It's not that simple, as OLED could pose a serious threat this year with LG poised to take the mantle from its competitors. Be respectful, keep it civil and stay on topic. We delete comments that violate our policy , which we encourage you to read. Discussion threads can be closed at any time at our discretion. All the other features found elsewhere in the Viera range are present and correct, as you'd expect on the flagship model.
The High Contrast Filter Pro and Hz Focused Field Drive are also new this year, taking care of those deep black levels for a dynamic picture and motion processing.
There are four HDMI inputs, plus component, Scart and composite connections, while three USB inputs and an SD card slot give you options for accessing pictures, music or movies on portable media. Wireless internet is integrated into the panel or you can make a wired connection via the Ethernet slot.
The set is DLNA-certified, too. This compact remote gives you, as the name suggests, a little touch sensitive control, which proves responsive and surprisingly easy to get to grips with. There are also volume and channel controls, direct keys for Viera Tools and Viera Connect, and back and exit buttons.
The touchpad proves a smart way to flick your way around the interface while using it as a scrollable cursor comes in to its own with web browsing. We like it. The layout of the menu system and interface is the same as the rest of the Panasonic range and remains one of the simplest and most intuitive around. Yes, there are rival firms who add more bells and whistles such as gesture control, but in a way the simplicity is refreshing and certainly makes it easy to use.
While the THX settings are more than adequate, we prefer to set the TV to normal mode and make our adjustments. We liked it set to minimum or off.
To cut to the chase, the picture quality all round is superb — and indeed very similar to the aformentioned TX-P50GT Yet another new option exists in the p Pure Direct setting that promises to allow for the passing of a full video signal over HDMI, allowing for slightly enhanced chromatic resolution. Hopefully the new dual-core Pro 4 processing can provide enough grunt. These modes along with the Professional options should provide the most accurate pictures a non-calibrated TV can deliver.
Completing the set of options on the first page of picture options we have Colour Balance, Vivid Colour and C. If you opt for the best Viewing Modes, the Colour Balance option will disappear. Otherwise Warm will be closest to accurate. Neither Vivid Colour nor C. S does anything good for pictures as vivid colour unnecessarily increases colour luminance brightness and the C. Finally, in the Advanced Settings, the Side Panel control increases or decreases the brightness of the side panels when watching content, whilst the Pixel Orbiter and Scrolling Bar functions are designed to prevent and combat image retention respectively.
Finally, as far as the picture options are concerned, there are a number of 3D settings available. At the bottom of the 3D options we can access the built in warning message concerning the viewing of 3D images by way of Safety Precautions.
Next down from the Picture Menu are the Sound settings that contains three modes - Speech, Music and User — with all the usual bass, treble and balance settings in addition to a volume control for connected Headphones.
Opting for the User mode opens up an Equaliser feature and there are also controls for the Surround mode, the Auto Gain, the Volume Correction and for setting the distance from the speakers to the wall. Rounding up the Sound options, next we have a Voice Guidance feature for the visually impaired and , similarly, Audio Description for use with the Freesat and Freeview tuners.
Finally, users can search for a Software Update over the network, elect whether to have a message displayed when an update is available and check upon the Network Status. When tuned to the digital terrestrial or satellite connections, an option for Timer Programming appears allowing for the manual scheduling of recordings from them to an external hard drive.
From the top, first we come to TV Guide settings that governs whether the EPG shows as Full Screen, Normal - which will display the operations guide where Full Screen wont - or Info which has the same layout as Normal but with programme information in the space where the operation guide was.
Next up is Eco Navigation which when set to on activates all of the power saving functions - C. S, Standby Power Save Etc. In our experience it seems to go to Cinema so leave it off. Coming out of the Link Settings we have various Tuning Menus, Language options and Display Settings that houses various options including Input Labels allowing for the customisation of the input names, e. HDMI 1 can be relabelled Blu-ray etc. Right at the bottom of the Setup Menu there are two further sub-menus, System Menu and the ambiguously titled Other Settings.
The System Menu contains various bits of information on different statuses — Software, Device Information etc as well as being the place to perform a factory reset. Unlike previous attempts from Panasonic the Power on Preference seems to reliably work. You will also need to create a VIERA Connect account and be willing to share your bank details with a third party in order to be permitted to download. Not the way to promote a premium feature Panasonic!
Web pages load very quickly, whether wired or wirelessly connected, and with the Touch Pad controller, easy enough to navigate around swiftly, to a point.
