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Panasonic & Ground Hog Day
If you’ve followed the three and a half month saga I’ve written about here before, about the problems I’ve encountered while trying to get one of my broken Panasonic plasmas repaired, the latest developments will certainly give you a chuckle. My life does seem more and more to be resembling the movie Ground Hog Day, and I’m sure you’ll all agree, what Panasonic has put me through is truly ridiculous.
Finally, after months of getting runarounds and false promises from innumerable so-called customer service reps. and managers, last Thursday, the very latest model of the new Pany Pro arrived, and it was setup for me in my edit bay by the authorized Panasonic repair outfit who’ve had my broken plasma sitting at their shop since March.
Well, wonder upon wonder, the new model is terrific, a vast improvement over the earlier dead model I had before. It’s even got built-in HDMI support, which is perfect for my new Matrox MXO LE. And darn, the color setup, right out of the box, is light-years ahead of the old model, at what I would characterize as “near broadcast quality.”
Gosh, for about twenty-four hours I was back in love with Panasonic and all was well. However, that only lasted briefly… The very next day, the brand new plasma, actually manufactured earlier in June, began shutting itself off after less than thirty seconds of operation. And now, I’m awaiting the arrival of the Panasonic field rep. who was scheduled to arrive today between 9am and 10:30am. He’s still not shown up and it’s now after 11:30am. And anyway, what difference does it really make, he’s already informed me that he doesn’t have the replacement parts necessary to fix the plasma.
Suffice it to say, I’ve fallen out of love with Panasonic again, and I have to say, it’s highly unlikely that I’ll be falling for them ever again no mater how well this plasma functions if it ever truly gets repaired.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
EPK Colorist – UP IN THE AIR – nominated for six academy awards
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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6 Replies
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Wonder if that Model of Panasonic Plasma is like the X-box 360 with it’s 60%is fail rate. I’ve had friends go through five of them. Or maybe you just have the worst luck in the world in regards to that display. Best of luck.
-mattyc -
What model do you have? There’s multiple 2010 Pro Plasmas.
From what I’ve read, the G25 and G20 Viera’s are actually better than the Pro Plasma’s after calibration. Apparently the Pro Plasmas don’t even have 3D color management on top of having inferior black levels. I think Panasonic’s focus is more on their consumer displays, especially considering they have the pioneer guys working on the 2011 Viera’s.
Motion Design, Color, Editing
SWGC Incorporated -
David,
A just-in-case question:
Do you have a 330V high quality high-Joule surge protector between the 110V mains and [the plasma monitor and all devices connected to it]?
I blew an expensive Panny pro deck when I used a 400V surge protector a long time ago.
It seems Panny’s gear is less tolerant of power line trouble than Sony.
(330V is the lowest useable voltage rating. This is needed to chop off transients at a safe level, and there are many sources of electrical problems…)
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[B.J. Ahlen] “Do you have a 330V high quality high-Joule surge protector between the 110V mains and [the plasma monitor and all devices connected to it]? “
Yep!!! Actually, the folks at Panasonic suggested I plug the new model directly into the wall. Go figure…
In any case, the new one is now fixed. It turned out to be a piece of electrical tape that holding down a wire to one of the boards had come loose and was keeping the cooling fan from spinning. The onboard fan monitor detected the problem and was shutting down the monitor as a precaution.
BAD TAPE JOB
The technician and I both took pictures of several places where the factory’s brand new tape had come loose.
THE PANASONIC TECHNICIAN TAKES A PICTURE
ANOTHER LOOSE PIECE OF ELECTRICAL TAPE
The technician will submit the pix to the head of manufacturing so they can change their tape and/or their current methods so this won’t happen to anyone else.
Meanwhile, I whipped out a roll of black gaffer’s tape, which he used to tape things in place so they would never come apart again. Hooray for gaffer’s tape!!! Yet another fine use for that excellent product.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
EPK Colorist – UP IN THE AIR – nominated for six academy awards
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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Whoever invented gaffers tape you get some type of Nobel Prize, for chemistry, physics or something. Maybe even the Peace Prize. The world is a far better place because of it.
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Figures….
It’s a case of quantity over quality. Its a growing tend in our marketplace today.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
https://web.mac.com/schazamproductions
schazamproductions@mac.com
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