allajunaki
New Member
Hi,
Before I begin, let me start by saying that I'm not as big a videophile as some of the guys around here. However, I can be considered as "Above average" in terms of video.
Let me start with the basics :
Cost of the TV : 70k
Showroom : Panasonic Brandshop Koramangala.
What else did I get with TV : 3D Eye wear ( I still dont have it. Should get it today)
Date of purchase 07-AUG-2011
Let me start with the obvious,
What? 70k?!?! for a 42" plasma. Yes it feels a bit overpriced. But let me assure you, you get your paisa's worth. It may not be value for money, but its performance for money. Well, all good stuff in this world are a lil overpriced, arent they
I will not get into the story of my purchase, but it all boiled down to either this or Samsung PS51D550. I chose to go with smaller panny, contrary to most of the others who went for bigger sammy.
Looks
For some this is important. So I will cover it here. In one word, understated.
This TV looks plain and understated. You will have tough time convincing your neighbours and family that this is infact belongs to top drawer televisions on the planet.
No not that its bad looking, not at all. But it doesnt have any of the jazzy bezel like samsung and LG. I think panasonic's spartan looks very classy. TV looks like its built for a purpose, and it does not feel cheap, quite contrary, spend 5 mins, and you realize this is infact well-built TV.
Video (PQ)
Now this is where Panasonic shines. Blacks levels are very very good, contrast is amazing. Colors are well defined, they do have a slight purple hue, as observed by other members in avsforum and elsewhere. However, I doubt most of the people will notice it. Dont worry its not distracting enough, its mild and miles ahead of anything else you would find in most of the panels.
I like the "True Cinema" mode and "Normal" mode.
Panel brightness is sufficient, and I do not think I need any more. Contrast 50 is enough. Infact, I find true cinema a bit too bright for the dark room viewing.
However, as it has been discussed before, this panel is NOT as bright as the some of the other Plasma panels. This is due the filter present on the screen that robs some of its brightness.
The filter on this panel is designed to eliminate the washout of the panel, if there are overhead lights, and it works rather well.
Compared to my previous plasma, which had no filter, it used to suffer mild washout whenever we opened some of the curtains in the guest bedroom (Angle of guestbedroom was such that, the light from the windows of the room will indirectly cast off on TV). With the new panel, this issue is gone. Also, my previous panel used suffer very mild washout whenever there is an overhead light. This panel has no such issues.
The filter is designed to eliminate any light sources incident on the panel at 30 degrees or more. That means vertical viewing angle is restricted to 30 degrees. Anything more and the image starts losing brightness as we move away. So another thing to consider while getting this tv (or any tv with filters). However, horizontal viewing angle is at 173 dergrees. So no problem there. In any event LCD's have far worse vertical viewing angles.
Black levels are stable, but I do have an occasional Brightness pop (Search the net for Fluctuating Brightness level to know more). But the good news is Panasonic has addressed this. Im planning to take it up with Panasonic India, lets see how it goes. Its not as bad as other 2011 panels, but its there and when it happens you know it. FBr is a minor annoyance, and I wouldnt hold it against it since panasonic has already solved it, just not on my TV. It involves an EEPROM flash or replacement of A-Board, a 20 mins job. Apparently GT30 and VT30 suffers more than ST30.
I'm not fan of Motion Smoothing technologies. But I turned it on for some time to see how it does, and for the sake of this report. It works, all motion smoothened. As with any predictive technology, it does share a few miscalculations here and there. But it does mess up when there is a moving bright picture over subtitle. Its just in that area. In general it seems to fumble with Sharp contrast things around, like overlaid text or subtitles. But on the image itself it works rather well. And the effect is most apparent in movies.
Resolution enhancer works when feeding TV with SD Signal. Again, I did not have a chance to test it. Mainly because TS+ HD does the upscaling.
But I did set TS+ HD to 576p, and noticed that TV does a much better job at upscaling (Not saying much, anything will do better than TS+ HD).
There is a VIVID mode, which enhances the colors. It works as advertised, not a fan , turned it off.
Eco Mode or Contrast tracking based on ambient lighting. I like this, since it allows the TV to compensate for the lighting. The good thing is, this TV does in both ways. If there is strong light in the room TV will "Boost" contrast to match with room lighting. This is different from most the tv that only tones down the contrast and not boost it. So sometime when I turn on Eco Mode it actually boosts the contrast (espcially during day time with curtains open).
Also, one thing to note is that this TV has no "Custom" mode on video. However we can adjust any of the regular modes available on the TV. The international models have the "custom" mode with advanced controls, why Panny? why do you treat us like idiots?
Connectivity options
Tv features 4 HDMI ports, 3 USB and 1 SD Card slot with a few AV ports ( 1 Component, 2 Composite). It also features VGA and antenna in. HDMI port 2 features Audio Return channel. So any content I play from TV, will stream audio back to my Onkyo reciever via the connector that is used to connect it to tv.
