Κώστας Φ.
Truth hurts. Here's a teddy bear.
- Μηνύματα
- 8.978
- Reaction score
- 895
Review: Panasonic TH-65PX600U 65-Inch Plasma HDTV
Φάτε μάτια ψάρια.... :happy_4:
"Normally I begin a TV review with standard-definition content and work my way up the quality chain. However, when this TV arrived, I happened to have both a Toshiba HD-XA1 HD DVD player and Samsung BD-P1000 Blu-ray player (with the firmware upgrade that fixed the performance issues) on hand, so I couldn’t resist the urge to start at the top. Beginning with a couple of excellent HD DVD transfers – V for Vendetta (Warner Home Video) and Swordfish (Warner Home Video) – sent at a 1080i resolution, the first trait to jump out at me was the TH-65PX600U’s great detail. I’ve grown accustomed to a certain softness in 720p plasmas, due to their lower horizontal resolution compared with LCD. With a full 1,920 x 1080 canvas to work with, the TH-65PX600U brings out the fine detail in faces and backgrounds; further assisting in this process is the TV’s more precise shading and contrast, compared with a backlight-based technology. Black detail in V’s dark coat was excellent. The Black Hawk Down (Columbia/TriStar Home Entertainment) Blu-ray disc is another beautiful transfer, filled with detail and rich in complex shading, and the TH-65PX600U did a superb job handling every nuance, especially when receiving 1080p from the player. Colors were rich and lush, although purists will note that greens and reds look somewhat exaggerated.
It was more of the same when I switched to HDTV programming: excellent detail, rich color and finer contrast that gave the image outstanding depth. The TH-65PX600U will expose quality differences between HD broadcasts. CBS consistently serves up the highest-quality HD images: How I Met Your Mother was very clean, with wonderfully rich colors and excellent detail. NBC shows like Heroes and The Black Donnellys had good detail, color and black detail, but were also noisier. To evaluate the plasma’s handling of motion, I checked out an HDNet hockey game, as well as several basketball games on ESPN and TNT HD. Compared with my 37-inch reference LCD, the plasma did a better job retaining details in the background as the camera moved quickly around the arena. It also does an equally good job with 1080i and 720p signals, which isn’t always the case; however, if you plan to use HDMI for your cable or satellite programming, these inputs are a little slow to pick up the signal when switching between resolutions.
...
Speaking of image saturation, plasma can't compete with LCD in terms of overall light output, and light reflection off the glass panel is still a concern. Watch a dark scene in the middle of the day, and you'll see reflections in the screen. As such, plasma isn't a good fit for a really bright, sun-filled room. In my moderately lit living room, I watched a good deal of programming during the day. Neither the reflections nor the TV's overall light output was a concern with brighter HDTV content, especially sporting events, which looked rich and well saturated. SDTV and DVD content also had good saturation, but the glass reflections were more distracting when I watched consistently dark films like Collateral and The Prestige. Of course, these types of films are better suited to a darkened viewing environment, no matter what type of display technology you use.
...
The Downside
The TH-65PX600U’s main performance issue is one I’ve found with other Panasonic plasmas: processing. The TV’s scaling is solid; as I mentioned, 480i DVDs lack some detail, but neither DVD nor SDTV is excessively soft. It’s the deinterlacing that is a concern. Stair-stepping and shimmer were consistently evident with 480i SDTV signals, be they film- or video-based. The TV created noticeable jaggies in my standard DVD torture test from chapter 12 of Gladiator (DreamWorks) and didn’t fare much better with video-based DVD signals, like my Pilates DVD (Guthy-Renker) – all of those diagonals give a TV quite the workout. If you’re still watching a lot of standard-definition DVD movies, you’ll want to mate this TV with a good progressive-scan or upconverting DVD player.
...
Conclusion
The other day, a colleague and I were discussing the mystique that surrounds larger flat panels. We both use projectors in our home entertainment set-ups, so we enjoy a big-screen image every single day. And yet, for some reason, we’re still enticed by the thought of a 65-inch plasma. I don’t know if it’s the product’s physical presence in the room or its formerly astronomical price tag that gives it such an air of luxury, but there’s no denying that a big-screen plasma is just plain sexy.
Are you prepared to pay for that sexiness, for the reaction this panel may garner in your living room? The TH-65PX600U renders gorgeous HDTV and high-definition DVD images. But, truth be told, if picture quality and screen size are the only things you care about, you can get an even larger and equally attractive 1080p image for about half the cost, thanks to the recent crop of 1080p projectors priced around the $5,000 mark. Many people avoid two-piece projection systems because of the ergonomic challenges they present, but I think we’ve established here that the TH-65PX600U isn’t without its share of set-up obstacles. (By the way, Panasonic offers various levels of set-up assistance for a cost.) The decision to invest in the TH-65PX600U is about more than just picture quality and ergonomics. For one, it’s about flexibility, wanting to enjoy that beautiful picture day or night, outside the confines of a dedicated theater space – something most projectors can’t offer. Above all, it’s about sex appeal, about owning a TV that will have your friends and neighbors talking. Of course, if you really wanted to get them talking, you’d go for the 103-inch Panasonic plasma. I wonder how many people it takes to get that one out of the box."
