Panasonic TH-42PZ77U

Joe08867

So I picked up a new TV over the weekend.

The new Panasonic TH-42PZ77U 42" Anti-glare Plasma TV.
Electronics Expo had it on sale last weekend for $1349.00.

My impressions so far:

Pro's
Anti Glare Screen not just a coating like others is awesome. Main reason I never purchased a plasma before.
Excellent blacks. Dark passages seem real clear. I've read different but mine seems good at them.
Easy remote with the aspect ratio button on it. Most do this now I would guess.
I am not using the HDMI connection but the Component input is extremely detailed. Using just the single input RCA was also darn nice also.
So far I love the color although I wish you could change temps on individual colors instead of all of them not a problem just picky.

Con's so far
Cabinet is wide for a 42"TV. The speakers are set to the sides of the screen so it takes up another 1.5 inches per side. size 27.1" x 44.7" x 13".
Gets a little confused by extreme special effects that are real bright.
Green can get a little strong sometimes. Sorta a surreal green on grassy fields.

I will try to take some pics over the weekend. Had to pick up new cabinets for the stereo and TV so my wife would be happy.

This is my first foray into plasma. The original TV was a 32" Tube Sanyo I got on the cheap from Walmart.

Anybody else with a Panasonic Plasma?

Systems

Joe08867 wrote: »

Anybody else with a Panasonic Plasma?

Yep I have the baby Panny 37px60 that I purchased in April and I really like it.
Congrats on purchasing a great TV Joe.

Willow

We just bought last night the canadian version of that one and we are not at all impressed. HD looks great but 480p dvd and SD tv is very grainy. It's going back tomorrow and I think we are going with the 42 Aquos LCD

Joe08867

Sorry to her that willow.

I don't seem to have any fuzz in picture at all. How do you have it hooked up. S-video, component, coax? Component seems to be the clearest for me. But it seems good with all of them.

Yours has the anti-glare screen?

I thnk that is the best part.

Sherardp

Joe08867 wrote: »

So I picked up a new TV over the weekend.

The new Panasonic TH-42PZ77U 42" Anti-glare Plasma TV.
Electronics Expo had it on sale last weekend for $1349.00.


Green can get a little strong sometimes. Sorta a surreal green on grassy fields.

I

Nice mini review, and congrats on your purchase. It seems allot of display products come with an oversaturated picture, you maybe able to tone down the color to suit your needs. Reason I mention this is that when I bought my JVC HD1 it was said over and over again that the greens looked surreal, some even went as far to call it neon-ish. Not sure why manufacturers do this, but my guess is that they do it to make the picture appear to have more "pop". But I agree with you, I see it often in allot of newer display products.

shadowofnight

58" Panny here Green push is common..as is WAY too bright out of the box....they come with settings to make them stand out in a sea of displays at the store. Proper calibration takes care of both ...enjoy your new Panny.

Joe08867

My camera was dead and my wife moved the charger so this pic is from the old Cellphone.

The room isn't nearly this dark.

I-SIG

On the "bright & busy" scenes you speak of, is your source your CATV box or satellite TV box? I ask because mine does the same thing. The same scenes from my Oppo DVD are perfect. They are putting some crappy MPEG decoders in the CATV boxes. You'd think Motorola could do better.

Wes

janmike

Congrats. Panasonic TH-50PX75U here and quite happy. I looked on the Panasonic site for proper calibration but could not find any. Still looking for my model.

Willow

Well I spent the day playing with it , changed the settings, went from component to HDMI. DVD's now look very good HDTV is amazing, SD is ok still a tad grainy, now I'm not talking about macro, it kinda looks a bit like sand is on the pic. The HD box is connected via a DVI/HDMI cable. The only crappy connection is the Xbox through Svid ( I never play it so don't care).
I have also used the upconversion on my DVD player to output 720p. It helped a bit.


What setting are you guys using?

I had it set to custom (calibrated, looked the grainiest)
Now it's on vivid (but calibrated )
or standard ( again calibrated)
all done with both AVIA and DVE.

Yes mine has the antiglare screen. its' the
Panasonic Viera 42" Plasma HDTV 42PX77 model.

It looks so real like I am in the scene, I was accustomed to the very bright (again calibrated LCD) we had. The colors were more alive and vivid on the lcd but more real on the plasma.

Systems

I find SD quality to be very dependant on the particular channel some are very bad and some are surprisingly good.But SD broacasts in general will not look good on an HD set.Watching 480p DVD through component cables looks very good to my eyes.

I found the Vivid setting to be way too bright and unnatural on mine.I use the warm setting as I find it gives the most natural skin tones and colour.

Willow

GV, I know what you are saying with depending on the SD ch/ some are much worse than others.

As far as the setting, war is a temp setting what is your viewing setting at?
there is custom,vivid,general (standard) and cinema?

My temp setting is on normal.

Willow

Joe, there is a setting in the manual which tell you you can switch it on or off which gives green and blue more oumph.

Systems

I have it set to standard and here are my other settings.

picture +18

brightness 0

colour -3

tint -2

sharpness -12

colour temp warm

colour mgt off

Although with the anti glare screen your brightness levels might be different.

I think I know where there is a thread (in another forum)specifically about your set.I will try and find it for you and post it.

