Panasonic Plasma TV Review

Model: Panasonic TH-42PD50U Plasma Television
Description: 42-inch EDTV Plasma Display, Widescreen 16:9 Format
Resolution: 853 x 480 (EDTV)
Includes: Remote, Built in (non-detachable) bottom-mounted speakers,
built in NTSC and ATSC (HDTV) tuner, Table top stand
Color: Silver all the way - casing, stand, and speakers
Reviewer: Robert Wiley with Charles La Rosa
Updated: August 2005

INTRODUCTION

The Panasonic TH-42PD50U Plasma TV is the latest addition to Panasonic's Viera consumer plasma television lineup. This plasma is a direct replacement of the 5th generation TH-42PD25U EDTV plasma - the best selling plasma TV in America last year—which was discontinued from production in January of 2005. There are several notable differences in the new model such as the bottom-mounted speakers, the integrated ATSC tuner, and the absence of a cable card slot. The new PD50U does contain Panasonic's fine 7-series plasma panel, which has much longer life, better brightness and almost negligible phosphor burn in. Panasonic has smartly omitted a couple of expensive add-ons in favor of making this plasma a great value piece for the picture quality.

The Panasonic Plasma TV excels in recreating realistic flesh tones

PICTURE: 92/100

Stellar would be the first word I would use to describe this plasma TVs overall picture element.

Out of the box the Panasonic TH-42PD50U comes standard with suped-up contrast (picture) and sharpness settings. Wow! this plasma TV has a lot of range! All adjustable settings for picture (contrast), brightness, sharpness, color, tint, and color temperature have -30 to +30 scale. But Panasonic actually follow through on this range unlike most plasma and LCD products. It's not eyewash. For example when adjusting the Tint setting one is able to take the plasma all the way to black and white at -30. Color, contrast and sharpness controls have extreme ends as well giving the user incredible flexibility. Excellent flesh tones can be easily manipulated to your whim. My recommended settings for this plasma are as follows: Contrast (Picture) -5 to +5 depending on room lighting (more lighting, higher number), Brightness +5 to increase dark matter detailing from those incredible black levels, Sharpness -5 to tone down those nasty false edges, Color leave at 0 as well as Tint.

This plasma television produces realistic flesh tones and incredible clarity, so much so that I found myself at times analyzing the complexion of one of the narrators of The Making of Spider Man. Of course with HDTV content it was just spectacular while downscaling my 1080i broadcast images to its native pixel resolution of 853X480. Like so many new displays, the Panasonic plasma did not disappoint with those stunning HD images, though you will sacrifice around 20% approximated clarity/quality to an HD plasma when viewing HD content. Those deep blacks really accent HD content and the Panasonics excellent gray scaling allows for fine detail in dark scenes.

I had a great chance to utilize the integrated ATSC (HDTV) tuner during the HD broadcast of The Masters on CBS. What a treat and the tuner performed with excellence, though the programming naturally did not have the depth that and HD high definition plasma has. I had a little picture drop out (pixelating) effect every once in a while when the signal was not strong enough from my over the air antenna, but this was not the fault of the plasma tv. Every green hue and sand explosion was perfectly visible! Television HD programming was so purely enjoyable it makes you wonder how we ever lived with those grainy clouded analog signals.

Panasonic includes 3 preset picture settings (in case you do not want to use my recommendation): standard, cinema, and vivid. We found the cinema mode the best for our dark showroom and closest to our recommendation. The default standard mode boosts contrast to an unneeded +20 and Sharpness to a potentially headache inducing +15. The Vivid mode produces a pronounced edgy image with contrast (picture) at the maximum +30. This setting should be used only when there is much ambient lighting, i.e. direct sunlight coming into the room. Other picture settings include color temperature options of warm, normal, and cool from which I preferred the normal setting. Further tweaking of the picture controls is not necessary to get a color accurate image. Tweaking of individual color channels is not possible on this display, nor is it really necessary given the excellent picture we obtained.

Watching our test video, Collateral, we were especially pleased with the detail from the 480p DVD images during dark scenes. Since much of the movie takes place at night, inside a dark cab, we benefited from the display's stated 4000:1 contrast ratio. Color was accurately transferred, as were subtle grays. This plasma did an excellent job of rendering difficult color transitions such as Tom Cruise, with his silvery-gray suit and gray hair, in all-white stairwells. The built in motion adaptive 3D digital comb filter had not problem with fast moving scenes - there was no "slurring" motion drag to be seen.

When measuring the display with our Video Essentials and Avia test DVDs we were very impressed by the gray scaling mechanics of this plasma with pluge patterns. And the unique range of the menu options allows for incredible control in color and hue variations. It's an easy unit to calibrate as per our recommendations mentioned previously for optimum viewing.

The plasma display is bright enough to perform in a well-lit room and, with its phenomenal black levels, was a pleasure to watch in a dark room. The screen can be viewed up to 180 degrees with optimal viewing takes place inside 90 degrees, after which point viewers may begin to see the image produced by the plasma grid reflecting off the glass panel display. This, despite the anti-reflective screen coating that Panasonic lists the plasma as having.

