Panasonic GZ OLED Series Owners Thread

Got a GZ950 arriving on Tuesday, is there any tips or tricks I need to know without scouring through this whole thread? I have owned an LG OLED previously if that helps.

Also comes with a Panasonic Atmos soundbar, not bad for £1320 in total :)
 
Got a GZ950 arriving on Tuesday, is there any tips or tricks I need to know without scouring through this whole thread? I have owned an LG OLED previously if that helps.

Also comes with a Panasonic Atmos soundbar, not bad for £1320 in total :)
Top Tip. Get help lifting it unto stand.
 
Got a GZ950 arriving on Tuesday, is there any tips or tricks I need to know without scouring through this whole thread? I have owned an LG OLED previously if that helps.

Also comes with a Panasonic Atmos soundbar, not bad for £1320 in total :)

A few things...
When you click the picture mode button on the remote, there are loads of choices. Best to stick to Pro1 for watching in brighter conditions and Pro2 for darker. Often people find Pro2 a bit dark so you can go into the menus and raise luminance (not brightness) from default 30 until you are happy. Mine is at about 45. I wouldn't touch the other values. Note, if you are watching something with dolby vision it has its own modes. Best not to play with those settings. In general the other modes are anywhere from slightly less accurate to wildly inaccurate (especially vivid modes).
There is a way in the options to restrict which modes show when you press the picture button, so only your favourite ones show.

I wouldn't play with many settings unless you really know your stuff, which I don't. The TV is pretty accurate as long as you choose one of those accurate modes.
However, you can play around with IFC, intelligent frame creation.
Default may be MIN. Purists will tell you to switch it off, but you can safely have a play without messing up other settings. It affects motion handling.

If you connect other devices like a sound bar, bluray player etc. make sure you have high speed certified hdmi cables.

Always put the TV into standby, rather than off at the wall. In standby it can run maintenance cycles. These are indicated by the light on the TV being orange. If the light is red, no cycle is running. Best not to turn the TV back on when the light is orange if you can help it.

Also just make sure you have the latest firmware downloaded.

I hope the above are not too obvious.

Good luck, it's a superb TV. Which sound bar are you getting?
 
Anyone else having an issue where the TV will just randomly turn off when watching Netflix?
 
how do i enter service menu on a panny fz800 and is there a way i can force software update from a gz950 firmware?manually? both files are named same sddl.sec....practically they are identically but the latter one has 2.1 allc hdmi,my home 4.0 and dolby vision and atmos...i'm more into the netflix calibrated mode...cuz damn sony had updated their 2018 models to support dolby and netflix calibrated mode....but panny noooooo
 
how do i enter service menu on a panny fz800 and is there a way i can force software update from a gz950 firmware?manually? both files are named same sddl.sec....practically they are identically but the latter one has 2.1 allc hdmi,my home 4.0 and dolby vision and atmos.

Are you asking if you can install the firmware from a GZ950 onto an FZ800 ? If so, then that won't be possible. If you're lucky, it simply won't work - if you're unlucky, I suspect there's a chance you'll brick your TV !
 
any chance we will get my home that's shown on the new HZ series
 
Anybody have any experience using the Spears and Munsil 4k set up disc, about to start tonight and was looking for some advice.I noticed there isn't a luminance setting which there is on the Panny tvs, mainly contrast, brightness, colour and sharpness etc,just looking for some set up advice, thanks.
 
Are you asking if you can install the firmware from a GZ950 onto an FZ800 ? If so, then that won't be possible. If you're lucky, it simply won't work - if you're unlucky, I suspect there's a chance you'll brick your TV !
im willing to risk it ..if anybody can provide the info and maybe if can someone open the *.sec file so i can modify the name for the targetted tv so it will accept it to be installed (the easy way)
 
both files are named same sddl.sec.... practically they are identically
Sharing the same file name doesn't mean that they are identical or almost identical. The file size is much different and every bit inside may be different.

im willing to risk it ..if anybody can provide the info and maybe if can someone open the *.sec file so i can modify the name for the targetted tv so it will accept it to be installed (the easy way)
Replacing a few characters like the target name may be how it sometimes used to work 10 or 15 years ago but now most manufacturers implemented more robust security mechanisms in firmware files to avoid that.

Just compare both files in a hexa editor and you'll see that they don't look the same at all, it's totally encrypted - you won't even find the firmware version or target name in clear text - and there are thousands of different offsets and therefore there is no way that your FZ800 will accept the GZ950 file.
 
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im willing to risk it ..if anybody can provide the info and maybe if can someone open the *.sec file so i can modify the name for the targetted tv so it will accept it to be installed (the easy way)

If it was that easy to add new features (like the latest OS or Dolby Atmos / Dolby Vision) to older TVs, then there would be many, many threads on here (and elsewhere) on that subject.