As mentioned earlier, the pad has issues with making fine movements so whilst it was easy enough to get the ball on the green, getting it in the cup was more problematic — if you take the analogy - and we often resorted to using the standard remote for those final few centimetres. The same goes for the on-screen keyboard too. Not for us, but some will like it no doubt. As you can probably guess by now, the VT50 earned a "10" in this category.
Its only flaws are minor crosstalk in 3D and some wonkiness during my calibration, but neither of those can keep it from taking the TV picture-quality crown -- and serving as my new reference TV. It's clearly Panasonic's best plasma ever, and creates some stiff competition for the OLEDs arriving later this year.
Click the image at the right to see the picture settings used in the review and to read more about how this TV's picture controls worked during calibration. Black level: Blacks on the VT50 had an inky quality visibly superior to what I saw on any other TV in the lineup aside from the two Elites. The letterbox bars and numerous black and shadowy areas from "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2" looked and measured a notch lighter on the Panasonic ST50 and GT50, the Samsung, and the Sony in most scenes, and the darker the scene, the more superior the VT50 looked than those four.
Its true 0 percent measurement of 0. In brighter scenes and mixed content the advantage was much less noticeable, but in our lineup the VT50 still won against the non-Elites. Its advantage in light output compared with the PNE was also readily apparent, and contributed to its better overall punch and impression of contrast. In a few extremely dark scenes, such as the gathering of Voldemort's host on the hilltop , the superior black levels of the two Elites were discernible.
The VT50 couldn't quite approach their depths of black, but the gap between the VT50 and the Elites was much narrower than between the VT50 and the others in our side-by-side comparison.
Compared with the LEDs, the dimmer image produced by the VT50 and the other plasmas in very bright scenes, like the all-white world of Harry's vision of the foetal Voldemort in chapter 22 , could be seen as a disadvantage.
In my experience however the light-output limitations of plasmas in such scenes are only visible in side-by-side comparisons, and don't detract at all from critical viewing in dim and dark rooms. Details in the shadows, such as the snake carvings in the watery cave , were essentially perfect, distinct and perfectly visible yet not too bright.
The VT50 was probably the best in the room in this regard, although the Sharp Elite was extremely close. I didn't notice any instances of floating black or other anomalies in my viewing sessions. Color accuracy: The VT50 was subjectively the best TV in the room overall in this area, despite its imperfect charts see my notes on picture settings above.
It trounced the cyan-poor Sharp Elite and also outdid the Kuro as well as the other Panasonics. Harry's vision in chapter 19 showed the VT50's colors to good effect, from the grass to the blue sky it looked more purplish on the Sharp to the delicate skin tone of the young redhead. The bright scene dripped with saturation and lushness, another advantage of the deep black levels.
I looked hard for evidence of the slightly redder cast of the low grayscale, fluctuation in grayscale in the midtones, improper primary color balance, and a greenish cast to cyan -- all of which I measured during calibration -- but found these issues impossible to spot.
Colors on the VT50 looked rich and yet accurate across the board, with the exception of a greenish-reddish tinge in the very brightest white areas like Harry's chapter 22 vision.
Dark areas and shadows looked more neutral than on any other TV in the room. I did detect slight flicker in 96Hz in bright areas, for example the clouds over Brooklyn in "I Am Legend" On the "Digital Video Essentials" test Blu-ray we noticed shifting lines and minor instability in the downtown Philadelphia buildings during an upward-facing pan.
I didn't see any similar issues during other program material, but assume they might crop up. In any case I still prefer the flicker-free 60Hz mode. As usual, the results of engaging Motion Smoother dejudder processing were objectionable to my eyes, although some viewers might actually want its soap-opera effect.
If you like smooth images you may find another reason to like the VT its Weak setting the least objectionable showed fewer artifacts -- tearing and unnatural motion -- than the same setting on the GT50 and ST50 when I watched the pan over the aircraft carrier in "I Am Legend. Panasonic makes a big deal out of the improved motion-handling capabilities of its new plasmas, and the VT50 is supposedly the best. It may well be, but personally I couldn't detect any difference between the way the VT50 and the ST50 handled my motion-resolution test or fast motion in program material.
During program material blurring was, as usual, extremely difficult to discern on any of the TVs in my lineup. I also didn't see any benefit in program material to the VT50's extra shades of gradation, which should help with false contouring in transitions.
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