Is it normal for a Plasma TV to have slight video noise?

[Jules]

Something I've always noticed on our 50" Panasonic Viera Plasma TV, since it was brand new. If you flip through its various video input channels (e.g. HDMI 1, HDMI 2, COMPONENT, etc.) whilst nothing is connected, you get (as expected) a blank black screen. If you look closely, you'll see that the black is perfectly clear with no noise. When I switch on our DVD Player (connected via RGB scart) or Blu-ray player (connected via HDMI) the video signal always has a bit of noise, mostly noticable on blacks. If you look closely you'll see many red, blue and green pixel-sized dots, like so:



At viewing distance, these are barely noticeable, and I doubt they really affect the movie viewing experience, but they're starting to worry me. Surely an expensive HD TV isn't meant to have noise plaguing the picture, even if it's really subtle?

I'm starting to wonder if the effect may be the result of the electrics in our house. Some years ago, everything here used to have an electric current flowing through it, including appliance cabinets. You'd feel a sting if you touched the DVD player cabinet, for example, and the stereo system would produce electric hum sounds out of its speakers when you touched the cassette player buttons while it was switched on! I don't know if the problem was ever fixed (need to ask my father) but if it wasn't, could it be interefering with our TV, through the video signals it receives through other electronics?

[DarthPrime]

Are you noticing this while watching a movie, or also when the DVD/Blu-ray player is just turned on? It could be grain in the movie. If its doing it when the movie is stopped I would think something is wrong. I'm not completely sure about plasmas, but the lcds I've used do not do this. Since its not doing it when the DVD and Blu-ray players are turned off it might be the cables from the players, or the players causing the problem.

Its probably also a good ideal to have the electrical system checked out, if your still having the problems you described (feeling current flow, getting shocked, etc...).

[Jules]

Unfortunately it does it even when the movies are stopped. I feels like ... whatever it is ... it's coming from the cables, be they scart or HDMI or God knows what.

Also, up close the effect looks very ugly, but as I said before, at viewing distance you don't really see it. You have to really look for it to perhaps notice it.

[Jules]

I JUST CARRIED OUT AN EXPERIMENT!!

To determine whether it's the electrics in our house that's affecting our TV, I got an oldish digital camera with has a "video out" socket (with no apparent practical use , until now). This socket allows you to connect the camera to a TV via crappy-quality composite video cables, displaying on the said TV the same user interface and pictures it shows on its own teeny weeny LCD panel.

I thought to myself: "Assuming the TV is affected by this video noise from outside appliances through all inputs (HDMI, Scart, Composite Video, Component, S-Video ...) then I'll connect the camera to the TV whilst it's running on batteries, and see if the noise appears (on the image it sends to the TV). If it doesn't, then I'll connect it using its mains lead to our electric supply and see what happens!"

Sure enough, when I used the camera on batteries, the TV panel showed no noise (oh, so a crappy camera gets a noise-free picture, but a high quality Blu-ray player does not?), and when I plugged it into our wall, the image it sent to our TV through the composite video cable was full of the annoying noise!

I caught our electrical system red-handed! The traitor!

[ajmrowland]

Fine enough. Plasma tvs are supposed to produce the best picture, anyway. I have an LCD, myself, but apparently changing the sitting position can effect the Picture Quality.

[KubrickFan]

Fine enough. Plasma tvs are supposed to produce the best picture, anyway. I have an LCD, myself, but apparently changing the sitting position can effect the Picture Quality.

Nowadays, the difference between LCD and Plasma is small. Both have its problems, but none are really big. One of the problems LCD still has is the small viewing angle. I noticed it with my brother's LCD tv, while my Plasma doesn't have that problem.