View Full Version : Weak HD Tuner on Panny Plasmas?
I have a 42" 600U plasma for my new condo. The condo provides me local off air HD feeds via rooftop antenna's which then get modulated into a coax feed along with our cable. From the day I got my 600U, the best signal strength I could get was 60%,which results in tiling and a weak picture. I have had the cable guys and the engineers from the AV wiring company that did my entire high rise condo complex trying to figure out why the signal was so weak on the plasm. The signal strength coming out of my coax outlet on the wall is now 10db. They have tried in-line amps and still nothing. They even boosted the signal in the comm. room. They said they can't go any higher than 10db or else they will have to start attenuating every one elses signal. They said that have other people with Hitachi and Samsung Plasma's who arent having any problems, but that they have noticed that Panasonic Plasma's are having problems tuning the signal. I called Panasonic and they showed me how to bring up a service menu to check the ATSC tuner strength (hold volume up on the remote and as the volume increases, hold volume up on the TV as well for about 10 sec.). It shows the Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR). The SNR is about 21db. Panasonic said it needs to be about 30db to get a good picture.
Is anyone else having issues with off-air signal reception? I hate having to pay for a set top box to get local HD signals. I tried a cheap antenna directly plugged in, but that didnt get me any local HD signals (and I live smack in the middle of Atlanta). When the cable/engineer guys brought up set top box, it tuned the HD signal coming from the coax feed just fine. This has been a huge ordeal...
chris5977
07-02-06, 03:36 AM
I had the same problem with my Panny. I simply added a cheap signal booster from Home Depot and now all channels come in strong.
I tried a $30 signal amplifier from Radio Shack to boost the signal and that didnt work for me. I have to return it today. Ill try picking one up from another manfacturer.
I went to Best Buy today to get a better off air amplied antenna and the sales guy said that every single Panasonic TV they have with a built in HD tuner cannot tune a single HD channel in their store. He said every other brand TV can tune a signal via there off air feed with no problems. He said the FCC mandated that all TV's over 27" must have a built in HD tuner so to meet that, Panasonic put a mediocre tuner in. I am pretty pissed that I spent all this money to get a TV with a bad tuner.
On the flip side, my unit is broken in and calibrated. I watched "The Forgotten" last night and the picture looked incredible. The movie is so dark and the black level detail was superb. Now I have to either get an off air tuner or pay for the satellite service in my condo...ugh...
SC0TLANDF0REVER
07-03-06, 12:23 AM
I would recommend going to
http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx
and use their site to determine the correct type of antenna would be best for your location.
thats funny because the tuner in my 42px60u is about twice as good as my pchdtv3000 card. It isn't even a contest
[QUOTE=10k]thats funny because the tuner in my 42px60u is about twice as good as my pchdtv3000 card. It isn't even a contest[/QUOTE]
On my 42px60u, the tuner works better than my H20. The guy needs a better antenna. FWIW I'm 26 miles from the antenna farm, I use a DB4.
http://www.plasmatvbuyingguide.com/plasmatvreviews/panasonic-th42px60u-review.html
The ATSC tuner pulls in digital broadcasts from all around town. When we watched the Evening News in high-definition, the image was very clear, and the news anchors' faces had accurate flesh tones. When they cut to reporters out in the field, the detail of their surroundings was excellent. When we changed the channel to view the same program in regular definition, the picture was somewhat fuzzy. The image degradation is probably caused by the lower bandwidth emitted by local stations for their analog channels.
[QUOTE=SC0TLANDF0REVER]I would recommend going to
http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx
and use their site to determine the correct type of antenna would be best for your location.[/QUOTE]
I am in the middle of downtown atlanta, less than 2 miles from the towers. Unless I have a bad unit along with all the Panasonics in the local Best Buy, something isnt right. The building engineers said only the Panasonic TV's in my condo complex are having problems tuning HD, so I know its not just me. I've tried different antennas along with in line amps and even antenuators and the signal strength is at best 60%.
