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Date: 2008-11-04 Love at First Sight Is it possible to fall in love in under a week? I did -- with this TV. Surely I'm smitten because I'm new to this wonderful world of High Definition. But, after lots of research and going back and forth between all my options, I'm convinced I made the right choice. Of course, the first decision to be made by anyone making the leap to High Def is whether to go plasma or LCD. To my eye, the plasma produces more natural images. Even in the big-box retail centers, the plasmas consistently looked better. The fact that this TV was going into my basement family room (plasmas have the edge in darker areas) secured my decision to go plasma. But which plasma? There certainly aren't as many plasma choices as there are LCD sets out there. That made things a little easier. But should I go 720p or 1080p? I finally narrowed my choices down to several Panasonic and Samsung models that were conveniently displayed near each other in my local Circuit City store. I really could discern little difference in the picture quality among them. But the store is the last place to expect your new love-to-be to perform. You need to get her into your man-cave. I was ready to go with a Samsung 720p, which was a couple hundred dollars cheaper. But I opted for the TH-42PZ80U. The Panasonic was always at the top of my short list, but I initially felt I did not need the extra resolution, considering that there is no cable content yet that broadcasts in 1080p and that I don't have a Blu-Ray player. But the salesman convinced me to go with the Panasonic 1080p because of the compay's reputation for quality and to get ahead of the technological curve. For a couple hundred bucks extra, this made sense, and, deep down, it's the kind of sweeting nothing I wanted to hear. I was duly impressed right out of the box. While the picture with the regular digital channels is good, I intend to use this TV almost solely for Hi-Def and DVDs. And the 1080i signals broadcast by Comcast are stunning. Moreover, the DVDs I play on my Toshiba XDE-500 upconverting DVD player I bought recently look wonderful when upconverting to 1080p. While I'm upconverting DVDS to 1080p, I still haven't watched anything in true 1080p. That will have to wait until I get a Blu-Ray player. Well, a little mystery is always good to keep a romance interesting. For the time being, this set provides plenty of eye candy. The contrast is out-of-this world -- deep blacks where things are supposed to be dark and two black level settings to enhance the blacks when you're in the mood. The colors are rich and deep and easily tweaked, although a couple of the factory presets are a bit freakish. If you like sports, this is a great choice over the more expensive 120-Hz LCDs. The response when watching sports on this plasma is very good. I can't notice any lag. And you feel like you're right there with the players on the gridiron, the rink or the court. The printed manual leaves a little to be desired, though. It doesn't tell you what some of the settings actually do to improve the picture. You have to figure this out through fiddling around with its knobs, so to speak. And the speakers are just OK. This isn't a big concern to me, since I use a 5.1 Surround receiver when watching sports and movies. These nitpicks aside, this set performs with dazzling looks and quick responsiveness that I'm sure will keep me satisfied for years to come. I just hope my wife understands. Date: 2008-10-21 Best Bang for your Buck! Awesome HDTV I bought the TV as an upgrade from my 26" Sharp Aquos. I did a lot of research and came to one conclusion; Panasonic will be my best bang for my buck and it had a series of consistent great reviews from a range of models (80O, 80OU, 85O, 85OU, etc) on various websites like amazon and cnet. Lets just say the Pani blew the Sharp out of the water. This TV is comparable to, and maybe even better in picture quality than my parents 42" Fujitsu Plasma that is 3-4yrs old that cost them way more. I use the TV predominantly for watching sports and playing video games. The black levels and HD quality is immaculate. It's almost as if I'm receiving a new signal from Direct TV, that's how noticeably better the picture is. I have the color's turned down below 50 as recommended for the first 80-100 hours, and the picture is still amazing. Sports in HD are flawless with no motion lag as I experienced with my LCD, and video game play is smooth with crisp colors. I have a Wii and Xbox 360, both look stunning. The TV has now drawn me towards a Blue Ray player purchase which will probably a PS3. Another great feature of the TV is the 3 HDMI and 3 Component inputs. My 3 will be full: Xbox 360, Direct TV box, and a soon to be PS3. The Wii only has Component which worked out great. The TV itself looks great too. The solid black frame, and very sturdy stand. Although, the only downfall is that the stand is not a swivel like on most LCD's, but I plan for a wall mount anyways. The built in speakers are decent... I had the TV temporarily in my bed room, and the they were more than sufficient. But realistically, any kind of speaker system would be better. Couple great features; 1) TV is compatible with Yamaha or Onkyo theater systems. 