Stunning, July 13, 2009

Edited 2/4/10

I wanted to edit this review with an update. In the past couple of weeks there has been alot of attention on the Panasonic Vierra series plasmas due to many reports of the black levels changing suddenly and getting brighter, degrading the quality of picture. While it apparently has not impacted alot of users, a small portion have noted this, enough to be concerned. You can see the original thread at Avsforums and is being discussed by the original reviewer at CNET (see link below).

While I still stand behind my review below, and I have not experienced this changing black levels, I will be monitoring it and I just wanted people reviewing this TV to know about this potentially troubling issue. Panasonic has issued a statement (in the Cnet link below)stating they auto set the darkness after a period of time to help maintain optimal picture quality over time. In this case, it appears they over compensated. It is a problem and Panasonic needs to step up with a fix.

[...]

———–Original Review——–

I just got the TCP54G10. STUNNING! A little history. I have been looking at HDTVs for about 3 years, and looking at DLPs originally, then went into this year thinking LCD is the way to go. I’m glad I waited, the inverse relationship between the technology and the prices is right this year.

Before you go buy an HDTV, do yourself a favor, look at this TV, and do some research. Read other reviews. It turned me around to plasma and to this 2009 model plasma from Panasonic in particular. I knew plasmas simply have a superior picture, but I thought the price and issues with plasmas were a detriment.

I came into this dead set on an LCD, most likely from Samsung, that was before I started doing research on the latest Plasmas. Picture quality compared to an LCD, it’s simply stunning, LCD has nothing on the plasmas. The Panasonic G10 is nothing short of amazing. The upconvert DVDs on this are amazing, and with our Pioneer Blu-Ray it is jaw dropping.

While I knew the picture quality on plasmas can’t be beat in terms of picture quality and the ability to handle fast action in movies or sports with no problem. Versus LCD, Plasmas can handle a nearly infinite color palate so the pictures come out very natural, and you can see all the nuances of colors (like the Planet Earth series). An LCD looks, well, manufactured in terms of the picture, and can only handle so many colors.

I thought the issues of plasmas still outweighed the plusses. But they don’t with the new plasmas and especially this G10 series from Panasonic. A) No Buzzing, (we live in Colorado where you would get this at higher altitudes), B) wattage, very comperable to LCDs, negligable difference between LCDs, C) price, better than LCDs. D) The glass on this sest is covered in a very resilient scratch resistant plastic screen. E) Burn in or retention of picture. No problem there with this series. F) Heat, not noticeably hotter than an LCD (this is BIG) G) It is very quiet, I can stand right next to it after an hour of watching a movie and hear no sound from the fans or anything. H) Brightness: User adjustable picture, it seems very bright, and it’s antiglare coating on the screen is very good.

Oh the dirty little secret from some of my research. The other manufacturers alledgedly are getting out of plasma, why? Because Panasonic apparently owns the manufacturing plants, and they would have to pay Panasonic, or they have invested in LCD technologies elsewhere and it is thus they have greater margins for LCDs vs plasmas. Thus they can’t compete on price. I’ve seen many reviews now where folks are going plasma vs lcd after their research.

The G10 series handles fast action with no blurriness and no flicker (LCDs have just started to get around this with 120 hz). You’ll read about the 600 HZ subfield drive on this latest model and it works fantastic.

(New edit: We just hooked up an over the air digital antenna to watch our local football games, the local channel is in HD. The TV handled this just fine and even displayed it in HD with it’s built in digital tuner. We saw no blurrieness in the action at all! THe picture was sharp, and crystal clear in HD.)

In terms of movies and blu-ray: This handles 24p very nicely. For 24p processing, you can choose between a 48hz mode (where you will definately notice flickering), but it defaults to 60hz, with no flickering and few “judders” that we can see, in processing 24p at 60hz.

Some reviews say “well it still doesn’t handle “true cinema” 24p because the 60hz is not at the same multiple of the 24fps in which the media was filmed, and thus you won’t see the film at quite the original cinematic cadence as in the theater. While this is technically true, we watch 1080p/24p from the source with 3:2 pull down off, beautifully. (Though…

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Wow, May 27, 2009

By 

C. Abrahamson – See all my reviews

  