There are 4 preset aspect ratio modes: Just - for algorithmically scaling a 4:3 image or 16:9 image to better fit the screen size and take out the "stretched" appearance. 4:3 with side bars for normal programming, Full - which shows content as originally filmed (will be the preference for HD programming), and Zoom which again algorithmically scales images to fill the entire screen from other aspects. The Panasonic plasmas internal processing chips do an excellent job of scaling images in Just mode. The cropped side portions of the picture image that are lost in Just mode are extremely nominal, and images looked very symmetrical and pleasing to the eye.

OTHER CONSIDERATIONS: 88/100

The Panasonic TH-42PD50U plasma television is a welcome respite from the sea of feature-laden models being released today. There seemed to be just the right number of input jacks, remote buttons, and menu options to do what we wanted to do: watch TV and DVDs. Connecting the TV to whatever input source you have is easy thanks to two sets of component inputs, two sets of composite inputs, an HDMI jack, and coaxial jack. These inputs are enough to connect the standard DVD player, cable and satellite box, and VCR. There are no side, top, or bottom mount inputs to easily connect a camcorder or video game system. There are analog and digital sound output ports.

TH42PD50U Connection panel

Aesthetically, if you like silver then this plasma will appeal to you. There is nothing non-silver about it. Personally I like the looks of the plasma and especially the bottom-mounted speakers, which add no width - giving a more pleasing symmetry. There is no black banding around the screen for contrast on this unit, but this was not distracting since the plasma itself has such good contrast. Vertical height is 30.5 inches when placed on the included stand, width is nearly 42" and depth of the unit measures 3.8".

The built-in tuner is a little sluggish at times and channel switching can take a few seconds with a weak broadcast signal. Also, unlike Panasonic's consumer HD plasma displays, the user doesn't get the station ID along with the channel number. We actually received our best broadcast picture quality while using an external HD-tuner connected with component video cables (which also acted as a line doubler). Most user's setups will be like this anyway and involve either a cable box or a satellite box.

The 16 watts total power driving the bottom mounted was more than adequate for a plasma display this size. I was pleasantly amazed by the quality of the output - the separation and range high to bass was much better than I anticipated. A little more oomph might have been in order since a 42 display can fill large space, but in most cases these speakers should easily meet your needs and the sound quality did not distort at the top volume scope. Cranking up the bass will make for fuller sound and turning up the treble slightly will make for crisper sound. There are equalizers that will limit volume difference when changing channels or inputs.

Users will not be able to connect this plasma TV to computer via DVI or VGA and Panasonic explicitly says not to use the display with computer image sources in their comprehensive and well-designed manual.

Panasonic's menu system is clear and concise. Its two-color icons are easily readable and look much cleaner than the multi-colored icons used by earlier Panasonic Viera plasma TVs. The lack of a scrolling input select button on the remote caused switching between input device options to be a little cumbersome and non-logical. Other than that the 7 device universal remote was well laid out and complete.

The plasma television, which sits 30.5 inches tall on its included stand is heavy and does not come pre-attached to the stand. The stand requires a little assembly and two people are necessary to get the TV onto the stand. The TH-42P50U is approximately 42 inches wide, and the body of the TV is 4 inches deep. The base of the stand measuring 13 inches deep. In any installation space should be given for ventilation. Power consumption is listed at 290 watts but can go higher. Keep it lower and make the plasma last longer by keeping the contrast (picture) adjustment down in the recommended -5 to +5 range.

There is no cable card slot and therefore no QAM cable HD cable tuner included in this lower priced value oriented plasma TV. There is also an absence of a two tuner PIP or split screen option. Some of Panasonic's higher end plasma products have a cable card slot and PIP as well as QAM. Yes, it would be nice to get the cable box out of the room, but since HD capability is not yet available (as of this writing) by using a cable card, I don't plan on sacrificing that pinnacle of extra quality for a little added convenience.

VALUE: 98/100

My prediction is that the Panasonic TH-42P50U plasma will continue Panasonic's dominance of the EDTV plasma market. This plasma retails for $2499 (street price maybe $1999 even from an authorized dealer) and gives HUGE bang for the buck. There will not be anything (save for Panasonic's professional line EDTV plasma) that will even come close to the price/quality quotient of this offering for quite some time. With the absence of a cable card slot and PIP/split screen in mind, this is grade A, first tier plasma picture quality selling at near 3rd tier manufacturer prices. It's going to be dominant. The major choice for a buyer is whether or not to step up to the HDTV plasma line since there is now plenty of HD programming. A viewer will sacrifice around 20% picture quality in clarity and depth to HD Panasonic plasma when viewing HD programming.

It's time for those complaining that the wife does not want to spend the money on a TV to stop whining and get off their duff. At this price/quality you will spew with pride and still have enough left over to consider one for another room!

OVERALL RATING (with Picture double-weighted): 92/100

Rating scale from 70 (denoting poorest quality) to 100 (signifying the very best quality). A rating in the 60s for any particular category of a product review indicates a serious defect which causes the product not to operate properly. Picture quality is double-weighted in the Overall Rating Score calculation.

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