TV on a wire
As with (all?) 2011 panny panels, this one features extensive internet options. We have youtube, facebook, twitter, shoutcast, bigflix, seventymm, dailymotion and bunch of others I have not heard of. Its DLNA complaint and can stream movies,music, pictures from all the media servers at my home. I can also send stuff to my TV from phone laptop etc. I believe this feature is called remote play. I think its one of the aspects of DLNA, and as such its a common standard.
However, this is only wifi-ready, which means you need to buy wifi dongle. The good news is it works with some of the third party wifi plugin dongles check this link : USB Information of VIERA 2011-year Models (Option 6_2a) | TV | Digital AV | Consumer Products | Support | Panasonic Global
It plays all the file formats I tried, including some of the HD content (720p).
However, TV pulls all the videos and represent it as flat set of files. For music all the folders are shown flat. While I appreciate the idoeology, I hate this implimentation. I for one prefer folder based navigation. My 1 TB harddisk took forever to show up.
Since I have HTPC and PS3, and since TV supports DLNA remote play. I dont think I will use the USB port all that much. But if you do, then make sure that you dont use something like 1TB hard disk with 1000's of videos (Literally, it has some 700GB worth videos, most of them in SD and some in HD).
Sound
Sounds reasonable. Has virtual surround and stuff. I have not tested extensively, since I have HT. But for usual stuff it sounded good enough.
3D
Tested 3D with Panasonic TY-EW3D10W (2010 Model). While there is definite 3D, there is some level of cross talk. I heard 2011 models have significantly lesser cross talk. Unfortunately this one is 2010 model. Anyways, 3D works well. Im planning to get Xpand X103 from US (as and when someone returns from there). I will need a second pair anyway for my wife
. I tested this with Crysis 2 from ps3.
ps3 also has "play memories" which has some 3 pics. They were quite good with no cross talk to speak of. Its only when there are high contrast objects that I notice the faint cross talk. Also, there is a significant shift in color balance and brightness. This is mainly TV trying to compensate the for the dip in brightness for the 3D glasses. Anyways all TVs suffer inaccurate colors and lose some contrast when watching in 3D, this one is no expception. Also, 3d has some extra fatigue when compared with normal viewing ( Im sure all of you knew that). Anyways, I can seem myself using it occasionally, not on a regular basis.
Before I begin, let me start by saying that I'm not as big a videophile as some of the guys around here. However, I can be considered as "Above average" in terms of video.
Let me start with the basics :
Cost of the TV : 70k
Showroom : Panasonic Brandshop Koramangala.
What else did I get with TV : 3D Eye wear ( I still dont have it. Should get it today)
Date of purchase 07-AUG-2011
Let me start with the obvious,
What? 70k?!?! for a 42" plasma. Yes it feels a bit overpriced. But let me assure you, you get your paisa's worth. It may not be value for money, but its performance for money. Well, all good stuff in this world are a lil overpriced, arent they
I will not get into the story of my purchase, but it all boiled down to either this or Samsung PS51D550. I chose to go with smaller panny, contrary to most of the others who went for bigger sammy.
Looks
For some this is important. So I will cover it here. In one word, understated.
This TV looks plain and understated. You will have tough time convincing your neighbours and family that this is infact belongs to top drawer televisions on the planet.
No not that its bad looking, not at all. But it doesnt have any of the jazzy bezel like samsung and LG. I think panasonic's spartan looks very classy. TV looks like its built for a purpose, and it does not feel cheap, quite contrary, spend 5 mins, and you realize this is infact well-built TV.
Video (PQ)
Now this is where Panasonic shines. Blacks levels are very very good, contrast is amazing. Colors are well defined, they do have a slight purple hue, as observed by other members in avsforum and elsewhere. However, I doubt most of the people will notice it. Dont worry its not distracting enough, its mild and miles ahead of anything else you would find in most of the panels.
I like the "True Cinema" mode and "Normal" mode.
Panel brightness is sufficient, and I do not think I need any more. Contrast 50 is enough. Infact, I find true cinema a bit too bright for the dark room viewing.
However, as it has been discussed before, this panel is NOT as bright as the some of the other Plasma panels. This is due the filter present on the screen that robs some of its brightness.
The filter on this panel is designed to eliminate the washout of the panel, if there are overhead lights, and it works rather well.
Compared to my previous plasma, which had no filter, it used to suffer mild washout whenever we opened some of the curtains in the guest bedroom (Angle of guestbedroom was such that, the light from the windows of the room will indirectly cast off on TV). With the new panel, this issue is gone. Also, my previous panel used suffer very mild washout whenever there is an overhead light. This panel has no such issues.