After accessing the Panasonic service menu to view the Signal to Noise Ratio and comparing that to the FCC Spec. for DTV (http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/bickel/curves.html), it seems that engineers in my building have some work to do as they are below FCC Requirments for DTV in terms of a good SNR. I will update this as I get more detail, but I was wrong..maybe the tuner isnt crappy, but I still dont get why best buy has that issue with all their Panny TV's in their store..unless of course they have faulting wiring as well...
If you havent seen this thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7949931#post7949931).
There is a new firmware available at:
http://www.pasctraining.panasonic.com/SpecialApplications/ProductFirmwareDownloads/downloads1.asp
* Macroblock noise with Sencore generator HDTV996
* Over the air ATSC channels drop off the channel list; "Channel Not Available" is displayed
* "Poor Signal Quality" is displayed after a digital channel is lost (ATSC or Cable without CableCARD)
[QUOTE=10k]If you havent seen this thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7949931#post7949931).
There is a new firmware available at:
http://www.pasctraining.panasonic.com/SpecialApplications/ProductFirmwareDownloads/downloads1.asp[/QUOTE]
The new firmware for the 42PX600U says it resolves "CableCARD firmware upgrade message with SA CableCARD ". The ATSC issue is related to firmware for the 60U series. In any case, should this upgrade be done by Panasonic to avoid voiding my warranty? I can do this, but I dont want to do this at the expense of my new TV warranty...
UPDATE: I called Pansonic support and they said the upgrade for the 600U does include some sort of tuner update as well.
UPDATE:
The engineers for my cable company have been on site all week tweaking and adjusting our condo's cable system. They have yet to resolve the issue, BUT they brought 4 different brands of HDTV's and 2 different set top off air tuners. ALL OF THEM had no problem tuning the HD channels. I however can only cleanly tune 2 of the 5 channels. The rest continue to tile. The service menu panasonic showed me shows a 21db Signal-to-Noise ration (SNR). They measured the SNR coming out of the coax jack and it was 38-40db. He showed me this directly on his very expensive portable spectrum analyzer. He said this isnt the first time he saw a problem with Panasonics. Is anyone else experiencing similar issues? I am so frustrated right now as this has been going on a month and now I am also convinced its a tuner/TV problem and not the infrastructure here. I am going to try and call Panasonic and see if they can send a tech here. I dont know what else to do.
westa6969
07-21-06, 09:37 PM
[QUOTE=djseto]UPDATE:
The engineers for my cable company have been on site all week tweaking and adjusting our condo's cable system. They have yet to resolve the issue, BUT they brought 4 different brands of HDTV's and 2 different set top off air tuners. ALL OF THEM had no problem tuning the HD channels. I however can only cleanly tune 2 of the 5 channels. The rest continue to tile. The service menu panasonic showed me shows a 21db Signal-to-Noise ration (SNR). They measured the SNR coming out of the coax jack and it was 38-40db. He showed me this directly on his very expensive portable spectrum analyzer. He said this isnt the first time he saw a problem with Panasonics. Is anyone else experiencing similar issues? I am so frustrated right now as this has been going on a month and now I am also convinced its a tuner/TV problem and not the infrastructure here. I am going to try and call Panasonic and see if they can send a tech here. I dont know what else to do.[/QUOTE]
If you've done all this testing and it replicates despite all these efforts then take it back for a Pio or Samsung, if you cannot change the environment or the host panel's reception then change the Host to a panel that will work for you and the environment were you live. As it's unlikely your not going to be able to change those conditions change the source panel to fit the limitations of the Condo Building..
Yeh.. Its been a month, so I dont know that they will take the TV back. If they do, I need to decide on the next best Plasma in the $2500-2800 price range..cuz I really dont want to spend more money since I got such a great deal on this TV via my firms access to the Panasonic Employee Purchase program..
I figured I would close this thread out. Panasonic sent a team of engineers out to my place to record data from my condo's communication room. They found the issue and created a custom firmware just for me to fix the problem. My Panasonic looks great now. While I wasnt thrilled with customer service at the Concierge, their engineering team was top notch. They are supposedly using the fix in future TV's since more and more hydrid MDU (multi dwelling unit) video systems are popping up. For helping them fix the problem when I could have just bought a new TV, they gave me a 3 year extended warranty on top of the 1 year warranty.
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