my panasonic 50v20 review ...

[Anonymous]

6th.replicant:Thanks, Max.

Can't make my mind up 'tween a 50v20 or LG 50pk590.

If only Sony made a 50in version of the 46Z5500...an easy choice if money was not an issue , more difficult at current prices though , the lg is amazing value for money ..

 

[6th.replicant]

maxflinn:6th.replicant:Thanks, Max.

Can't make my mind up 'tween a 50v20 or LG 50pk590.

If only Sony made a 50in version of the 46Z5500...an easy choice if money was not an issue , more difficult at current prices though , the lg is amazing value for money ..

Money not too much of an issue - if new Kuro 5090s were available I'd grab one pronto. (Although there is one dealer selling 'em for £2700, but that's going a bit too far...)

All(?) I want is a TV with great pic quality, inky blacks, and excellent motion. Don't care about TV's sound, freesat etc, wireless/wifi etc, etc.

 

[Anonymous]

6th.replicant:maxflinn:6th.replicant:Thanks, Max.

Can't make my mind up 'tween a 50v20 or LG 50pk590.

If only Sony made a 50in version of the 46Z5500...an easy choice if money was not an issue , more difficult at current prices though , the lg is amazing value for money ..

Money not too much of an issue - if new Kuro 5090s were available I'd grab one pronto. (Although there is one dealer selling 'em for £2700, but that's going a bit too far...)

All(?) I want is a TV with great pic quality, inky blacks, and excellent motion. Don't care about TV's sound, freesat etc, wireless/wifi etc, etc. well at least with my tv , you get the first two 100% of the time , the 3rd one most of the time ..

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Max for re-checking the thread. I sit 3m from my current Panny 37 HD ready plasma, so I'll probably go for 42" or 46" (my wife will definitely not allow 50", and 46" may be a stretch - to be honest, I'll be ok with 42" - I think....).

Reading all these issues, like motion and floating blacks, I find it difficult to know what to go for especially when I have had NO ISSUES with my current Panny - a great set. Also, there is no settings for motion on my current set (i.e. ifc), I just simply set brightness, contrast, sharpnes, etc, to my likeness and everything works fine. Are the new tvs these days just getting too complex with too many different technologies (especially around motion)?

Max, if you were to chose a plasma tv again would you still go for the Panny 'v' or 'vt'? Or go for another manufacturer? And dare I say it, would you consider LCD/LED over plasma these days?

Pauled.

 

[Anonymous]

hi pauled51 , just to clarify , my v20 is very very good on the whole , the best i have seen , and apart from possibly the sony hx903 ( which will have some lcd related compromises ) , i doubt there is anything on sale to match it (bar the vt20 obviously) , and im pretty sure that nothing can come close to it at 50in and for less than £1500 ..

the issues i reported are very rare , the odd panning shot with a 50hz source could be better , as i first realised whilst watching dragons den , but thats all that bothers me really , what is strange is that this years ifc is pants , it is far too false looking , and therefore not a viable option in my book to overcome the 50hz issues sometimes found with ifc off , it cures one problem whilst introducing another one.

last years ifc , on my g10 for example , was much better , but i never needed it anyway as motion , on all sources was perfect .

ill probably keep the tv , the detail is just amazing , very deep blacks , great shadow detail , razor sharp picture with hd , excellent with sd , lovely colour , motion is perfect with blu-rays , and 50hz material most of the time , all these good points far out weigh the one bad , and probably for me , acceptable one , ie , some 50hz motion issues ..

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks again Max - really chuffed that you like your new tv and certainly makes me veer towards the 42VT20.

Concerning the 50hz issues, can you expand on this as I'm not sure I fully understand why or when 50hz might be a problem. Is this only on the tvs tuner (i.e. Freeview) and not on Sky + HD box (I only view Sky+HD and Denon DVD player, as I'm still waiting to buy a Blu-Ray player when I upgrade my whole system)? Or is it relating to the 50Hz AC supply in the UK? Excuse my ignorance!

