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Panasonic TH-42PX75U Plasma TV

Sat, Jan 5, 2008

Filed in HDTV

Panasonic TH-42PX75U Review:

The Panasonic TH-42PX75U gives you 42 spectacular inches (diagonal) of high definition television, and includes built-in ATSC, NTSC and QAM tuners and two HDMI connections. The 10th generation plasma panel delivers 1024 x 768 resolution, and up to 10,000:1 contrast ratios. There’s even an SD memory card slot and JPEG photo viewer.
Deep Blacks, Bright Whites, and 29 Billion Colors
The Panasonic TH-42PX75U TV’s image is strongly linked to its contrast ratio, and this plasma features a high contrast ratio of up to 10,000:1. Such a wide range from black to white means great depth and dimensionality with vibrant colors—and this plasma can display an incredible 29 billion colors for a superior picture. Deep blacks provide excellent shadow detail during dark scenes, while brilliant whites allow our plasmas to render bright scenes with vivid realism.

Receive Over-The-Air HDTV Broadcasts
Sports, movies, and original network programming are all available in high definition from many local broadcasters. Receive and view local over-the-air broadcasts on this plasma in stunning HDTV clarity using the built-in HDTV tuner. If your cable company passes through HDTV broadcasts from local broadcasters, you can decode and tune those as well.

A Single Cable Carries High-Quality Digital Audio and Video
If you have even a moderately complicated home theater setup, you probably have a pile of tangled cables on the floor behind it. Imagine replacing all those cables with a single cable that carries both digital video and audio at the same time. With the new HDMI standard, that’s exactly what you get. The HDMI connector on Panasonic TH-42PX75U accepts high-quality digital video and audio via the same thin cable, allowing you to run one cable from the source to the TV.

A Cinema-Style Viewing Experience At Home
Panasonic TH-42PX75U TV features a width-to-height ratio similar to movie theater screens, providing a theater-like experience at home. View HDTV broadcasts and widescreen DVDs the way they were meant to be seen.

First off, I’m a semi-videophile, tech-saavy person who spent about a year researching, comparing and pricing flat panels. I chose this model based on almost unanimously positive reviews of its predecessor, the Panasonic TH-42PX75U, head to head comparisons in big box stores, and because of its reasonable price compared to Sony, Samsung, Pioneer and other major manufacturers. Panasonic TH-42PX75U TV seemed to offer the best cost/benefit package.

What I’ve learned is that having a flat panel is a fundamentally different experience, both in terms of aesthetics and content, from a CRT TV. There are drawbacks and huge advantages, and it helps to know a bit about what you’re getting into because there is a trade off involved in giving up your old CRT monitor; these things are very expensive and you want to be sure of your choice…

Bought this TH-42PX75U to replace my 27″ sony wega CRT, which until flat panel craze was one of the best TV’s around, so I used it as a benchmark for the performance of this TV.

-General Picture Quality: This is what you’re buying this for, no? Very clear, sharp, lifelike, beautiful picture when receiving HD feed. Great for HD movies, sports and all the usual things they market HD TV’s for. Resolution is great, though sometimes you can see digital compression evident in, say, cloud shots or dark corners of a frame. This is no doubt a limitation of compressed media and not the TV’s fault.

-Color: I actually don’t find color to be as accurate as my old CRT. Even with the adjustments Panasonic lets you make, there seems to be a sort of pastel-like quality to skin tones. It’s not bad, mind you, but if you’re a videophile you’ll notice that it doesn’t seem as true to life and rich and nuanced as it should.

-Lattitude: Though this has one of the better contrast ratios among flat panels, it lacks the subtle gradiations of color that one is used to, and also whites get blown out and darks fade to inky nothingness sooner than on a high quality CRT ie Sony Wega. Again, like color, among plasma/lcd’s, this is one of the best.

-SD: let’s not kid, SD broadcasts look absolutely terrible, though it could just be the incredibly inept monopoly known as Time Warner Cable at work here. The distorted “just” setting, which crops, distorts and zooms to try to split the difference of 4:2 and 16:9, makes things slightly more tollerable, but after watching Sd channels, one wants only to watch HD channels. Although you do sort of get used to it, it’s not good.

-DVD’s: Didn’t try HD or Blu Ray. Standard def DVD’s look fair to excellent through component connection and an upconvirting 720p Samsung player. One interesting thing about Panasonic TH-42PX75U is that you can REALLY tell a good DVD transfer vs. a bad one. To take two eye candy films: Kubrick’s 2001 DVD, first made into a DVD in the late 90’s when transferring wasn’t as developed a science, looks tons worse than any of the Star Wars films, which were meticulously transfered and mastered only a couple years ago. You wouldn’t notice the difference nearly as much on an SD tv. Still, overall, most DVD’s I’ve viewed, from classics to foriegn to modern hollywood, look very good. Not quite HD but definitely high-enough resolution to get you immersed in the film in a way you never could with your old tube tv.

Content: There are only about 20 channels available in HD in New York City, so it’s pretty limited at this point. All the SD channels work, they just look crappy.

Sound: Surprisingly rich sound from invisible speakers mounted, I guess, under the unit. I had no need to hook it up to my stereo sytem. If you don’t need 5.1, this thing is great: clear rich bass, sparkling highs, well balanced, and there are bass/treble eq’s in the menu too.

Asthetics: this thing is huge and black, so will fundamentally change your living room. It looks cool though glossy black is a bit… cheesy? Matte would have been better, less frat boy. But that’s a matter of taste. remote is labled well, easy to use. Overall when it’s on you can’t take your eyes off it. When it’s off it’s a bit like the monolith in 2001

Fortunately, I use the thing mostly for films on DVD and occasional baseball games, so it suits my needs by and large.

Buying this makes one realize that for all its amazing qualities, Plasma/LCD HD is still in its infancy. Colors not as true to life, limited content available, still no truly good upconversion from SD broadcasts (which constitutes well over 90% of all content). Am I happy I bought it? Yes. Do I wish there were more HD channels, better SD upconversion etc? Yes.

Bottom line: if you can wait another couple of years for more channels, slight refinements in the panels themselves, the price of HD DVD’s to drop, wait. If you can’t wiat, this is the one to buy. At $1260 all inclusive, this is a great deal and you won’t regret it.

—– By diggy