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4.5 stars
"As good a flat panel picture as we found anywhere"
Pros: Sharp, quiet, versatile performer
Cons: None yet encountered in everyday use
Summary: Spectacular picture (in daylight and at night, from any angle and with input from either DVD player or HD cable box. The Panasonic appeared to have best rendering of human faces, compared with neighboring sets at several stores where itÕs stepbrother (the Panasonic TH-42PX50U) was on display.
Quiet and cool. Plasmas have a reputation for using a lot of power and generating a lot of heat, thus, requiring noisy fans. The power consumption of this model is listed as 337 W compares with other plasmas, but, even when weÕve had the monitor on for 7 or 8 hours, there is no more heat felt at the back and top than I can recall from regular TVs IÕve had. You can put your hand on the top, where the most heat dissipates, and it just feels like a mild hand warmer. As for noise, I have to lean over the top and put my ear close to the ventilation holes to hear what sounds like, if itÕs a fan, an incredibly quiet one. Even with sound on the home theater system muted, none of us can hear it, while standing a foot in front of the unit.
ItÕs also been said about plasmas (when comparing them to LCDs) that the typical shiny surface will produce distracting reflections in bright lighting. Even when the afternoon sun is behind us (and sunlight is coming through the row of windows right behind the couch) we see only minor signs of it on the screen. IÕm watching ESPN now, with the back door open and the blinds on those windows drawn up. When the screen is totally black I can see a low reflection. When thereÕs a picture on the screen, I see none.? I didnÕt check a lot of websites for an outlet from which to make the purchase. DTV City had an informative website and was highly rated by another website specializing in reviewing plasma displays. The sales people were low-keyed and willing (and able) to answer all my questions, during several preliminary inquiries, without pushing to sell it to me. The price of $2399 was not the lowest, but they also added a two-year in-home warranty for free (through Nov 1) and reasonable prices for delivery and third-party installation, so the bottom line came out lower on this website than others I compared. It cost $60 extra to specify an exact delivery day, so I shaved $60 off the total delivery price by opting for ÒcurbsideÓ rather than Òinto-the-houseÓ drop-off. It turned out not to matter, since it was a warm, sunny day and the delivery guy not only patiently took me through the detailed inspection that DTV City specifies but then said: ÒLetÕs bring it inside before we uncover the unit to check the screen.Ó
We had ordered a Peerless Tilt/Swivel stand for $299 and I had been supplied with the telephone number of a local Audio-Visual equipment installer to assemble the stand, attach the display to it, and set up the cables from the HD-DVR Comcast box, a Kenwood receiver/tuner and the DVD. Finding the assigned installer unpredictable and, in the end, impossible to reach, I and my family assembled the stand, attached the monitor to it, and figured out where all the cables went to and from. It took us about three or four hours, with a dinner break, but we were also hooking up a Kenwood HTB-S620DV Fineline Wireless Home Theater System -- keep in mind that this is only a monitor...you can buy matching speakers that attach on the side, but we had to fit it into a 41-inch wide space and itÕs 40 inches wide without the speakers. There is no tuner in it, so you canÕt just plug the cable pin into it and get a picture. You need a video-powered source (cable box) and a sound source.
IÕve never seen a widescreen that doesnÕt stretch the picture horizontally in some broadcasts or DVDs. This oneÕs ÒJustÓ and ÒZoomÓ settings, however, fill the screen (we like the ÒJust AspectÓ best) with a great picture. Zoom cuts out less than other Zooms we have used, while the ÒJustÓ settingÕs widening is as good (non-distorting) as any we can see on the displays at Best Buy and similar stores, plus it enhances display of basic Comcast stations.
