Rating  - Nice!
The "White Glove Service" did not impress me and really wasn't "wowed" by the overall delivery process, however, the unit is awesome.
Rating  - Poor picture with fast moving scenes
First, the picture quality is great with hd movies. The biggest problem is poor picture quality when rendering fast moving scenes like camera panning the base ball stadium, or camera following a skier, etc. The moving background is so "pixelly" it actually gives you a headache. Second, the basic colors red and green are not very realistic. In short, a great plasma panel but the basic colors could be better but the deal-breaker is the poor/very-ineffective video accelerator or Video Noise Reduction. I returned mine for a pioneer plunking another grand+. Cheers
Rating  - For PC/HTPC through HDMI do NOT use rear HDMI, use the SIDE HDMI, otherwise 10 red lights
Very nice picture, nice size, just what I was looking for on a plasma. I had just gotten the screen several hours ago and was playing around with my PC, dvd etc. I had hooked up my computer and calibrated my remote, the tv turned off, but didn't turn on again. I was getting 10 red blinking lights, I was buggin' so I searched the net and thanks to svkowalski (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=13649180#post13649180) he/she discovered this.
Low and behold, once I plugged the side HDMI, the tv turned on as if nothing happened. Boy was I relieved. Another post confirms that this is actually a manufacturer "glitch" http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=14047992#post14047992 and not on random screens. I had been reading posts of others having a technician come by several times and the anomaly would not go away, I'm so glad it was something as simple as changing the HDMI.
This seems to only affect PCs/HTPC with a DVI->HDMI adapter and it's regardless of what vendor card you have (nvidia/ati), I have a Geforce 8800gt.
Otherwise I liked the Amazon price, and free shipping. I saw the screen in B&M stores going for at least 200 more plus tax. Delivery was good and the people helped me put the screen on my wall mount which was nice.
Rating - So good I bought two !!!!!!
Just a short review as there are so many already.
I spent approximately 3 years researching displays. No it didn't take me that long to figure things out, I was basically waiting for the technology to meet my expectations at a given price point.
After exhaustive research I narrowed things down to Plasma and then further down to either this set or the Samsung A550. The reason I picked the Panny over the Samsung, to be succinct:
- better black levels
- reliability (reportedly a bit more stable than the Samsung's, though they have gotten better)
- anti-reflective coating (the Panasonic has the Samsung thoroughly beat)
- IR (image retention) resistance, Panasonic is supposedly on the cutting edge for this
That said, I'll comment a bit on the Panasonic image specifically; it is stunning. First, the scaler (the hardware that handles different source material like standard definition broadcast, etc.) in this thing is top notch. I am truly impressed with what it has done with standard cable (and of course HD cable looks great). I was under the impression that few if any modern displays could handle SD well, frankly because I hadn't seen evidence of it. I was wrong, there have been a few times that I had to look hard to tell I was watching Standard Def (CNN puts out an especially clean broadcast in my area). Secondly, HD content; doubly stunning! I'm running both HD Cable and a PS3 Blu-ray. I figured I'd be buying many of my movies again in Blu-ray....wrong. Certainly true HD content has the edge but the upscaler combined with this set is jaw dropping, Pixar DVDs are quite amazing.
Now a few comments about Plasma vs LCD:
No doubt LCD has it's place, some people simply want a very "punchy" and extremely bright display. This is especially useful for daytime/bright room viewing. However, the drawbacks are considerable:
- motion lag/bur: if you see it (and I do) it's VERY distracting
- black levels clearly not up to par, which greatly affects the overall picture quality
On the other hand Plasma pluses:
- no motion lag
- industry standard black levels
- extremely realistic/film like experience
A few words on Image Retention & Burn in:
These are not the same thing though the terms are often used interchangeably. Image Retention is the result of a static image (any image that doesn't change for extended periods; video game displays, station identification, etc) to remain on the screen even after you've changed images. This is a temporary problem and one that is easily erased by viewing full screen for short periods where all the pixel locations on the screen will get some activity. Frankly I've not seen even one instance on my set. Burn-in is the extreme, unfixable version of this, leaving a static image on the screen for many hours (all day) or always watching all your content letterboxed will certainly lead to burn in. It's easy to avoid. The Panasonic is especially immune to this and even has many safety features built in to prevent it (pixel shifting and auto off if a screen remains unchanged for an extended period).
Finally a few quick tips for new owners, gleaned mostly from the AVS forums and partly directly from Panasonic's own website:
- Keep the Picture (contrast) and Brightness levels under 50 for the first 100 hrs. This helps the phosphors become "tempered" and in turn not so easily susceptible to bun-in and image retention. As I said, I've yet to experience either.
- Watch everything in Just mode (full screen) for the first 100 hrs for the same reasons listed above
- After the first 100 hrs you can turn things up & start watching things in letterbox, here are some recommended levels:
Picture: +70
Brightness: +48
Color: +44
Tint: -3
Sharpness: 0
Color temp: Warm
Color mgmt: Off
x.v.Color: Off
C.A.T.S.: Off
One final note for those on the fence: Don't go by what you see in the stores, what is displayed in no way exemplifies what these sets (any brand really) are capable of. My picture is light years better than anything I ever saw at Best Buy (including this very set). Delivery from Amazon/CEVA was a breeze by the way, took one week from ordering to door.
Rating - Even the Support has been good
Bought this TV a little over a month ago, and I really like it a lot. The picture is spectacular once you get past the break-in period and can ramp up the contrast and brightness a little.
Plenty of inputs to suit my needs, although I wish the PC input would accept 1080p. The highest resolution the PC input will do is 1366x768 (or whatever), which is kind of a downer since the HDMI and component can do so much more.
The sound from the integrated speakers is only so-so. I had to ramp up the input on my DVD player to be able to hear the voices at all. After a couple weeks I finally noticed that no sound was coming out the right speaker at all. Called Panasonic's concierge service, who had someone at my house two days later. The tech pulled the back off my TV and fixed the problem within 10 minutes.
Whew.
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