Quote Originally Posted by Smokey
But only after 1,500 hrs (9 months) of operation?

There must a design flaw in their 2009 plasma line up. The author mentioned that 2005 Panasonic plasma they had (beside Pioneer plasma) also showed no increase in black level.
First off, this is a firmware issue particular to Panasonic's 2009 NeoPDP line, which at that time was a brand new design (not simply an updated version of their existing panels). It does not affect the G12 series panels, and they've supposedly updated the firmware with the current series. I have one of the G11 series panels, and my calibration results are exactly the same now as they were a year ago.

What's disappointing to me is that Panasonic has not issued any kind of firmware update that allows the user to reset the rather aggressive black level adjustments built into the firmware. Even so, the black levels on those sets still outperform the vast majority of LCD sets.