There are a number of reasons why this won't work - a lot of the new features will require upgraded hardware for starters (making them impossible to add retrospectively to older models) plus, from Panasonic's point of view, there would be much less incentive for you to spend £££s upgrading to a new TV, which means they're not going to leave a path open so that you can simply hack your old one to add the new features.

Out of interest, I just tried to open the GZ950's .sec file on a PC with Notepad but this didn't work. A quick Google search of how to open or hack this file gave little or no results, other than linking to general articles or videos explaining how to update the firmware (legitimately) on Panasonic TVs.
 
A few things...
When you click the picture mode button on the remote, there are loads of choices. Best to stick to Pro1 for watching in brighter conditions and Pro2 for darker. Often people find Pro2 a bit dark so you can go into the menus and raise luminance (not brightness) from default 30 until you are happy. Mine is at about 45. I wouldn't touch the other values. Note, if you are watching something with dolby vision it has its own modes. Best not to play with those settings. In general the other modes are anywhere from slightly less accurate to wildly inaccurate (especially vivid modes).
There is a way in the options to restrict which modes show when you press the picture button, so only your favourite ones show.

I wouldn't play with many settings unless you really know your stuff, which I don't. The TV is pretty accurate as long as you choose one of those accurate modes.
However, you can play around with IFC, intelligent frame creation.
Default may be MIN. Purists will tell you to switch it off, but you can safely have a play without messing up other settings. It affects motion handling.

If you connect other devices like a sound bar, bluray player etc. make sure you have high speed certified hdmi cables.

Always put the TV into standby, rather than off at the wall. In standby it can run maintenance cycles. These are indicated by the light on the TV being orange. If the light is red, no cycle is running. Best not to turn the TV back on when the light is orange if you can help it.

Also just make sure you have the latest firmware downloaded.

I hope the above are not too obvious.

Good luck, it's a superb TV. Which sound bar are you getting?

Many thanks for the detailed response. It sounds very similar to the B9 I had in terms of upkeep so I think I'll be alright.

The sound bar I'm getting is the Panasonic SCHTB900. Richer Sounds had it for £400 off when buying a TV, so effectively I got it for £200. Pricematched the TV with RGB Direct aswell to get the lot for £1319, great deal imo.

I've got a Sonos Beam with 2x Sonos ones at the moment on my QLED but it doesn't support Atmos, so definitely looking forward to how it sounds.
 
Many thanks for the detailed response. It sounds very similar to the B9 I had in terms of upkeep so I think I'll be alright.

The sound bar I'm getting is the Panasonic SCHTB900. Richer Sounds had it for £400 off when buying a TV, so effectively I got it for £200. Pricematched the TV with RGB Direct aswell to get the lot for £1319, great deal imo.

I've got a Sonos Beam with 2x Sonos ones at the moment on my QLED but it doesn't support Atmos, so definitely looking forward to how it sounds.

Ah ok. I hadn't realised you were coming from a recent oled. I would think the gz950 would be pretty similar except you won't have the slick web os. I have the gz950 and sc-htb900 so if you need to know anything feel free to ask. Cheers
 
19.75 inches wide by 12 inches deep or 50mm by 30mm if you prefer.
I think you're confusing cm and mm there! 500mm x 300mm.
 
The sound bar I'm getting is the Panasonic SCHTB900. Richer Sounds had it for £400 off when buying a TV, so effectively I got it for £200. Pricematched the TV with RGB Direct aswell to get the lot for £1319, great deal imo.

That's a great deal - you're effectively getting the soundbar for free, when compared with the price I paid for my GZ950 last October :thumbsup:

Not that I'm complaining though, as I've had 7 months of use from this excellent TV in the meantime... which was a welcome relief from the 32" LCD I'd been using temporarily after my previous TV failed ! :laugh:
 
Ah ok. I hadn't realised you were coming from a recent oled. I would think the gz950 would be pretty similar except you won't have the slick web os. I have the gz950 and sc-htb900 so if you need to know anything feel free to ask. Cheers

The WebOS is slick but to be honest, the quality control on the B Series was terrible so it's a sacrifice I was happy to make.

How does Atmos sound on the soundbar?
 
The WebOS is slick but to be honest, the quality control on the B Series was terrible so it's a sacrifice I was happy to make.

How does Atmos sound on the soundbar?

I find you get some decent width to the sounds but not a massive amount of height, but where you sit relative to the bar is critical. With no upfiring speakers, and no rears you won't get much but I find it crisp and clear and great for music as well as films etc...
 
What are the opinions on Netflix mode? I hadn’t really thought about it but whilst watching Better Call Saul this evening in natural light I thought it looked a bit dull in bedroom scenes and bright New Mexico sunshine. I converted to Pro 1. I’m thinking turn off Netflix mode and toggle between Pro 1 & 2 depending on ambient light.
 

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