u/Beneficial_Common514

If you have a last-gen Panasonic plasma (I've only tried this on 2013 models), I wanted to make some recommendations that can improve picture quality and luminance, both peak and highlight luminance behavior. You will lose a bit of accuracy, but not much, and in my opinion the tradeoff is worth it.

If you are on a Firestick, make sure you are outputting YCbCr in the display settings. Next, switch to the Cinema preset, set color space to Native, and lower color to about 45–46. I use contrast at 80–83 for a dark room and 90 for a bright room. Using Native color space gives a very noticeable boost in brightness across all window sizes—it makes the image pop a lot more. Set gamma to stock 2.2 or 2.4 (I like 2.4 despite the mild black crush).

Now this is where things get interesting: set AGC to 1 and Black Extension to 5. AGC and Black Extension are settings I ignored for years until recently, and I actually really like them at 1 and 5. It makes the image a bit livelier and highlights really pop—you get a sort of mini HDR-like experience.

I’ve done side-by-side comparisons on my ST60s using these settings versus the stock Cinema preset settings, and the difference in brightness, three-dimensional depth, and overall, the impact is pretty substantial, and you’re not nuking picture accuracy—you’re just straying a tad from it.

For years I was afraid to stray from reference accuracy, and I’m glad I broke free of that mentality because you can actually squeeze a lot of performance out of these plasmas. Try these settings and let me know what you think.

The new 2026 Samsung S95H flagship QD-OLED has surprisingly chunky bezels, and from the front it actually resembles Samsung's 2014 flagship F8500 plasma. That gave me an idea.

I posted screenshots from my F8500 and passed them off as if they were from the new S95H to see if anyone would notice or call me out. Nobody did. In fact, the only comments were about how incredible the picture quality looked.

Samsung S95H owner here: Yes the bezel is chunky... No, I don't care after seeing this picture quality : r/hometheater (reddit.com)

I was browsing Facebook Marketplace looking for a used TV for my gym, and I kept seeing older TVs for sale with the protective plastic film still covering the screen. Not just that—the Energy Star stickers and everything else were still stuck to the front, they had never been removed. Many people listed this as some kind of a selling point.

That means people bought brand-new TVs, in some cases expensive high-end models, and then watched them for years through the protective plastic. I can't believe that's an accident. The picture quality has to be awful, and half of these TVs still have stickers plastered across the bottom of the screen.

I saw this enough times that I realized it isn't just one or two clueless people—it seems to be oddly common. So someone please explain this to me. Why would anyone do that?

Another thing I kept seeing was mounted TVs with the stand or feet still attached.

https://preview.redd.it/m9hlfx5tky9h1.jpg?width=4000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=65d0b2237a8a02aa3a5851b0baa3ee027b0ef45a

https://preview.redd.it/kw4fi3muky9h1.jpg?width=4000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f6258403e02e36b968c592b7aa2f319305c19c6c

https://preview.redd.it/iwdfpu8vky9h1.jpg?width=4000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9c54e1aa19f78926e25656273830aac1a523eec4

Filmmaker Mode. Photos were taken directly with my Samsung S21 Ultra — completely unedited.
No filters, no color correction, no post-processing whatsoever. This is a 1:1 representation of what the TV is actually showing.

I know the thick metal bezel on the S95H is controversial, but I just got mine mounted up and the picture quality is breathtaking.

https://preview.redd.it/7xvff7iity9h1.jpg?width=4000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=80dd6c9cac30c55fcf0bde7f54b739463a5c3051

I've owned quite a few F8500s over the years, and I just discovered something that completely changed my opinion of the model.

For a long time, I believed all F8500s suffered from two issues: mediocre black levels and an unavoidable green push. I use the Screen Off feature quite a bit, and every F8500 I'd owned up until recently exhibited subtle but very noticeable green push that I couldn't seem to correct. It was very perplexing.

What I discovered recently is that this appears to be a bug affecting some units (probably most) when using the Screen Off feature, which I use a lot. The green push shows up after using Screen Off, but all you have to do is switch to another picture mode and then switch back. The image immediately returns to normal.

Black level performance also seems to vary considerably from set to set. Every F8500 I had owned prior to my current 64-inch had black level that I'd consider decent, but ultimately more in line with 2012 Panasonic plasmas than with the very best last gen plasma displays. Yesterday, I finally repaired a 64-inch F8500 I'd had laying around for years—manufactured in October 2013 with roughly 20,000 hours on it—and it completely changed my perspective.

Despite its high usage, this set kills my November 2014 60-inch F8500 with only about 7,000 hours by a gigantic margin (and every other F8500 I have owned). The black levels are in an entirely different league and are easily among the best I've seen from any plasma I've owned, including 9G Kuros and Panasonic VT/ZT models. Its factory calibration also appears very noticeably better, and unlike every other F8500 I've owned, it doesn't exhibit the Screen Off green push bug at all. Brightness between the two sets seems essentially identical despite the large difference in operating hours.

