2011 Panasonic Plasma [NO PRICE TALK] - Page 74

The panels themselves are made in Japan along with other components I am sure. Final assembly for most of the bigger stuff is done in Mexico.

We are being told in the insiders thread at HDJ to expect some delays but nothing concrete as far as supply shortages, etc.

In Mexico yes, Tijuana.

Thanx on the heads up on the 55GT30 Randy.

So you're saying they are Tijuana Flats?

The 55GT30 is now up at Panasonic's site. Says available at retailers.

If only the 65VT30 would show up there as well. The wait is killing me.

The GT30 isn't even available on EPP and might never be, it says to go buy it at a local retailer.

With the very real potential for supply slow down from Japan I am not betting that we will see GT let alone VT on EPP any time soon. While it is a very juicy discount I'm not holding my breath.

Those of us in the initial wave of pre-orders will be lucky enough if our sets ship out by the end of May.

+1.

I hope all the parts that are manufactured in Japan have already been made and shipped to Mexico for those early batch TVs that are supposed to be delivered in May. So, I'm still hoping for a May delivery of my 65VT30, but man, news from Japan seems to be getting worse and worse!

Of course, here I am worrying about receiving a TV when many people in Japan have lost their homes, or even worse, their lives...

Yea, you guys can buy up the first batch with all its glitches and technical problems. I'm waiting for the 2nd batch where they will have all tech issues and glitches fixed.

Whatever helps you sleep at night.

If it wasn't for "us guys" buying these TVs you wouldn't even know if it had a technical glitch.

We aren't quite as stupid as you suggest. Obviously will read reviews and look for glaring problems that might sway a purchase decision.

Last year there was no difference in the VT25 that shipped in the very beginning and the ones that shipped the rest of the year other than a change in the black level rise algorithm, a problem that it seems probably doesn't affect this year's Panasonic TVs at all.

Yes, at some point we have to break this wait (for next year's model, for the second batch to come out, for reviews to be released, for prices to drop, then for next year's models, and so on), or else the only pleasure we will ever get out of this is the eternal research.

With that said, I've only bought 3 things in my life that were first production batches of new releases: a GPS, a TV and a car. In all 3 of them I was screwed by defects that were fixed in subsequent batches.

I don't want to discourage anyone who's already been waiting for too long, though, especially if you can count on a 30-day return policy.

I notice a lot of double image on the st30 on the vt20 was hard to see that double image, not sure if the glasses have to be sync with each display I was using the vt20 glasses.they have both tvs on display on best buy.

Ofcourse they need to be synced, that's what it's all about.
You need to sync the glasses to the refresh rate of the TV.

Well, some of us are pre-ordering from VE and having them break-in the TVs and calibrate them. I hope any defects would be caught by the time all this is done by experts like D-Nice who's doing my TV. If a major defect somehow pops up after the TV is shipped to me, well, there's the 30 day return policy and then the 1 year manufacturer warranty. I've also bought the extended Mach warranty. Besides, as you pointed out, I for one hesitated all last year about pulling the trigger on a VT25 and then decided to go with the 2011 model. I'm done waiting.

Yup, I'm doing the same thing, although I think my calibration will be done by Kevin Miller.

At some point you have to bite the bullet. There's nothing wrong with people deciding they are going to wait for summer/fall reviews, price drops, etc, but again I think the supply this year might be a little on the tight side.

And I'm not really interested in pushing out my purchase by 3-6 months when I was already ready to pull the trigger on a TV last year.

It's not just LCD. According to a Panasonic employee who is a regular at HDJ, Panasonic normally works 20 hours at their PDP factories, but that is reduced to 3-4 hours every day now.

Additionally once the panels are produced there are not operable cranes, lorries, etc, to get them to the next distribution point. I'm sure that there are backlogs for shipping as well, as they don't typically send these things by air to the final assembly point in Mexico (for the North America market).

He indicated that there would definitely be some delays, but could not specify which products or lines would be affected.

Like I commented in this thread previously, it is likely that Panasonic PDP is going to be in very tight supply for at least a while, I would not be surprised in delays of 1-2 months or even larger for some products... and when they do ship it could be that all allocations will be cut in half (just my guess).

The silver lining is he said there was some PDP production already completed for initial orders, but it is not clear if that includes the larger sizes, he would not comment on that.

Back from Maui, was gone for two weeks. Did I miss any important information in that time? Or typical discussion/speculation about pricing/spec changes and availability?

What is VE?

