My 42PZ700U just arrived. I have it hooked up to HD cable box from Comcast.
:D
Man, I have been watching college football all Saturday and I can say this TV is 100% worth the money. I have no glare issues and the color/motion is perfect.

Honestly, no ones is going to notice a glare problem unless you are watching this Plasma outside on a sunny day. People are over analysis the glare issue. Just stop. I have a very bright room and I don't notice any issues.

Second, I do highly suggest the 1080P. Its worth the extra cost. I know all of the 720pers want you to buy a 720p TV to make themselves feel better, but seriously the 1080P is the best option. It display 720p and 1080i in native resolution. Smooth motion and great pictures.

PS The resolution is so sharp, I noticed the Florida cheerleaders should shave their legs better.

Lastly, I spent many months looking at Plasma and reading AVS and I found the Panasonic to be the best TV.


One other thing that I noticed about the PZ77U while at BB yesterday is that the viewing angle is much wider than on most plasmas, specifically the PZ700U it was next to. They are both rated at 160 degrees but the PZ77U looks much better from any sort of an angle. Also, I have a 55" Hitachi without any glare coating, fitler, etc. and glare is a huge problem in dark scenes. It is not too bad when watching a football game or something but you can always see everything in the room when the background of the broadcast is dark.

Either way, the 700U or 77U are both great.

SSpectre, what stand is that? Where did you get it? Very nice.

SSpectre, what stand is that? Where did you get it? Very nice.

That's the Markor stand from Ikea. I've got everything in there with room to spare. The extra room will come in handy when I decide to get surround sound.

Just checked the sears site they extended the sale another week to oct 27.

That's the Markor stand from Ikea. I've got everything in there with room to spare. The extra room will come in handy when I decide to get surround sound.

Is that the infamous Ikea stand where the side cabinets do NOT fit standard audio / video components like your receiver, DVD player etc...? It looks great but I am dumb founded by a manufacturer that would build side cabinets that cannot house A/V components!

btw, looks like you have the TV placed at an angle in front of a corner. That is going to tougher to place your surround system when the time comes :)

I was just looking at the specs of the 42" model and noticed it weighed a whopping 92 lbs. Is the glass really that heavy? A comparable Pio only weighs ~70 lbs.

sorry if this is noobie but i'm wondering if i'm using a reciever that upconverts all inputs to 1080p as long as it's connected to the set using hdmi i'll get that resolution? also nobody seemed to explain what the point of v1.3 is if it doesn't support the main features.

thx and i've already decided to go with this as my future set, but am just curious.

Any plans for a 58" pz77u?

Yes, any? THAT I would like to know as I used to have a 55" CRT RPTV then 2 PJ's with a 92" screen, (but now we are moving and that will not wrok so back to an RPTV or plasma...)
I just think 50" at 10 feet might be too small now.
Any word on a 58"...?

:)

Well, I got the 50pz77u on the wall yesterday with some help. Only took an hour and it was with the 165lb-rated tilt mount from monoprice (cost me 20-some bucks). Everything went great except for two points:

- my 50 year old house is no longer level due to settling. So setting the TV level actually made it look 'off'. Luckily this was easy to correct even after the drilling was done.

- the hardest part was estimating where the bracket should be affixed to the wall, so that once the TV is mounted, it is at the correct height. College calculus didn't help here...it was good old high school algebra II that worked.
Thank goodness I wasn't drinking during those years. This worked out in the end.

Anyway, it still looks fantastic. Thinking still about calibrating.

joker-wild. I beleive The 92lbs includes a 15lb stand/pedestal.

Man, I'm dying. I want the 42z77u so bad but can't foot the 1399 from sears. I also don't want to open up a card just for the purchase. None of the CC's or BB's near me will price match +10% difference either.

I finally know what I want and now I can't get it. If anyone near Brick, NJ knows a Sears, BB, CC rep who can get me this TV for 1299 or so, please PM me!

I'm also from Brick and just purchased one at Sears on Saturday, getting delivered this afternoon. I don't understand why BB or CC won't give you the price match. I opened a Sears charge to get the extra $150 off, you can always just cancel the card once it is paid off.

Is that the infamous Ikea stand where the side cabinets do NOT fit standard audio / video components like your receiver, DVD player etc...? It looks great but I am dumb founded by a manufacturer that would build side cabinets that cannot house A/V components!

btw, looks like you have the TV placed at an angle in front of a corner. That is going to tougher to place your surround system when the time comes :)

Yeah, now that you mention it, those side cabinets probably wouldn't fit standard A/V components. Works fine for my purposes though.

Surround sound isn't coming until after we move out of this apartment and get a house, so I'm not too worried about the placement. In fact, the TV wasn't supposed to happen until after we moved out the apartment either, but the old one's sound died and it's very old and not worth fixing.

I'm also from Brick and just purchased one at Sears on Saturday, getting delivered this afternoon. I don't understand why BB or CC won't give you the price match. I opened a Sears charge to get the extra $150 off, you can always just cancel the card once it is paid off.

Thanks for the post, I actually did the same on friday (minus the opening the Sears card, want to keep my credit score as spiffy as I can for now). $1399 was still the best I think I'll find for some time, and so far I've been very happy.

I've been looking for some settings recommendations, but nothing yet. I still feel the set kind of pushes red a bit, although right now it is only hooked up directly to Comcast coax (picking up my DVR today).

I see Amazon has the Sony DVP-NS77H for $90 shipped. Has anyone tried this out on their new Panny? Seems like a steal considering it has the Mediatek chip in it. Just looking for something cheap to ride out the HD-format wars.

What is the stand for the pz77u. Is it the duckfoot or the wider base? Can't fid a picture of it for some reason. Thanks in advance

What is the stand for the pz77u. Is it the duckfoot or the wider base? Can't fid a picture of it for some reason. Thanks in advance

You can somewhat see the stand in my pictures above. It has a rounded diamond sort of shape, but the back side is squashed (if that makes any sense). The front side sticks out about 5" in front of the TV.

I purchased the 50PZ77u from Chris at CP; great customer service and good communication. The gentlemen from the shipping service provided excellent customer service as well.

I just finished mounting the Panny on the wall. I used a cantilever mount from mount pros. The whole process took about two and half hours for two guys. I had the system sitting on an entertainment center over the weekend, for me wall mounting the device creates a more visually appealing experience.

I owned a Toshiba 52HM94 DLP for a little over two years before this purchase. The picture on the plasma is everything I expected and more. I watch a lot of movies, sports, and HD. Everything comes across very crisp and clear. I do have an abundance of ambient light so the 77u was the right purchase for my environment.

All in all, I couldn't be any more pleased with the purchase experience and picture quality.

Thanks to everyone on this board for sharing your experiences and the wealth of information provided.

looks like panny kept trying until they got it right. now what can they do next march 08 to improve on this 42pz77u?

so i got my bonus last week and decided to get my new 42 inch plasma. the 42PZ77u is amazing, even SD looks great. The first time i powered it up i did notice a faint light line about 3 inches in from the right(not where the letter boxes fall) on the screen but after the weekend of viewing i am unable to see it, guess it went away. i have been keeping my settings down at 0 during the break in period. i figure i will be upgrading my dvd player by Christmas and was in between an oppo 981 player or Toshiba's HD-A2 (same price). i was wondering how good the panny does with 1080i signals since the HD-A2 does not output 1080p. how does everyone else's dvd/hd-dvd players look on there new plasma?

I just got my TH-42PZ77U home and turned it on, I've been reading about the break in period on this TV and have a few questions about it. This is my first plasma so please bear with me;

1. Should I not play any Xbox 360 games during this period?, If so then how long is acceptable without damaging the TV?

2. Should I not watch any SD channels to avoid the black bars?

3. How long exactly is the break in period?


Thank you in advance to any and all responses!:D

acacia987, congrads on your new set, i hope you realize your bonus was well used. Enjoy. Any feed back you can give will be appreciated.

Nobody knows if a 58" model is planned...?

Nobody knows if a 58" model is planned...?

Haven't heard anything about a 58".

thanks.

Anyone know the dimesions of the box for the 42" PZ77 ?
I'm wondering if it will fit into the trunk of my coupe if laid down (potentially bad idea?!)

Thanks

Anyone know the dimesions of the box for the 42" PZ77 ?
I'm wondering if it will fit into the trunk of my coupe if laid down (potentially bad idea?!)

Thanks

Plasmas should be transported standing up. The box definitely warns against transporting it laying down.

Box is about 30 3/8" tall, 57" long, and 18 1/4" wide.

My 42PZ700U just arrived. I have it hooked up to HD cable box from Comcast.
:D
Man, I have been watching college football all Saturday and I can say this TV is 100% worth the money. I have no glare issues and the color/motion is perfect.

you must be blind then, its not really an opinion that the 700u is reflective or not, it IS plain and simple.

A couple of pictures from the Kentucky/Florida game... more pics to come (including Xbox 360)!

Shot of (pretty much) the whole setup. Yes, that's the antenna on the top left of the TV. For some reason, it works best in that position.
http://lh5.google.com/scoot241/RxuWc8QawlI/AAAAAAAABYQ/RwOCgRdGlcI/s800/PA200049.JPG

Closer up:
http://lh6.google.com/scoot241/RxuWdMQawmI/AAAAAAAABYY/3vYAiZNgD0k/s800/PA200048.JPG

You can see the reflection of the window in the piano black frame, but it has no effect on the picture quality.

You know what? i think one of the more interesting pictures to see would be an SD channel, i dunno, cartoon network or something. Because i've noticed thats when reflections can be there most annoying, when you have the SD black bars on either side.

"www.trustedreviews.com/tvs/review/2007/10/23/Panasonic-Viera-TH-42PZ70-42in-plasma-TV/p1"


This is a UK review for essentially the same TV as the 42PZ77

Good find! It seems about the same TV- they do not mention the different screen though. Also, I noticed they gave it a lower picture quality rating as the 700 model

This is a UK review for essentially the same TV as the 42PZ77How do you know for sure though? Absolutely no mention of an Anti-Glare screen which is the most substantial difference in the PZ77U here, although they do list the same 10,000:1 contrast ratio. It's possible that it has the higher CR but the clear screen of the PZ700U (that would be cool).

what is the point of it even being 1.3 compliant?

also just looked at this set on the crutchfield site and noticed in the specs it said only 1080i from componant. Any truth to this, also the 160 deg fov....

HDMI 1.3 has several other updates over HDMI 1.2, mostly in the internal communication protocols between a player and the TV, and the testing procedure is more mature. This will basically ensure that your TV works with all HDMI 1.3 players. 1.3 devices are supposed to work with TVs of all previous HDMI versions, but that's not always the case.

1080p60 on component is not an official standard. Only 720p and 1080i are defined by different standardisation organisations. There is 24PSF, though, which is basically 1080p24 transported over a 1080i48 signal. And some devices do 1080p60 on component anyhow, but it requires custom support and special DACs.

This TV supports only standardized signals (which is a good thing).

Plasmas should be transported standing up. The box definitely warns against transporting it laying down.

Box is about 30 3/8" tall, 57" long, and 18 1/4" wide.

Thanks - I have actually enlisted some help from a friend with a larger car so I can transport it properly.

So I have my new 42pz77u set up on top of my dresser in the bedroom, but I'm realizing it would be nice to be able to put the TV on top of my cable box and DVD player in some fashion.

Does anyone know of a small shelf/cubby system to put 2 media players (DVD & DVR cable box) side by side and then the TV on top of them?

They have something at pottery barn here:
http://www.potterybarn.com/products/p9398/index.cfm?pkey=cfurbedmed

The "media component" pictured is basically what I need but I'm looking to spend more like $50 or $100 at the very most. Any ideas?

Hello all,

I'm a long time reader, but a first time poster. I've been using a Samsung 50" DLP set for the last 4 years and its picture and brightness is (was) excellent...sometimes.:mad:

By the way, with all of the service problems I've had with Samsung, I'm now shopping for a 5-year extended service contract first...then I'll worry about which TV to buy. I'll never again get stung by lousy reliability and poor customer service again...if I can help it.:mad:

After growing up with CRT TV's (Sony's and others) that had lifespans of 10-20 years or more, its been hard for me to adjust to manufacturers who believe end-of-life at 3-4 years of use is okay. Okay for them, not for me. :mad:

When I finally got a chance to see the plasma sets I was most interested in (50PX75U, 50PZ77U, etc.) at BB, Sears, and CC, I was really disappointed. I couldn't believe how dull these plasma sets looked compared to my old DLP or LCDs. At first, I thought it was just a problem with the way this individual BB store adjusted the TVs for display. But I'm seeing the same thing at ALL BB, Sears, CC stores and others I visit.

Yes, I fully understand how ambient room lighting effects these TVs, but I didn't know they needed virtual darkness to appear okay.:confused:

With DLP and LCD, when a white screen is presented, it is truly a bright white. It really pops out at you...as do their colors. When the same all white screen is displayed on the panny sets (and others), it clearly appears to be a medium shade of gray.:confused: I couldn't believe my eyes.

I even went out of my way to turn the various levels up to increase contrast and brightness to their maximum on both of these sets and it barely made any difference. It is interesting to note that with the 50PX75U and 50PZ77U sitting next to each other set to their maximum contract and brightness levels, the 50PX75U was definitely much brighter with better contrast. Have any of you seen this too?

Seeing all of these plasma and LCD TVs next to each other at stores like BB is both a blessing and a rude awakening. You stand back and look at identical (sales maximized) content material playing on all sets and you can't help but immediately notice that the colors and brightness on some sets really pops out at you (very pleasing)...while others like the 50PX75U, 50PZ77U look faded out (very disappointing).:confused:

I suppose if you have nothing to compare your new TV to when you get it home, it probably doesn't make any difference how dull the set appears because you have no point of reference to compare it to.

Forgive me, I know this topic has been discussed here to some extent in past months, but I really would appreciate some help in getting a better understanding of these brightness/contrast issues before I make my purchase.

I admit I'm not an expert on Plasma, LCD, or DLP technology, but my eyes don't lie. I have read thousands of posts here and elsewhere which explain in exhausting detail the advantages and disadvantages of these various HD technologies. However, there seems to be some major differences between manufacturers specs (written by marketing people to help glorify their product and to justify its cost) and what my eyes see.

The 1080 vs 720 controversy is a good example of this. The manufacturers and their marketing people got you to believe that having a 1080 capable TV is the holy grail of HD and nobody can live without it. Yet, when normal people look at these sets side by side with 1080p material feeding them, you still have to look hard to see much of a difference (at normal viewing distances). Yet, look at how much of this forum (and others) has been fixated with 1080 versus 720 capabilities...and how "mine is better then yours".

Just a side note. I can't help but smile when I read posts from people who use manufacturer specs and marketing hype as their justification for buying the TV they purchased. Even when some sets are clearly junk (like many posts I've read on various Samsung forums...i.e. regarding how wonderful the new Samsung 5084 is), they first say how much they love their new TV...and then proceed to talk about green lines, blotches and uneven brightness and a long list of other visible defects. Then they think that by getting everyone on the forum to complain to the manufacturer, that the manufacturer is somehow going to correct these problems. Ha! Maybe in the next set they sell you...maybe not.

So, do plasma TVs (like the 50PX75U, 50PZ77U) need extremely low-level ambient lighting conditions to look bright? Is that why LCD TVs are becoming so popular. Should I ignore what my eyes see?:confused:

I would appreciate any feedback. Thank you...and thanks for this wonderful forum.

People with these sets, are you guys calibrating with a DVD? If so, DVE or AVIA II? I tried scoping the display calibration forum, but I couldn't find an answer.