The CNET editors did not review this specific model, but listed some negatives for its 50-inch big brother: ÒDoes not include a stand, a tuner, or speakers; sparse input selection; doesn't include a digital input; cannot change aspect ratios with HDTV sources; floats blacks.Ó If you want a stand, instead of wall mount, consider the Peerless Tilt/Swivel. Being able to easily swing the set around lets us watch it from either the kitchen or the family room. As for Òno tuner or speakersÓ, IÕm not sure IÕd categorize that as a ÒconÓ for a monitor -- thatÕs what a monitor is...like a monitor youÕd get for your computer, you wouldnÕt say itÕs a negative that you canÕt plug it directly into your cable modem box and surf the net because you have to buy the computer to put between the two. If you have a cable box for HD, that tuner will be overriding your TV tuner anyway. As for speakers, why get a display like this and then listen to the little speakers youÕd get built into a full-featured (monitor, tuner, and speakers) unit? We picked up a Kenwood HTB-S620DV Fineline Wireless Home Theater System for $439.99 from J&R. It shipped the day we ordered it and provides more surround sound than we thought we could get from a system that eliminates running wires to the rear speakers. The Kenwood system comes equipped with a single-disc DVD player with Progressive Scan Digital quality. The wireless transmitter/receiver provides full Surround to any corner of the room. Active EQ and Dolby Sound (along with six speakers, including a subwoofer) create as much deep and rich sound experience as the typical family room can usefully contain.As for CNETÕs Ò doesn't include a digital inputÓ, IÕd say that both a pro and con. Yes, you have to buy the HDMI or DVI input board, but that gives you the option of matching your monitor to your specific setup. For example, the Motorola dual tuner we received from Comcast comes with a DVI connection, so we could order the optional DVI board instead of the more common HDMI (which then would have required a converter). Finally, IÕm not sure if the 50-inch unit that CNET reviewed differs from our 42-inch Panasonic TH-42PHD8UK, but we can change aspect ratios with HDTV sources. We can do it easily by pressing the Aspect button on the remote. Each press cycles to the next of the aspect ratios -- Zoom, Normal (for 4:3 picture), Full, Just (displays 4:3 picture at full screen size but with justification algorithms in effect), Panasonic Auto (used to handle a mix of 16:9 and 4:3 programming, acting similar to Just mode).
The whole family continues to be wowed by how the Panasonic TH-42PHD8UK renders TV shows, HD movies coming through a Comcast cable box, and widescreen DVDs.Updated
Started with a $2399 price tag for this unit (DTV City threw in a two-year in-house warranty for that price). Add delivery charge and a DVI or HDMI connector board, some cables to connect our sound system, DVD< and cable box...and we had a fantastic large screen setup (as large as made sense for our family room, where people sit at various angles, about 9 or 10 feet away...sometimes 12 to 15, if we're at the kitchen table). Heat is only warm to the touch at top vents after 6 straight hours...you could leave your hand there and not feel you have to pull it away. Quiet...I have to lean over the top and put my ear near the top vents to notice a whisper-level fan. I can watch a DVD movie, with a ballgame shown picture-in-picture and switch the ballgame to the larger screen if something exciting is happening.Updated
We have had no problems using this display everyday for two months. The "aspects" button allows us to cycyle through what Panansonic calls "full display" (what you typically see on display in a sports bar - whole picture stretched horizontally to fill screen); "just" (Panasonic's feature which keeps actors/players in center of screen normal and unstretched and you only notice "full" type stretching at the margins; and "zoom," which fills screen with the largest non-stretched (i.e., normal" view, with a slight loss of edge detail) picture (unlike the DVD zoom feature we were used to on our old TVs, this zoom loses very little of the full picture in return for a movie-like image that gives the impression of viewing a larger than 42-inch screen). Also, a friend, an engineer who works for a company that does research development of improvements to plasma and other flat-panel displays, read the comment (posted in response to the "fanless, I don't think so" comment) about a "Break-in" period. His response was that, while all those cautious methods would, technically, yield the best picture for the longest time, nonetheless, if you ignored all that advice and used the brightest and most color-saturated "dynamic" setting right from day 1, you'd only notice a slight decline in picture quality after -- at the soonest -- about 10 years of everyday heavy usage. I don't think I've kept any set as my primary "TV" for that long.Updated
The "POS/SIZE" button + the "Aspect" button = full and accurate picture. Press "Aspect" until you have selected the "Full" screen choice. Then press the "POS/SIZE" button. Using the large round selector at the top of the remote (with the four dircetional arrows), press the down arrow until you select "V Size". Then press the right arrow as far as it will go. You will have stretched the picture vertically and eliminated the "short, fat people" distortion that "Full" can produce. To further fine tune the picture, wait a few seconds, then press the up arrow to fo to "H Size". Press the left arrow about 3 to 6 times and you'll end up with the picture (no cropping, as with Zoom, which is a pretty good choice, usually), but without the stretched out look of "Full" Aspect or the side distortion of "Just" Aspect.
