Panasonic TX-P42G20 Plasma HDTV Review

@ Phil Hinton

Phil, Has the flicker ever effected you? what's you take on the issue? Do you know what causes it and if its rectifiable? Its quite well reported on this forum by many people, is there any reason its not mentioned more in reviews/tests? (other than the review not seeing it, but they should still be aware).

Seems to me that many reviewers seem to duck the issue. Its so bad, that if it effected everyone it would get terrible reviews and probably be unsellable.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this Phil :)

For people who don't see it, the whole screen (or large parts of it) flicker like an old CRT with a low refresh rate. If you have ever seen the way a CRT/PC monitor recorded on camera flickers, such as on TV, its like that.

It's for this reason i am unfortunately seriously thinking of switching to LCD now. My X10 does not flicker, but the juddery motion/panning shots are becoming unbearable (i would refer a slight blur/loss of resolution to the horrendous judder). I was hoping the G20 would be my next TV, but it seems that will be impossible.
 
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@ Phil Hinton

Phil, Has the flicker ever effected you? what's you take on the issue? Do you know what causes it and if its rectifiable? Its quite well reported on this forum by many people, is there any reason its not mentioned more in reviews/tests? (other than the review not seeing it, but they should still be aware).

Seems to me that many reviewers seem to duck the issue. Its so bad, that if it effected everyone it would get terrible reviews and probably be unsellable.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this Phil :)

For people who don't see it, the whole screen (or large parts of it) flicker like an old CRT with a low refresh rate. If you have ever seen the way a CRT/PC monitor recorded on camera flickers, such as on TV, its like that.

It's for this reason i am unfortunately seriously thinking of switching to LCD now. My X10 does not flicker, but the juddery motion/panning shots are becoming unbearable (i would refer a slight blur/loss of resolution to the horrendous judder). I was hoping the G20 would be my next TV, but it seems that will be impossible.

I see flicker on old CRT TVs, but I very rarely see anything like it with a Plasma screen from any Manufacturer. The sets are tested fully and there is no perceivable flicker on the latest TVs, indeed my Kuro doesn't flicker at all and recent plasmas I have seen from Panasonic don't have any obvious issues.

It is more likely that certain individuals pick up on the flicker more than others and I would hazzard a guess that those who see it the most also have their TVs set up for brighter than standard brightness. You are more likely to see it with such a set up as the extra brightness falsely highlights detail and might show up some flicker in bright areas of the image. Set up is important for those who might be suffering from seeing any flicker, like some users see Rainbow effects with single chip DLPs. I am more susceptible to seeing flashing or phophor trails on some Plasma screens and before my Kuro was set up correctly (and on those I see in stores that are not set up correctly) than flicker. It will be down to an individual and if they see it. Not that the reviewers here are glossing over anything.

We can only put the TV through the normal testing and where it might be seen in brighter images (vivid mode or standard) it is not seen in calibrated settings for example. In such an example it will get mentioned within the review text. But we do test for it, it is just that the issue is to do more with certain people and how they see things, mixed with poor set up where you get the issues and reports. As always test the TV you are thinking about buying yourself to see if you see any issues that are personal to you. My advice is always never, ever buy blind.
 
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Ok, so I just got back from the local shop where they had the 42" g20 on display. I had a really good fiddle with all settings with the following results:

IFC seemed to make NO difference what so ever to the flicker.
D-nr had no affect.
Changing from dynamic to thx reduced it dramatically.
Turning off the auto-brightness had an effect, as the shop lighting was boosting brightness considerably.

Basically, the only thing that seemed to make any difference was brightness. I don't know if the higher brightness just makes it more noticeable, since it only happens in the bright portions of the image. Or if reducing the brightness actually reduce the creation of the flicker.

It appeared to flicker accross all internal sources. I also tried the bluray demo through hdmi and flicker was there.

The flicker (once dialed down as far as possible) seemed to be more prevalent when the bright portion is in the periphery, e.g. A talking head, with a bright sky behind. You look straight atthe sky and it's less noticeable. You look at the talking head (where you would naturally focus) and the flicker jumps at you out the corner of your eye.