I just got my TH-42PZ77U home and turned it on, I've been reading about the break in period on this TV and have a few questions about it. This is my first plasma so please bear with me;

1. Should I not play any Xbox 360 games during this period?, If so then how long is acceptable without damaging the TV?

2. Should I not watch any SD channels to avoid the black bars?

3. How long exactly is the break in period?


Thank you in advance to any and all responses!:D

Well, I asked similar questions earlier in this thread. From what I understand, break-in period should be the first 100-120 hours or so. Keep everything at 0 settings. I don't know about the SD channels, on my Panny, it's stretched out. So I have no black bars. I have regular Direct TV. As far as the Xbox 360 is concerned, I wouldn't use it until after the break-in. Better safe than sorry.

Also keep in mind that these TVs have what, pixel shifter/wobble or whatever. So theoritcally, you should be able to play right away. BUT, as you can tell by everyone who's posted, just do yourself a favor and wait atleast 100 hours. In hindsight, 100 hours are not bad for years worth of quality and pain-free television.

This is a UK review for essentially the same TV as the 42PZ77
How do you know for sure though? Absolutely no mention of an Anti-Glare screen which is the most substantial difference in the PZ77U here, although they do list the same 10,000:1 contrast ratio. It's possible that it has the higher CR but the clear screen of the PZ700U (that would be cool).

"Also, the 42PZ70 [...] lacks an SD card slot for direct playback of digital pictures" "Connectivity, meanwhile, is pretty strong, with [...] D-Sub PC options [...] and Top Up TV card slot."

Seems to be quite different? And the U.K. 42PZ700 has three HDMI inputs, apparently.

KW6KW, You have done your home work and seem attracted to the brightness of the lcd,if that is what you like go buy a lcd. Or maybe Randy could explain the beauty of the plasma to you better than i can, I will say plasma projects a more natural picture and better colors. Randy can you help out.

I had my 50' PZ77U setup on Sat...I asked the guys about the break in period of 100hrs. The team that set mine up has the settings at a low level, but not at zero. I asked about my Xbox 360...I was told to play a little and if I was playing for a while to change the games. After the 100 hrs they said I could adjust accordingly...I asked about a break in DVD and they kinda rolled their eyes...they stated that everyone does it differently. The new plasmas with the pixel shifter are less likey to get IR and Burn in....basically he said just watch TV responsibly and enjoy it!! This is pretty much what Randy and others have been saying when the question is asked "what do I do to break in my tv". I have been playing my Xbox without concern, granted I am playing an hour or so at a time.....I could never imagined how wonderful Bioshock or Gears would have looked on my set...I went from a 26' Panny CRT to a 50' Panny plasma..

Moral of the post use it responsibly...use the Fill-In mode(SD is a bit grainy with this mode) limit gaming for now BUT don't be afraid to use your Xbox...enjoy your set...just my .02 from a new plasma owner who is no longer paranoid to enjoy their set for the 100hrs

I had my 50' PZ77U setup on Sat...I asked the guys about the break in period of 100hrs. The team that set mine up has the settings at a low level, but not at zero. I asked about my Xbox 360...I was told to play a little and if I was playing for a while to change the games. After the 100 hrs they said I could adjust accordingly...I asked about a break in DVD and they kinda rolled their eyes...they stated that everyone does it differently. The new plasmas with the pixel shifter are less likey to get IR and Burn in....basically he said just watch TV responsibly and enjoy it!! This is pretty much what Randy and others have been saying when the question is asked "what do I do to break in my tv". I have been playing my Xbox without concern, granted I am playing an hour or so at a time.....I could never imagined how wonderful Bioshock or Gears would have looked on my set...I went from a 26' Panny CRT to a 50' Panny plasma..

Moral of the post use it responsibly...use the Fill-In mode(SD is a bit grainy with this mode) limit gaming for now BUT don't be afraid to use your Xbox...enjoy your set...just my .02 from a new plasma owner who is no longer paranoid to enjoy their set for the 100hrs

I agree. I'm playing Xbox 360 and Wii, watching HD and stretching SD for now. I do have my settings at 0 right now, but it isn't affecting my viewing much. Of course, it'll look much better once my Viva 2 disc gets here and I get a chance to sit down and calibrate it. I estimate I've used it about 25-30 hours so far (watched a whole lot of football this weekend).

I still have to sit down and take another round of pictures. I'm thinking that I'll do some 360, some Wii, and some SD satellite.

KW6KW, You have done your home work and seem attracted to the brightness of the lcd,if that is what you like go buy a lcd. Or maybe Randy could explain the beauty of the plasma to you better than i can, I will say plasma projects a more natural picture and better colors. Randy can you help out.

Whatever we buy to replace our 50" DLP, it will be setup in our home theatre located in our "great room"...which is fairly bright during the day (surrounded by windows).

We don't watch much TV during the day (except Sunday football), but the lighting can be controlled to some extent using the window blinds. The lighting for evening viewing is always very subdued.

I guess what I really would like to know is how will any plasma (like the 50PZ77U) appear under my lighting conditions? Is brightness an issue or not?

To be honest, I was shocked when I saw some the best LCD TVs along side the best plasma TVs at BB and other places. When I was shopping for a new TV 5 years ago, even the best LCD TVs looked washed out in regard to brightness and contrast...especially compared to the new DLPs at the time. It was easy to choose a $4K+ DLP and be happy (unless it was a Samsung).

However, today many LCD TVs have really evolved and their brightness and contrast (black levels) are excellent. And from normal viewing distances, they appear to be as sharp as any plasma TV I've seen.

I'm not a LCD supporter coming into a plasma forum to stir things up. I really
REALLY want to keep the panny plasma (and Pio) TVs on my potential buy list.

I'm just shocked at how bright and beautiful some of the latest Sony LCD TVs look...especially when sitting side by side with plasma. If the LCDs were just bright with poor colors and resolution, I'd have no interest. But I'm very impressed how far they (high-end LCD TVs) have come.

Whatever we buy to replace our 50" DLP, it will be setup in our home theatre located in our "great room"...which is fairly bright during the day (surrounded by windows).

We don't watch much TV during the day (except Sunday football), but the lighting can be controlled to some extent using the window blinds. The lighting for evening viewing is always very subdued.

I guess what I really would like to know is how will any plasma (like the 50PZ77U) appear under my lighting conditions? Is brightness an issue or not?

To be honest, I was shocked when I saw some the best LCD TVs along side the best plasma TVs at BB and other places. When I was shopping for a new TV 5 years ago, even the best LCD TVs looked washed out in regard to brightness and contrast...especially compared to the new DLPs at the time. It was easy to choose a $4K+ DLP and be happy (unless it was a Samsung).

However, today many LCD TVs have really evolved and their brightness and contrast (black levels) are excellent. And from normal viewing distances, they appear to be as sharp as any plasma TV I've seen.

I'm not a LCD supporter coming into a plasma forum to stir things up. I really
REALLY want to keep the panny plasma (and Pio) TVs on my potential buy list.

I'm just shocked at how bright and beautiful some of the latest Sony LCD TVs look...especially when sitting side by side with plasma. If the LCDs were just bright with poor colors and resolution, I'd have no interest. But I'm very impressed how far they (high-end LCD TVs) have come.


Thats funny I still find LCD lacking in a big way. Some just perfer an LCD. Personally the motion blur even on the 120Hz tvs is simply horrid. The black crush is bad and banding is terrible. Uneven backlighting except LED versions

How do you know for sure though? Absolutely no mention of an Anti-Glare screen which is the most substantial difference in the PZ77U here, although they do list the same 10,000:1 contrast ratio. It's possible that it has the higher CR but the clear screen of the PZ700U (that would be cool).

If you want a higher contrast ratio (15,000:1) and a clearer screen, you might check out the Samsung 5084 ...

you must be blind then, its not really an opinion that the 700u is reflective or not, it IS plain and simple. ...

Well, that's uncalled for! :eek: If nickodemis99 says he/she doesn't have any glare issues then glare isn't an issue for him or her, with this set, and in his/her particular viewing conditions. That's not to say there's no reflection, it's just not bothersome to nickodemis99's eye... and may not be bothersome to others as well... This is something TV-buyers need to evaluate for themselves...

so i got my bonus last week and decided to get my new 42 inch plasma. the 42PZ77u is amazing, even SD looks great. The first time i powered it up i did notice a faint light line about 3 inches in from the right(not where the letter boxes fall) on the screen but after the weekend of viewing i am unable to see it, guess it went away. i have been keeping my settings down at 0 during the break in period. i figure i will be upgrading my dvd player by Christmas and was in between an oppo 981 player or Toshiba's HD-A2 (same price). i was wondering how good the panny does with 1080i signals since the HD-A2 does not output 1080p. how does everyone else's dvd/hd-dvd players look on there new plasma?
I bought the TH-50PZ77U a few days ago from Best Buy. The PQ is outstanding to say the least on 1080i signals from Comcast. Standard DVDs still look good, but not as good as 1080i signals. I do see some pixals. My viewing distances are 7 ft to 10 ft. I'll be hooking up 1080P signals from a computer soon and will be able to provided some feedback on those soon.

There's been quite a bit of talk about the PZ77Us versus the PZ700Us. I had many chances to see these close together in more than one store and I thought the PQ of the PZ700Us was a hair better, but only under dark lighting conditions. This is of course with the same video content and with the same connection type. In a room with any lighting at all, the PZ77Us seems better to me. It also seems to me the black levels on the PZ77Us are as good or better than any plazma on the market.

STIX2, Thanks for reminding me about the motion blur it is a big issue with me its nauseating, i tend to get seasick in a rowboat. Ill stay with my beautiful colors and natural colors.

Bobbke, You got the last two sentences right.

scarabaeus is the 42PZ77u HDMI 1.3 and if so where are you getting that info from. Thanks george.

anyone else have blurry text from a direct tv hd receiver?

my pz77u looks fuzzy...this stinks

Majic12, Dont worry sounds like it wasnt set up right. who installed the set?

KW6KW
I'm also new to this forum.

I'm using a TH-50PZ77U in a room with large windows. The brightness level is fine during the day. I do set some levels above zero (picture-15 brightness-5 for example). I had a LCD in the same room for a while and it was brighter, but the contrast ratios on the LCD, to me, make the picture seem less real than the plazmas. The LCD was a 1080P also, but the contrast ratio is much lower. I like the plazma much better.

The connections used is stores seems to vary quite a bit. I've seen stores with what appeared to be HDMI connections on some TVs and component connections on others. On some TVs there's a big difference in PQ with these different connections and I would say the TH-50PZ77U is one of those.

There was one store that had 1080P and 720P TVs all being feed by 720P content. It was hard to tell the difference between them. So, you might want to check this out.

I hope this helps answer at least one of your questions.

Majic12, Dont worry sounds like it wasnt set up right. who installed the set?

I installed the set...it was never moved unbalanced and I hooked everything up right now via hdmi.

I have yet to find a setting that gets rid of the blurryness. I also cant tell if its direct tv or the panny...

I installed the set...it was never moved unbalanced and I hooked everything up right now via hdmi.

I have yet to find a setting that gets rid of the blurryness. I also cant tell if its direct tv or the panny...I've calibrated more than one HDTV where the signal source (Dish Network, DirecTV & Cable) was not set-up to deliver HD to the TV. If the box was installed with a SD TV, then the box may well be set only to deliver SD. But, then I've also seen HDTV installations where the box was installed after the TV and set by the installer for SD only.

I really doubt if the fault is the TV.

so i'm to presume "0" settings means default, not setting all settings to "0"?

Well, that's uncalled for! :eek: If nickodemis99 says he/she doesn't have any glare issues then glare isn't an issue for him or her, with this set, and in his/her particular viewing conditions. That's not to say there's no reflection, it's just not bothersome to nickodemis99's eye... and may not be bothersome to others as well... This is something TV-buyers need to evaluate for themselves...

actually it was totally called for, he implictly said that the set was glare free, and that is ridiculous, and misinformative. It's one thing if it doesnt bother you, but dont go telling people it doesnt have it when it in fact does.

I heard 0 is actually zero, not the defaulted settings. Whatever though, everyone has their own precautions. I've heard people putting the settings in the negative numbers and others who've used the default settings and above. Blah.

I heard 0 is actually zero, not the defaulted settings. Whatever though, everyone has their own precautions. I've heard people putting the settings in the negative numbers and others who've used the default settings and above. Blah.

I dont actually own the set so i presumed that meant everything was turned down to nothing and there would be no picture, but if the numbers can go negative i presume it's middle setting....which i'm not really sure the reasoning behind, since the middle setting would mean different things for different settings.

heck, i dont know if anyone really verfieid if doing the break in thing really strengthens against IR, since if it will happen it seems like it would happen whenever.

I dont actually own the set so i presumed that meant everything was turned down to nothing and there would be no picture, but if the numbers can go negative i presume it's middle setting....which i'm not really sure the reasoning behind, since the middle setting would mean different things for different settings.

heck, i dont know if anyone really verfieid if doing the break in thing really strengthens against IR, since if it will happen it seems like it would happen whenever.


0 is the middle. The set can go down to negative numbers.

I think it has less to do with strengthening against IR and more to do with the set being more susceptible In the first 100 - 200 hrs. It's not like life long protection against IR.

I have question for those with an older HDMI-less Xbox 360, what do you use to achieve 1080p?


I heard that 1080p cannot be done over the component cables, so I'm left with one option - the VGA cable (which I already own). But due to the lack of a PC port on my 42 inch Panny PZ77U, what do I need???



Do I worsen the signal if I connected the VGA cable to the tv using, I'm assuming:

VDA to DVI, then DVI to HDMI??

Would buying both of those adapters solve my problems, or will I get a crappier signal due all the middle manning of the aforementioned adapters.


BLAH...:(

I don't own the tv yet, but I do have xbox360 and hd-dvd add on.

In addition, I have both the VGA and component connection.

Imo, the best way to hook up the 360 to this tv, I would use component cables and set the 360 to either 1080i or 720p (see which one looks clearer.)

The reality with the 360 is that none of the games are made in 1080p. They are all 720p or 1080i. The xbox will internally upscale to 1080p.

I think that this tv would do a better job upscaling the image to its native resolution rather than having the xbox 360 upscale it via software.

Bottom line- the image will not look better or play better if you some how are able to connect the xbox360 via 1080p to the tv(imho).
As far as the hd-dvd It will look the best sent 1080i via component. because it can't really send out a true 1080p signal anyway. The xbox360 just takes the 1080i signal and turns it into a progressive signal after the fact....

I currently have the 360 connected to a pj on a 92 inch screen and I can only marginally see an improvement using the vga connection. I think on a 42 inch screen it would be next to impossible to see an improvement. Also the tv version that is the model number 700 has the vga input, but it maxes out at about 1280x1024 or something much lower than 1080p.


Anyone, please post pics of this tv hooked up to a pc...

Majic12, in addition to davehancocks advice i think the problem could be with the HDMI setup, a lot of people are having a big problem when they set up the cable to the new HD hdmi cable box provider by the server. Try using the componet cable set up.

I have question for those with an older HDMI-less Xbox 360, what do you use to achieve 1080p?


I heard that 1080p cannot be done over the component cables, so I'm left with one option - the VGA cable (which I already own). But due to the lack of a PC port on my 42 inch Panny PZ77U, what do I need???



Do I worsen the signal if I connected the VGA cable to the tv using, I'm assuming:

VDA to DVI, then DVI to HDMI??

Would buying both of those adapters solve my problems, or will I get a crappier signal due all the middle manning of the aforementioned adapters.


