Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I've had this TV for approximately 2 weeks now - It's my first Plasma TV - replaced a 10 year old 46" LCD television. After visiting every local store and kicking tires - I was sold that Plasma was the way to go. The clarity of the picture - 160 degree viewing angle with no decline in picture quality and sharp picture during fast moving picture ( i.e. sports ) + the vivid sharpness of blacks / reds / oranges / greens / blues made it pretty easy decision.
I went with the PANASONIC b/c of Consumer reports review of last years models. It was rated as best picture for non HD programming over any of it's competitors. Going shopping for these things locally is similar to buying a used car - b/c most stores won't show you anything but a HD signal - but I was able to get one store to show me a digital signal to a couple models and was able to view a DVD of TOP GUN on this and a few other models. Alot of brands will have a significant dropoff in quality from HD to digital signal - NOT this panasonic.
The picture in HD is simply amazing. Clarity / sharpness / at all angles of viewing both near and far away from the screen. The speakers are very good too - I will play a movie through the Home Theatrre - but day to day viewing the speakers will be more than adequate for most viewers.
The picture in non - HD programming - Comcast digital cable signal. About 85 % of the programming is pretty close to the same quality as High Def. Alot of the cable programming seems to be formatted in anticipation of High Def viewing and look very sharp and clear. Occasionally ( maybe 10 - 15 % of cable programming ) you'll get a feed that's not quite as sharp and ther'es a noticeable decline in picture quality from the HD or normal Digital programming. However - I've checked that same programming on my older CRT television - I found that the ( Non-HD programming with poor signal ) picture on the 50" plasma is the same quality as what I'm getting on my 20" non digital television. The only difference is that most of the programming is so much better in quality on this plasma TV that it seems like the picture isn't good for those few broadcasts. BUT - it's not poor picture from plasma Tube - it's just a bad signal that looks worse in comparison to the other channels and/or programming.
*** Don't let a salesperson talk you out of this TV if you have a large pictue window. I almost decided against the Plasma tube b/c a circuit city salesperson said the reflection would annoy me with a large window in the room. We have a west facing picture window in the rear with a tree outside the window. There is reflection on this tube - but it's no different than the reflection you'd get with a standard CRT tube television. We just pull down the shades a bit - and we haven't noticed anything that would be bothersome when viewing a program. We bought it with the assurance that if the reflection was an issue we could swap it out for a LCD or other television. We're keeping the Panasonic Plasma!!!!
I'm totally happy we bought this TV - and have no regrets for choosing the Panasonic. I'd buy this TV again in a heartbeat. The only thing I don't know about is the longevity of this type of tube - but I'll learn that over time. We spent 400 bucks on an in home 4 year service plan to accompany the TV. The marketing says it will last 27 years if viewed 6 hours per day - but I think that's a little optimistic. I did however learn in my research that this technology has been around for 30 or 40 years so I'm hoping that means there won't be any technical quirks to still work out.
Jake
Click Here to see more reviews about: Panasonic TH-50PX60U 50-Inch Plasma HDTV
Featuring Panasonic's 9th generation gas-plasma screen, the 50-inch TH-50PX60U features a width-to-height 16:9 aspect ratio similar to movie theater screens, providing a theater-like experience at home. Its maximum of 29 billion colors and over 3,000 shades of gradation provide exceptionally fine detail for outstanding HDTV reproduction. The set's built-in ATSC (DTV) tuner pulls HD signals (480p/720p/1080i) right from the airwaves, and its QAM tuner is fully compatible with unscrambled HDTV cable reception. A standard analog NTSC tuner receives standard-definition (SD) programming. It also includes a Secure Digital (SD) memory card slot, enabling you to take an SD card directly from a digital still camera or camcorder and insert it directly into the TV for quick and colorful photo slideshows. A plasma screen renders vivid colors like you've never seen before (as in, up to 29 billion in this case), extremely wide viewing angles (wider, even, than those of most LCD screens), and easy placement due to a plasma monitor's slim profile--the TH-42PX60U is a mere 3.7 inches deep, one of the slimmest plasmas around--perfect for desk or wall mounting. Brightness tends to be extremely uniform across plasma screens, which are also impervious to the picture distortion and negative color balances that afflict CRT monitors when placed near lighting or sound systems. The TH-50PX60U features a 1366 x 768-pixel resolution and an amazing contrast ratio of 10000:1. (The higher the contrast ratio, the greater a TV's ability to display subtle color details and not get washed out by ambient room light.) The 3D Y/C digital comb filter constantly analyzes the three dimensions of picture height, picture width, and picture changes-over-time, to reduce dramatically edge image artifacts while improving transition detail. Other features include V-Chip parental controls, on/off sleep timers, closed-caption decoding, aspect ratio control, and video input labeling. The TV's internal stereo speakers are powered by 10 watts per channel (for 20 watts of total power). It features the following connection options: Component (Y/Pb/Pr): 2 inputs (with 2 audio inputs) HDMI: 2 inputs Composite (RCA audio/video): 3 inputs (1 on the front), 1 output S-Video: 3 inputs (1 on the front) HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) is a lossless, uncompressed, all-digital audio/video interface to link any AV source with an audio and/or video monitor, such as a digital television (DTV). HDMI supports standard-definition (SD), enhanced definition (ED), or high-definition (HD) video, plus multi-channel digital audio--all using a single cable. If a component doesn't have an HDMI connection, you'll also get great picture reproduction using the three-jack component video (Y/Pb/Pr) input, which provides separate connections for luminance (Y), blue color difference (PB) and red color difference (PR). This results in increased bandwidth for color information, resulting in a more accurate picture with clearer color reproduction and less bleeding than you would get with S-Video or composite (RCA yellow video plug) connections. Component video output is available only for DVD playback. What's in the Box Plasma TV, remote control (with batteries), pedestal base, power cord, printed operating instructions
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