Panasonic 42" 1080p commerical panel

[gizze]

Posted this on avforums and thought a few may be interested in it.

This is the Panasonic commercial panels, using slightly higher grade components and using a slot system for input boards, so you can add a dual HDMI board, a component board, SDI, HD-SDI etc. etc.

They have no speakers as standard and no tuner, they are a monitor where build and image quality come before anything else and price comes second.

My favourite screens.

This is what I posted........

I didn't really want to write too much before really sitting down with it.

Initial impressions don't really tell you too much, you tend to see the postives or the negatives at first and it takes a while to notice the really good or really bad!!

However.......

Now please bear in mind that I am not techy, I can get as techy as anyone, but I hate looking at numbers and charts as it tells you sod all in my opinion, the Pioneer sets are on paper perfect, but I find it hard to live with them because of the twittering pixels. (Which I believe is sorted with the 9G models).

Also I have no idea what processing this has for different areas, and don't really care, I hang it on my wall and see what it looks like, that for me is all that matters.

Colour graduation, Solorization, posterization, or whatever you want to call it, on this set is really very impressive. Sunsets or bright skies are just solid there is no noticeable graduation going from light to dark. This was good on the PHD8, in fact the PHD8 was better than the PHD9 or 10 and was one area I felt was a step backward on the 428XD and 508XD.

So big thumbs up there.

Black levels - They seem great. A fair bit darker than the PHD8 which was just about the same as the 428XD and 508XD. I know the PHD9 and 10 was lighter, but lost the floating blacks, so anyone moving from that will see a huge difference.

The noise in the dark areas seems to be completely gone now unless you have your face on the screen.

One thing to worth noting though is the brightness level is at -15 on Sky using the DVI blade, when I first got it on the wall my heart sunk as I thought the blacks were a step backward, but after a quick adjustment everything was alright!! :D

The balck bars are black, last night I watched something with all the lights off, which is not how I watch stuff normally, and I couldn't see the bars at all. Which is what you want.

Motion is great, silky smooth with 1080/24 and just as good as it has always been with everything else, football is just a joy on this set.

The way it handles SD sport is also great, Revista de la Liga was the best I have seen, colours popped but never seemed over the top, and even with the poorer feeds I was never scrutinising the picture which is what it is all about.

Watched Survivors last night and even my wife commented on the image, extremely sharp and loads of detail there.

Also watched Holby and noticed that I could increase the edge detail on my Onkyo from OFF to MID on this screen and it just made everyting look sharper, where as even LOW on the 768 screen added too much edge noise, not sure if that is just because the pixels are smaller or what?? But I love the image I'm getting from SD, very sharp, even better than the PHD8 which up till now was my favourite for this type of material and one area that I thought it trounced the Pioneer 8G.

Oh, and even though it is brand new there doesn't seem to be any phospor trails at all, sure that applies to all new sets?? but something I was worried about as my PHD8 had none and the PHD9 and 10 seem to have them back, albeit slight but annoying enough all the same. The Pioneer 8G's had them slightly too, so I had almost prepared my self that it was something I may have to live with for the first few months as I racked the hours up on it.

Seems pretty bullet proof regarding image retention too.

I set the screen up straight away, then put the PS3 on, said it needeed an update so started that off, got caught up with something and then remembered 2 hours later, nice white text on a black background! No image retention at all. Pretty impressive.

So really pleased with it, only watched a few hours worth but a nice, very analogue looking image. It once again looks like a big CRT, both in the smoothness of motion and in the colours etc.

I will calibrate it in a few weeks, but not in a desperate hurry, after 20 mins of fiddling I just left it, which for me is very important, I don't want a set where I am adjusting setting as I move from sources or channels, my PHD8 remote sat in a drawer after being calibrated, didn't use it at all, every other set I have had I constantly need tweaks because it doesn't look right with this show or this disc, and that is just a ball ache.

So to have a 1080 set that is set and forget is a godsend!!

[Riz]

Thanks for this G,

Ive still got my PH9 and its still got a nice picture quality...... if I can sell mine on I will probably go for a 50"

Do you think there would be much picture difference between the 50" and 42" 1080p/24 displays?

Ive also noticed AV Sales no longer offer special discounts or bundle deals

Riz

[gizze]

Well, SD would look better and SD would look a little worse.

I went back to 42" as I used to find SD too soft on the 50 at times, where as I never really think about the pic on the 42 which is what I want.