Why Do Some Plasma Tv's Display Black With a Green Tint?

Question

I just purchased a samung 50" plasma model number hp-t5064 and i have a slight yet tolerable problem with it and i heard that what i am expieriencing is fairly normal on plasma sets. this plasma also is considered top of the line for its class. anyway i notice that sometimes scenes that show alot of black seem to have a slight greenish tint to them, i noticed that my local newscaster who has very black hair had a little of a green outline around all his hair. is this whats refeered to as false contouring or color banding? its hooked up to standard direct tv reciever using a s-video cable, maybe its the reciever or the cable. next week its gonna be hooked up to a direct tv hd reciever with a component or hdmi cable maybe that will help. ??

Answer 1

Black in plasma is a combination of panel characteristics and the color filter in front of the panel.
First, make sure you are not in "vivid" (or store) mode. Use standard or something similar.
Then, you may want to adjust "Brightness". Lower brightness and you will get better blacks, but you will lose detail in shades.
So, find a dark scene with some detail and adjust it as needed.

Answer 2

"its hooked up to standard direct tv reciever using a s-video cable, maybe its the reciever or the cable. next week its gonna be hooked up to a direct tv hd reciever with a component or hdmi cable maybe that will help. ??"

Yes, get rid of the s-video cable in favor of the component or hdmi cable.

The green edge around the newscaster has to do with the green wall used to chroma key in the background. Basically the newscaster is sitting in front of a green wall or a monitor sized green block of wall. And what the chroma key does is replace the green color with the video that the technical director wants to place in the scene behind the newscaster. This has been done in TV since the mid 1950's when color was first added to TV (certainly in the 1960's and on).