BLAH...:(

I'd imagine you'd lose, at the very least, a little bit of signal quality doing all those conversions. If I didn't have HDMI, I'd probably hook the Xbox up over component, send a 1080i signal over and be done with it. With 1080i, you can control the overscan (720p doesn't let you, I guess because the TV is upconverting the signal to 1080p).

That's just based on my guesses. I haven't hooked up my Xbox over component. Try it both ways and see which one you like better. Or if you want to try out the VGA->DVI->HDMI, go for it. In the end, pick whatever you think looks the best. That's all that really matters anyway.

Anyone, please post pics of this tv hooked up to a pc...

Hmm... that's one I won't be able to do without buying some cables.

I would love to hear if all those adaptors would even work, let alone get you 1080p. I would say, find the best deal you can on the display, trade your old 360 in at Gamestop or Game Crazy and buy the New 360 Pro. Or just deal with 1080i...you won't tell the difference. That is what I am doing. You would be amazed at how powerful the term "1080P" is on most consumers. You will not tell the difference.

SETTINGS FOR 42PZ77?

Could someone please show me where they are? I thought I saw the settings posted on here somewhere but I'm not having any luck searching this thread so far. Thanks!

So I have my new 42pz77u set up on top of my dresser in the bedroom, but I'm realizing it would be nice to be able to put the TV on top of my cable box and DVD player in some fashion.

Does anyone know of a small shelf/cubby system to put 2 media players (DVD & DVR cable box) side by side and then the TV on top of them?

They have something at pottery barn here:
http://www.potterybarn.com/products/p9398/index.cfm?pkey=cfurbedmed

The "media component" pictured is basically what I need but I'm looking to spend more like $50 or $100 at the very most. Any ideas?


I am actually looking for something similar. I have a very large center channel (Boston Acoustics VR 920) that hides the bottom of my new 42PZ77U if I set it in front of the TV. So my center channel is out of commission until I find a solution.

I have looked just about everywhere online. No luck yet. If I find something I will post it...

Anyone else out there have a large center channel? What is your solution?

SETTINGS FOR 42PZ77?

Could someone please show me where they are? I thought I saw the settings posted on here somewhere but I'm not having any luck searching this thread so far. Thanks!

I haven't seen any yet. I'm going to be calibrating mine in the near future with Avia 2, so once I do that I'll post mine here.

Of course, settings posted online don't take into account your specific room and lighting situation.

Trur that. I think I'ma just stick with the cables over trading it in. They're only giving you 120 bucks credit, which is a total ripoff.

So AVIA II over DVE then?

So AVIA II over DVE then?

Personal preference. I used the original Avia on my dad's plasma and thought it did a good job of calibrating the set. Pretty easy to use also.

If you like DVE, go for it.

OK guys i was wrong in that the anti-glare filter was different than the anti-glare coating. Here is the Email i just got from panasonic consumer support ( Thank you for your inquiry. Anti-glare coating and anti-glare filter are one and the same. The anti-coating is applied as a coat on the inside surface of the front glass. Since it acts as a filter (it absorb infra-red light waves) it is sometimes called a filter. However ,there is no electrical filter of any kind to prevent glare.) We hope this information is helpful to you.

OK guys i was wrong in that the anti-glare filter was different than the anti-glare coating. Here is the Email i just got from panasonic consumer support ( Thank you for your inquiry. Anti-glare coating and anti-glare filter are one and the same. The anti-coating is applied as a coat on the inside surface of the front glass. Since it acts as a filter (it absorb infra-red light waves) it is sometimes called a filter. However ,there is no electrical filter of any kind to prevent glare.) We hope this information is helpful to you.

So what is the difference between the PZ700 & PZ77 anti glare thingamajigs?

Bowmah,PZ700 was the first one which i think was called antiglare reflector which as i recall didnt do the job so they improved newer process which is a big hit with the posters. PS you can do your own research on this glare thing by going on the panasonic site and sending them your Email question.

Well I went to best buy last night and saw the PZ700 and PZ77 side by side.
Essentially, the PZ77 looks more like a matte lcd screen, and the PZ700 looks glossy like most plasmas do.

I personally liked the PZ77 look better, it seemed a bit more lifelike and painted-on rather than the saturated look that the glossy screen gives.

Personal taste obviously.

Oh and the PZ77's are obviously going for cheaper so that's a bonus. Gonna snag a 42" tonight :)

EDIT: In terms of anti-glare, the PZ77 was MUCH better. I couldn't make out any glare from the lights behind me in the store, whereas the PZ700 was not terrible, but definitely apparent.

rva5x, Wise purchase make sure you get it for 1400 sears sale price and if you paid to have it installed you can download the panasonic rebate installation coupon for 200 from there site. And there goes another happy camper.

I haven't seen any yet. I'm going to be calibrating mine in the near future with Avia 2, so once I do that I'll post mine here.

Of course, settings posted online don't take into account your specific room and lighting situation.Or YOUR SPECIFIC SET! I've found significant variations between Panasonics of the same model (or any brand, for that matter).

Northstars 7,

You might try this for your flat panel. I have a large center channel as well and am considering one of these as my wife insists on getting a wood cabinet.

www.bello.com/index.php?partition=show_product&prod_id=186&categ_id=57

Here's another possibilty with an adjustable mounting bracket built onto the back of a TV stand.

www.bello.com/index.php?partition=show_product&prod_id=193&categ_id=39

I haven't found anything like these available from other manufacturers but my search has been far from exhaustive. I'm sure other manufactures have similar items available.

Bowmah,PZ700 was the first one which i think was called antiglare reflector which as i recall didnt do the job so they improved newer process which is a big hit with the posters.No, the PZ700 has the Anti-Reflective screen. The Anti-Glare screen on the PZ77U isn't an improved process, it's a completely different technology for a different market.

Alright here they are... more pictures!

First, standard-definition TV (over satellite).

Stretched:
http://lh3.google.com/scoot241/Rx_hvJ2j3gI/AAAAAAAABZM/XIoTBipOtcc/s800/PA240056.JPG

4:3
http://lh4.google.com/scoot241/Rx_hvZ2j3hI/AAAAAAAABZU/1FhGPEE5kdc/s800/PA240069.JPG

Honestly, I think the SD looks a bit better in motion than it does in these pictures. The box is hooked up over composite (that's all it has).

Xbox 360 over HDMI (set to 1080p)...

Halo 3:
http://lh6.google.com/scoot241/Rx_g452j3bI/AAAAAAAABYg/oMcjKx_Vr0M/s800/PA240058.JPG

PGR4:
http://lh3.google.com/scoot241/Rx_g5J2j3cI/AAAAAAAABYo/qtfVFH3AL74/s800/PA240060.JPG

http://lh5.google.com/scoot241/Rx_g5p2j3dI/AAAAAAAABYw/doDMzPRyOCw/s800/PA240061.JPG

Looney Tunes (720p, just released on Xbox Live):
http://lh6.google.com/scoot241/Rx_g552j3eI/AAAAAAAABY4/iZ7A3HvDXcw/s800/PA240067.JPG

http://lh3.google.com/scoot241/Rx_g6J2j3fI/AAAAAAAABZA/koSnVOIwFBI/s800/PA240068.JPG

Finally, one for the baseball fans:
http://lh5.google.com/scoot241/Rx_hvp2j3iI/AAAAAAAABZc/YUSd3hHS-jg/s800/PA240070.JPG

Randy, The consenus of the posters/owners is that the newer technology anti-glare filter/anti coating has done a very good job of cutting down the glare. Where as the anti reflector didnt do the job. To me that would sound like an improved technolgy. So whats the point. I know panasonic is trying compete with the LCDs no glare and it looks like they caught up. And i think the 10000 contrast had something to do with keeping the brightness up on the 42PZ77u.

SSpectre, Great pictures, did i hear somebody complain about dull picture in CC, BB, etc.

Yeah, and that's with the settings turned down. It'll look even better once it's calibrated.

You gotta be the happiest guy in the world right now.

You gotta be the happiest guy in the world right now.

I certainly can't complain.

okay...i am close to buying the 42pz77, but i just saw this comment on the cc webpage for it:

"1) The optical out will not pass through multichannel audio from an external source- it is downsampled to 2 channel PCM. The internal tuner is the only source that will output 5.1 audio."

this seems completely insane...please confirm for me that it's not true. i want to send my xbox360 & cable stb to the tv via hdmi & then output to my surround sound system via optical.

i just found this forum & i have to thank everybody for helping me work through my 'analysis paralysis' on buying a new tv!

okay...i am close to buying the 42pz77, but i just saw this comment on the cc webpage for it:

"1) The optical out will not pass through multichannel audio from an external source- it is downsampled to 2 channel PCM. The internal tuner is the only source that will output 5.1 audio."

this seems completely insane...please confirm for me that it's not true. i want to send my xbox360 & cable stb to the tv via hdmi & then output to my surround sound system via optical.

i just found this forum & i have to thank everybody for helping me work through my 'analysis paralysis' on buying a new tv!

From what I've read, this is common on all these TVs (not just the PZ77U). On my dad's 50PX600U, the cable box is hooked up over HDMI to the TV and optical to the receiver, and the DVD player is hooked up over component to the TV and coaxial to the receiver. I don't know why they can't make it so that it just passes through, but it doesn't work that way (as far as i know).

From what I've read, this is common on all these TVs (not just the PZ77U). On my dad's 50PX600U, the cable box is hooked up over HDMI to the TV and optical to the receiver, and the DVD player is hooked up over component to the TV and coaxial to the receiver. I don't know why they can't make it so that it just passes through, but it doesn't work that way (as far as i know).

thanks...do you know if it's possible with the xbox 360 to send video via hdmi to the tv and then audio via optical to the receiver?

From what I've read, this is common on all these TVs (not just the PZ77U). On my dad's 50PX600U, the cable box is hooked up over HDMI to the TV and optical to the receiver, and the DVD player is hooked up over component to the TV and coaxial to the receiver. I don't know why they can't make it so that it just passes through, but it doesn't work that way (as far as i know).I was going to make the same comment. I believe that one of the issues is that additional license fees are involved if they actually switched the DD inputs to the outputs (believe it or not - but Dolby makes their money from licensing) :mad:

thanks...do you know if it's possible with the xbox 360 to send video via hdmi to the tv and then audio via optical to the receiver?Likely to be the same answer as I just posted. - Sorry, do't think so.

thanks...do you know if it's possible with the xbox 360 to send video via hdmi to the tv and then audio via optical to the receiver?

You can send optical straight to the receiver if you use HDMI on your Xbox. If you have the Elite, your Xbox came with the dongle you need. If you have the Premium, MS sells the dongle with an HDMI cable for $50, but members of this forum have taken the plastic off their A/V cable in order to be able to plug it in alongside the HDMI cable and use that optical port.

are you seriously in deep doodoo if you watch SD programming unstretched? i dunno, i just dont like to stretch it. I also am not a huge fan of the grey bars (which my cable box is capable of doing), so do black bars really screw you over eventually if you just watch tv and not worry or care about them?

Does anyone else have a problem with graininess or fuzziness, esp. in the background when watching HD broadcasts. I know this is probably mostly a signal issue and the fact that most broadcasts are compressed, etc. But the 55" Hitachi plasma I also have seems to have less graininess. I notice this a lot on football games on the green background. Could this be the conversion to 1080p? Any suggestions? I am using a cable DVR set to 1080i.

Where do I go in the Menu to see how many hours I've logged on it so far...

I know I'm getting close to the 100 hours mark...

are people still having issues connecting their xbox 360's to the 42pz77 via hdmi? or has it been sorted out?

thanks!

So I broke out my Avia DVD last night and spent a little time with the TV. I've settled on the following settings for now:

Customer Picture Mode
Picture +17
Brightness -12
Color -2
Tint -1
Sharpness -2
Color Temp Normal
Color Management Off
Black Level - Light

I think these are good start. Once I set these settings over component with my HD-DVR from Comcast (different source, different picture), I ended up taking the Picture down to +16 and Brightness up to -9 and Sharpness to 0. I used the above settings as a baseline and then messed around with the Picture and Brightness until I was happy. The biggest thing I have to get used to is how much darker and richer the colors look on this over my Sony 60" rear projection LCD downstairs. The deeper blacks and lower overall brightness made things look "inky" at first, but now I'm very happy with the depth of this set.

Your mileage may vary with these settings, but I figured they might help someone.

are people still having issues connecting their xbox 360's to the 42pz77 via hdmi? or has it been sorted out?

thanks!

I'm not sure what issues you speak of. I've heard of general Xbox 360 HDMI handshake issues, but personally have not encountered this.

I'll use those tonight. Last night I tried the settings CNET has for the 42PZ700U and it wasn't too bad.

Picture menu:
Picture mode: Cinema
Picture: +27
Brightness: +8
Color: -4
Tint: -1
Sharpness: -30
Color temperature: Warm
Color management: Off
C.A.T.S.: Off
Zoom adjust: Grayed out
PC adjust: Grayed out

Other Adjust menu:
Video NR: Off
3d Y/C filter: Grayed out
Color matrix: Grayed out
Block NR: Off
Mosquito NR: Off
Black level: Light
3:2 pulldown: On
HD size: Size 2



So I broke out my Avia DVD last night and spent a little time with the TV. I've settled on the following settings for now:

Customer Picture Mode
Picture +17
Brightness -12
Color -2
Tint -1
Sharpness -2
Color Temp Normal
Color Management Off
Black Level - Light

I think these are good start. Once I set these settings over component with my HD-DVR from Comcast (different source, different picture), I ended up taking the Picture down to +16 and Brightness up to -9 and Sharpness to 0. I used the above settings as a baseline and then messed around with the Picture and Brightness until I was happy. The biggest thing I have to get used to is how much darker and richer the colors look on this over my Sony 60" rear projection LCD downstairs. The deeper blacks and lower overall brightness made things look "inky" at first, but now I'm very happy with the depth of this set.

Your mileage may vary with these settings, but I figured they might help someone.

So I broke out my Avia DVD last night and spent a little time with the TV. I've settled on the following settings for now:

Customer Picture Mode
Picture +17
Brightness -12
Color -2
Tint -1
Sharpness -2
Color Temp Normal
Color Management Off
Black Level - LightBrightness -12... really? This panel appears pretty dim to begin with. I've got mine currently set at +11, and that's at night with the lights out. I'll try out your settings tonight. What is your environment like?

Brightness -12... really? This panel appears pretty dim to begin with. I've got mine currently set at +11, and that's at night with the lights out. I'll try out your settings tonight. What is your environment like?

My environment is my bedroom, eyeballs about 10 feet from TV, no natural ambient light with my 3 ceiling fan bulbs dimmed to about 1/3 - 1/2. I wanted enough light to mimic general watching instead of calibrating in the dark.

The brightness at -12 might seem odd, but check your "black level" setting in the "other adjustments". Mine is set to light. If it is set to dark, you will definitely want a higher brightness level (Brightness is just another word for Black Level anyway). In addition, this was good for DVDs, but during normal HD-TV watching, I pushed the brightness up to about -9.

Where do I go in the Menu to see how many hours I've logged on it so far...

I know I'm getting close to the 100 hours mark...

:confused::confused:

:confused::confused:

It's in the service menu. I know there's a post on this forum that tells you how to do it, but I'm not sure where it is.

Going into the service menu is somewhat dangerous by itself, though...

I see another place where Panny is saving $$ - look at the processing: the 77u has only 3072 shades of gray versus 4096 on the 700u. So, the processing is now 10 bit versus 12 (if my math is right).
I've read the PZ77U models have a "16-bit C3 Image Enhanced video processor. What's the truth for these PZ77U models?