V a l u e E l e c t r o n i c s . c o m

I hooked up the 55ST30 tonight at work w/ avatar bd playing and omg it was amazing, i cant wait for the VT30 if i can afford that route. All default settings looked crappy, so i kicked it on custom and did just some basic changes disabling any filters and changed color tone to warm 2. I also kicked on the motion enhancer to strong(im a fan) and it looked fantastic with it on with virtually no artifacting and wasn't overly smooth where it looked fake, and the set was still crazy good with the enhancer disabled. I successfully and easily converted my friend to a plasma lover after he seen this set. I put it up right next to the D7000 LED which avatar has been playing on for a few days and looked great in the store, but the ST30 easily beat it out once hooked up. The colors were so amazing, dithering was not noticeable, and the black filter performed fantastic in the store lighting. Unfortunately, 48hz gave the expected flicker but 60hz still looked great. I'm really excited to see how the VT performs w/ 96hz enabled. As long as there's no heavily rising blacks or floating blacks, i'll be saving for the 65VT30. If not, I'd hate to wait it out another year, but I will and possibly go back to Samsung if they get the motion judder canceler back on their sets.

That's sad.

oh well i dont know that much about 3d i dont have a 3d tv just two 2d plasma not planing on going 3d i dont see the excitement about 3d no for now.

You mean to tell me Samsung didn't include the motion judder canceler this year? I hope not because I'm a fan as well. Also, you mentioned the motion enhancer set to strong with the ST30. Is this with 2D, as well as 3D content? I've heard it's only for 3D, but that's hogwash. I want frame interpolation with 2D content on either the ST/GT/VT30 or the D7000 and which ever one has the best implementation gets my money. If neither one of them can do it I'll just say screw all the new panels this year and keep my Kuro, since their barely worth a damn anyway.

Correct, samsung did not include the MJC this year, that's why i've jumped ship to panasonic. A bunch of owners claimed this in the samsung 2011 thread and one guy even posted a video of his 59" D8000 showing every single menu option, and there is nothing for MJC. As for the ST, it definitely smooths normal 2D content. The easiest way to see it in action is to go to the credits of a movie. With it off, the scrolling names look skippy, turn it on and they scroll buttery smooth. I didn't really do a test of the motion smoother in 3D, but i'll check it out tomorrow when i go back in.

55GT30 says back ordered on Panasonic's website. You can go through the process of ordering it, though. EPP discount was pretty nice.

I saw the lowly s30 today, and I have to say that the antiglare filter is pretty damn good. I was impressed. Not bad so far. So sightings of the st30 out on display yet at my store...

For those like me trying to decide between the new Panasonics and Samsungs, here's my two cents after looking at TVs at Best Buy this evening.

There was a 55ST30 and a 59D550 next to each other. The plasma section was limited and they didn't have any higher-end models - I would have preferred to see a 59D6500. I took both TVs off of "torch" mode, putting the Panny on Cinema and the Sammy on Movie. I found Cinema on the Panny to be too dull for my liking, and in that mode it looked lifeless next to the Sammy. I ended up setting the Panny to Custom, which to me was a good balance between the pop of Vivid and the realism of Cinema.

My observations are with those picture modes at their default settings. Changing settings might give different results than what I saw.

Black Level: The ST30 trounced the D550 in black level - it was notably darker. The ST30 reminded me of my parents' Kuro, but not quite as dark. The D550 was more in line with what I'm used to on my current set, a Panasonic TH-50PX600U.

Detail: The Panasonic was much more detailed than the Samsung, with far more information in textures. The feed to the TVs had several closeups of middle-aged and elderly folks. The Panasonic showed every pore, blotch and blemish on their skin, while the Samsung smudged much of that detail out of existence. I actually found the ST30 slightly over-detailed, reproducing the artifacts in the crummy BB feed too well, so I turned it's sharpness down to 25 from the default of 50. This helped, and the image still contained a lot more information than the D550.

Color: Colors seemed a bit more vibrant and involving on the Samsung, without being unrealistic. The colors on the Panasonic were quite good as well. I'll admit I have a bad eye for color, but I found the two sets pretty close in this regard. The Samsung did seem slightly too warm, while the Panasonic was more neutral - but I assume the Samsung could be adjusted to give similar results.

Glare: This is another area were the 55ST30 had a clear advantage over the 59D550. I turned both sets off and looked at my reflection. The Panasonic's anti-glare coating was better than the Samsung's in three ways: First, it gave a slight blur to the reflection, so edges and details were softened. Second, it crushed shadow detail - that is, darker areas of the reflection in the Panny had no detail, while dark areas in the Sammy still had easily-visible details. Third, the Panny's reflection had a somewhat blue tint, while the colors in the reflection on the Sammy were more true-to-life. The blue tint actually helped by making the colors of the reflection duller, more uniform and less noticeable/distracting.

Those are my quick observations of the differences I noticed between the two TVs in the not-ideal in-store setting. I would really have liked to see a D6500 as well, as its supposedly better black levels and anti-glare coating should to some degree address the D550's shortcomings in those areas.

Even though I very much prefer the Samsung's industrial design and would love the additional 4 inches of screen, the Panasonic simply had the better picture. At this point, I would choose the Panasonic ST30 over the Samsung D550. I really want to find a D6500 to demo to see if it can match the ST30.

When should we get the first reports of the GT30?

flatpanelshd has had a gt30 since last week and the review should be up soon