Obviously, one exceptional 2013 unit isn't enough to draw firm conclusions, but it does make me wonder if there may be a meaningful difference between early 2013 production units and the final 2014 runs. I remember reading something about this years back on AVS, and it makes sense because Samsung has a long history of early production examples outperforming later ones, so I don't think it's an unreasonable possibility.

I wanted to post this because I've previously made blanket statements that all F8500s have mediocre blacks and unavoidable green push. Based on what I've learned recently, I don't think that's a fair assessment anymore.

Years ago, I discovered that the ST60 and VT60 boards were interchangeable, even though these TVs use completely different panels. Virtually all boards—buffer boards, sustain boards, power boards, mainboards—are plug-and-play swappable. You can even swap mainboards between different panel sizes, like from a 55" to a 60".

After realizing this, I created the first-ever SV60: an ST60 panel and chassis driven by a VT60 mainboard. I did this because the ST60 is much brighter than the VT60 and uses an AR filter that’s just as effective but far less aggressive.

The result? The ST60 is a brighter, more vibrant TV—nearly twice as bright as the VT60. On the flip side, the VT60 uses a higher-quality processor with better motion handling and a suite of picture settings unavailable on the ST. Even settings they share, like AGC and Black Extension, behave very differently—actually useful on the VT, but essentially ineffective and harmful to image quality on the ST.

So I decided to create the SV60: the best of both worlds. I swapped every board from the VT into the ST, and my first impression was amazement. The SV60 was brighter than the ST60—comparable to a Samsung F8500 in terms of brightness. ABL was significantly reduced, likely because the VT60 was tuned with lower ABL and higher VSUS to compensate for its heavy-tint AR filter with an air gap. The ST60 panel doesn’t have that heavy AR filter to mitigate, so the brightness soared, producing the punchiest picture I’ve ever seen on a plasma. Small highlights almost had an HDR-like effect.

To give you an idea: in a dark room, I have to run contrast at 40 on the SV60—or my retinas start protesting. On the ST60, I could run contrast at 90 and still be comfortable. Motion handling was butter-smooth, menus were lightning-fast, and gaming response time improved dramatically—nearly halving the stock ST60 lag. Black levels even saw a slight improvement.

However, after using it for a while, cracks appeared. I could never quite get the calibration right. Skin tones were impossible to fully correct, and although motion looked smooth, something just felt off. In the end, I switched everything back and abandoned the project—until last week, when I had an epiphany.

I realized I made two huge mistakes in my initial attempt:

1. I should have only swapped the VT60 mainboard and left everything else stock. Buffer boards are panel-specific.
2. I should have cloned my ST60 service menu white balance settings onto the VT60 mainboard before swapping it in.

So I gave it another go, using a low-hour 60" VT and a very low-hour 65" ST60. This time, I cloned the service menu and regular menu white balance settings, leaving all other boards stock. I also transplanted the VT60 fans into the ST60 chassis, lengthening the wires, rather than just spoofing the circuit like I did last time. Luckily, there are convenient unused fan mounts right by the vents on the ST. I also added a 120mm USB fan, giving the SV60 three exhaust fans: one on each side and one in the center.

When I powered it up next to my Sony X930E which I use as a reference monitor, I was thrilled: the white balance and color calibration were dead-on perfect. I’ve been using the SV60 for a week, and I can confidently say it’s a 100% success—the best plasma TV on the planet. The ST60 was already great, but this is a significant improvement. Small highlights really pop, ABL is very mild for a plasma, and it can get extremely bright. Black levels are outstanding with no bias lighting needed, and motion is perfect. Settings like AGC are actually useful now—it’s essentially a global brightness booster and works incredibly well. Brilliance Enhancer functions almost like an SDR-to-HDR converter, enhancing highlights beautifully. These are settings that did essentially nothing or nothing good on a stock ST60 or VT60, but on the SV60, they are very useful and fun to play with.

This project was a blast and genuinely rekindled my love for plasma. To the guy (you know who you are) — thanks for flaking on me… again. If you’d bought my ST60, this project would have never happened!

https://preview.redd.it/7igrathxpr2h1.jpg?width=3385&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=19b1b29c009dd1788cdf4bdd2e4fe6b4754c71db

https://preview.redd.it/fvdffhbypr2h1.jpg?width=3972&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4e6121c97214edf4a431ff96d6e5731fa67f35d3

https://preview.redd.it/3nsksgczpr2h1.jpg?width=3855&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9baac4d0738c7edc2169aa664b941b01f0fb2665

https://preview.redd.it/egt34dx0qr2h1.jpg?width=3843&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f3a5752fc239864f51c25eef6175d034b9c2f886

Who else remembers the phrase “Wizard Sleeve”?

If you know, you know… Those were the good ol’ days 😂

Yes, this is 100% a Puyallup-appropriate topic.