Excellent Plasma, but very pricey, January 16, 2010

This is my first plasma HDTV purchase. The picture quality is fantastic. This is a NeoPDP panel (single pane of glass)

The panel thinness is still amazing to me. A screen this big and this thin looks crazy.

The sound is surprisingly good… the included speakers are also extremely thin. Not huge bass, but still very good for TV speakers.

The wireless feature is nice… especially for those who want a wall mount installation. You still have the option to use an HDMI cable from the separate tuner to the panel, if you like. I am using wireless, but on a stand. The stand has glass shelves. I have the tuner component on a lower shelf. Line of sight between transmitter and receiver, for the wireless, seems critical. This may be since I have the receiver almost directly over the transmitter.

The Viera Cast is nice, except I haven’t been able to get the Amazon-On-Demand to play anything. It logs in and I can access content… nothing plays. I have contacted both Panasonic and Amazon… twice and have not received a comment from either. You Tube, Picassa, Weather Channel and Bloomberg all work well. Viera Cast could be a very nice feature if they can add more content… Vudu, Hulu, Netflix, etc. would be nice.

The THX picture setting option has a yellowish hue… this seems to be inherent in the THX settings that Panasonic is using.

Pros

Picture quality

THIN screen

Cons

Price (although I did get this well below MSRP)

Amazon-On-Demand doesn’t play

2/4/10

I contacted Panasonic about the inability to stream Amazon VOD content. They were able to replicate the same problem on a TC-P54Z1 at their facility. Panasonic kept me posted via e-mail about their progress with this issue. A few days later, Panasonic tech support issued a firmware update that corrected the problem. Amazon VOD content now streams through Viera Cast. Very good customer support!

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Z1 Plasma, December 30, 2010

Wow! How did I get here! I can’t believe I own a Z1. I was looking to buy either a Plasma or LED TV in the 46-50″ range. Originally was looking at the Panasonic V10′s and the Samsung c8000 LED’s. I liked the performance of the Plasma & the looks of the LEDs. I was NOT looking for 3D TV’s, but that’s what corporate is pushing in their higher end units-I was quite frustrated by their market research and product direction (fad). The Z1 was in the upper stratosphere of price and quality, royalty really; I knew about it, but had no hopes of ever joining its inner circle. There was no way I was paying K for any TV. So I bought it (more later on this).This is an amazing TV. It combines the performance of Plasma with the aesthetics of an LED. It’s just about 1″ thin. It is only available in 54″. The side mounted speakers add about 2.5″ per side to the unit. Set-up time is just about 1 hour. Back-end connections are straight forward. The “controller” is not integrated to the TV (that’s part of why it can be only 1″ thin), so there is a separate “tuner” box that connects to HT and to the TV and to the remote receiver (it is a wireless remote, not IR-so you don’t even have to point it to the TV, but you do need to register it to the TV). I have only hooked up through fios (1080i) so I have not tested the tuner’s HD over the air function. The unit exhibits no sunlight glare or vieweing angle issues.

Viera CAST (IPTV)is pretty cool – got to see my Picassa slide shows, Stream HD movie from Amazon VOD, YouTube videos, Bloomberg, etc. – easy set-up and navigation – the unit even updated to latest firmware version- I wish I could add my own app’s and content I like, both public and private. Also, this concept (IPTV) is not quite there yet by these manufacturers. Some of the data entry is cumbersome on the TV remote-better concept would be to have a registration site where I could manage content and accounts online as well. SD slide shows ran smoothly from the SD card directly from my Canon PS, but not from my Nikon DSLR (5MB ea photo). SD detection was automatic. HD movies are….phenomenal…on this unit, be it camcorder, DVR or BlueRay. Sound output is fantastic on a 7.2 AVR home theater set-up. I haven’t spent too much time (yet) on THX and I haven’t yet played PCHD TV fed from PC through the TV.

This is a phenomenal TV. It is last year’s model and I am ok with that. It lists for K. IMO, it is not worth the list price. For 00 you can get this unit on Amazon now. At that price it is worth every penny. The TV has much better performance than the new 3D TV’s out there today in that price range and above. You’d be hard pressed to find a better TV at this price. It is a beautiful unit.

This is a phenomenal TV. It is last years model and i am ok with that. It lists for K. IMO, it is not worth the list price. For 00 you can get this unit on Amazon today. at that price it is worth every bit and more. much better performance than the new 3D tv’s out there now in this price range.

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S’OK, February 1, 2011

Television did not work right out of the box. Panasonic customer support was helpful and within 2 weeks got it repaired. The TV looks great and I havent found a bad viewing angle but like most flatscreens the speakers are under powered. Still the freedom of the wireless receiver makes this TV worth all the initial trouble.

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