Pauled.

 

[Anonymous]

pauled , im not sure there is a 50hz issue across the board with this years pana plasmas , some say there is , and maybe they are right i dont know ..

anyways , as i understand it , the european standard frame rate is 50hz , ie , the image changes , or is refreshed 50 times a second ..freesat , sky hd , freeview , all tv in fact , and dvds are all 50hz in europe ..

blu-rays are 24p , or 24hz , they refresh 24 times a second , thats the cinema standard , and the panas play that back perfectly well as far as i understand it , and can see ..

now some are saying that this years panas are handling the u.s. tv and dvd standard , which just happens to be 60hz , better , there are no motion issues with a 60hz source , yet there seem to be with 50hz ? go figure ..

why this should be i havent a clue , it may not even be true , but as usual panasonic are saying nothing , so people are drawing their own conclusions , if there is a problem and panasonic can sort it with a firmware update , then one would assume they will , but if they cant fix it , or wont , and there is indeed an issue , then denial looks the likely panasonic response .

 

[Anonymous]

actually , i think it may be an idea if whfi can ask panasonic if there are any issues relating to the handling of 50hz material on their current plasma range ? i dont see why they shouldnt answer either , i for one am always talking them up on here , and have endlessley reccomended their tvs (as we all know

) , i think its only fair that they fill us in ...

 

[Anonymous]

I read on another well known site today that someone who was experiencing false contouring/motion problems like the ones you had on dragons den ran his sky box through a convertor taking it from 1080i50 to 1080p50 and the problems went away. No idea how much truth there is in it but was interesting readng all the same

 

[Anonymous]

mrb1972:I read on another well known site today that someone who was experiencing false contouring/motion problems like the ones you had on dragons den ran his sky box through a convertor taking it from 1080i50 to 1080p50 and the problems went away. No idea how much truth there is in it but was interesting readng all the same

hmmm , interesting , but my av receiver doesnt do 1080i to 1080p upscaling over hdmi , so im not sure how i could sort out any issues on hd channels ..

i probably could connect my humax to my avr using component though , and set the avr to upscale to , and output at 1080p , ill try that with dragons den from bbc2 the next time its on

 

[Anonymous]

clare , while your still out there , can you ask panasonic their views on the 2010 plasma issues with motion on 50hz material ? thanks ..

 

[Deleted member 2457]

Max any ideas now what that firmware update does to this tv? I have tried looking on the panasonic website but cannot see anything.

Cheers

 

[tvspecv]

no issue at all at 60hz but at 50hz yes will e-mail panasonic but i think the next update will fix this

 

[Anonymous]

gel:
Max any ideas now what that firmware update does to this tv? I have tried looking on the panasonic website but cannot see anything.

Cheers

no , firmware updates can alter things on modern tvs , correct glitches , etc ..

i dont know if panasonic have any planned for the v20 , if they had , they wouldnt say what it would or could fix , because saying that something can be fixed , means admitting something is broken or not working properly , and as we all know by now ....

panasonic tvs give excellent picture quality , and they dont break , degrade , malfunction etc in any way shape or form , and when they do break , they dont break , welcome to the 2010 panasonic customer experience

 

[Deleted member 2457]

maxflinn:gel:

Max any ideas now what that firmware update does to this tv? I have tried looking on the panasonic website but cannot see anything.

Cheers

no , firmware updates can alter things on modern tvs , correct glitches , etc ..

i dont know if panasonic have any planned for the v20 , if they had , they wouldnt say what it would or could fix , because saying that something can be fixed , means admitting something is broken or not working properly , and as we all know by now ....

panasonic tvs give excellent picture quality , and they dont break , degrade , malfunction etc in any way shape or form , and when they do break , they dont break , welcome to the 2010 panasonic customer experience

 

[Anonymous]

gel , you are being characteristically quiet about your tv woes

, do i detect another change is on the horizon

 

[Deleted member 2457]

maxflinn:gel , you are being characteristically quiet about your tv woes

, do i detect another change is on the horizon

I can't really say at the moment Max because i don't know for sure myself what is going to happen and i still do not really understand what has happened here.