2) As a review here has already mentioned, the set comes with some display "reset" patterns to cure most burn-in issues you might face. A final recommendation from a review I read here on Amazon and from what I've read at the Panasonic website is to break in your TV correctly. I'm a big fan of treating electronic's with.... lets say respect. A few quick tips for new plasma owners and to increase longevity and picture quality: - 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 someone on amazon posted: 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 *I know this sounds a bit ridiculous or a bit much, but it will be worth it in the end. My final comment is that, I highly recommend using Amazon. This was my first purchase from here after hearing nothing but great things from friends and family. The purchase was flawless, I knew what I was getting, since I researched and even went to stores like Bestbuy to see the TV. They use a distribution company for delivery, and they call you with a 4-hour time window before they deliver the TV. They also unpack it so that you can inspect for damage and also turn it on to verify that it works - if anything is wrong they take it right back. None the less, I am thoroughly satisfied with the product, service, and purchase from amazon. Date: 2008-10-16 Excellent Picture, Excellent Value This is an excellent television for both new users of flat panel HDTV technology and the experienced customers. The display is very vivid and the TV has all the amenities (Save one to be mentioned shortly) that one could want in a television. Pros: 3 HDMI slots, 2 Composite HDTV connections, 2 standard A/V connections, and S-Video. SD card slot for viewing photos from a digital camera directly on the unit, great for parties. Excellent for the top of the line video game consoles with it's game mode. Cons: If you are inexperienced with plasma TVs, image retention can be an issue. Always observe proper measures to avoid plasma image retention. Don't leave the channel tuned to a digital weather channel or any other channel or video game that features graphics that stay on the screen in the same location for extended periods. That said, the TV does include some anti-retention features (pixel orbiting, scrolling white bar). No headphone jack for quiet listening, it's only a minor thing, not surprising that it got overlooked. The S-Video jack is tied in to A/V 1, as opposed to having a separate input, meaning if you use S-Video, you have one less A/V input. The screen can be quite dark at times using the default settings, but brightens up considerably when manual adjustments are made (I think that has more to do with it being a plasma TV than the actual TV itself, plasma TVs are notoriously darker than LCD). Overall, the pros far outweigh the cons, and the TV is an excellent value to boot. Congrats to Panasonic for yet another year of quality flat panel TVs. Date: 2008-10-09 Great Buy, great set Have had the set for about 6 months. It is an extraordinary buy at its new price, and gives a picture as good to my eyes as my buddy's 3 year old Pioneer Elite 40 inch plasma. It does far better in reproducing motion than any LCD I've seen, and has good sound, color balance, and contrast. The locking powercord feature works well. Unless one gets a really good Blu-Ray player, the resolution of this set is quite adequate. I use a top-end Arcam upsampling DVD player with this, and the results are quite filmlike. I have never seen any chroma issues. Before I bought this, I was a diehard Sony CRT guy, but I have to say Panasonic really seems to be hitting lots of plasma home runs. GREAT Set! Date: 2008-10-05 Screen Problem We bought this set 5 months ago. At first, picture was really great. But after 4 months of use, a blue-green vertical stripe appeared at the left side of the screen. I have contacted Panasonic, and they said there was a TV NORM problem (since I bought it in the states, but moved to a PAL-N country and that I should pay for fixing it up, because the warranty was void, for being "out of zone". The answer is ridiculous. Both about the problem and about the solution, since we have a Panasonic representant in our country. Noneless to say, is not easy to move a 42" TV set. I bought it because the price was nice. But now I am very regretfull on having bought this brand. Conduct a search on "Panasonic Plasma stripe problem". You will see I am not the only one. And Panasonic, instead of recognizing the problem, tried to avoid their responsability saying there was a norm problem... Good luck with yours.
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