Excellent TV from Panasonic
I bought this plasma from a local electronics store [...]. This is the second flat screen I have purchased in as many days.
I first bought a Samsung LN40C650 LCD but returned it the next day because of a few issues that I couldn't get past. It had very light vertical banding in some spots (It's possible that I just got a bad one on this count) the image washed out when viewing from anywhere other than straight on and I didn't like the way the tv dealt with motion (whether the auto-motion was turned on or not). Also the colors didn't seem very natural although it's possible that after adjustment this would have improved.
So I decided to try the Panasonic TC-P42G25 a Plasma tv which supposedly has none of these issues (but maybe its own inherent issue read on). I brought it home unboxed it attached the stand and hooked everything up. I was able to accomplish this myself but I would recommend getting some help to do this step. The stand does swivel which is a nice feature to have. I turned it on and after a short setup wizard everything was ready to go. I live in Chicago and the tv had no problem finding all the digital channels from my indoor/outdoor antenna which you can see here - [...]
At first this tv looks a bit dim but this is because by default the tv is set to standard brightness mode which is the least vibrant of the settings. I flipped through some of the other picture modes and THX seems to be bright and accurate though I decided to leave it in standard mode for the first few days during the plasma "break in" period.
I popped the dvd Ashes of American Flags (concert film rock band Wilco) into a bluray player that I borrowed from someone. This film has a lot dark areas in the concert scenes which allowed me to check out the black levels. The tv automatically recognized that I was playing something and switched the source to receive video from the bluray player.
If I had to describe the picture quality on this tv in one word it would be "amazing". Screen uniformity is perfect no light or dark places anywhere. Colors appear natural and realistic to me. The black levels are very deep on this tv when you dim the lights a bit or close the shades in the room. Motion appears fine to me (I found the motion looked better with the blur reduction in settings turned off).
The default setting for this tv is to have C.A.T.S. turned on in the settings. This adjusts the brightness of the picture depending on how much ambient light is in the room. Some people may like this feature but I turned it off.
The sound is good for normal tv viewing. It sounded better to me when I turned on bass boost in the sound settings; It is possible to adjust the treble and bass also.
One issue that this tv has (as well as Plasma's in general from what I've read) that LCD's don't is that the black levels don't look their best in a brightly lit room. This is not a problem for me as I prefer watching in a dim but not pitch black environment. To my eyes the black levels look deeper than I've ever seen on an LCD.
I have not tried the network feature on this tv yet. An earlier reviewer said some of the network features may not be available yet. It won't really matter to me if this is still the case. I just want a flatscreen that does what it is supposed to do and does it very well; This plasma delivers that.
This is a polished product from Panasonic. Please Panasonic don't ever stop making Plasma's!
****Quick update**** 4/26. When I said that the TV automatically switched the source to receive video from the bluray player It may have done this because the bluray player that I borrowed also happened to be a Panasonic product. As to whether or not it will automatically switch the source for another brand of bluray player you'll have to find that out for yourself.More detail ...
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