I've read the PZ77U models have a "16-bit C3 Image Enhanced video processor. What's the truth for these PZ77U models?

The shades of gradation is 4096 for both the PZ700U and the PZ77U.

I've read the PZ77U models have a "16-bit C3 Image Enhanced video processor. What's the truth for these PZ77U models?Where did you read that?

Thanks I've seen that, but I'm still curious on the (claimed) bit rate of the processor... and the panel for that matter I guess.

Where did you read that?
In specs on this retailers website:
http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0770HDS0010086849&catid=#

In specs on this retailers website:
http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0770HDS0010086849&catid=#

Your link goes to the TH-50PX77U, which is the 720p model.

You are looking at the wrong tv on that site. That link is for the PX77U not the PZ77U.

Your link goes to the TH-50PX77U, which is the 720p model.Actually that link isn't even for the 50PX77U, it's for a 50PX77 (without the U) which means it's not a USA model. It's probably a Canadian model since it doesn't have a U (USA) or a B (UK) after the model number.

yes but it is still the same as the usa version of the px77u, it's just futureshop exclusive to canada...

long time listener, first time caller...

I have to admit I'm new to HT although I've been making media since '79, and have been deep in digital for quite a few years. Unfortunately for whatever reason at work I've had cool stuff and at home just a tv and directv. At any rate, a career shift into making films and shooting hd finally shoved me kicking and screaming into HT.

At first I was thinking Sharp LCD and had settled on a 32" (live in an apt) but had a salesman point me toward plasma given my use (DVDs, no sports, maybe upgrade to HD sat/cable, love 16x9 and film). On impulse I ended up with a 42PX75U. After the shock of the size (coming from a 21" CRT), I popped in Infernal Affairs and let my jaw drop on the floor. Then I went back the next day and got a cheap 5.1 system (Panny PT750) and watched Kung Fu Hustle. Almost cried.

The problem is that I have a really good eye and ear. I don't even have a home stereo these days, as I got spoiled mixing/listening on ADAM monitors and Ultrasone headphones. So now I'm considering "uprezzing" my setup as I know this slippery slope all too well. That is leading me to return the 42PX75U for a 42PZ77U to help "future proof" from a resolution standpoint. Plus I'll be moving in a month or three and might not have the nice dark room I have now. And likely will send back the PX750 as it doesn't have optical in and I want more flexibility...thinking Oppo DVD player, a reasonable receiver and either Axiom or Orb speakers. Still trying to stay on a small budget, but at some point if you're going to spend $1300 you might as well spend $1600 (display). And for audio...well, all-in-one things always seem like a good idea but I actually like wiring systems up and being able to fiddle.

So, anyone made the px75 - pz77 move and was it worth it? And any recommends on the audio side?

I'm waiting for my 50pz77 - cannot wait.

For audio, I think those Orbs are pretty slick. Dunno what your arrangment is at home (read: WAF) but from listening to a set of Orbs for an hour one time, I was impressed with what they were capable of. Nothing outrageous or anything, but a perfect setup given the situation. I've never heard Axioms... sad face.

Rock on.

WAF? Zero...that's what divorce is for. Also no one to bug me about how much I spend on my track car :-p

But space is somewhat at a premium and I don't have to fill a big room.

Orbs :)

Track car, eh? I used to race karts before moving to the Bay Area. My old man still does his thing with his toys... Ahhh, the good ole days.

My son and I pack up my '79 911 and head up to Sonoma tomorrow for races Sat/Sun at Infineon. If you're in the area, $10 to get in the gate and unlimited access to the paddock, etc. Almost all Porsches racing, three different organizations.

PM'ed. Sounds rad.

- Christian

My son and I pack up my '79 911 and head up to Sonoma tomorrow for races Sat/Sun at Infineon. If you're in the area, $10 to get in the gate and unlimited access to the paddock, etc. Almost all Porsches racing, three different organizations.Ack don't succumb to calling it Infineon :D It'll always be Sears Point Raceway to me. I haven't been on it in years - i miss it :(

Sears Point for LIFE!! Nice call Randy.

Plasmas? We dont need no stinking plasmas!! :cool:

- Christian

Well, the "official" event is called "Porsches at the Point." But I'm under contractual obligation to honor the sponsors wishes and call it Infineon ;-)

So back to the question...after reading through this and other threads, seems that if I don't have an ambient light issue going without the anti-glare is the way to go. That would mean either keeping the PX75U or moving to a PZ700U for the native 1080p. I don't see buying HD DVDs any time soon though, and with a 42" screen at 8 or so feet away people seem to say you don't see a difference (and maybe that the PX75U does better with SD signal).

Hello, expert here.

I'm really interested in this model TH-42PZ77U but wanna know that will this work with my pc or not.

right now I'm using westinghouse tx430 lcd as a pc monitor hook up with 8800gts 640mb via hdmi/dvi cable and my tv can output the signal 1920*1080 from the vga card beautifully. But I'm considered to return it a third time due to have stuck pixels. grrr third time with same tx430, same stuck pixel problem and I can't accept it because I sit just 4 feet from the monitor and notice it easily.

So, I think the TH-42PZ77U will be my next choice but I'm not sure that it has a pixel mapping 1:1 function like westinghouse has or not?

and the serious thing is the plasma panel burn-in problem? do plasma these days still have this trouble? because I will use it as a pc monitor and play pc games almost 80% and the rest 20% for watching movies on pc or ps3 blu-ray.

So, If someone here can hook up this monitor with vga card via hdmi/dvi cable and tell some results would be appreciated.

Well, the "official" event is called "Porsches at the Point." But I'm under contractual obligation to honor the sponsors wishes and call it Infineon ;-)Ah yes, the sponsor thing. And don't get me started on Laguna Seca's new corporate name . . . grrrrrr.

So back to the question...after reading through this and other threads, seems that if I don't have an ambient light issue going without the anti-glare is the way to go. That would mean either keeping the PX75U or moving to a PZ700U for the native 1080p. I don't see buying HD DVDs any time soon though, and with a 42" screen at 8 or so feet away people seem to say you don't see a difference (and maybe that the PX75U does better with SD signal).I sit 8 feet from my 42 inch PZ700U and it's a definite improvement over my older 768p set. Even when i back up to 10 feet or more i can still see the improved processing and the image still looks more natural so it's not just about the lack of SDE on these 1080p models.

I pretty much watch primetime HD on the weeknights and lots of SD SpeedChannel racing during the day on the weekends as well as a 480i DVD here and there and it all looks better on the 1080p set. Also, i, as well as many many others including at least one guy who had both a PZ77U and PZ700U and retured the PZ77U, feel the PZ700U has a slightly better picture due to the lack of the AG screen so it's likely you'll feel the same way, although plenty of people here like the PZ77U's PQ better. I spent a lot of time auditioning the PZ77U when it came out because my living room is bright, but i just don't like what the AG screen does to the image and decided to keep my PZ700U and keep redirecting and diffusing the light in my living room just like i have been for the past 20 years.

I recommend going to stores with both TVs and a good feed and (A) compare the PQ of both and (B) see how the lack of SDE and the improved processing looks on the PZ700U or PZ77U compared to their 768p counterparts. I saw a big enough improvement at the stores that i bought the 1080p model even though i was still happy with my old 768p model and didn't really need a new Plasma - but i just had to have it and i'm so glad i bumped up to a 1080p screen. My old 42PX50U is in my bedroom now and i don't enjoy it as much as the 42PZ700U.

Here's my mini-review of my TH-42PZ700U:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=11426230&postcount=780

Your link goes to the TH-50PX77U, which is the 720p model.
Oops, rookie mistake.

Still having trouble finding the bit processor for both models. I've read claims of 10, 12 and 16. Sigh.

Just wanna help if any one is having a problem with the 4250HDCscientific atlanta box HDMI to HDMI tv hookup. I just got this email back from TWC/NYC. (While some of our HD converters have active HDMI ports it is not a supported connection. We are aware of the HDMI issue regarding your particular converter and expect the problem to be corrected at the end of the month with an upgrade of the converters operating system. This upgrade will be done from our offices and will not require you to swap your converter or set up a service call.) Sounds good I hope this will help anyone thats having a problem with above box.

Just wanna help if any one is having a problem with the 4250HDCscientific atlanta box HDMI to HDMI tv hookup. I just got this email back from TWC/NYC. (While some of our HD converters have active HDMI ports it is not a supported connection. We are aware of the HDMI issue regarding your particular converter and expect the problem to be corrected at the end of the month with an upgrade of the converters operating system. This upgrade will be done from our offices and will not require you to swap your converter or set up a service call.) Sounds good I hope this will help anyone thats having a problem with above box.

Not sure what issue you are having but I get the dreaded " This television does not support HDCP. Please use component inputs" message all too often! The only way to rectify it is to reboot the box :( Drives me INSANE!!

Hello, expert here.

I'm really interested in this model TH-42PZ77U but wanna know that will this work with my pc or not.

right now I'm using westinghouse tx430 lcd as a pc monitor hook up with 8800gts 640mb via hdmi/dvi cable and my tv can output the signal 1920*1080 from the vga card beautifully. But I'm considered to return it a third time due to have stuck pixels. grrr third time with same tx430, same stuck pixel problem and I can't accept it because I sit just 4 feet from the monitor and notice it easily.

So, I think the TH-42PZ77U will be my next choice but I'm not sure that it has a pixel mapping 1:1 function like westinghouse has or not?

and the serious thing is the plasma panel burn-in problem? do plasma these days still have this trouble? because I will use it as a pc monitor and play pc games almost 80% and the rest 20% for watching movies on pc or ps3 blu-ray.

So, If someone here can hook up this monitor with vga card via hdmi/dvi cable and tell some results would be appreciated.

The TV does have a 1:1 pixel-mapping mode (called "Size 2" for some unknown reason, "Size 1" is the overscan mode).

Burn-in is a much smaller problem than it used to be, but I'm not sure I would recommend 80% video games.

Asudog1080, The problem with TWC box scientificatlanta 4250HDC is that it is rejecting the HDMI set up. Do you have that box?

Somebody is not doing their homework the 42PZ77U does not have a PC connection. All you have to do is to go on the panny site or CC,BB sites to find that out.

Somebody is not doing their homework the 42PZ77U does not have a PC connection. All you have to do is to go on the panny site or CC,BB sites to find that out.

It does have a PC connection. HDMI. My video card had that as a output so it must be a PC connection. Just a different style.

I'm seeing a few posts in this thread listing out panel settings but they seem just like subjective "looks fine to me" settings. Are there any reviews (or posts I missed) with settings adjusted using measurement equipment with the PZ77?

Stix2, I apologize if was wrong, i shouldnt go into areas where im not astute. That being said i did go on the panasonic site and it said no pc input and in your post you didnt sound too convinced that it did accept PC. Are you saying you can hook up a pc?

Stix2, I apologize if was wrong, i shouldnt go into areas where im not astute. That being said i did go on the panasonic site and it said no pc input and in your post you didnt sound too convinced that it did accept PC. Are you saying you can hook up a pc?

If your PC has a DVI output, you can connect that to the HDMI input on the TV providing you use a DVI to HDMI cable. Some video cards also have HDMI outputs. With 1:1 pixel mapping in DVI/HDMI, I don't see why more folks aren't using this method compared to the 15pin VGA scaling issues with fixed pixel displays.

Toms. Do most PCs have a DVI output? and thanks for your input.

Does anyone out there who owns a 42PZ77U have a PC connected to it and how is it hooked up?

Yes, most PCs now-a-days have DVI output. Older PCs and MAYBE a few newer ones with extremely low-end or old videocards might have vga only, but the vast majority now have DVI. And a DVI to HDMI cable is dirt cheap. I saw a bunch of them at big lots for $5.

I'm seeing a few posts in this thread listing out panel settings but they seem just like subjective "looks fine to me" settings. Are there any reviews (or posts I missed) with settings adjusted using measurement equipment with the PZ77?

One poster used Avia to calibrate. I'll be using Avia 2 after break-in (and after it comes in), but I don't think anyone's used any other equipment.

It does have a PC connection. HDMI. My video card had that as a output so it must be a PC connection. Just a different style.Well traditionally when a flat panel TV is listed as having a PC input it's always been VGA. Never once have i seen a TV spec list a DVI input as a PC input. My new home PC's video card only has S-Video and Composite output so are those to be considered "PC outputs"? None of the recent computers in my office have HDMI or DVI outputs so it's not like they have no PC output. And i don't consider my TV's HDMI inputs to be a PC input. I think it's generally understood that PC input means VGA.

And here's what Panasonic's specs say about the PZ77U: PC Input (RGB-VGA) No

Let's not confuse the readers by referring to all the PZ77U's various video inputs as "PC Inputs".

Northstars 7,

You might try this for your flat panel. I have a large center channel as well and am considering one of these as my wife insists on getting a wood cabinet.

www.bello.com/index.php?partition=show_product&prod_id=186&categ_id=57

Here's another possibilty with an adjustable mounting bracket built onto the back of a TV stand.

www.bello.com/index.php?partition=show_product&prod_id=193&categ_id=39

I haven't found anything like these available from other manufacturers but my search has been far from exhaustive. I'm sure other manufactures have similar items available.


GLH - thanks for the links. I had never seen a free standing mount like that before. It definitely solves my center channel problem placement problem without forcing me to start drilling into my walls.

Well traditionally when a flat panel TV is listed as having a PC input it's always been VGA. Never once have i seen a TV spec list a DVI input as a PC input. My new home PC's video card only has S-Video and Composite output so are those to be considered "PC outputs"? None of the recent computers in my office have HDMI or DVI outputs so it's not like they have no PC output. And i don't consider my TV's HDMI inputs to be a PC input. I think it's generally understood that PC input means VGA.

And here's what Panasonic's specs say about the PZ77U: PC Input (RGB-VGA) No

Let's not confuse the readers by referring to all the PZ77U's various video inputs as "PC Inputs".

A PC input is any connection your particular computer outputs. I sure would not call my HDMI connection on my PC a Microwave plug. As it is my PC output.

Panny just says it has no VGA input. It has the other PC input AKA HDMI. Its just a newer PC connection and most companies do not list it that way. They are slow to adopt these things

A PC input is any connection your particular computer outputs. I sure would not call my HDMI connection on my PC a Microwave plug. So then my 1982 Sharp 13" garage TV has a PC input since my PC has a yellow Composite Video output, and my 1972 Sylvania radio cassette recorder has a PC input since my PC has a 1/8" audio output jack. Nice.

You can call any input anything you want, but Panasonic's definition of a PC input is VGA. From the PZ700U specs:

PC Input (RGB-VGA) Mini D-sub 15-pin (rear)

They do not call the HDMI or S-Video or RF input "PC inputs", just the VGA :p

So then my 1982 Sharp 13" garage TV has a PC input since my PC has a yellow Composite Video output, and my 1972 Sylvania radio cassette recorder has a PC input since my PC has a 1/8" audio output jack. Nice.

You can call any input anything you want, but Panasonic's definition of a PC input is VGA. From the PZ700U specs:

PC Input (RGB-VGA) Mini D-sub 15-pin (rear)

They do not call the HDMI or S-Video or RF input "PC inputs", just the VGA :p

Thats my point. They are slow to adopt these things. But yes to all the above. But we are talking video not audio inputs. Except for HDMI which does both even on ATI x2x00 cards.

I have my computer hooked up thru HDMI and have great PQ and audio. Its nice not having to run extra wires to the tv from the PC just for sound. HDMI does it all.

But I can see your point as to not confuse people so no it has no VGA inputs for a PC but does have HDMI hookups that work perfect for a PC. If you have a DVI all ya need is a DVI to HDMI to hook it up. If you have a Newer radeon card they will pass sound thru the DVI - HDMI cable. No need for extra wires.

