Topic: Panasonic TH42PX70 Review

[Vincent]

Please leave your comments/ questions for the Panasonic TH42PX70 review article in this thread.

[StanleyNTL]

Excellent review. Will the PX700 offer anything better by way of picture quality?(re:shortcomings highlighted in review).

[Colin]

I hear rumours of anti glare coating on the new panel, which is not reflected on their website. If this is true, you can expect to see better blacks.

I see no reason why they will improve the scaling and deinterlacing, although I hope to be proven wrong.

[DVL73]

I hear rumours of anti glare coating on the new panel, which is not reflected on their website. If this is true, you can expect to see better blacks.

You mean clear, non anti-glare coating ? as fussy AR (anti reflection) coatings are spoiling the blacks in most of the cases.

[Colin]

Better blacks would be lower black luminance. I would prefer to have anti-reflection coatings in say a plasma, as that can give the above benefit with ambient light conditions and may reduce internal reflections for ANSI contrast improvement.

I presume when you say spoiling the blacks, you mean grayish?

However, I must admit I am not an expert at these coatings. The Super Clear Panel got me confused for a while but in the end, I think they traded off reflections for brightness and better `looking' blacks.

On the german website, under the Super Clear Panel section, I thought I saw `reduced reflection' for the SCP. I suppose it cant be right...as you say clear, all glare coating. The good thing is LCD are built with filters and polarizers, so internal reflections aren't a big problem in the first place.

[Tony]

Thanks for a great review on this Samsung, and altho I'm a newb at this site I have a question I've been dying to ask...:

Considering all the pros and cons for both TV's, which of these would you choose?
Panasonic TH42PX70
Samsung LE40M86BD

Thanks a lot! And regarding you guys having to buy all the screens, I feel you you. At least they are not bought in vain!

[Colin]

Thx, we may lessen the hurt by charging in the future haha 

Everytime we get a `personal recommendation' or `what the best' or `if I were you' type of the questions, can we remind our readers of the saying `one man's meat is another's poison'. We need to construct a profile of your taste for pros, TV use and more importantly your intolerance for specific cons for you to make the right choice. or...you can take the plunge and find out later. 

We have deliberately been vague about this because we don't want buying decisions to be based on just editor's pick...we're not comfortable with that at the moment. But Tony, becos I'm feeling generous today, and guilty of putting you through this rant...please answer the following questions.

SD vs HD use percentage?
Movies, football, games, HTPC use (in percentage) ?

Are you bothered with basic calibration ie discs?

Do you like a set and go TV? or you won't mind looking out for image retention on plasma TVs

Please rearrange the following PQ attributes, in descending importance

Blacks
Brightness
Colour Saturation
Colour Accuracy
Sharpness
Detail
Viewing angle
Motion handling
MPEG or deinterlacing artifacts

Now for bugs, tell us your possible pet hates related to these TVs, in descending order

Worry about image retention and veyr small risk of plasma screen burn
Green trail on plasma
False contouring
Magenta bands
Buzzing
Unnatural motion
Loss of detail in dark areas
Reflective screens

What are your preferred connections?

Now which is most important to you?

Price
Connections
Bugs
PQ

All right...post here when you have the answers and I'll post what I think you should go for. You must put them in order...guess if you have to. Good luck.

[Colin]

Massive cull completed recently. Some questions and post will be diverted here.

HIFI Norway...says

jimmy juice: As I have understood, the TH42PX700 has these features that the PX70 dont ->
1. SRS TruSurround XT
2. SD memory card reader
3. PIP (Picture in Picture)
4. S-video IN
5. Composite video IN

colin : i cant confirm the new anti-glare coating, which may lower black levels.

alllan says:
i believe that px600 has more connections ie.camera slot than the px70 both have same screen resolutions how about actual picture quality having paid far more for my px600 as oppossed to px70 which is a lot less to pay. i love my picture quality by the way just want clear this up.

There shouldnt be two much difference between the panels in terms of PQ. If you think it's fine, just leave it at that.

[Tony]

Haha Colin, you are the man!

Thanks for taking the time to help me in my endless search for the perfect TV. I will answer your questions but because I won't take any of them lightly and because I don't know what all the terms mean exactly (will have to do my due investigation) I will get back to you sometime tomorrow.

Thanks again, it is greatly appreciated. Will keep in touch
T

[Tony]

But Tony, becos I'm feeling generous today, and guilty of putting you through this rant...please answer the following questions.

Appreciate it, I'll give it a whirl

SD vs HD use percentage?
Movies, football, games, HTPC use (in percentage) ?

That's the thing. I will be using it for little of both. I will be hooking it up to my PC but I won't be using it for anything else than movies and maybe a game once in awhile (no text editing, word etc)

Are you bothered with basic calibration ie discs?

No I am not. I have already been looking at a video that prevents burn-in the first 200 hours.

Do you like a set and go TV? or you won't mind looking out for image retention on plasma TVs

I like that it works when set up, but as long as I have guides to go by I don't mind spending some time to get it all rolling, if you know what I mean.

