you're a big fan of the PlayStation 2, or 6th gen consoles, then you've probably heard how hard 480i is to deal with. It's a resolution that was meant to be viewed on analog CRTs, flat panels can't properly display it as they are progressive by nature. In order to display this legacy resolution internal processing is needed to deinterlace and then upscale the picture to the panel's native resolution. The results can vary alot between brands and models, but it's generally agreed upon that plugging a console like the PS2 straight into the display isnt the best way to obtain a good picture. To ensure good results external video processor machines are needed, as they have special algorythms that will properly process low resolution signals, like 480i, and output it at whatever resolution the user desires, to match the display's native resolution.

Fudoh's excelent website explains this alot better, and numerous machines were tested for the purpose of gaming: http://retrogaming.hazard-city.de/
Among them, there's the DVDO VP30 equipped with the ABT102 card. It is considered one of the best machines for 480i content.
"3rd Place: The iScan VP30 with ABT102 upgrade card, VP50Pro or DVDO Edge from DVDO/ABT. DVDOs video deinterlacing with the ABT102 card is fantastic and the detail level is outstanding. You will get similar results with the iScan VP50, Edge, Duo and VP50Pro. Downside to these is that their 240p is not up to the dedicated video game processors."

I have one of these units in hand.

Not long ago I decided to give Plasma gaming a chance and I was blown away by how good HD sources looked on my late 2012 Samsung model. I then connected the PS2 straight into it using component cables, and, as expected, I was NOT impressed. 480i was handled in a blurry manner and just looked terrible.
Then I remembered I had my trusty DVDP VP30 lying around... The results, of course, were much better and the picture looked amazing... for upscaled low res content. I still think a native resolution only looks good on a panel that matches it. Maybe I can test this again when I get a 480p Plasma.

And then I got another Plasma, an older bulky Panasonic model. Again, HD content looked flawless, but how about 480i? Well, what if you told it looks just as good as the VP30, a Top 3 video processor, WHILE having less input delay? Sounds unbelievable, doesnt it? It does, but this Panasonic Plasma has something special.

Here are some comparison pictures, I did my best to match them. Sharpness was set to 0 for both TV and video processor because artifical sharpness sucks! The VP30 is outputting 720p-60 through HDMI. Deinterlacer mode is set to "Game Mode 2". TV pics are on the left/up and the VP30 on right/down.

https://i.imgur.com/cGKsCrw.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/xs5OguW.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/WMcTo9D.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/twia7cq.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/95zndFF.jpeg

That's right, this Panasonic Plasma handles 480i just as well as an expensive DVDO VP30. The picture on the VP30 appears ever so slightly sharper, but that wouldnt be noticeable in practice, and the TV could match it by slightly increasing the sharpness setting. Overall, I'd say it's very close if not identical. In conclusion, if you get a TV like this you dont need a video processor at all for 480i!

I decided to make one more comparison, this time on a 2010 1080p Panasonic Plasma. Maybe Panasonic figured out how to achieve the quality of Anchor Bay Technologies' video processing on their TVs, right? The answer is, unfortunately, no. This set handles 480i much like my later Samsung, it looks far blurrier and detail loss is noticeable. In this case, the VP30 upscaled 480i to 1080p much better than the TV.

https://i.imgur.com/VZRow3V.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/b5E1EqG.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/u8OkMW0.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/Qdh9z5c.jpeg

What's the main take away? 480i video processing quality can vary even between models of the same brand, and newer models may not always perform better.

And now, I would like to ask for the contribution of other Plasma owners. If you have a specific model and can say for sure that it handles 480i just as good as an external video processor, please, share that info. I dont own alot of Panasonic models, so I can't say with certainty that ALL 2009 models or earlier have this performance.

At the moment I have Panasonic 3 models: 42PV80LB (2008-HD); 42PX10B (2009-HD); and P50V20B (2010-FHD). The 2008 HD model performs exactly like the 2009 model reviewed on this topic. Both also play very nicely with the OSSC, accepting 3x 240p modes with minor issues (slightly vertical shift). The 2010 FHD model accepts nothing but 2x, wtf.

Speaking of the OSSC, looking at the compatibility thread reveals that only Panasonic models before 2010 accept 3x 240p.
https://videogameperfection.com/forums/ ... atibility/
This may be a stretch on my part, but what if the models that accept 3x 240p are also the ones that have good 480i handling? It would probably make one's life much easier when choosing a display.

