Panasonic TH-42PZ700 First ever 42" Full HD Plasma

It'll be interesting to see how the PZ series stacks up to the new "super plasma" from Pioneer.

LCD's will get left behind in PQ again this year in comparison to Plasma.
 
1) Finally!
2) I'm glad to see 1080p at 42" and surprised to see the entry models priced so close to what I assumed was closeout pricing last month.
3) Moved to the right forum.
 
No need to be sorry!

Tahir, sad to think that a 42" "720p" retailed for the same $2500 less than a year ago. I can't wait to see one of those Panasonics hooked up to a 1080p player, maybe even right next to one of those 120Hz 1080p Sharp LCDs.
 
RobertR1 said:
It'll be interesting to see how the PZ series stacks up to the new "super plasma" from Pioneer.

LCD's will get left behind in PQ again this year in comparison to Plasma.
Click to expand...

It all depends if the LED-backlight LCDs come out this year. In which case, not much Plasma can do... And after that, OLED probably out next year...
Plasma is too hot and heavy to have a real future against cheaper and less troubly tech like LCD.
 
london-boy said:
It all depends if the LED-backlight LCDs come out this year. In which case, not much Plasma can do... And after that, OLED probably out next year...
Plasma is too hot and heavy to have a real future against cheaper and less troubly tech like LCD.
Click to expand...

I'd be shocked to see LCD surpass PLASMA for total PQ in this year. Past that, all bets are off. I personally don't care for the weight or heat. However, OLED could be promising but it'll be a while before we get 50+ inches at 3k-4k or less.

I will say though, the Toshiba line up looks damn impressive..... http://www.tacp.toshiba.com/tacpassets-images/models/57lx177/docs/57lx177_spec.pdf
 
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Remember that the 2500$ price is MSRP, it will more than probably be lower once it hits the streets/net.
Can't wait to put my hands on one of them...
Some nice pics of the TH-42PX70 ( the one availalbe now , 720P..well more like 1024x768 actualy..still really nice looking) http://www.minhembio.com/produktbilder/160374 now just image the same one but with a native res of 1980x1080! w00T!
 
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london-boy said:
It all depends if the LED-backlight LCDs come out this year. In which case, not much Plasma can do... And after that, OLED probably out next year...
Click to expand...

The main advantage of LCDs over plasma is cost. LED-backlighting increases cost of LCDs significantly.

london-boy said:
Plasma is too hot and heavy to have a real future against cheaper and less troubly tech like LCD.
Click to expand...

They may have been that way in the past. But this latest generation PDPs weighs no more than their LCD counterparts, and while PDPs have maximum power ratings slightly higher than LCDs (less than 40W more for 50" screens), LCDs always burn full power because of the backlight, whereas PDPs power consumption scale with light output. So for any normal use PDPs use less power than equally sized LCD counterparts

Cheers
 
Doesn't the backlight of dynamic contrast LCDs use variable power depending on the scene output?

I think plasma and LCD will coexist for a long time leapfrogging back and forth between the two in terms of technology.
 
who cares about 1080P on a 42" set??
Unless you use it to connect your computer to it has very little significance.
With plasma what you're usally after is superior contrast and colors, not just simple resolution, which is one of the last thing matters as far as IQ for film goes :p
 
radeonic2 said:
who cares about 1080P on a 42" set??
Unless you use it to connect your computer to it has very little significance.
With plasma what you're usally after is superior contrast and colors, not just simple resolution, which is one of the last thing matters as far as IQ for film goes :p
Click to expand...

Lots of people care I guess. Obviously everybody isn't going to see a difference but some do. Just for the simple fact that there isn't a single 42" HDready (720P) plasma that is actually really "HD", they all have a res of 1024x768 so the source material is downscaled. So going from a native res of 1024x768 to 1920x1080 is a big jump. And the price is right...
 
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And the fact that they have excellent contrast ratio's, really good blacks and colours.... 1080p is a big bonus.
 
radeonic2 said:
who cares about 1080P on a 42" set??
Unless you use it to connect your computer to it has very little significance.
With plasma what you're usally after is superior contrast and colors, not just simple resolution, which is one of the last thing matters as far as IQ for film goes :p
Click to expand...
It's all about marketing. 1080p is the buzzword now, and matters more than contrast/colours in brightly lit electronics superstores.

For everone who thinks 1080p matters:
If you have 20/20 vision, you'd have to be 8 feet away for 768p to start being slightly insufficient, and under 6 feet away to fully discern a five pixel tall letter "E" at 1080p. How many people watch their plasma from 6 feet away?
 
Tahir2 said:
And the fact that they have excellent contrast ratio's, really good blacks and colours.... 1080p is a big bonus.
Click to expand...
These panasonics don't have particularly good contrast ratios or good blacks compared to anything other than LCD. The new thin profile DLP and SXRD sets are far better, let alone the supreme contrast/blacks of the Pioneer.
Gubbi said:
LCDs always burn full power because of the backlight, whereas PDPs power consumption scale with light output. So for any normal use PDPs use less power than equally sized LCD counterparts
Click to expand...
Except if LED-array backlighting pans out. Then LCD is in the same boat as plasma wrt power consumption.

london-boy said:
It all depends if the LED-backlight LCDs come out this year. In which case, not much Plasma can do...
Click to expand...
The LED backlight has to be a big enough array. A 10x10 LED array isn't going to cut it, for example. Right now the Pioneer gets an insane contrast ratio between parts of the screen that are just a few pixels apart.
 
Mintmaster said:
Except if LED-array backlighting pans out. Then LCD is in the same boat as plasma wrt power consumption.
Click to expand...

Yes, but I'd imagine that would come with a cost increase, and cost is the reason people are buying LCDs instead of PDPs in the first place.

Cheers
 
I don't think the statement that LCDs use constant power because of the backlight is correct. This isn't an LCD TV, but I think it still applies to non-PC LCD displays too.

dell-power.png


So power draw varies with backlight (BL on the graph) level as you'd expect, but also because of what's on the screen, and certainly isn't constant. The variance isn't huge, and I don't know how it compares to PDP, but it's there.

Note the backlight level increasing the power draw of the display by 100% from lowest to highest.

I used fully black and fully white 2560x1600 images covering the screen, hiding the Windows taskbar, no icons on the desktop. The regular background image is this, for reference.
 
I think what Gubbi's getting at is that with both LCD & PDP set to your regular level, that LCD power draw (using your data points) would be 96-104W, whereas PDP might be 52-116W.
 
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