just bought a 50u20 from iamsobloodysick. been playing it with my hdplayer on some 1080p movies but found it there's noises / snow when i went close to the scrren to check the PQ. is it normal or during breaking in time only?
by the way how to check the running hour? i've try the method from v1 but stuck at the last part where i've to hold 'mute' button for 3 sec and i can't turn it off by pressing the power button on the tv, i actually have to turn it OFF.

thanks

tim,

If u r noticing it from a few inches, then its dithering. Plasma dither. However, pannys shd dither very little in colours and more in dark areas.

If u move back about 2-3ft, it shd be difficult to see. If u still see it, u r probably overdriving the panel, most likely in vivid mode or very high contrast.

Pioneers dither more in colours but are stable in blacks.

Sammys dither but have some kind of temporal filtering that renders less on the eyes, but the filtering causes undefeatable sharpening thus the images don't look as realistic as the others.

All the companies have different methods.

When the company chooses to use less aggressive dithering or different algortihms, something gives. In Pannys sense, banding is the effect.

Aside from the :
- price difference
- HD (X) vs FullHD (U)
- reflectiveness you mentioned (confirmed?)

is there anything else different between the Pana 2011 X and U series?