The wife saw the flicker, one of the shoppos saw the flicker, another swore blind (excuse the pun) that he couldn't see it. I asked if I bought it, tried it in my home environment and still couldn't eliminate the flicker, could I bring it back for a refund. He said if you bought it and there was a fault, they would send an engineer round, then get in touch with panasonic. Helpful.

Bottom line though, even after reducing brightness down to a realistic level for home viewing, there was still noticeable flicker. It's a real shame, because everything else about the tv is spot on and I would slam down my cash on the spot. As is though, I won't be buying.

Edit: the only other possibilty that I thought of is the flourescent lighting interfering. They wouldn't turn the lights off in the shop for me to test though. And wouldn't that affect all 600hz plasmas? And wouldn't that mean that people who have it at home, without flourescent bulbs wouldn't see it (which they do). Stumped.
 
Ok, so I just got back from the local shop where they had the 42" g20 on display. I had a really good fiddle with all settings with the following results:

IFC seemed to make NO difference what so ever to the flicker.
D-nr had no affect.
Changing from dynamic to thx reduced it dramatically.
Turning off the auto-brightness had an effect, as the shop lighting was boosting brightness considerably.

Basically, the only thing that seemed to make any difference was brightness. I don't know if the higher brightness just makes it more noticeable, since it only happens in the bright portions of the image. Or if reducing the brightness actually reduce the creation of the flicker.

It appeared to flicker accross all internal sources. I also tried the bluray demo through hdmi and flicker was there.

The flicker (once dialed down as far as possible) seemed to be more prevalent when the bright portion is in the periphery, e.g. A talking head, with a bright sky behind. You look straight atthe sky and it's less noticeable. You look at the talking head (where you would naturally focus) and the flicker jumps at you out the corner of your eye.

The wife saw the flicker, one of the shoppos saw the flicker, another swore blind (excuse the pun) that he couldn't see it. I asked if I bought it, tried it in my home environment and still couldn't eliminate the flicker, could I bring it back for a refund. He said if you bought it and there was a fault, they would send an engineer round, then get in touch with panasonic. Helpful.

Bottom line though, even after reducing brightness down to a realistic level for home viewing, there was still noticeable flicker. It's a real shame, because everything else about the tv is spot on and I would slam down my cash on the spot. As is though, I won't be buying.

Edit: the only other possibilty that I thought of is the flourescent lighting interfering. They wouldn't turn the lights off in the shop for me to test though. And wouldn't that affect all 600hz plasmas? And wouldn't that mean that people who have it at home, without flourescent bulbs wouldn't see it (which they do). Stumped.

The answer is there in your post. Brightness and the fact that some see it and others don't. It's like DLP projectors, some see rainbow, other don't see it at all. It down to how sensitive you are picking it up.
 
Ok, so I just got back from the local shop where they had the 42" g20 on display. I had a really good fiddle with all settings with the following results:

IFC seemed to make NO difference what so ever to the flicker.
D-nr had no affect.
Changing from dynamic to thx reduced it dramatically.
Turning off the auto-brightness had an effect, as the shop lighting was boosting brightness considerably.

Basically, the only thing that seemed to make any difference was brightness. I don't know if the higher brightness just makes it more noticeable, since it only happens in the bright portions of the image. Or if reducing the brightness actually reduce the creation of the flicker.

It appeared to flicker accross all internal sources. I also tried the bluray demo through hdmi and flicker was there.

The flicker (once dialed down as far as possible) seemed to be more prevalent when the bright portion is in the periphery, e.g. A talking head, with a bright sky behind. You look straight atthe sky and it's less noticeable. You look at the talking head (where you would naturally focus) and the flicker jumps at you out the corner of your eye.

The wife saw the flicker, one of the shoppos saw the flicker, another swore blind (excuse the pun) that he couldn't see it. I asked if I bought it, tried it in my home environment and still couldn't eliminate the flicker, could I bring it back for a refund. He said if you bought it and there was a fault, they would send an engineer round, then get in touch with panasonic. Helpful.

Bottom line though, even after reducing brightness down to a realistic level for home viewing, there was still noticeable flicker. It's a real shame, because everything else about the tv is spot on and I would slam down my cash on the spot. As is though, I won't be buying.

Edit: the only other possibilty that I thought of is the flourescent lighting interfering. They wouldn't turn the lights off in the shop for me to test though. And wouldn't that affect all 600hz plasmas? And wouldn't that mean that people who have it at home, without flourescent bulbs wouldn't see it (which they do). Stumped.

