DVX100 hooked up to Plasma Screen

[DVX100Shooter]

I posted my question in the Cafe forum but realized it may fit it in here. I am basically trying to figure something out. I got a 42 inch plasma screen last weekend and I noticed the blacks aren't really solid blacks. It almost looks like a slight solarized effect youd find on some camcorders (notice I said slight!). I have my DVX100 hooked up to my DVD Recorder. To be honest, the image quality on my flat screen computer monitor as well as monitor in my editing suite look much clearer than on the plasma screen. Is there anything I can do within the TV's menu to try to clean up the blacks? I noticed this on a commercial DVD as well. The black in thte letterbox had this solarized look to it.

I did switch my TV settings from 4:3 to 16:9 progressive. I also changed my DVD Recorder to progressive as well.

Any ideas or suggestions to try out?

Oh yea my plasma is a ED (enhanced definition) but in the manual it said it could support up to 1080i! So wouldn't that make it HD capable?

[disjecta]

Yeah, you are definitely not seeing the TV at its full potential. All menus vary but if you go to the on screen picture control there should be some preset "looks" that you can start with. There is also a manual control for increasing or decreasing blacks. I'm not near my own Panasonic right now so I can't remember what they call it.

I'm sure your manual has something in there about it. The first thing to do, though, is try the presets out.

[joachim]

Shooter, I think you just discovered a general problem of Plasma (and partly LCD) screens. The gas plasma in a plasma screen emits some light even when it should display "black", same as the backlight of a LCD "spills" some light although the Liquid Crystals in the display are oriented to block the light.
When it comes to solid blacks, a CRT is still the best.