Please rearrange the following PQ attributes, in descending importance

Blacks
Brightness
Colour Saturation
Colour Accuracy
Sharpness
Detail
Viewing angle
Motion handling
MPEG or deinterlacing artifacts

Blacks
Colour Accuracy
Brightness
Detail
Sharpness
Colour Saturation
Motion handling
MPEG or deinterlacing artifacts
Viewing angle

I dunno... Not that experienced in that area, so I just put what sounds good

Now for bugs, tell us your possible pet hates related to these TVs, in descending order

Worry about image retention and veyr small risk of plasma screen burn
Green trail on plasma
False contouring
Magenta bands
Buzzing
Unnatural motion
Loss of detail in dark areas
Reflective screens

Loss of detail in dark areas
Green trail on plasma
Buzzing
False contouring
Magenta bands
Unnatural motion
Worry about image retention and veyr small risk of plasma screen burn
Reflective screens

Again, I think I care most about actual detail on the TV. I want it to be able to show black as black and reflective screen won't be an issue i think.. TV will be placed in the other end of the window.

What are your preferred connections?

I figure you mean what I would want to be able to connect to the TV? PC, HD DVD, Wii/ps3/xbox (altho those are pretty much just scart devices, right?)

Now which is most important to you?

Price
Connections
Bugs
PQ

Bugs
Connections
Price
PQ (not too sure about what that means, so I put it end the end  )

All right...post here when you have the answers and I'll post what I think you should go for. You must put them in order...guess if you have to. Good luck.

Hope that did the trick. Eager to find out what you think I should go for. Thanks again and do let me know

Best,
Tony

[Hyde]

Hi, I go for PQ , is Picture Quality ? and Motion quality  good review(s) btw 

[Colin]

Sorry, Tony. Let me be clearer on some points.

The SD vs HD breakdown is important e.g. 80% SD, 20% HD

Which is most important ? Movies, Football, Games, PC use (put them in order and also consider percentage of use)

Are you going to play a lot of games on your TV?

PQ is picture quality so I think you may want to change the order again.

So edit your last post again. I have a rough idea where you are based on what youre telling me.

You should always check out the TV as far as possible and try the settings we give out. The conditions are not perfect but I don't think you are going to get a better audition.

[langbarb]

Colin/Vincent
first of all thanks for the useful and detailed review. I have ordered the 42PX70 and will receive it tomorrow. I was planning to buy the DMR-EX75 or the upcaming EX77. My aim is of course to record programs, but I was also wondering if the EX77 TV tuner would offer a better PQ quality than the tuner integrated in the TV? What are your thoughts?
During your review you mention that "you can actively remedy the situation by attacking specific 'weaknesses' of the Panasonic TH42PX70 by outsourcing the scaling and deinterlacing processes to external units". Could you elaborate on this and mention a couple of external units which you had in mind for this purpose?
Thanks

[Tony]

The SD vs HD breakdown is important e.g. 80% SD, 20% HD

SD 60% - HD 40% (I will probably mainly watch movies from the PC as well as regular TV)

Which is most important ? Movies, Football, Games, PC use (put them in order and also consider percentage of use)

Movies 40%
PC 30%
Games 20%
Football 10%

Are you going to play a lot of games on your TV?

Probably not from the PC, but I will be playing Wii, PS3 and Xbox360

PQ is picture quality so I think you may want to change the order again.

PQ
Bugs
Connections
Price

You should always check out the TV as far as possible and try the settings we give out. The conditions are not perfect but I don't think you are going to get a better audition.

I'll definitely adjust the TV according to what you guys suggest. You seem to have it figured out...

[Colin]

I was planning to buy the DMR-EX75 or the upcaming EX77. My aim is of course to record programs, but I was also wondering if the EX77 TV tuner would offer a better PQ quality than the tuner integrated in the TV? What are your thoughts?

The new DIGA range’s 1080p technology combines intelligent i/p Conversion and 1080p Up-Conversion technologies, with the intelligent i/p conversion based on Precise Pixel Generation technology combined with three functions - Pixel-Based Motion Adaptive technology, Diagonal Processing, and 2:2 Detection and Processing. To produce smoother, more natural up-conversion, DIGA creates each pixel by instantaneously calculating the eight pixels immediately to the left and right and the eight pixels above and below using high-speed processing.

Although I haven't tested the above unit, I believe that better scaling (and deinterlacing) is possible with this unit.

During your review you mention that "you can actively remedy the situation by attacking specific 'weaknesses' of the Panasonic TH42PX70 by outsourcing the scaling and deinterlacing processes to external units". Could you elaborate on this and mention a couple of external units which you had in mind for this purpose?
Thanks

A video processor would be able to produce significant improvements for your SD content. Products from Lumagen, DVDO, Crystallio and Vantage all do the above with advanced processing.

Upscaling DVD players from Denon and Oppo caught my eye once in a forum not far away. So start looking at those brands first but make sure they all have lip synch delay correction built in.

The Toshiba HDE1 has a very good inbuilt scaler but I'm not terribly impressed with its deinterlacing. Good news is that Samsung and Toshiba are going to come out with HD players with HQV processing this year, so keep a lookout.

Of course, if and when Algolith units become cheaper, their MPEG artifact solutions are definitely worth a look.

Sorry to be this vague but I don't own any of these so can't be more specific.