Hopefully have it sorted out soon

i mean from what i saw of it first time i definetely know i love this tv but at the moment i am pretty far from that picture.

Cheers Mate

I know i would love to know what that firmware update done

 

[Anonymous]

i wouldnt worry too much about the last update gel , if it did alter the picture quality in some negative way then it can be sorted with the next update , im following these pana motion issues on another forum , where the forumites are putting quite a bit of pressure on the tv reviewers to get some answers from panasonic , hopefully we will learn something soon

 

[Deleted member 2457]

maxflinn:i wouldnt worry too much about the last update gel , if it did alter the picture quality in some negative way then it can be sorted with the next update , im following these pana motion issues on another forum , where the forumites are putting quite a bit of pressure on the tv reviewers to get some answers from panasonic , hopefully we will learn something soon

Hi Max

These pana motion issues - what are you seeing on the picture when it happens again? Also how frequently?

Cheers.

 

[Anonymous]

hi gel

the only time i see the problem is with panning shots , of which there are many in dragons den , which is where i first saw it .

its hard to describe , when the camera was panning from dragon to dragon , there seemed to be some subtle judder , and the image seemed to go slightly out of focus , im not sure if id call it blurry , but i guess you could .

im sure i didnt get this with my last tv , i remember watching dragons den on it just before i sold it , remarking to a friend how good it looked on bbc hd ..

i guess this is what they are calling the 50hz motion issue , i dont know , but its real and a little annoying , having said that i dont see the issue much elswhere , the occasional time yes , but not enough to really worry me ..

the problem is gel , that the motion processing on this years pana plasmas ( called ifc as you know ) , is too false looking , yes it sorts out the panning issues , 50hz motion issues or whatever you want to call them , but it leaves you with a soap opera look ..

on my old g10 , it was difficult to know if ifc was on or off , it was that subtle , i remember actually , having a samsung 46b650 last year for a week , and its motion processing had a few different settings , clear , mid , high etc .. something like that ..

now if set to mid or high , the motion looked too false , just like it does on my v20 , but when set to clear , it was fine just like it was on my g10 , but there is no in between on this years plasmas , just on or off , so with 50hz material there is always a compromise , ifc off . good natural motion, no artifacts , but occasional panning judder and loss of focus. . or , ifc on .smoother panning , no loss of focus , some artifacts and a soap opera look to motion .. you cant win ...

 

[Anonymous]

contacted the store where i bought the tv , they are going to get panasonic to send out an engineer next week to check it , ill have to get hold of a hd episode of dragons den somewhere , ive also got a few dvds that expose this annoying little motion issue too , should be fun

 

[Deleted member 2457]

Good luck Max

 

[6th.replicant]

Max, do you have Bourne Ultimatum on BD? When I had the dodgy Philips that had loadsa problems with motion, Bourne Ultimatum's extensive use of hand-held, with frequent pans, made me feel queasy, literally. Ditto The Kingdom, also on BD.

Interested to hear what Pana's geek thinks about your TV, as I was thinking of getting a 50V20. Well, I was... (Now tempted by the Sony KDL-46EX503, especially when it's only £899 from 'Destitute Soduns'.)

 

[Anonymous]

blu-rays are fine 6th , no problems at all , just a brilliant picture ..

the motion issues only show up with 50hz material , ie , tv , dvds , and only in panning shots , but ill have a few dvds lined up to show the engineer anyways , ones that highlight the problem , which is rare enough to be fair..

its such a shame that this minor issue bugs my tv , im watching the blues brothers now on itv4 , a channell not known for good pic quality , but it looks great , on thx mode the colour is perfect , the best ive seen ..

 

[aliEnRIK]

maxflinn:on thx mode the colour is perfect , the best ive seen ..

Have you tried other modes?