Yes, Composite is a PC input; as is VGA and HDMI/DVI. Most newer video cards have a DVI output, which is just HDMI without audio. DVI>VGA as far as outputs go, I'm not even sure if VGA can output 1080p. (Anyone know for sure?)

I'm sure that Panasonic refers to the 15 pin VGA input as "PC Input" only because that is basically all it is capable of. HDMI is a more universal input, you wouldn't refer to it as a "PC Input" since it accepts much more than that (PCs/DVD/PlayStation etc)

Yeah, specgeorge LCDS or Plasmas that have no vga input doesn't mean you can't hook up to PC. Most ppl <like me> hook pc to lcdtv up via hdmi to dvi cable but those LCDs or plasmas need to have 1:1 pixel mapping funtion in order to come up picture correctly.

"RandyWalters" you can consider hdmi as a pc input because in technical hdmi= dvi+sound in pc

So, they are the same technical, same picture quality, hdmi just plus audio.

A PC input is any connection your particular computer outputs. I sure would not call my HDMI connection on my PC a Microwave plug. As it is my PC output.

Panny just says it has no VGA input. It has the other PC input AKA HDMI. Its just a newer PC connection and most companies do not list it that way. They are slow to adopt these things

HDMI is on very few video cards. Only the ATI Radeon HD 2XXX series has them I believe. You can convert DVI to HDMI, but most consumers wouldn't know to do that. So to say that Panasonic should advertise that HDMI is a computer connection is a stretch IMO.

You can convert DVI to HDMI, but most consumers wouldn't know to do that.
Yes, there are low cost DVI to HDMI cables out there for sure.

Toms. Do most PCs have a DVI output? and thanks for your input.

Yes, most newer desktops may have DVI output. But most notebooks still only have VGA output (which is what Panasonic calls the PC port). I am guessing more people will use a notebook to output from a PC rather than a dedicated HTPC? Maybe I am wrong on this one :)

But definitely, if you have a PC with DVI out, get a cheap DVI to HDMI cable!

Yes, there are low cost DVI to HDMI cables out there for sure.

Low cost or not (the cheapest cable at BB is $60, by the way), it's not a route Joe Consumer who walks into BB, CC, etc. is even going to consider. It takes a bit of research to find out that DVI and HDMI are indeed compatible. And sure, there's Monoprice, but the average consumer doesn't know about them either (although they should).

HDMI is not recognized a computer input for the average consumer.

Extazy. So all i need to know is does the 42PZ77U have the 1:1 pixe L mapping funtion. Does anyone know if it does? It doesnt say anything like that in the specs on the panasonic site and i assume if it doesnt have it i wont be able to hook up the PC right.

Extazy. So all i need to know is does the 42PZ77U have the 1:1 pixe L mapping funtion. Does anyone know if it does? It doesnt say anything like that in the specs on the panasonic site and i assume if it doesnt have it i wont be able to hook up the PC right.

Yes, it has 1:1 pixel mapping over HDMI. I have noticed that you can't select it if you're outputting over HDMI at 720p (probably because the TV is upconverting that image to 1080p). But when a 1080i or 1080p image is being sent to the TV over HDMI, you can choose overscan mode, called "Size 1", or 1:1 pixel mapping, called "Size 2".

HDMI is on very few video cards. Only the ATI Radeon HD 2XXX series has them I believe. You can convert DVI to HDMI, but most consumers wouldn't know to do that. So to say that Panasonic should advertise that HDMI is a computer connection is a stretch IMO.

No some nvidia cards do aswell. And only ATI cards can output sound thru DVI

I sit 8 feet from my 42 inch PZ700U and it's a definite improvement over my older 768p set. Even when i back up to 10 feet or more i can still see the improved processing and the image still looks more natural so it's not just about the lack of SDE on these 1080p models.



One wonders if that also applies to the apparently "Ingeniously" video processed Pioneer low res 42". Since most store managers swear by it, despite it's resolution being so much lower (1024x768, the even lesser 720P resolution) than 1920x1080. I'd think even without the viewing distance limit that someone could notice the difference between 1920 and 1024, at least when playing from a high resolution video game or movie.

Low cost or not (the cheapest cable at BB is $60, by the way), it's not a route Joe Consumer who walks into BB, CC, etc. is even going to consider. It takes a bit of research to find out that DVI and HDMI are indeed compatible. And sure, there's Monoprice, but the average consumer doesn't know about them either (although they should).

HDMI is not recognized a computer input for the average consumer.
That's why the ones who know, especially here, should help the others who do not. In addition to MonoP, NCIX also has low cost DVI to HDMI cables.

Frankly no one should connect a PC to a television without using a digital connection (HDMI or DVI).

Connecting a PC to a computer monitor is one thing as you may not notice a difference from VGA or DVI on a 17 or 19 inch pc monitor. The computer monitor has smaller pixels and LCD monitors usual have sharper more defined pixel structure(that helps reading text, etc.)

However a 42 inch tv is going to be really large blown up pixels compared to a computer monitor... As such with larger pixels is more room for interference, any other distortion in the video conversion process, etc.

The 42 inch tvs that also accept a 15 VGA connection- is not that helpful since they do not allow 1920x1080 signal....they usual accept a resolution lower than the actual native one for the screen.

Finally, in case you were wondering, there is also something referred to as a break-out cable that allows you to change a VGA connection(Input) into a component one...

Finally, in case you were wondering, there is also something referred to as a break-out cable that allows you to change a VGA connection(Input) into a component one...
Right. There are also VGA to RCA and VGA to S-Video as well. Hope that can help others who are limited by the input on the TV.

"Yes, it has 1:1 pixel mapping over HDMI. I have noticed that you can't select it if you're outputting over HDMI at 720p (probably because the TV is upconverting that image to 1080p). But when a 1080i or 1080p image is being sent to the TV over HDMI, you can choose overscan mode, called "Size 1", or 1:1 pixel mapping, called "Size 2"."

So, SSpectre you hook up your pc with this panny via hdmi/dvi cable right?

does it show 1920*1080 window desktop correctly like you use a regular pc monitor?

and what about text quality? Is that readable? one of my need about this panny 42pz77 is to show the powerpoint, excel or word in a large screen. Also PC gaming in 1920*1080.

"Yes, it has 1:1 pixel mapping over HDMI. I have noticed that you can't select it if you're outputting over HDMI at 720p (probably because the TV is upconverting that image to 1080p). But when a 1080i or 1080p image is being sent to the TV over HDMI, you can choose overscan mode, called "Size 1", or 1:1 pixel mapping, called "Size 2"."

So, SSpectre you hook up your pc with this panny via hdmi/dvi cable right?

does it show 1920*1080 window desktop correctly like you use a regular pc monitor?

and what about text quality? Is that readable? one of my need about this panny 42pz77 is to show the powerpoint, excel or word in a large screen. Also PC gaming in 1920*1080.

No I haven't done this yet. I'm just commenting on my experiences with my Xbox 360 and the antenna. My laptop only has VGA and my desktop is too far away, so I'd have to get a VGA->DVI adapter (which I think I have) and a DVI->HDMI cable (which I don't have) before I could test this out.

"Yes, it has 1:1 pixel mapping over HDMI. I have noticed that you can't select it if you're outputting over HDMI at 720p (probably because the TV is upconverting that image to 1080p). But when a 1080i or 1080p image is being sent to the TV over HDMI, you can choose overscan mode, called "Size 1", or 1:1 pixel mapping, called "Size 2"."

So, SSpectre you hook up your pc with this panny via hdmi/dvi cable right?

does it show 1920*1080 window desktop correctly like you use a regular pc monitor?

and what about text quality? Is that readable? one of my need about this panny 42pz77 is to show the powerpoint, excel or word in a large screen. Also PC gaming in 1920*1080.

Yes it displays the desktop correctly like when ya use a regular monitor.

Text quality is perfect when you adjust sharpness and calibrate it correctly.

Gaming is pure enjoyment. No motion blur perfect colors and a big ass screen :)

Ok GUYS thanks a lot for your help. Ive decided i wont be hooking up my PC/computer to the TV anytime soon.

Newbie Question:

The Panasonic website shows the 42PZ77U is lacking the aspect option of H-Fill, which is common on many of the other models. What is H-Fill? Is this something to be concerned about? Until I get fully rigged out with a high def satellite receiver I'll be watching a fair bit of standard def sat tv and dvd's, and I'm not sure if lack of H-Fill will be a problem now...or later?? Thanks in advance.

WW1

Small question, is the pixel shift (wobbling) automatically on or do I have to find it? Also, the manual really doesn't make a distinction over whether or not there are anti-burn features like a screen saver or white scroll...so I should I assume they don't exist?



Finally, are there any basic instructions of getting to the service menu to JUST see the hours logged on my Panny PZ77U, or am I just asking for trouble?


THANKS in advance.

I plan on purchasing either the TH-42PZ77U or TH-42PX77U but am concerned with the location of the hdmi connections. I already have a tv mounted with a Sanus Low Profile (1.25") mount, but will replace the cables with two hdmi's (35 ft from Monoprice) for the new set. The higher quality cables look rigid and I don't know they're flexible enough to bend between the wall and the set.

Has anyone run into an issue when mounting either TV with a low profile mount and hdmi cables?

Small question, is the pixel shift (wobbling) automatically on or do I have to find it? Also, the manual really doesn't make a distinction over whether or not there are anti-burn features like a screen saver or white scroll...so I should I assume they don't exist?


Pixel shift is automatic. I don't believe there's a screensaver or white scroll.

Ok GUYS thanks a lot for your help. Ive decided i wont be hooking up my PC/computer to the TV anytime soon.

Just curious but why not?


As far as white scroll it really is not needed. As for burn in on this TV you would be hard pressed to do it. I forgot and left WoW on for about 7 hours no movement and IR went away on Discovery HD in about 2 minutes. Checked for burn in or IR on black screen and nothing. This TV has some EXCELLENT IR and burn in resistance.

Newbie Question:

The Panasonic website shows the 42PZ77U is lacking the aspect option of H-Fill, which is common on many of the other models. What is H-Fill? Is this something to be concerned about? Until I get fully rigged out with a high def satellite receiver I'll be watching a fair bit of standard def sat tv and dvd's, and I'm not sure if lack of H-Fill will be a problem now...or later?? Thanks in advance.

WW1

The PZ77U DOES have H-Fill. Panasonic just doesn't have it listed for some reason. You really don't need it anyway as all SD, 4:3 signals look best in the "Just" aspect mode IMO. Nothing to worry about.

Small question, is the pixel shift (wobbling) automatically on or do I have to find it? Also, the manual really doesn't make a distinction over whether or not there are anti-burn features like a screen saver or white scroll...so I should I assume they don't exist?



Finally, are there any basic instructions of getting to the service menu to JUST see the hours logged on my Panny PZ77U, or am I just asking for trouble?


THANKS in advance.

I would avoid checking your hours via the service menu. It is easy to get to the menu but probably not a good idea. Just estimate your hours and don't worry too much b/c all my IR goes away after a minute or two.

The PZ77U DOES have H-Fill. Panasonic just doesn't have it listed for some reason. You really don't need it anyway as all SD, 4:3 signals look best in the "Just" aspect mode IMO. Nothing to worry about.

bperry- Thanks for the quick and thoughtful response. Looks like the 42PZ77U will be in my pre-Christmas stocking!

WW1

Hello, expert here.

I'm really interested in this model TH-42PZ77U but wanna know that will this work with my pc or not.

right now I'm using westinghouse tx430 lcd as a pc monitor hook up with 8800gts 640mb via hdmi/dvi cable and my tv can output the signal 1920*1080 from the vga card beautifully. But I'm considered to return it a third time due to have stuck pixels. grrr third time with same tx430, same stuck pixel problem and I can't accept it because I sit just 4 feet from the monitor and notice it easily.

So, I think the TH-42PZ77U will be my next choice but I'm not sure that it has a pixel mapping 1:1 function like westinghouse has or not?

and the serious thing is the plasma panel burn-in problem? do plasma these days still have this trouble? because I will use it as a pc monitor and play pc games almost 80% and the rest 20% for watching movies on pc or ps3 blu-ray.

So, If someone here can hook up this monitor with vga card via hdmi/dvi cable and tell some results would be appreciated.


80% pc games? You definitely need to go LCD.

Question? Do all the pz77u models have the "Pixel Shifter" I think its called. I saw a friends and his TV had a sticker on the front that said it has it. But the TV i just bought from BB doesn't have the sticker on the front that says "Pixel Shifter" Dumb question, but just want to confirm that my 50pz77u has the pixel shifter to help with IR. Thanks!

My 42PZ77U arrived yesterday from Sears. Panasonic has a delivery/installation rebate until the end of Oct. 2007 so will take advantage of that as well (up to $200).

I'm replacing my Panny 42PWD5 which has served me well for almost 5 years. The 42PWD5 has worked faithfully during the DVD golden years but the PZ77U has 5 times the number of pixels so this is a giant leap in resolution.

The older 42PWD5 was an industrial monitor which gave a few extra choices in setup (gamma, white/black color balance). I miss these controls on the 42PZ77U so you have to search for the right combinations of Modes/Color Temp/Brightness/Constrast to suit your tastes. I felt Color Temp: Normal was a little too blue in the whites while Color Temp: Warm a little green in the whites. I settled on Warm as the most pleasing to my eye. Are there any hidden setups for gamma and color balance?

So, here are my setups. Your mileage may vary and I'm sure these will change in the near future as it was done by eye initially. For some reason on the 42PZ77U you have to set brightness way above 0 to get the blacks out of the mud. There is a menu control for gross Black Level (Light/Dark). I set it for Light as Dark was way to dark. Source DVD, HDMI, Spider setup disk.
Mode: Custom
Picture: +9
Brightness: +14
Color/Tint/Sharpness: 0
Color Temp: Warm
Color Mgnt/ Video NR/ Block NR/ Mosquito NR: Off
Blacklevel: Light
3:2 Pulldown: On
HD Size: Size 2

Well, the picture resolution is outstanding. I am pleased with the brightness and more apparent contrast ratio when compared to the older 42PWD5. I can tell the resolution difference from 10 feet away. Watching Seabiscuit HD-DVD was like seeing it for the first time. My Toshiba A2 HD-DVD player is 1080i only but I could not see motion artifacts that were glaringly obvious. It looked good. Great colors in Seabiscuit BTW.

One thing I do notice very much is the reduction of false contouring on the 42PZ77U. The older Panny had a lot. I did notice on the final scene of Seabiscuit of when the race track slowly fades to black that I could see some contouring effects in the deepest blacks on the 77U. Could be the source but again I didn't really notice false contouring in the lighter scenes like the older Panny. Sunsets and underwater scenes are notorious so I'll be on the lookout.

The anti-glare screen seems OK in a well lit room. The anti-reflective coating on the older 42PWD5 wasn't bad either but the 42PZ77U diffuses light a lot more. If anything pops up otherwise I'll do a followup.

The older 42PWD5 creaked and groaned as it warm up. I guess the cabinet would expanded and contract due to this. Also you could hear power supply switching noise on lighter scenes as the display was pumping out the whites. I heard none of this on the 42PZ77U. The power supply silently supplied whatever power was needed at the time with no hint of stress. No cabinet noise from heat. The 42PZ77U fans are nearly silent and probably help with overall cooling stability of the system.