Full Review
Φάτε μάτια ψάρια.... :happy_4:
"Normally I begin a TV review with standard-definition content and work my way up the quality chain. However, when this TV arrived, I happened to have both a Toshiba HD-XA1 HD DVD player and Samsung BD-P1000 Blu-ray player (with the firmware upgrade that fixed the performance issues) on hand, so I couldn’t resist the urge to start at the top. Beginning with a couple of excellent HD DVD transfers – V for Vendetta (Warner Home Video) and Swordfish (Warner Home Video) – sent at a 1080i resolution, the first trait to jump out at me was the TH-65PX600U’s great detail. I’ve grown accustomed to a certain softness in 720p plasmas, due to their lower horizontal resolution compared with LCD. With a full 1,920 x 1080 canvas to work with, the TH-65PX600U brings out the fine detail in faces and backgrounds; further assisting in this process is the TV’s more precise shading and contrast, compared with a backlight-based technology. Black detail in V’s dark coat was excellent. The Black Hawk Down (Columbia/TriStar Home Entertainment) Blu-ray disc is another beautiful transfer, filled with detail and rich in complex shading, and the TH-65PX600U did a superb job handling every nuance, especially when receiving 1080p from the player. Colors were rich and lush, although purists will note that greens and reds look somewhat exaggerated.
It was more of the same when I switched to HDTV programming: excellent detail, rich color and finer contrast that gave the image outstanding depth. The TH-65PX600U will expose quality differences between HD broadcasts. CBS consistently serves up the highest-quality HD images: How I Met Your Mother was very clean, with wonderfully rich colors and excellent detail. NBC shows like Heroes and The Black Donnellys had good detail, color and black detail, but were also noisier. To evaluate the plasma’s handling of motion, I checked out an HDNet hockey game, as well as several basketball games on ESPN and TNT HD. Compared with my 37-inch reference LCD, the plasma did a better job retaining details in the background as the camera moved quickly around the arena. It also does an equally good job with 1080i and 720p signals, which isn’t always the case; however, if you plan to use HDMI for your cable or satellite programming, these inputs are a little slow to pick up the signal when switching between resolutions.
...
Speaking of image saturation, plasma can't compete with LCD in terms of overall light output, and light reflection off the glass panel is still a concern. Watch a dark scene in the middle of the day, and you'll see reflections in the screen. As such, plasma isn't a good fit for a really bright, sun-filled room. In my moderately lit living room, I watched a good deal of programming during the day. Neither the reflections nor the TV's overall light output was a concern with brighter HDTV content, especially sporting events, which looked rich and well saturated. SDTV and DVD content also had good saturation, but the glass reflections were more distracting when I watched consistently dark films like Collateral and The Prestige. Of course, these types of films are better suited to a darkened viewing environment, no matter what type of display technology you use.
...
The Downside
The TH-65PX600U’s main performance issue is one I’ve found with other Panasonic plasmas: processing. The TV’s scaling is solid; as I mentioned, 480i DVDs lack some detail, but neither DVD nor SDTV is excessively soft. It’s the deinterlacing that is a concern. Stair-stepping and shimmer were consistently evident with 480i SDTV signals, be they film- or video-based. The TV created noticeable jaggies in my standard DVD torture test from chapter 12 of Gladiator (DreamWorks) and didn’t fare much better with video-based DVD signals, like my Pilates DVD (Guthy-Renker) – all of those diagonals give a TV quite the workout. If you’re still watching a lot of standard-definition DVD movies, you’ll want to mate this TV with a good progressive-scan or upconverting DVD player.
...
Conclusion
The other day, a colleague and I were discussing the mystique that surrounds larger flat panels. We both use projectors in our home entertainment set-ups, so we enjoy a big-screen image every single day. And yet, for some reason, we’re still enticed by the thought of a 65-inch plasma. I don’t know if it’s the product’s physical presence in the room or its formerly astronomical price tag that gives it such an air of luxury, but there’s no denying that a big-screen plasma is just plain sexy.
Are you prepared to pay for that sexiness, for the reaction this panel may garner in your living room? The TH-65PX600U renders gorgeous HDTV and high-definition DVD images. But, truth be told, if picture quality and screen size are the only things you care about, you can get an even larger and equally attractive 1080p image for about half the cost, thanks to the recent crop of 1080p projectors priced around the $5,000 mark. Many people avoid two-piece projection systems because of the ergonomic challenges they present, but I think we’ve established here that the TH-65PX600U isn’t without its share of set-up obstacles. (By the way, Panasonic offers various levels of set-up assistance for a cost.) The decision to invest in the TH-65PX600U is about more than just picture quality and ergonomics. For one, it’s about flexibility, wanting to enjoy that beautiful picture day or night, outside the confines of a dedicated theater space – something most projectors can’t offer. Above all, it’s about sex appeal, about owning a TV that will have your friends and neighbors talking. Of course, if you really wanted to get them talking, you’d go for the 103-inch Panasonic plasma. I wonder how many people it takes to get that one out of the box."
Full Review
