The TH-50PZ750U is in Panasonic's first group of 50" 1080p consumer plasma televisions. There is even a 50" model in the 700 series that offers fewer features than the set we're reviewing here, but costs $500 less.
So, at $3,999, the TH-50PZ750U isn't quite the least expensive 1920 x 1080 plasma of its size. Of course, its only real competitor as of now is the Pioneer Elite PRO-FHD1, listing at $8,000 but widely available for under $6,000.
Description
Most of the features you expect of a modern television are here: ATSC and QAM tuners for standard and over-the-air and cable HD broadcasts, respectively, adequate inputs including a VGA jack for a PC, and three HDMI connections. There are also Parental controls, multiple aspect ratios, and a wide range of video adjustments (though the grayscale calibration controls are found only in the hidden service menu). The set does not have CableCARD HD capability.
The Panasonic also incorporates EZ Sync HDAVI Control, which lets you operate your other home theater components via a single remote control button. The only catch is that those components must also be EZ Sync compatible. Several Panasonic components are compatible, but few others have this feature as yet.
An SD card slot on the front panel may be used to view digital photos.
The multi-component remote will control three other devices in addition to the television. It's well laid out, and while it has a lot of buttons, they are all big enough for easy operation. It is not backlit, however, and you cannot select inputs directly.
The built-in two-channel audio system employs hidden speakers; they are installed in the bezel in a way that makes them virtually invisible. You'll want to make them inaudible as well. The sound is, to put it mildly, unpleasant, even compared to the undistinguished sound from that 4" speaker in your old CRT. It also overloads easily at moderate listening levels. But if you're reading this you probably plan on using an outboard sound system with the set anyway. Plan on ignoring the onboard audio.
An anti-reflective screen is also said to cut down on reflections from the plasma's front glass. I didn't find it particularly effective.
Setup
The Panasonic has a wide range of setup controls, but is missing a few that are available in many other digital sets. For example, while there are three different color temperature selections, there are no user-accessible color temp calibration controls (they're in the hidden service menu). There are also no variable gamma adjustments, and the two noise reduction controls- mosquito noise and digital video- have only two settings, On or Off. And three controls listed in the manual—HD size (an overscan control), a manual 3:2 pulldown On/Off control, and Block noise reduction—were nowhere to be found.
There are four different picture mode settings: Vivid, Standard, Cinema, and Custom. They may each be configured separately for each input. Even if you put the same settings in all of the modes, however, you won't get the same picture. That is, there appear to be sub-controls somewhere in the internal firmware settings, which act in conjunction with the user controls and are different for different picture modes. For example, the Cinema mode always looked a little soft and lacking in punch to me, no matter where I set the user controls.
Many of the controls operate only with certain inputs and certain resolutions. Zoom Adjust allows you to shift and resize the image vertically, but only in Zoom mode. A PC setup menu is accessible only when you select the PC mode. Color Matrix is available only in 480p, where it lets you select between SD and HD color spaces (it automatically selects SD for 480i and HD for 720p and 1080i/p). 3D Y/C is selectable only with a composite input. The Color Management control is said to enhance green and blue, particularly on outdoor (bright) scenes. But I found its effect negligible, apart from a subtle increase in the saturation of cyan, visible mainly on test patterns. The C.A.T.A. control is said to "enhance brightness and gradation accordingly," but if it's supposed to be some sort of dynamic contrast feature I found it to have little effect.
At the top of the picture adjustment menu there is a control called Normal, with two positions: No and Set. Whenever you input your own settings, the indicator for this control reads No. But if you change it to Set, it immediately wipes out your settings and reverts to the factory configuration for that mode. It only takes a single button push to do this; in effect, it's a reset control. There are no "confirm reset" or "are you sure" warnings. It just dumps everything. Since it's easy for you or someone else in the family to go there (the cursor sits on this Normal selection whenever you open the adjustment menu), I strongly recommend writing down all of your preferred settings for each input in case they accidentally get deleted.
For most of my viewing, I used the Custom mode (properly configured, of course). I turned most of the above features Off and, except for my first few hours with the set, I my observations were made following calibration of the color temperature.
Watching
There's a lot to love here. The price, of course, is certainly attractive. But beyond that, the Panasonic is a star performer in many ways.