The 42PZ77U seems like a bargain compared to the almost $4,000 price tag of the ED 42PWD5 its replacing. The 42PZ77U and similar models are probably the last hurrah of plasma TVs as we know them. I've always liked plasma displays for their warm CRT like image. For me LCDs are not quite there due to pixel lag and contrast but will catch up in the next few years. So the 42PZ77U is welcome addition to my home theater.

Scott

Question? Do all the pz77u models have the "Pixel Shifter" I think its called. I saw a friends and his TV had a sticker on the front that said it has it. But the TV i just bought from BB doesn't have the sticker on the front that says "Pixel Shifter" Dumb question, but just want to confirm that my 50pz77u has the pixel shifter to help with IR. Thanks!It's been confirmed many times that all current Panasonic consumer models have Pixel Shift technology. Where ya been ? :p

Tom Ames great post, you did your homework and went with the mostly postive comments on this thread about The 42PZ77u i dont think you will be disapointed. Make sure you have HDBOX from one of the providers ready and setup on your stand unless your installing it on the wall. Please give us your opinon of the set.

Thanks for the kind words. I got it home and hooked up yesterday. I considered delaying the set-up until today because the 15 year-old CRT it was replacing had PIP and I wanted to watch both Manning boys play football today. I didn't consider it for long though :)

I'm very happy with the 42PZ77 so far even though I have the picture settings toned way down until after I get some miles on it. Considering what it replaced, even with the break-in settings, the picture is a huge improvement. And since the time I ordered the Panasonic, I remarked several times what a good picture my old set had. Was I wrong--there's really no comparison.

Keep in mind that the following comments and questions come from a first-time flat-screen owner:

Getting it set up on the included pedestal stand was pretty simple but required two people to place the set on the stand. I was impressed at how sturdy and stable this set seems to be after reading the dire warnings in the owner's manual about the importance of attaching the included straps to help secure it. I can't imagine I would ever need to attach those straps.

I took specgeorge's advice and stopped by Comcast a few days earlier and picked up my HD STB (no DVR). I also downloaded the user's manual from Scientific Atlanta. I was a little disappointed to find that the set-up of the STB did not conform exactly to what the user's manual stated. I am also almost certain that my STB has been previously used.

I hooked it up to the STB via component cables but simply over-looked one of the initial set-up steps in the Panasonic Owner's Manual, which slowed me down a bit. I was shocked when a call to Comcast technical support on a Saturday afternoon got me up and going. I've never been impressed with anything about Comcast, but I had a great experience with their technical support. I later became very frustrated when I could get no sound and ran thru all the trouble-shooting steps for my PZ77U before finally going into the menu of the STB and discovering the audio level had been set to 0 there.

After reading thru several long threads about Panasonics on the AVS forums, I knew there were some things that I'd need to refer to later. I did not realize how difficult they would be to locate when I needed them again. I would advise that others who find themselves in that situation when seriously considering purchasing a specific set, to make notes of those items or print them out in order to have them handy when the need arises.

I have the set in a brightly-lit master bedroom. The "anti-glare" screen does an excellent job of diffusing light. At times, there are still some diffused reflections present, but you almost have to remind yourself to look for them to notice them. I just can't understand why Panasonic would install such a bright bezel on a set with this screen. I have one lamp whose reflection falls right on the edge of the screen. The reflection on the bezel is much more distracting than that on the screen. The life of the bulbs in that lamp will undoubtedly be extended since it will be switched off more often :)

I was a bit concerned about the sound quality of the PZ77U compared to the reported superior sound of the PZ700U even though I'm no audiophile. However, for my purposes the sound quality of the PZ77U seems fine. But again, I have no plans of listening to music through it, but simply using it to watch TV and DVDs.

After spending quite a bit of time trying various combinations of settings for resolution, aspect, etc on both the TV and STB, I am pretty satisfied. However, there are a couple of issues that I'm uncertain about, but I suspect they are related to my STB rather than the PZ77U.

1) When flipping back-and-forth between the two football games today, occasionally the "new" channel would display with the horizontal gray bars displayed, rather than in the full-screen mode which had been set. When I clicked the Recall button, I discovered that the input resolution was 480i rather than 720 or 1080. Changing channels again and then returning to the "problem" channel always resulted in it being displayed correctly. I am guessing that this is an STB issue. Is it common? Despite what the STB user's manual stated, I can find no "pass-through" setting, but instead had to specify each of the resolutions supported by the PZ77U.

2) When scrolling thru all channels, there is one particular channel which "hangs" up my remote. When I get to this channel, I can not get off of it. Neither the TV remote nor the STB remote is capable of performing any "channel-changing" function other than switching the TV or STB to "off". When the TV is turned back on, all is normal again and the TV switches to another channel. Is this likely an STB issue? Or is it more likely a widespread issue with Comcast in my area? Could it be a problem with my PZ77U?

Given (1) and (2), should I replace my STB? This is the first STB I've had in 20 years, so I have no idea what kind of problems they may present. Are either of these issues likely to be due to my PZ77U being faulty? Neither of these is more than a minor annoyance, but if they are likely due to a faulty set, I'd like to get the repair/replacement process underway as soon as possible.

I've been reading this thread with great interest. I have a question - Costco currently has the TH42PC77U "in-store" for $1,099 + tax (this includes an instant rebate of $200). Is that a fair price at this point in time?

I've made the decision of plasma vs. lcd based on my room and what the set will be used for. Lots of great info here.

Thanks in advance for any opinions.

Tom Ames congrads on your new panny. Dont worry i dont think you will be returning the set. Yes it is a great improvement over the old crt. Not only do you have a great picture but you have it on a huge WIDESCREEN. yes i got a kick out othe manual picture showing the strings attached. Thats panny just covering their butts, The pedastels are so heavy now they dont have to be secured to the stand. As far as the gray sidebars you should be able to remove them streching put the picture by clicking on the aspect button on the stb remote. It is a small button but its there. As far as not being able to change the channel, that happens to me when i keep flipping channels fast and furious up up up. I have TWC cable service with the 4250HDC scientific atlanta box and called TWC and asked them about that. They told me it will happen when you keep moving the channels to fast the remote cant keep up with ypur commands. They advise to use their menu in searching for the channel ,any whey its not your tv. Also as i said in one my of previous post the my box has a HDMI output but TWC is not supporting it yet. They told me by the end of the month that will be corrected from their office. Thumb through your manual and try to fiqure out what they say. I guess by now you have already solved problems. Did you get a good deal? Keep us posted.

I've been reading this thread with great interest. I have a question - Costco currently has the TH42PC77U "in-store" for $1,099 + tax (this includes an instant rebate of $200). Is that a fair price at this point in time?

I've made the decision of plasma vs. lcd based on my room and what the set will be used for. Lots of great info here.

Thanks in advance for any opinions.

TH-42PC77U is Costco's version of the TH-42PX77U. It's a 720p set. This thread is about the PZ77U series, which are 1080p sets.

I've been reading this thread with great interest. I have a question - Costco currently has the TH42PC77U "in-store" for $xxxx(pricing is not allowed). Is that a fair price at this point in time?

I've made the decision of plasma vs. lcd based on my room and what the set will be used for. Lots of great info here. Thanks in advance for any opinions.The PC77U is a 768p set and is a virtual clone of the PX77U, but this is the thread for the 1080p "PZ" models so most of the information here doesn't apply to the model you're looking at.

Here's the thread for the PX75U/PX77U/PE77U/PC77U 768p models:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=843204&page=104

But yeah that's a good price ;)

Got my 42PZ77 from Sears yesterday. Got them to match Fry.com's price and got 18 month no interest financing. The picture quality on this tv is awsome out of the box. Watched a blu ray movie and some Dish HD channels so far. :)

Just curious but why not?


As far as white scroll it really is not needed. As for burn in on this TV you would be hard pressed to do it. I forgot and left WoW on for about 7 hours no movement and IR went away on Discovery HD in about 2 minutes. Checked for burn in or IR on black screen and nothing. This TV has some EXCELLENT IR and burn in resistance.

Yeah but how much SD programming do you watch? I have never fully grasped why black bars of all things would burn in (i'd think it would be the most passive, and it actually is less used, which is why, at least on the last plasma i had the sides actually looked less hazy in a way, like reverse IR) but it seems like an annoying thing to try and prevent, but it seems to have gotten rather stuck the last time i had a plasma.

And why then if the IR according to most people just goes away after a few minutes are people bothering with breaking it in and using low settings and all this nonsense? it sounds like it doesnt really help.

Yeah but how much SD programming do you watch? I have never fully grasped why black bars of all things would burn in (i'd think it would be the most passive, and it actually is less used, which is why, at least on the last plasma i had the sides actually looked less hazy in a way, like reverse IR) but it seems like an annoying thing to try and prevent, but it seems to have gotten rather stuck the last time i had a plasma.

And why then if the IR according to most people just goes away after a few minutes are people bothering with breaking it in and using low settings and all this nonsense? it sounds like it doesnt really help.

About 70% is SD programming. I did not break mine in. But why complain about something that people like to do?

About 70% is SD programming. I did not break mine in. But why complain about something that people like to do?

i'm not complaining as much as noting that with all this talk about breaking in, pixel shifting and IR, i've noticed in the past that it seems like little can be done about the SD bars, which i dont much understand anyway, amongst other things.

i'm not complaining as much as noting that with all this talk about breaking in, pixel shifting and IR, i've noticed in the past that it seems like little can be done about the SD bars, which i dont much understand anyway, amongst other things.

Alot can be done. Just change the aspect like any wide screen TV. If you do not like that then leave the bars there. I am not sure I see what your talking about. Any wide screen TV will have bars in SD unless you change the aspect.

Spincut, why cant you stretch the side bars?

here's a random tidbit. I just bought guitar hero 3, and for the game to be synced, I have to calibrate the lag to around a whopping 90 ms.

I actually suspected this before because when I watch movies via my ps3 it always seems to be just a little out of sync. Is there such thing as lag over hdmi only? I'm not sure if I see the lag on cable (via component). Has anyone else noticed lag? Is there any way to improve this on the TV?

I get really annoyed when the audio is out of sync with the mouths moving.

here's a random tidbit. I just bought guitar hero 3, and for the game to be synced, I have to calibrate the lag to around a whopping 90 ms.

I actually suspected this before because when I watch movies via my ps3 it always seems to be just a little out of sync. Is there such thing as lag over hdmi only? I'm not sure if I see the lag on cable (via component). Has anyone else noticed lag? Is there any way to improve this on the TV?

I get really annoyed when the audio is out of sync with the mouths moving.

I haven't noticed any lag on the 360 version of GH3. It's hooked up over HDMI. I also play DVDs on my 360 and it looks fine to me.

I can't think of any adjustment on the TV that would control lag.

you think sears would credit me back the price difference from FRYs????

here's a random tidbit. I just bought guitar hero 3, and for the game to be synced, I have to calibrate the lag to around a whopping 90 ms.

I actually suspected this before because when I watch movies via my ps3 it always seems to be just a little out of sync. Is there such thing as lag over hdmi only? I'm not sure if I see the lag on cable (via component). Has anyone else noticed lag? Is there any way to improve this on the TV?

I get really annoyed when the audio is out of sync with the mouths moving.

All works fine for me. Even on expert and hyper speed there is nor lag problems.

Alot can be done. Just change the aspect like any wide screen TV. If you do not like that then leave the bars there. I am not sure I see what your talking about. Any wide screen TV will have bars in SD unless you change the aspect.

I dont think you understand the problem. I of course dont like stretching the screen out, and NO DUH if you dont do that an HD widescreen will then have bars, but in case you didnt know on a plasma display that will cause said bars to get burnt in over time (even though in my mind a black bar should do the opposite of burn in, and i think even thats what happens, with the phosphors being fresher if those bars are black instead of used, causing almost a reverse effect).

Spincut, why cant you stretch the side bars?

I could, but i dont like doing that, i like watching things in their intended ratio, and in general there isnt a problem of doing that, unless of course you dont want this faded bars showing up on either side of your screen when doing other stuff.

I dont think you understand the problem. I of course dont like stretching the screen out, and NO DUH if you dont do that an HD widescreen will then have bars, but in case you didnt know on a plasma display that will cause said bars to get burnt in over time (even though in my mind a black bar should do the opposite of burn in, and i think even thats what happens, with the phosphors being fresher if those bars are black instead of used, causing almost a reverse effect).

I'm not in front the TV at the moment, so I'm not 100% sure this will work, but when I manually set my aspect ratio to 4:3 it uses gray bars, not black. On the other hand, if I'm watching an HD station and the particular show is in 4:3, the bars are black because I believe that's how the TV station is sending the signal. Try setting your aspect ratio to 4:3 on an HD station when a 4:3 show is being broadcast, and I think it should give you gray bars.

I'm not in front the TV at the moment, so I'm not 100% sure this will work, but when I manually set my aspect ratio to 4:3 it uses gray bars, not black. On the other hand, if I'm watching an HD station and the particular show is in 4:3, the bars are black because I believe that's how the TV station is sending the signal. Try setting your aspect ratio to 4:3 on an HD station when a 4:3 show is being broadcast, and I think it should give you gray bars.

I dont think that really sovles anything, and all things considered then i prefer black.

so is this a safe set to game extensively on? (xbox 360) I was set on LCD but Im scared of ghosting/motionblur/revolving door on sports and games

Just curious but why not?


As far as white scroll it really is not needed. As for burn in on this TV you would be hard pressed to do it. I forgot and left WoW on for about 7 hours no movement and IR went away on Discovery HD in about 2 minutes. Checked for burn in or IR on black screen and nothing. This TV has some EXCELLENT IR and burn in resistance.

Well I got my 42PZ77U delivered on Saturday.
I've played about 5 hours of Bioshock on it.. and watched about 4 hours of 2.35:1 movies.

I can definitely see where the HUD from the game and the top/bottom bars are from the movies.

My brightness and so forth is all at below zero.

It's not really really obvious but enough that I noticed it wasn't going away in a few minutes.

Hopefully no permanent damage has been done, but I downloaded and ran a burn in dvd all night last night, and it is currently running while I am at work.. maybe that will help a bit.

Any other owners experience this?

Aside from that mess - I love the tv.

I dont think that really sovles anything, and all things considered then i prefer black.

You're not going to get reverse IR with gray bars. That's the problem it solves.

Well I got my 42PZ77U delivered on Saturday.
I've played about 5 hours of Bioshock on it.. and watched about 4 hours of 2.35:1 movies.

I can definitely see where the HUD from the game and the top/bottom bars are from the movies.

My brightness and so forth is all at below zero.

It's not really really obvious but enough that I noticed it wasn't going away in a few minutes.

Hopefully no permanent damage has been done, but I downloaded and ran a burn in dvd all night last night, and it is currently running while I am at work.. maybe that will help a bit.

Any other owners experience this?

Aside from that mess - I love the tv.

This the inconsistency that has been on my mind, alot of people say "oh i gamed for 8 hours and there was maybe a tiny bit of IR i think but it went away in a couple minutes" to this, not sure what to make of it.

You're not going to get reverse IR with gray bars. That's the problem it solves.

I'm not so sure it would definitively solve the issue though, since it's still a bar, unless it really does end up showing not due to the black being "burnt in" as much as it really does end up showing because the phosphors are in better shape.

This the inconsistency that has been on my mind, alot of people say "oh i gamed for 8 hours and there was maybe a tiny bit of IR i think but it went away in a couple minutes" to this, not sure what to make of it.

Well I could definitely see it well past "a couple of minutes" ... to the point that it was still there before I went to sleep.
When I get home I will investigate both issues I saw last night and report back.

spincut, Black bars will give you burn in thats why they have gray bars or the aspect button to strech the picture. I dont know why you think black bars wont give you burn in. That being said you wont get burn in over night it takes a long time.