I hate flicker and I hate LCD pictures - therfore I am going to buy a 4 years old Bang & Olufsen CRT tv insstead of a flatpanel tv. Really disappointing that you have to buy CRT to get the best possible picture quality in 2010. But I cannot accept the issues on the present flatpanels tvs.
 
Hmm, I wrote that if you activate the IFC/24p option, the flicker is reduced, not the other way around. :)

Ah.. Got confused I guess, on FlatpanelsHD it's stated that turning off the IFC removes flicker. I guess it's not that simple, maybe it's a combination of other settings with IFC on/off.

I guess this TV won't be for me.. :(
 
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@Kiwi16

I tried the IFC option again today when a bright picture producing ever so slight flickering was showing on the screen and the result was none. It didn't seem to do anything this time around. Maybe it was a coincidence the last time I got it to remove flicker. That being said, the minute flicker I see on rare occasions doesn't really bother me, but as previously stated in this thread if you are sensitive to such phenomenons then maybe this TV isn't for you.

Is this flickering thing never seen in other plasmas?
 
I was watching Shawshank Redemption today, recorded from an SD-channel onto my USB HDD and I noticed that when really dark scenes were showing the black was really black, but when cutting to an overall brighter scene with dark parts, the black level seemed to auto-adjust in small increments so that the picture and the black areas in particular were becoming more gray. The reverse happened when cutting to a darker scene again. Has anyone else heard of something like this or experienced for themselves? There is no dynamic contrast/black level settings for this TV afaik, right? The picture setting used was Professional 1 or 2 I think with no major adjustments made. All "picture enhancers" were off
 
I was watching Shawshank Redemption today, recorded from an SD-channel onto my USB HDD and I noticed that when really dark scenes were showing the black was really black, but when cutting to an overall brighter scene with dark parts, the black level seemed to auto-adjust in small increments so that the picture and the black areas in particular were becoming more gray. The reverse happened when cutting to a darker scene again. Has anyone else heard of something like this or experienced for themselves? There is no dynamic contrast/black level settings for this TV afaik, right? The picture setting used was Professional 1 or 2 I think with no major adjustments made. All "picture enhancers" were off

My 5 year old PV500 does this, it is to boost the contrast and it is called Dynamic contrast.
 
My 5 year old PV500 does this, it is to boost the contrast and it is called Dynamic contrast.

I am familiar with Dynamic Contrast, which i have had on my previous LCD-TV's but on the G20 there is no such setting afaik. Does this mean that there in fact is dynamic contrast on the G20 but that it cannot be turned off?
 
I am familiar with Dynamic Contrast, which i have had on my previous LCD-TV's but on the G20 there is no such setting afaik. Does this mean that there in fact is dynamic contrast on the G20 but that it cannot be turned off?

My last tv a high end 40" Sony KDL-X3000 has a similar problem and it was incredibly annoying- I found it very noticeable on the end credits- white lettering on a black backround..and the black would change from black to light black back and forth...as well as on the main feature itself of course. Finally replaced the tv it got so annoying. I'm surprised this problem still appears on some tvs as this was a commom issue on early HDTVs several years ago which I thought was fixed...(happened to me also on an older 720p Toshiba I used to own). if there is no way to defeat this problem in the main picture settings menu perhaps you could try the service menus assuming you are comfortable doing that.
 
I am familiar with Dynamic Contrast, which i have had on my previous LCD-TV's but on the G20 there is no such setting afaik. Does this mean that there in fact is dynamic contrast on the G20 but that it cannot be turned off?

check the U.S. AVSForums you might find an answer there.
 
I've searched those forums a bit, but haven't found anything relevant or meaningful about this. Was there some particular thread you had in mind over there?

Sorry, no, don't know of a specific thread~ just mentioned the avs forums as I've found loads of helpful info myself on there about my kit (as well as on this excellent avforums site of course)...all I can recommend is search on there for another similar Panasonic plasma to yours or perhaps even contact the reviewer on here for advice?
 