Anyways, I just wanted to share my findings because I dont see this being talked about much. Sure, everyone has moved on to high resolution modern panels and upscalers/line multipliers built for the best visuals and gaming performance. But I just want to let people know: There are more good AND cheap options.
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Josh128
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Re: 2009 Panasonic HD Plasma Superb 480i handling (vs DVDO V

Post by Josh128 »

I had a 2013 model TCP-50-X60 Panasonic and I do agree that its native 480i handling looked very authentic, even retaining the CRT "flicker" look of 480i as opposed to how the Samsungs handled it, which
was to attempt to make it look progressive. But its about the only thing that model was better than the Samsungs at, IMO.
tongshadow
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Re: 2009 Panasonic HD Plasma Superb 480i handling (vs DVDO V

Post by tongshadow »

That's very interesting, didn't know some TVs did bob-deinterlacing. Most consumers dont like it so manufacturers dont bother to implement it.
strayan
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Re: 2009 Panasonic HD Plasma Superb 480i handling (vs DVDO V

Post by strayan »

tongshadow wrote:I still think a native resolution only looks good on a panel that matches it. Maybe I can test this again when I get a 480p Plasma.
I agree with this. I have 3 480p plasmas and they look great (apart from having poor contrast ratios) with 480p content using their DVI input. Unfortunately the DVI input doesn’t support 15kHz sources so I still have to pair them with a DVDO for deinterlacing 480i. That said I have hardly any consoles that can’t be forced to output 480p now and I use an xbox360 for DVD playback which can be set to output 848x480 so it matches the native reaolution of the panel.

I’ve also found that the Retrotink 5x when set to 3x480p (2560x1440) with the LCD post processing effect activated looks almost identical to my 480p plasmas.
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NewSchoolBoxer
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Re: 2009 Panasonic HD Plasma Superb 480i handling (vs DVDO V

Post by NewSchoolBoxer »

I like this thread. Plasma doesn't get the respect it deserves. Handles 2D pixel games much better than LCDs.

I have the TH-42PHD5 and its troubleshooting guide is shared with the TH-50PHD5, TH-42PHW5 and TH50PHW5, which share the GPH5D chassis. They do not do 1080p, nor do they have a DVI input but there is an adapter that can be installed for DVI that the guide mentions.

PS2 480i over Component and RGB look good to me. However, I do not have a proper external deinterlacer to compare with so I'm not sure if it has VP30-like low noise and distortion. I see some small corner artifact pattern with 480p sync over green for the 1 game I tested. I could be more scientific about this.

Real reason to get one of those Plasmas is they accept RGB over 240p, 480i and 480p RGB from my SNES and PS2 over both the BNC and VGA ports! Consumer set with BNC ports, I had no idea there was such a thing and the lady I bought it from included BNC adapters.
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orange808
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Re: 2009 Panasonic HD Plasma Superb 480i handling (vs DVDO V

Post by orange808 »

It's nice that you like your stuff. Thanks for bumping this so I could read that you like your thing again.
We apologise for the inconvenience
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Trevor spencer
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Re: 2009 Panasonic HD Plasma Superb 480i handling (vs DVDO V

Post by Trevor spencer »

I've had a V20B , X10 & G10 and unfortunately they all sucked at 480p.

I also had a PWD7 and this thing is the best 480p picture I'd ever seen outside of using a CRT.

Shame I havnt got room for another instead of using all these complicated scalers and such.
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tongshadow
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Re: 2009 Panasonic HD Plasma Superb 480i handling (vs DVDO V

Post by tongshadow »

Trevor spencer wrote:I've had a V20B , X10 & G10 and unfortunately they all sucked at 480p.

I also had a PWD7 and this thing is the best 480p picture I'd ever seen outside of using a CRT.

Shame I havnt got room for another instead of using all these complicated scalers and such.
Now that's interesting, is that X10 an HD set? I didnt really cover 480p in this topic because it's usually 480i that gives issues, but upscaled 480p also looks very good on my 42X10B and 42PV80LB. In fact, I'd say its better than the DVDO machines because these introduce ringing artifacts for no reason, even when transcoding a 480p input to 480p/640x480 output.
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Trevor spencer
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Re: 2009 Panasonic HD Plasma Superb 480i handling (vs DVDO V

Post by Trevor spencer »

Hi , it was an HD ready set , i remember going from a PWD7 to an TX-P42X10 and it looked much worse for 480p.

480p (XBOX OG) on the PWD7 almost looked like HD to me , this is all from memory though and was probably about 15yrs ago.
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tongshadow
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Re: 2009 Panasonic HD Plasma Superb 480i handling (vs DVDO V

Post by tongshadow »

Ah that explains everything, the PWD7 is an EDTV (852x480).
http://www.hdtvsolutions.com/Panasonic-TH-42PWD8UK_.htm
No wonder 480p looked so perfect on it.
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Trevor spencer
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Re: 2009 Panasonic HD Plasma Superb 480i handling (vs DVDO V

Post by Trevor spencer »

yeah it was a great screen , would scale 720p really nice as well
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