The freight company just came and went. I'm still TV less!!! Arg. The incorrect tv was shipped. More arg!!

Now it looks like I have to take another day off of work and wait another 10 days before my actual tv gets here. I'm slightly peeved to say the least.

- Christian

I dont think you understand the problem. I of course dont like stretching the screen out, and NO DUH if you dont do that an HD widescreen will then have bars, but in case you didnt know on a plasma display that will cause said bars to get burnt in over time (even though in my mind a black bar should do the opposite of burn in, and i think even thats what happens, with the phosphors being fresher if those bars are black instead of used, causing almost a reverse effect).



Anyone who uses "NO DUH" in caps in a return post is obviously not worth replying to but I am just trying to help so... You were not making much sense as I already said the black bars I do get go away rather quickly when i return it to full screen.

As far as gaming sure if I stick my nose on the screen I can see slight IR for about an hour but does go away it is not burnt in.

If your all so worried just do yourself a favor and do not go plasma. You seem to be searching for a magical answer to make it all ok. I game on it heavily and have long stretches of GH3 and have no problems with my screen. Tho I do say the more hours I put on the less IR I get.


So instead of replying in such childish manner look at your posts and see how worried ya are and go LCD. Or try one out from costco or BB/CC and see how ya like it.

As far as gaming sure if I stick my nose on the screen I can see slight IR for about an hour but does go away it is not burnt in.


That is a good point you made... if yours lasts for an hour or so then mine is probably along the same lines as what you are seeing. I definitely didn't stick around and test screen an hour or more after I noticed it.. more like 15 minutes.

Since the pz77u supports this HDMI feature, will we ever care? (ie:deep color) Also, does the 77 have the exact internal scalers as the 70?

I ask because some sights gave the SD definition on this Panny a "sub-par" rating. I'm watching SD right now and it's much better than my old Sharp. Does SD get better than this on a 50" set?

Also, how much do I notice the 1080i deinterlacing since this Panny seems to do it "ok"? (or perhaps a bit better than ok) Which TV's are shining in the 1080i/p conversion? (Besides Pioneer)

About the gaming IR on this set: I purchased my PZ77U on friday night. I'm currently doing a breakin process, I think im going to shoot for a min. of 150 hours, just to be safe. My breakin process involves me turning down the picture and brightness to -15 on cinema mode. I also have been running a breakin disc that I downloaded from this site. When I'm not running the DVD I'll watch some HD channels like HDMovies or DiscoverHD. HDMovies has no logos, and DiscoveryHD has one occasionally, but it is opaque and moves a little, so I don't think it is hurting anything.

Now I do an extensive amount of gaming most of the time, but am holding back the long sessions until I get my TV broke in. The longest session thus far has been a 3.5 hour run of Halo 3 on split screen mode with a friend over. This means we had black bars on the sides, plus all the HUDs. When we were done I did have some noticable IR. But we could only see it when we turned off all sources to the TV and all that was left was the grey screen. When we had the breakin DVD running and normal HD Cable on you could not see it at all. I threw in the breakin DVD and ran it for about two hours....after this the IR was gone.

I'm very very pleased with my TV, the picture is amazing and the glare is minimal. My friends that have plasmas a few years old are all drooling and wishing they could upgrade their old sets. HD content is phenomenal (duh) and SD programming has never looked better. I don't even have a blu-ray or HD-DVD player yet and have been watching my old dvd's on my xbox with my jaw open. I just can't get over how good my SD content looks. I'm still unsure which format to go for my HD experience....*shrug*

edit: is there a way to get the side bars grey in video games?

I have now had this tv since the first week it was released. I broke it in for 100 hours. Basically all I do on this tv is GAME using my ps3. I have had zero issues with IR. I don't really look closely though. So if there is any IR, it's either temporary or very unnoticeable.

If it makes a difference I've been playing heavenly sword, warhawk, and guitar hero...all of which have life meters or static images that stay on the screen in the same place the whole time.

edit: is there a way to get the side bars grey in video games?

Use the aspect button to set the TV to 4:3. It will overlay gray bars on the picture if it's an HD signal. If it's already a 4:3 SD signal, it will display at its proper ratio with the gray bars (I hope that makes sense).

Use the aspect button to set the TV to 4:3. It will overlay gray bars on the picture if it's an HD signal. If it's already a 4:3 SD signal, it will display at its proper ratio with the gray bars (I hope that makes sense).

Ok that makes sense, I'll try that out. Thanks.

Another question...why am I only able to send 1080i signals to my tv? Currently I have my xbox connected via Component and my HDDVR cable box connected with Component. I have hdmi cables en route, will those allow full 1080p signal to be sent?

Ok that makes sense, I'll try that out. Thanks.

Another question...why am I only able to send 1080i signals to my tv? Currently I have my xbox connected via Component and my HDDVR cable box connected with Component. I have hdmi cables en route, will those allow full 1080p signal to be sent?

You're limited to 1080i over component. HDMI will give you 1080p.

Wow... did anyone see Brett Favre's (Deanna) wife on HD last night??? WOW! I love HD and this TV.

No IR issues at all with my set, no burn in process and no gaming but there are no issues when the set is all black.

Wow... did anyone see Brett Favre's (Deanna) wife on HD last night??? WOW! I love HD and this TV.

No IR issues at all with my set, no burn in process and no gaming but there are no issues when the set is all black.

Yea I saw her last night...I wish i was favre and could see her in HD every night in my home. :D

Well the IR I noticed the other night was definitely gone when I got home from work yesterday, having run the burn in dvd all day and night.
I gamed and watched a movie last night and, although I didn't do either for too long, the IR went away much much quicker this go around. I am still breaking in but everything looks good.

This is my first plasma and my first HD setup, so please excuse the nubbery.

If im correct, temporary IR will be present on most plasmas, for the life of the plasma?

I have had my set for about two weeks now and I could not be happier!!! The whole World Series and seeing the New England Patriots in HD has just been great!! I am about 50-60 hrs into the break in period. I have been gaming on the set, maybe 1-2 hrs at a time and I have no experience with any IR, maybe because I sit 9 ft away and can't detect it, I mean there could be some...but anyways...this set is great! I just got my ideal Lume Light yesterday and I love it, I feel it adds to my watching experience, just my .02. I am glad I went with this set. I watch the SD with FILL IN so it is a bit grainy at times but then again it is a 50' set. Once the break in period is done I may fool around and see which setting is best for SD viewing. I just need to take some pictures now!

Hannzo24, You have a great Hdtv enjoy it. Panasonic is claiming at least 100000 hours lifespan.for the screen. Some of the old CRTs didnt last that long.

I really would like to purchase a plasma tv, this set (TH50PZ77U) specifically, over a DLP. My problem is my viewing distance will be 14 feet and I am limited to my cabinet space of 35" x 56" x 20" (Width x Height x Depth).

Seems like the DLP I am looking at, which fills my cabinet space quite nicely, is a Samsung 56" HL-T5676S but has lots of issues.

Anyone here think that a viewing distance of 14 feet for a 50" plasma is too far? I can't go with 58" because of 1) budget, and 2) the dimensions will not fit. Thank you all for your input.

I haven't posted here before but spent a lot of time lurking, I've set my new PZ77U up last week and figured I would give my impressions. Just FYI, I have it hooked up to a 360 (MCE extender as well), a Wii, and HD Receiver, a DVD player, and my PC.

I also want to say right away that reading this thread helped me out a lot, and a big thank you to everyone who contributed here for the heads up about the Sears sale, the $150 off with the sears card, the suggested picture settings, etc etc. It is very much appreciated, and helped me a lot.

I specifically targeted this set because my apartment is incredibly bright during the day, there are three massive windows, and unless I was watching TV at night I always got a pretty nasty glare. For a long time I had resigned myself to going LCD because of the bad glare issues, although I was never satisfied with LCD's picture for sports and gaming, and the few 120HZ low response time sets that looked half-decent were quite expensive. So this set seemed like the perfect compromise for me.

I wasn't expecting miracles or anything with the anti-glare, but it does help quite a bit. You can see that reflections in this screen are much more muted and almost blurrier, if that makes any sense. It is not perfect, I still get some glare during the day when it's very bright, but it is much better than what I had before.

Naturally like most people have said, the picture is beautiful, the set is quite stylish, I'm taking it a bit easy on the brightness, the SD bars and any gaming with static screens for any length of time, and so far no burn-in problems to speak of (30+ hours maybe?).

I am very pleased with the TV, but my few criticisms (very minor) are:

- for all the talk about anti-glare coatings, they sure made a very shiny bezel/frame/whatever you call it, the surface of the TV around the screen. It's very glossy, and most of the time you get much more reflection off that than off the screen itself.

- the digital out doesn't do multichannel. not a big deal, I send outputs to my receiver, and new remotes make this even easier to configure, but it still would have been a nice-to-have. I can't just send everything through my receiver because it is an older one, with pass throughs, so that the TV actually takes more video inputs than my receiver.

- 3rd component input would also have been nice (for my setup anyways) ... I have an old dvd player and an early 360 premium sans hdmi, so I have the 360, Wii and DVD fighting for 2 component inputs (only my cable box uses hdmi). I'm going to try to convert the component video to HDMI via some monoprice adapter magic, just so all the connections will fit, and making use of the 2nd HDMI port that's currently empty for me. I'm not sure if it will work or not, but adapters are cheap and it's worth a shot.

That's about it ... set is fantastic, price was great, this really does seem to be one of those great bang for your buck sets.

Hannzo24, You have a great Hdtv enjoy it. Panasonic is claiming at least 100000 hours lifespan.for the screen. Some of the old CRTs didnt last that long.CRT tubes were typically rated at 30,000 hours so even the previous several model years of plasma were double that. Now only if the video boards and power supplies would last that long that 100,000 hour projected lifespan would actually mean something :p

My settings after running Avia 2:

Picture Mode: Standard
Picture: +9
Brightness: +8
Color: -1
Tint: -2
Sharpness: -10
Color temp.: Normal
Color mgmt: Off

Anyone who uses "NO DUH" in caps in a return post is obviously not worth replying to but I am just trying to help so... You were not making much sense as I already said the black bars I do get go away rather quickly when i return it to full screen.

As far as gaming sure if I stick my nose on the screen I can see slight IR for about an hour but does go away it is not burnt in.

If your all so worried just do yourself a favor and do not go plasma. You seem to be searching for a magical answer to make it all ok. I game on it heavily and have long stretches of GH3 and have no problems with my screen. Tho I do say the more hours I put on the less IR I get.


So instead of replying in such childish manner look at your posts and see how worried ya are and go LCD. Or try one out from costco or BB/CC and see how ya like it.

So i'm not worth replying to as well as eligible for a series of insulting chidings because i used "no duh"? That's a bit over the top, why not reign it in a little. You seemed to have thought I didnt understand that HD tv's are wider and naturally have bars, considering that i'm more than aware of that and you said you were confused as to what i was trying to say, i made it clear to you that this was an obvious fact to me.

i'm also more than familiar with LCD's and do need further unsolicited suggestions to my consideration plate. I'd tell you "no duh" to my awareness of LCD but i can see how worked up you got before :D. I also read my posts when i post them, i dont need to re-read my posts as some form of self discovery that what i really want is an LCD, because it really isnt at this point. there isnt alto of consistency when it comes to IR/Burn in stories, even on the same TV model, so do not think your personal testament is enough evidence that that's how it always behaves. I have noticed this particularily with gaming and SD bar issues.

even though insult was not my intent before and it seemed clear enough to the respondee at least, you should not counter rudeness with more rudeness (especially once it's affirmed your're the only one doing it on purpose).

spincut, Black bars will give you burn in thats why they have gray bars or the aspect button to strech the picture. I dont know why you think black bars wont give you burn in. That being said you wont get burn in over night it takes a long time.

there was more to what i was talking about though. I'm more curious as to why, the last time i saw it, it seemed like while there were bars showing up, it seemed like the bar section looked "cleaner", almost like a reverse burn in, or more particularily the bars were not being burnt as much as since there was black rather than an image running as often, that they were actually less aged and that was what was happening.

but I mean, if it was burnt in, would a solid grey bar not be almost as much of an issue? Either way they are shapes, much like a logo on a screen, i'm not sure how the shade would matter "that much" if they were really burning in their shape onto the screen.

So i'm not worth replying to as well as eligible for a series of insulting chidings because i used "no duh"? That's a bit over the top, why not reign it in a little. You seemed to have thought I didnt understand that HD tv's are wider and naturally have bars, considering that i'm more than aware of that and you said you were confused as to what i was trying to say, i made it clear to you that this was an obvious fact to me.

i'm also more than familiar with LCD's and do need further unsolicited suggestions to my consideration plate. I'd tell you "no duh" to my awareness of LCD but i can see how worked up you got before :D. I also read my posts when i post them, i dont need to re-read my posts as some form of self discovery that what i really want is an LCD, because it really isnt at this point. there isnt alto of consistency when it comes to IR/Burn in stories, even on the same TV model, so do not think your personal testament is enough evidence that that's how it always behaves. I have noticed this particularily with gaming and SD bar issues.

even though insult was not my intent before and it seemed clear enough to the respondee at least, you should not counter rudeness with more rudeness (especially once it's affirmed your're the only one doing it on purpose).



So why are you still contemplating a plasma? You seem so knowledgeable. I would think reading all that has been posted and all the posts about burn in and IR on this site you would have a good idea. Aswell as the black/grey bars.

As far as me being worked up :) I am sorry to disappoint but its not the case. I was just surprised how badly you react to someone trying to help. Ya never know what ones knowledge on this site.

Better to be complete than to guess at ones knowledge.

So why are you still contemplating a plasma? You seem so knowledgeable. I would think reading all that has been posted and all the posts about burn in and IR on this site you would have a good idea. Aswell as the black/grey bars.

As far as me being worked up :) I am sorry to disappoint but its not the case. I was just surprised how badly you react to someone trying to help. Ya never know what ones knowledge on this site.

Better to be complete than to guess at ones knowledge.

Knowledge (and an experience or two) can also be a curse unfortunately, i'm sure you can understand that, and unfortunately burn in/ir reports even here tend to be quite a bit variable, making it hard to tell sometimes how certain models perform in that area (with some people never seeing it under the harshest conditions and some getting it after very short usages).

And as for being "surprised" you might want to be a little more overt about in the case that a bad reaction is nothing more than a very blunt clarification to prevent a misconception.

Fighting on forums is like winning the special olympics...even if you win your still retarded.

A quick note... when I was calibrating with Avia 2 last night, I tried setting my Xbox 360 black level to Expanded. It was so dark that I couldn't see the moving lines in the brightness pattern. I suggest keeping it at Standard.

Fighting on forums is like winning the special olympics...even if you win your still retarded.

Same goes for those that take the time to post that ^

Were were not arguing we were discussing. Just a misunderstanding is all.

This 42PZ77u has so many postives why debat on a non issue. Enjoy your HDTV.

Does anyone else have "dents" in the shiny speaker strips? I can notice at certain angles and when lights are on that there are some small dents in the speaker cover stripes.

Ok, I read this Panny works fine with 1080i video signals but suffers a bit with film.

So does that mean if I'm watching movies on HBO HD it could be better and if I watch some type of TV show..it looks better?

Anyone notice the fan noise? My TV takes a few seconds to turn on after hitting the power button but the 4 fans seem to run immediately after hitting the power button and I could hear them from 7' away.