Out of the box, the grayscale in the Warm Color Temperature setting measured just a hair under 6000K and was very uniform across the full brightness range. In the Normal setting, it averaged around 7600K and was similarly consistent. Both settings were off by enough to make a full calibration desirable but, out of the box, the Warm setting was still highly watchable.
The Panasonic's video processing (scaling and deinterlacing) going from 480i to the panel's native 1080p resolution was good, though short of the best I've seen. The processing was a bit slow in recognizing 3/2 pulldown, and never really grabbed onto it fully. It also showed some artifacts on the waving flag and 2:2 (video) cadence test on the Silicon Optix HQV Benchmark test DVD.
The set properly deinterlaced a 1080i source (video- or film-based) to the panel's native 1080p, but like most current 1080p displays we've tested it did not recognize 3/2 pulldown with 1080i film-based sources.
The Panasonic's image was exceptionally clean, smooth, and free of obvious video noise from a normal viewing distance. It also displays picture information at both below black and above white.
The more time I spent with the Panasonic, the more I liked it. It was an exceptionally relaxing set to watch, and when properly set up was neither too bright for films nor too dim for sports. While some of its colors were a bit too vivid—not unusual these days—a good calibration and a careful hand with the color control will keep things in line without noticeably washing out the color. While green remained just a little too day-glo aggressive on bright, sunlit foliage, it looked better on dimmer and overcast scenes.
The set is also highly detailed without looking artificially enhanced. The Chronicles of Riddick is still one of the most amazingly detailed HD DVDs available. And the Panasonic brought it all out. I'm sure there are things that can't be seen on a screen that's only 50" diagonal from a normal viewing distance, but what you will see here is amazing. The same goes for other top quality high-definition discs such as U-571 and the more recent Matrix Trilogy.
Broadcast HD, from my cable system, wasn't quite as jaw dropping as the best high-definition discs, but viewed on its own terms it was fully satisfying.
I did notice, however, that a direct feed of 720p programming from networks such as ESPN HD, Fox HD, and ABC HD into the Panasonic were softer looking than when those 720p sources were scaled and interlaced by my cable box and fed to the Panasonic at 1080i over component. I also found that a component multiburst test pattern showed little response from a 37.1MHz burst at 720p. With an HDMI connection, however, the 720p multiburst test pattern looked noticeably better out to 37.1MHz.
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The Panasonic produces a punchy, rich image that only rarely, in the most challenging dark program material (such as in the killer opening below deck scenes in Master and Commander: the Dark Side of the World) shows any sign of that dreaded gray haze washout. While the set's deep black level still does not produce that "fade into the black frame" ideal, neither has any other set I have reviewed to date that uses any technology apart from CRT. But the Panasonic does have the best deep black level I have yet measured on a plasma display, and the result is an image with outstanding richness and depth.
Problem Areas
As noted earlier, some of the color points, particularly red and green, were oversaturated. The jungle foliage in Lost, for example, when lit by bright sunlight often glowed with a Crayola-like vividness that made the greenery look plastic. The pop in the reds was less troublesome. It is certainly impressive, and I have no doubt that many viewers will love it.
This oversaturation does not appear to affect the Panasonic's excellent, post-calibration flesh tones—as long as you back off on the Color control a bit (I used a setting of -5; your mileage may vary). While adjusting the Color control cannot actually cure the problem—a number of factors are involved here, including inaccurate color points—it does make it much less distracting. To be fair, oversaturated colors and inaccurate color points are common in most modern sets. And it's usually no accident. Punchy colors result in a set that, like high light output and blue-tinted whites, grabs eyeballs and wallets in brightly lit stores.
In addition, the Panasonic had other serious problems that they only cropped up under certain conditions. The set was incompatible with 1080p sources. With a 1080p/60 signal, there was an image, but it was cropped off severely on both the right side and the bottom, so that only about one-third of it remained visible. The set would not lock onto a 1080p/24 source at all. (The source for both 1080p/60 and 1080p/24 was the Pioneer Elite BDP-HD1, a Blu-ray player that has functioned normally at these resolutions on other compatible displays.)