The filter is designed to eliminate any light sources incident on the panel at 30 degrees or more. That means vertical viewing angle is restricted to 30 degrees. Anything more and the image starts losing brightness as we move away. So another thing to consider while getting this tv (or any tv with filters). However, horizontal viewing angle is at 173 dergrees. So no problem there. In any event LCD's have far worse vertical viewing angles.
Black levels are stable, but I do have an occasional Brightness pop (Search the net for Fluctuating Brightness level to know more). But the good news is Panasonic has addressed this. Im planning to take it up with Panasonic India, lets see how it goes. Its not as bad as other 2011 panels, but its there and when it happens you know it. FBr is a minor annoyance, and I wouldnt hold it against it since panasonic has already solved it, just not on my TV. It involves an EEPROM flash or replacement of A-Board, a 20 mins job. Apparently GT30 and VT30 suffers more than ST30.
I'm not fan of Motion Smoothing technologies. But I turned it on for some time to see how it does, and for the sake of this report. It works, all motion smoothened. As with any predictive technology, it does share a few miscalculations here and there. But it does mess up when there is a moving bright picture over subtitle. Its just in that area. In general it seems to fumble with Sharp contrast things around, like overlaid text or subtitles. But on the image itself it works rather well. And the effect is most apparent in movies.
Resolution enhancer works when feeding TV with SD Signal. Again, I did not have a chance to test it. Mainly because TS+ HD does the upscaling.
But I did set TS+ HD to 576p, and noticed that TV does a much better job at upscaling (Not saying much, anything will do better than TS+ HD).
There is a VIVID mode, which enhances the colors. It works as advertised, not a fan , turned it off.
Eco Mode or Contrast tracking based on ambient lighting. I like this, since it allows the TV to compensate for the lighting. The good thing is, this TV does in both ways. If there is strong light in the room TV will "Boost" contrast to match with room lighting. This is different from most the tv that only tones down the contrast and not boost it. So sometime when I turn on Eco Mode it actually boosts the contrast (espcially during day time with curtains open).
Also, one thing to note is that this TV has no "Custom" mode on video. However we can adjust any of the regular modes available on the TV. The international models have the "custom" mode with advanced controls, why Panny? why do you treat us like idiots?
Connectivity options
Tv features 4 HDMI ports, 3 USB and 1 SD Card slot with a few AV ports ( 1 Component, 2 Composite). It also features VGA and antenna in. HDMI port 2 features Audio Return channel. So any content I play from TV, will stream audio back to my Onkyo reciever via the connector that is used to connect it to tv.
TV on a wire
As with (all?) 2011 panny panels, this one features extensive internet options. We have youtube, facebook, twitter, shoutcast, bigflix, seventymm, dailymotion and bunch of others I have not heard of. Its DLNA complaint and can stream movies,music, pictures from all the media servers at my home. I can also send stuff to my TV from phone laptop etc. I believe this feature is called remote play. I think its one of the aspects of DLNA, and as such its a common standard.
However, this is only wifi-ready, which means you need to buy wifi dongle. The good news is it works with some of the third party wifi plugin dongles check this link : USB Information of VIERA 2011-year Models (Option 6_2a) | TV | Digital AV | Consumer Products | Support | Panasonic Global
It plays all the file formats I tried, including some of the HD content (720p).
However, TV pulls all the videos and represent it as flat set of files. For music all the folders are shown flat. While I appreciate the idoeology, I hate this implimentation. I for one prefer folder based navigation. My 1 TB harddisk took forever to show up.
Since I have HTPC and PS3, and since TV supports DLNA remote play. I dont think I will use the USB port all that much. But if you do, then make sure that you dont use something like 1TB hard disk with 1000's of videos (Literally, it has some 700GB worth videos, most of them in SD and some in HD).
Sound
Sounds reasonable. Has virtual surround and stuff. I have not tested extensively, since I have HT. But for usual stuff it sounded good enough.
3D
Tested 3D with Panasonic TY-EW3D10W (2010 Model). While there is definite 3D, there is some level of cross talk. I heard 2011 models have significantly lesser cross talk. Unfortunately this one is 2010 model. Anyways, 3D works well. Im planning to get Xpand X103 from US (as and when someone returns from there). I will need a second pair anyway for my wife
. I tested this with Crysis 2 from ps3. ps3 also has "play memories" which has some 3 pics. They were quite good with no cross talk to speak of. Its only when there are high contrast objects that I notice the faint cross talk. Also, there is a significant shift in color balance and brightness. This is mainly TV trying to compensate the for the dip in brightness for the 3D glasses. Anyways all TVs suffer inaccurate colors and lose some contrast when watching in 3D, this one is no expception. Also, 3d has some extra fatigue when compared with normal viewing ( Im sure all of you knew that). Anyways, I can seem myself using it occasionally, not on a regular basis.
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