Panasonic announced yesterday a new promotion for its ST30 series plasma models. There is a mail-in rebate for a free HD Skype Freetalk Video Camera/Microphone  for ST30 series models purchased now through April 16, 2011. Here is a link for the rebate form.

The on-line price of the TC-P50ST30 is now $1139 with free shipping on Amazon (via Paul’s TV).

Click through for the picture settings we used for our evaluations of the TC-P50ST30.

Please note the following:

For our reference test signals we connect by HDMI @1080i to our Sencore 403 signal generator. The settings for our DirecTV box required adjustments to Color (oversaturated with satellite at the setting listed below) and Tint. You will probably get different results with your cable/sat provider box requiring adjustment of these controls. The other settings should be fine regardless of your source.

We put over 100 hours of use on Panasonic before setting making the adjustments to gray scale (W/B) and finalizing our settings. All plasmas phosphor characteristics change quite a bit during the first hundred hours, so we don’t make final color temperature adjustments until the end of that period. We recommend setting contrast lower than our recommend level for the first 100 hours (below 70).

Picture
Picture Mode: Custom
Contrast: 94
Brightness: 54
Color: 50
Tint: -3
Sharpness: 30
Color Temp: Warm2

Color mgmt: Grayed Out

Photo Enhancement: Grayed Out
C.A.T.S: Off
Video NR: Strong

Pro Settings
Colorspace: Normal

W/B High R: 0
W/B High G: -7
W/B High B: +11

W/B Low R: +2
W/B Low G: +1
W/B Low B: -8

Black Extension: 0
Gamma Adjustment: 2.4
Panel Brightness: Low
Contour Emphasis: Off
AGC: 0

Aspect Adjustments

Screen Format: Full

HD Size-Grayed out

H Size:1

Zoom adjustments-Grayed out

HDMI Settings

HDMI/DVI RGB Range
HDMI 1:Auto

HDMI 2:Auto

HDMI 3:Auto

Content Type

HDMI 1:Auto

HDMI 2:Auto

HDMI 3:Auto

Advanced Picture

3D Y/C Filter: Grayed out
Color Matrix:HD

Block NR: On
Mosquito NR: On
Motion Smoother: Off
Black Level: Light
3:2 PullDown: Grayed out

24p Direct In: Grayed out

 

 

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