Also, in some aspect ratios, particularly Zoom, the image was shifted drastically off-center. Fortunately, this did not affect the Full mode, which I used for most of my viewing.
I had occasional trouble getting an HDMI locks with the BDP-HD1. I did not have this problem with either the Toshiba HD-A1 HD DVD player or the Pioneer Elite DV-79AVi DVD player. And the Panasonic's front HDMI input did not work at all.
One day I also turned the set on to find nearly the entire upper half of the screen overlaid with a subtle but still quite visible screen door-like, fixed pattern mesh. I panicked momentarily, but when I turned the set off and then on again it disappeared. It happened again later on the same day; the same fix set it right again.
But subsequent to my Short Take review on this set several weeks ago I was able to spend time with a sample of the less expensive TH-50PZ700U, which is functionally similar in many respects. This set worked fine with the Pioneer Blu-ray player, did not have that funky offset with a 1080i image in Zoom mode, and did accept and properly display a 1080p/60 input. But it still did not respond properly to 1080p/24. The latter is apparently not among the Panasonic's talents. (It did produce a 1080p/24 image, but it was the same partial screen image I got from the TH-50PZ750U at 1080p/60. Weird.)
The screen-door effect at the top of the image also did not occur on the TH-50PZ700U. But this artifact appeared rarely and it has not recurred with the TH-50PZ750U in several weeks of use following the original publication of the Short Take review. I now consider it a non-issue.
Also, the front HDMI input on our review sample did not work. We worked with Panasonic to try and get a look at a second sample in time for this report but that didn't happen.
Last, I looked at a well known scaling torture test. Chapter 12 of Gladiator features a CGI scene of the "camera" panning from top to bottom over the Roman Coliseum and other buildings nearby. The TH-50PZ750U I reviewed was nearly flawless on this test, with only a few subtle artifacts that I had to look closely to see. The TH-50PZ700U I checked out performed poorly on this test. This strongly suggests that one significant advantage of the more expensive model is better video processing.
Putting it all Together
The Panasonic did a fine job with good quality standard definition material. Some of my best looking DVDs, in fact, could easily be confused with high-definition by the average viewer from a normal viewing distance.
But don't believe those who say you don't need HD on a regular set because the eye cannot see the difference, even on a relatively large 50" screen. The more you view high-definition images on a set as good as this one, the harder it is to go back to plain vanilla SD video. The Panasonic produced superb high-definition images from both high-definition discs and the best broadcast sources—in my case from HD cable.
The new buzzword in high-definition displays is 1080p, and manufacturers are tripping all over each other to elbow their way to the front of the line. The rush is on to outdistance those pesky LCDs, and with the TH-50PZ750U and its siblings Panasonic is in a strong position to meet the challenge. It's new TH-50PZ750U is a winner.
Pros
Outstandingly smooth yet detailed image
Highly detailed yet natural
Excellent black level and contrast
Cons
Colors oversaturated
3/2 pulldown recognition could be better
Incompatible with 1080p/24
Poor sound
Specifications
DISPLAY (Show English Units)
Screen Size 50" (127cm) Diagonal
Resolution 1920×1080
Aspect Ratio 16:9
Contrast Ratio 5000:1
Displayable Colors 68.7 billion colors
Screen Filter Anti-Reflective
COMPATIBILITY
Color System NTSC, ATSC
Formats 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p_60
INPUTS
Component (HDTV) (2 sets) 3 RCAs Back
MemoryCard Back
HDMI (2 sets) HDMI Back
Tuner (2 sets) Co-ax Back
RGB 15-Pin Dsub Back
S-Video (2 sets) 4-pin DIN Back
Composite (2 sets) RCA Back
HDMI HDMI Front
S-Video 4-pin DIN Front
Composite RCA Front
GENERAL
Bezel Color Black
Power Supply 120V – 120V
Dimensions (W x H x D)
(without stand or speakers) 126.7cm x 80.3cm x 14.0cm
Weight 48.0 kg
FCC Class FCC Class B, Home Use
Warranty 1 year
MSRP $3,999
Production Status Shipping
First Ship Date Jun 2007
ADDITIONAL FEATURES
3:2 Pull Down Yes
V-Chip Yes
Closed Captioning Yes
Reviewed by Thomas J. Norton
