Aside from all the 4K/UHD sets, there were plenty of 1080p displays at CES 2013. Perhaps most impressive was the Panasonic ZT60, the company's new flagship line of plasmas. In a completely blacked-out room within the company's booth, a 65-inch ZT60 was mounted next to a same-size VT50, last year's flagship that was considered by many to be the best flat panel of 2012. They were both set to Cinema picture mode with no other adjustments and displaying the same content from a Blu-ray player through an HDMI splitter. Both looked very good, but it was clear that the ZT60 had better blacks—in fact, it's the first plasma I've seen that rivals the late, lamented Pioneer Kuro in terms of black level.
Also plainly visible was the ZT60's expanded color gamut, which is said to be 98 percent of the DCI (Digital Cinema Initiative) gamut. This was especially evident in the reds, which were much more red and less orange than the VT50's reds. I was told that, while earlier models had expanded green and blue, the red phosphor hadn't been capable of similar widening until now, and that the ZT60 and VT60 are the only Panasonic plasmas to have the new red phosphor.
When I expressed concern about reproducing Blu-ray or broadcast content beyond the color gamut used to create it, I was reminded that most content, especially movies, is captured using an expanded gamut that is then decreased to Rec.709 for storage and transmission. The ZT60 expands the gamut back out to its original boundaries.
To me, this seems to be a somewhat questionable argument, since there's no way to know exactly what color an object should be in the expanded gamut after it has been reduced to Rec.709. Also, the director presumably supervised the color timing for Blu-ray and broadcast, so the colors conform to what he or she intended for those media. On the other hand, Panasonic Hollywood Labs, the company's R&D facility in Los Angeles, has close ties with all the movie studios, so it can make a highly educated guess as to what the colors were in the original gamut.
BTW, Sony made essentially identical arguments for its new Triluminos backlighting, which also expands the display's gamut beyond Rec.709. And because Sony has its own movie studio, it can also make a highly educated guess about the colors when the images were originally captured.