<snip>
The flicker (once dialed down as far as possible) seemed to be more prevalent when the bright portion is in the periphery, e.g. A talking head, with a bright sky behind. You look straight atthe sky and it's less noticeable. You look at the talking head (where you would naturally focus) and the flicker jumps at you out the corner of your eye.
That'd make sense, the human eye is more sensitive to brightness in the periphery than in the centre, hence you'll see more stars in the Pleiades by looking slightly away from them than looking directly at them.
 
Just bought myself a G20, i had not read much about them or thought i hadn't. I remember reading this review a day or two ago, but totally forgot what the tv was. So i bought it hoping that it was this TV in this review.

Turns out the £1100 purchase was the right one! It looked stunning on display, probably the best one in terms of picture quality they had out there. I'm far from an expert on TVs, so i wasn't too sure at first. I paid extra for the next day delivery, so it will be here early tommorow. Can't wait!
 
^ So will you be playing some Jet Set Radio on your lovely G20? I did :D
 
Got mine this morning, its brilliant. Especially on games.

SD content is taking a little to get used to, i blew up my old tv a few months back, 32" LCD, so then i swapped over to a cheap 26" no-name LCD from argos as a fill in till i buy my proper TV - which turned out to be the G20.

The G20 seems to handle SD content better than the 32" LCD - but couldn't see it on the 26" because of the smaller screen size and resolution. Was a bit worried at first i could see loads of flicker in the setup menus and thought it would carry into the actual tv, but thankfully it didn't. At least not for me.

I may of not bought this if it were not for your review, thanks!
 
I am in a bit of a dilemma, and although this may sound weird, I am genuinely torn at the moment.

A few months back I was dead set on getting the 50" G10, it sounded brilliant, was great with games (the most important thing for me), and the price was good at around £950ish from Amazon.

I work for Sony and previously the discount on TVs wasn't great, but with their 2010 lineup I can get the 46" EX503 for a little over £750, which retails at £1200.

I am really not sure if I'll be happy with a big LCD for gaming due to lag and latency issues, esp on big LCD panels. With this in mind, is the G20 worth virtually double the price (50" model)?

How much better is the G20 over a (Sony) LCD TV? I was prepared to spend a grand or so before, but after seeing the deal I could get through work its made the decision a little harder. I could get my amp/speaker setup with the money saved.

What do you think? The G20 worth the extra money?

Thanks!
 
I am in a bit of a dilemma, and although this may sound weird, I am genuinely torn at the moment.

A few months back I was dead set on getting the 50" G10, it sounded brilliant, was great with games (the most important thing for me), and the price was good at around £950ish from Amazon.

I work for Sony and previously the discount on TVs wasn't great, but with their 2010 lineup I can get the 46" EX503 for a little over £750, which retails at £1200.

I am really not sure if I'll be happy with a big LCD for gaming due to lag and latency issues, esp on big LCD panels. With this in mind, is the G20 worth virtually double the price (50" model)?

How much better is the G20 over a (Sony) LCD TV? I was prepared to spend a grand or so before, but after seeing the deal I could get through work its made the decision a little harder. I could get my amp/speaker setup with the money saved.

What do you think? The G20 worth the extra money?

Thanks!

LCD 'may' have some lag issues wheras plasma can have screen burn in.
 
Do you have first hand experience with this issue? We have yet to see any such issues with UK sets and Panasonic has yet to confirm if it affects any of the 2009 UK models. If you watch our video with interviews from Panasonic product specialists they say there will be no issues with black levels on the 2010 models in the UK. As for the US, which is the forum you linked too, there may be issues with US sets on a handful of occasions, but these are not the same as the UK models. I have not seen any UK review sites worth their salt say any such things.
So, yes do some research, but remember there are no documented cases in the UK with measurements to back up any claims and that the US market is different to the UK. There is however a lot of speculation and rumour being put forward as fact on the internet such as posts like above, which have no basis in any fact but rather continues to spread rumour and speculation. I am not for one minute backing Panasonic or supporting them, but rather stating that until there are facts and measurements to suggest there are issues in the UK, its all speculation and should be presented as such instead of trying to say its fact.

Not helpful that no statement from Panasonic regarding 2009 models has been forthcoming.

Possibly on a more positive the video interviews are confirming Panasonic has definately stated 2010 models will not have this feature??
 
Having been looking at reviews for this model on various sites on the net and have found a very good one on Amazon!:D
 

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