I finally convinced my fiancee that we needed to upgrade her old 27 inch CRT in our living room to a new HDTV and after researching for a few months, I came to the conclusion that this was the TV I wanted to replace it with. I have absolutely no regrets on this purchase. The picture is stunning out of the box when hooked up to our DirecTV HD receiver. I haven’t even had to change any of the default settings to adjust the picture settings. I have yet to run a blu-ray movie through it, but my PS3 is hooked up and playing some LittleBigPlanet on it looks twice as nice as playing on my old Sony 52 inch 1080i rear projection set. Sound through the built in speakers is fine, but with a TV like this, you’ll be doing yourself a disservice to not get a set of 5.1 or 7.1 speakers and receiver to fully enjoy your HD. The Viera Cast is a nice little bonus, although watching YouTube videos on such a big screen is really muddy looking. I hope they add in NetFlix streaming to go along with their Amazon rental service built in already. Standard definition tv watching isn’t bad at all once you get use to the filtering/upconverting that the set does. I do wish their was at least one more HDMI and one more component input on the back to hold all my gaming systems and various other accessories I would like to hook up to this TV, but that’s the only knock I have against this fantastic TV. I can’t wait for football season to start!

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Just right., July 3, 2009

By 

R. Vaughn “ravaughn” (Salem, OR USA) – See all my reviews

  

I bought this TV from the local Video Only for 50 in late May, but didn’t pick it up until the Friday before Father’s Day (since I got it for my father), or install it until a week later.

I have it hooked up to:

3 Sony 400 Disc DVD Changers

Sony Receiver

Psyclone PlayStation 2 Hi-Grade Source Selector

Samsung DVD Recorder

PlayStation 3 80GB

Linksys PLK300 PowerLine AV Ethernet Adapter Kit

Linksys WRT610N Simultaneous Dual-N Band Wireless Router

Cyberpower 1030HT 10-Outlet Surge Suppressor – 6000 Joules 15A RJ11/Coax(3)/RJ45 EMI/RFI

Sound can be a bit tinny, but if you want to watch a movie or concert on TV you can just use the optical audio out to your surround system.

Standard definition TV looks ok. All the new channels we get thanks to the internal HDTV tuner are great.

Standard definition movies look excellent, but Blu-ray movies from the PS3 are breathtaking. We tested it with The Fifth Element (Remastered) [Blu-ray] and… WOW. The detail is astounding. For a perfectionist like me bass and blacks add the depth necessary for a true entertainment system. The black/color/detail this TV is capable of will meet all your needs, wants and then some.

We have it set up in a room with a large window wall casting bright sunlight directly on the screen almost all day and there are no problems with glare/reflections obstructing or negatively impacting the view.

One thing I would say, if you have to watch standard definition, you should be no less than 10 or so (give or take a couple) feet from the monitor. The lower the resolution, the harder it is to watch on a 54″ screen. However, with quality Blu-ray and high definition video games you can be nose-to-glass and still enjoy the view.

I definitely recommend this product.

UPDATE:

09/19/09

I’ve been using this TV for months now and thought I should add something to my initial review…

First off, the best full system ‘show-off’ piece I’ve come across so far is the lobby/helicopter scene from The Ultimate Matrix Collection [Blu-ray]. Also, Watchmen (Director’s Cut) [Blu-ray] is absolutely gorgeous.

The Viera Cast weather has turned out to be quite useful, and my father has apparently become addicted to Youtube. I would like to see some sort of sports ticker replace Bloomberg (or just be added in general) and Netflix replace Amazon VOD. As far as Amazon VOD is concerned, the streaming quality seems to be related to connection speed, rendering it useless/unwatchable to me with my slow country connection, besides being considerably more expensive.

I would like to point out that while glare is not a major issue, I have noticed that sitting in certain positions relative to the screen and windows in bright daylight or with other sources of light, can result in mild reflections during ‘black’ scenes. It’s not distracting, but if you look for it, you can see it.

Recently, I have started building a computer that I intend to use with this monitor. In researching appropriate video cards and reading CNET’s review, I have come to the conclusion that an HDMI connection over (what you would think would be the more convenient but apparently lower maximum resolution) PC input is the way to go.

Computer Build (so far)…

Monitor: Panasonic VIERA G10 Series TC-P54G10 54-Inch 1080p Plasma HDTV, Black

Case: SilverStone RV01B-W ATX Full Tower Reinforced Plastic Outer Case (Black)

Motherboard: EVGA 141-BL-E760-A1 X58 Classified SLI Mainboard

Processor: Intel Core i7 920 2.66GHz 8M L3 Cache 4.8GT/sec QPI Hyper-Threading Turbo Boost LGA1366 Processor

Memory: Corsair HX3X12G1600C9 XMS3 12 GB PC3-12800 1600Mhz 240-pin Triple Channel Core i7 DDR3 Memory Kit

Video Card:…

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