Panasonic TH-50PZ750U 50" 1080p Plasma Television:
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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.

Highs
Outstandingly smooth yet detailed image
Highly detailed yet natural
Excellent black level and contrast

Lows
Colors oversaturated
3/2 pulldown recognition could be better
Incompatible with 1080p/24
Poor sound