Anyone notice the fan noise? My TV takes a few seconds to turn on after hitting the power button but the 4 fans seem to run immediately after hitting the power button and I could hear them from 7' away.

i cant even hear the fans on mine

My settings after running Avia 2:

Picture Mode: Standard
Picture: +9
Brightness: +8
Color: -1
Tint: -2
Sharpness: -10
Color temp.: Normal
Color mgmt: Off

Can I ask what your lighting situation was when you calibrated? I got very similar color settings (-2 color, -3 tint) on Standard when using Avia 1 last night, but I ended up leaving my Picture and Brightness at +16 each. I also calibrated with a fair amount of ambient lamp light because it will be a rarity that I'll be watching in the dark.

It is encouraging that our color settings are so similar, and the fact that setting brightness and picture about equal seems to be right. I'm just wondering if my black and white levels are higher because a possible ambient lighting difference. Thanks

Anyone notice the fan noise? My TV takes a few seconds to turn on after hitting the power button but the 4 fans seem to run immediately after hitting the power button and I could hear them from 7' away.

I've tried to hear mine....but they are really quiet. The only time i can hear them is if i get my head behind the set and put my ear right up to the fans.

Now my xbox is a different story.....

Can I ask what your lighting situation was when you calibrated? I got very similar color settings (-2 color, -3 tint) on Standard when using Avia 1 last night, but I ended up leaving my Picture and Brightness at +16 each. I also calibrated with a fair amount of ambient lamp light because it will be a rarity that I'll be watching in the dark.

It is encouraging that our color settings are so similar, and the fact that setting brightness and picture about equal seems to be right. I'm just wondering if my black and white levels are higher because a possible ambient lighting difference. Thanks

I had my overhead light on (3 bulbs in a fan).

I do believe I might have gone a little conservative on the Picture and Brightness from reading some more. It seemed strange to me that I could go that high without losing clarity and didn't want to overdo it. I may go back and look at it again after reading that the new Panasonics don't really have "torch" mode.

Edit... 100th post!

First time poster but I've been reading this thread with great interest!

Out of curiosity, have any owners of these plasmas tested them with HD-DVD players?

I'm particularly concerned about judder. Everytime I see this plasma in a store (Circuit City, Best Buy, Fry's, etc. etc.) -- the judder is horrendous (i.e. like most other flat-panels in stores).

I'm particularly interested in hearing how the A30 or XA2 fare.

(if this is better voiced in the HD-DVD forum, I'd be happy to do that - I'm about to pull the trigger on this plasma and wanted as much information as possible ahead of time :)

Whats judder?

It's a stuttery motion during slow pans -- kind of an indication that 3:2 pulldown of film (24fps) material isn't working. 120hz and 24hz sets don't have this problem, but I think that 60hz do. At Fry's (in Burbank) they've got a comparison set up, so you can see a 120hz versus a 60hz set -- the difference is clearer side by side. The 120hz image seemed more stable and less juddery.

I think in the case of 1080p/60hz, that it's an HD player issue -- but I'm not really sure?

If these stores are feeding the Pannys 1080i, and the Pannys are doing a bad job of deinterlacing to 1080p, then that's one thing. But if I'm in the market for a XA2 or A35, and the 1080p signal from those machines is creating judder, then I'm inclined to get a different TV. I'm really curious if any have tried it with that combination.

1. Settings at 0 should be fine. No need to go negative.

2. Yes. However, I would perhaps look at setting your Picture at "+15" and Brightness at "+8-10". Try Cinema in dark room viewing with Color Temp at Normal or Warm. For daytime or for a lit room, try "Standard" with similar settings. I find Live sporting events to look a little better with these settings on "Standard" with the temperature set to "Normal" (it could be "Neutral"). For movies, I have been most satisfied with Cinema with the temp set to warm. I have not used the Color Mngt ar NRs. I have 3:2 enabled and Size 2 is what I use most of the time. The "Picture" may be increased above 15, but in the dark, this sometimes is slightly overwhelming. I had mine at +27 at one point but found this to be just too much.

For 4:3 images, set your aspect to "Just". This does a pretty good job of stretching 4:3 content but it lessens the stretching. Just be sure to set it back to "Full" when getting 16:9 content.

Thanks, I just got through the break-in. Popped in the Avia II, wasn't really too thrilled with the results at first. Then I put PQ at 15, Brightness at 8, with Color -3, Tint -2, and Sharpness at 4 . I leave it the picture mode on standard for 360 (with color managment on and color temp on normal), and cinema for my movies (warm color temp and color managment on). I should be fine, right? I shouldn't be too concerned of hurting my Panny this way. I don't know why I got such subdued results with the Avia. I swear, my PQ was a 3 and Brightness 2, through their tests. I should be okay right?

Oh, and what's the purpose of color management?? Should I turn this off??

Guys just my 2 cents on adjusting the Picture and Brightness settings. Most of you already know this, but I just wanted to make it clear.

The Picture setting actually controls the "brightness" of the image.
The Brightness setting actually controls the black level and thus the "contrast" of the image.

If you set your Brightness control too high, the image will look washed out. If you set it too low, you lose shadow details. The right setting will give you a punchy / contrasty image without loosing too much shadow detail. Setting Brightness control higher doesnt make the image "brighter" - it just makes it look washed out.

If you find the image too dim, then you should increase the Picture setting. If you find the image too bright / glaring, then you should decrease the Picture setting.

I mention this because I noted many people posting positive Brightness control settings. For my set, I always leave the Brightness control at the default (in the middle) or slightly lower to get a punchier image. Setting the Brightness control beyond +5 for my set will definitely make the image look washed out. This depends highly on the black level calibration of your source, but if you are using HDMI, the black levels should be pretty much the same.

Oh, and what's the purpose of color management?? Should I turn this off??

Color management supposedly "enhances" the colors by subtly changing them to maximize the TV's color display capabilities. But I find that it sometimes changes the colors a bit too much (for example, the green in a soccer field tends to become blusih if I leave it on). I prefer to leave mine off, so I get to see the original color hues of the movie/video.

Guys just my 2 cents on adjusting the Picture and Brightness settings. Most of you already know this, but I just wanted to make it clear.

The Picture setting actually controls the "brightness" of the image.
The Brightness setting actually controls the black level and thus the "contrast" of the image.

If you set your Brightness control too high, the image will look washed out. If you set it too low, you lose shadow details. The right setting will give you a punchy / contrasty image without loosing too much shadow detail. Setting Brightness control higher doesnt make the image "brighter" - it just makes it look washed out.

If you find the image too dim, then you should increase the Picture setting. If you find the image too bright / glaring, then you should decrease the Picture setting.

I mention this because I noted many people posting positive Brightness control settings. For my set, I always leave the Brightness control at the default (in the middle) or slightly lower to get a punchier image. Setting the Brightness control beyond +5 for my set will definitely make the image look washed out. This depends highly on the black level calibration of your source, but if you are using HDMI, the black levels should be pretty much the same.

My image by no means looks washed out. The same pattern on the Avia disc (versions 1 & 2) is used to control both Picture and Brightness. On the right side of the screen, a grayscale gradient is shown. First you adjust the Picture to the highest point of brightness before you lose clarity. Then you adjust the Brightness (Contrast) to the two moving lines on the left side of the screen. If you can only barely see the left of these two lines, you've calibrated it correctly. The point where the Brightness setting is going to end up is going to change depending on the Picture setting. If Brightness is too low, you're going to have crushed blacks. If brightness is too high, yes, you will wash out your image, but leaving it at a small range near the default isn't the best option.

Why Panny calls it Picture and Brightness instead of Brightness and Contrast is beyond me...

It's a stuttery motion during slow pans -- kind of an indication that 3:2 pulldown of film (24fps) material isn't working. 120hz and 24hz sets don't have this problem, but I think that 60hz do. At Fry's (in Burbank) they've got a comparison set up, so you can see a 120hz versus a 60hz set -- the difference is clearer side by side. The 120hz image seemed more stable and less juddery.

I think in the case of 1080p/60hz, that it's an HD player issue -- but I'm not really sure?

If these stores are feeding the Pannys 1080i, and the Pannys are doing a bad job of deinterlacing to 1080p, then that's one thing. But if I'm in the market for a XA2 or A35, and the 1080p signal from those machines is creating judder, then I'm inclined to get a different TV. I'm really curious if any have tried it with that combination.


My reply to your technical question.

1) I do not yet own this TV.

2) HD-DVD players cannot output 1080p at 24, only Blu-ray players have this ability.

3) According to CNET- the advantage of outputing 1080p at 24 to the set has not increased in a better picture. Link below.
"We also took a look at the BD-P1200's ability to output Blu-ray movies at 24 frames per second (fps), and again, found no improvement using this mode. Technical details aside, the supposed benefit of outputting at 24fps is that--with a compatible display, which there are very few of--there should be some decrease in judder, which manifests as quick stuttering in motion, most often pans, as opposed to smooth motion. We tested this on the Pioneer Pro-FHD1--with its ADV mode on--and for the most part actually saw somewhat increased judder. For example, in Chapter 4 of Aeon Flux, there's some judder on the edge of the white building, and we saw more judder in 24fps mode than in standard 60fps mode. There was one instance where the Pro-FHD1 did not exhibit increased judder in 24fps mode, and we cannot determine why this happened--all other settings were identical to previous tests where there was increased judder. This inconsistent behavior makes us somewhat skeptical of the Pro-FHD1's ability to display 24fps correctly, so we're not about to write off 1080p/24 just yet. We also tested 1080p/24 with the BenQ W10000, and saw virtually no difference between the two modes--but since the W10000 does not change its refresh rate to a multiple of 24, we didn't expect to see much difference. We're continuing to evaluate the performance of Blu-ray players in 24fps mode with compatible displays, and we'll update this review if applicable."

4) CNET is by no means a great review site. But, I do think it is interesting that many new TVs do not support 1080p/24 and many next gen dvd players including the top of the line toshiba hd-dvd also does not support this feature.

5) I think for at least the 42 inch version of this tv- 1080p will be hard to spot from a reasonable distance, assuming you could see the difference- it would be even harder to spot the reduced judder of 1080p/24.

5.5) I think that HDMI 1.3 is more important of a future proof feature (and this has not been supported much yet either)

6) I love 1080p. But, there is very little content to date to support it if you do not want to buy hddvd or bluray.... I do want to hook up video games, a computer and hd cable. The PS3 does not support 1080p/24(i don't think).

7) Bottom line- I don't think 1080p/24 is that critical, noticeable or important. If it was it would be supported by every new 1080p tv and next gen dvd player....

HD-DVD does 1080p/24, not just blu-ray

HD-DVD does 1080p/24, not just blu-ray

Sorry a firmware update has recently come out for the top of the line toshiba-that likely does not improve picture quality...

just received delivery on my 42pz77 yesterday....and i did turn all my levels down, and i downloaded the break-in disc and will begin today...HOWEVER...

the picture on my TV is NOT NEARLY AS GOOD as i had hoped or expected....i own a Sony 55" SXRD 1080p and the picture on that TV BLOWS THE PANASONIC away....it's not even close! both dvd AND high-def cable are equally dissapointing

is there something i can be missing?

~HD cable (1080i - HDMI)
~Sony 1080p upconvert DVD player (HDMI)
Harman Kardon 645 receiver....

any suggestions?
~thanks in advance...

Does anyone know what the dimensions of the box are for the 50" model? I bought one of these yesterday and I'm going to go pick it up from the store later today.

Thanks

Does anyone know what the dimensions of the box are for the 50" model? I bought one of these yesterday and I'm going to go pick it up from the store later today.

Thanks

Big....I couldn't fit the 42" box in my mazda protege5 hatchback.

just received delivery on my 42pz77 yesterday....and i did turn all my levels down, and i downloaded the break-in disc and will begin today...HOWEVER...

the picture on my TV is NOT NEARLY AS GOOD as i had hoped or expected....i own a Sony 55" SXRD 1080p and the picture on that TV BLOWS THE PANASONIC away....it's not even close! both dvd AND high-def cable are equally dissapointing

is there something i can be missing?

~HD cable (1080i - HDMI)
~Sony 1080p upconvert DVD player (HDMI)
Harman Kardon 645 receiver....

any suggestions?
~thanks in advance...

How far did you turn the levels down?

HMMM,a rear projection LCD owner making comparisons of his set to a plasma.I think ill just sit back and watch the fireworks.

SXRD's are not LCD but LCOS - much superior imho.

7) Bottom line- I don't think 1080p/24 is that critical, noticeable or important. If it was it would be supported by every new 1080p tv and next gen dvd player....

I know that the Panasonic isn't a 1080p/24 set -- it's a 60hz set and I wouldn't expect it to handle a 1080p/24 signal (even if the player was forced to deliver it).

What I'm wondering is, if you send the panny a 1080p/60hz signal, does that reduce judder? Specifically, is there any incidence of judder with the Toshiba A-30 or XA2 on these sets?

Has anyone connected an A-30 or XA2 to the Panny and tested this?

tower101 and others that swear by the 50PZ77U. I would really appreciate it if you could answer the following questions:

1. Would you choose the 50PZ77U even if you had a TV viewing environment where you could completely and easily control the lighting or would you opt for the 50PZ700U? In other words, do you think you would be giving up any PQ at all with the AG screen if glare was a non-issue?

2. Do you think the higher CR is just overcoming the slight reduction in contrast due to the AG screen or do you think there is an overall gain in PQ due to the higher CR regardless of the AG screen?

I have a 50PZ700U on order but after seeing some posts on better black levels, etc., I am wondering whether I should go with the newer model. I have windows behind where I sit, but I can pull down the room darkening shades, if I need to.

Randy... no need to comment. I know what you think of the AG screen.

Thank you for your help!

just received delivery on my 42pz77 yesterday....and i did turn all my levels down, and i downloaded the break-in disc and will begin today...HOWEVER...

the picture on my TV is NOT NEARLY AS GOOD as i had hoped or expected....i own a Sony 55" SXRD 1080p and the picture on that TV BLOWS THE PANASONIC away....it's not even close! both dvd AND high-def cable are equally dissapointing

is there something i can be missing?

~HD cable (1080i - HDMI)
~Sony 1080p upconvert DVD player (HDMI)
Harman Kardon 645 receiver....

any suggestions?
~thanks in advance...
TVO - noticed this msg you posted on 25 Oct: "I was looking into getting a harman kardon dvd 47 or 48....but have a 1080p plasma." I was wondering what kind of 1080p plasma you had on 25 October and how it compares to the 42pz77 you "just received delivery on.. yesterday" ??? Thanks

So are people with HDMI-less 360s playing this at 1080i or 720? The television natively upconverts the signal to 1080p, right?

KKIMBO ~

i was referring to the Panny....just hadn't had it delivered yet, and was shopping around for a good upconverting DVD player...(coincidentally, i went with the Sony dvp-ns77h with the MediaTek chip)....

but thus far i am not overly happy with the Panny (still breaking it in though) when comparing it to my 55" 1080p sony SXRD rear projection...my sony literally made you feal like you were at the stadium and/or in the movie....but when i watch the Panny, it just pales in comparison, it's just not lifelike (if that makes any sense)

SSPECTRE ~

i turned everything to zero....but when i first turned the tv on, it had the factory settings and it just didn't look good.... ;(

HMMM,a rear projection LCD owner making comparisons of his set to a plasma.I think ill just sit back and watch the fireworks.

fireworks?? it's just a side by side comparison i saw yesterday with my own eyes.....AND IT REALLY ISN'T CLOSE....

it's almost like i see the plasma working (refreshing, processing, whatever) while my sony LITERALLY looks lifelike....i didn't expect that myself, but i saw what i saw...i had three other guys with me and they all said the same thing...it truly was night and day ~ and that was why i was hoping there was something to it setup-wise, but i went through the menu's and i'm stumped...:(