Systems

OK here it is I think is the PZ77 and PX 77 the same?Anyway it is only 80+ pages or a months worth of reading.There are some suggested settings you can try. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=843204

Willow

Thank you

I'll post my settings calibrated with Avia and DVE

here they are:

Component:
Avia
Picture 20
Brightness 7B
Color -3
Tint -3
Sharpness 17

HDMI :
pic 20
bright 10
sharp 20
color -7
tint -1

Joe08867

I don't have the settings in front of me but I know I calmed the brightness way down. Just above the middle.

I am not using the HDMI so I don't have reference for that.

My settings are very similar to GV's.

I have a little more color and tint but everything else looks very similar.

I will look tonight to make sure.

My temp setting is custom. Cinema was a little to dark for me. Standard was grainy and bright was like OMG.

Thanks for that link.. The 2 models are very similar except anti-glare and inputs. I actually read that the day after I bought the plasma and it helped dramatically. I just played from there as every room is different. My living room has a very large picture window on one side and I have to compensate for the difference between day and night. More toward night viewing.

Do you guys use the internal tuner? I use my Direct TV DVR and DVD's mostly. So really I just use my plasma as a monitor. Also everything in my system goes through my Reciever which actually seems to increase the signal. They don't look as good directly inputed into the TV.

Willow, I found that blue oomph setting last night but I didn't play to much. The show we were watching didn't seem to change much so I will play more tonight or tomorrow with a DVD.

Willow

OK after 3 days with this TV, all I can say is WOW I love it !!!!:D This TV kicks major butt. I can't wait till the Sens play Wed against the Leafs then again Thursday. I won't see that blur that we had on the older LCD. Not to mention the extra 10" of screen .;) :cool:

Systems

Willow wrote: »

OK after 3 days with this TV, all I can say is WOW I love it !!!!:D This TV kicks major butt. I can't wait till the Sens play Wed against the Leafs then again Thursday.

Good job you didn't return it.:) Im a Habs fan (yah I know they suck:( )but I hope the Sens kick the Leafs butts.

Willow

I am very happy I didn't return the TV. I guess we were just very disapointed with the first couple calibrations done to it. NOw I know to avoid Vivid as it'sthe worst of the bunch for grainyness.

I went to the link you provided @ AVS. I downloaded the break in disk and have been running it on and off when I can. The only problem is that we bought an open box which was returned after 3 days as the owner wanted the 50". We paid 1400$ for our 42"Viera, sweet deal. Anyway, I don't know how much they watched it? and how broken-in it is/not.

I know they talk about burn in, but when you watch a movie in 16:9 which has bars on top and bottom, there is nothing you can do about it. I don't think I'm that concerned with image retention. I won't let my nephewsplay xbox on it and leave it on for hours but I will watch TV that has channel stamps or tickers.

When we bought this the rep told us it has a 16bit processor and the older version had either 10 or 12, what big difference will that make ?

We are really looking into getting the Oppo player as I am noticing lots of macroblocking on my LG player on burnt TV shows.

Joe08867

i am glad you stuck with it. I am loving this TV so far. Took a little tweaking but now it looks great.

I agree Vivid is crazy. Must be for legally blind people.

Systems

Willow wrote: »

NOw I know to avoid Vivid as it'sthe worst of the bunch for grainyness.

It is called torch mode for a reason.All LCD and Plasma manufacturers have their version of Vivid to try and get noticed on the sales floor.

I bought an open box which was returned after 3 days as the owner wanted the 50". We paid 1400$ for our 42"Viera, sweet deal. Anyway, I don't know how much they watched it? and how broken-in it is/not.

Wow $1400 thats a steal.I paid $1350 for my 37".You can access the service menu a get the actual hours of usage.

I know they talk about burn in, but when you watch a movie in 16:9 which has bars on top and bottom, there is nothing you can do about it. I don't think I'm that concerned with image retention. I won't let my nephewsplay xbox on it and leave it on for hours but I will watch TV that has channel stamps or tickers.

I watch a lot of sports and although I do get some image retention with things like score tickers and the TSN logo etc. it disappears quickly.Used with common sense burn in should not be an issue.

When we bought this the rep told us it has a 16bit processor and the older version had either 10 or 12, what big difference will that make ?

Higher bit rate processing means that more informatiuon is being processed so potentially youll get a more detailed picture.

Willow

Last night I watched the Sens beat the Leafs...once again, but this time it was in HD. WOW what a picture. No blur like on my LCD. One thing I did notice is that the whites are not as crisp and clean as I'd like them. Maybe I need to play with the settings still, again. But overall very happy

Willow

OK kinda scared me a bit. It's thanksgiving here and the family came over. As soon as my nephews came into the house...uncle JF can we play Xbox....sure only for a period o 30 mins at a time ( I told them I was having issues with the xbox, as it was easier than explaining IR) That was fine no issues. After dinner, they played again this time for about 45 mins. as I turned everything off I noticed that I could see the speedometers on my screen still :eek: :mad: (need 4 speed). That scared me big time. Now I know on a plamsa games shouldn't be played for hours on end. I used to play video games on my tube tv for days straight and nothing. How long does it take for the TV to be broken in and not have IR ? Cause 45 mins is kinda crappy, not that playing games is a big deal as I never play my xbox.

Systems

I think that the general stated break in period is 100-200 hours.

Systems

Not sure if you have seen this yet but it's a must read. http://www.bruzziforum.com/vbf/showthread.php?t=131

Willow

DO you let your cable box do the converting to 480p and 720p or are you letting the TV convert it ?

Systems

I let the TV downconvert the 1080i signal from my Star Choice HD sat receiver.