[The News Bot]

Reviewed by David Mackenzie
Everything about this product screams “no nonsense”, from the design down to the surprising lack of redundant video processing features. A calibrated TH-46PZ80 puts out a very accurate, problem-free 1080p image, with all the benefits of Plasma technology, and wastes none of your time (or money) with pointless video alterations.
Read the full review...

[ash]

Nice! Good review.

£999 I haven't looked at TVs recently, but that price is crazy!!! I bought my 42PX800 for £1800 I think

[reaper12]

great review, thank you.

Are you ever going to review the PZ800? I would curious to see what you think of it over the PZ80.

you mentioned in your article that you made changes to the service menu during your calibration. Is there any chance of you posting the values that you used? I would be curious to see how they compare to the values I have.

[captive8]

Great review. Sounds like a nice piece of kit. This might just be what I am looking for as a replacement for my l/room set. great price too!

[Phaedrus68]

Thanks for the review.

I'm looking at the 50" PZ80 - I assume a lot of the content of the 46" review would be applicable to the 50"?

Are the calibrations you used possible for Joe Public to do?


Mark

[mwardy]

Can you please explain how you managed to get the colour so close just with the colour control? I got greyscale in reasonable shape and then tried setting red as 21% of 100 IRE as recommended elsewhere, but the CIE graph looks more like your out of the box one than your calibrated one. Are you following a different procedure with the colourimeter?

Thanks in advance.

Edit: I managed to get the diagram looking much more like yours, but this was by reducing saturation (via the amp in the end) to such a point that the colour lightness was way off (even though I rather like the results!). So I'm soldiering on with what feels like a too saturated picture still. Did you find a way around this somehow?

Tia squared!

[reaper12]

I would still love to see the settings that you changed please!! both in the picture menu and in the service menu.

A review of the PZ800 would be nice too

[frozendexter]

Could I also put in a request for the settings you used with this plasma.

Thanks.

[gtc1968]

Does anyone knows how to find the hiden menu he speaks about in the review.


"Service menu access was required to perform further calibration on the TH-46PZ80. This hidden menu allowed us to refine the display’s Greyscale performance (a fairly difficult process, given the design of this menu)".

[djdavejoyce]

Surely someone can tell us how to get into the service menu, and exactly what settings need to be changed to alter the greyscale config?

And following on from that, what the best colour settings are to correct colour issues after fixing greyscale performance?

Anyone attempting it I'm sure will agree they take on the risk themselves in terms of voiding their warranty etc...

Pretty

[dazzler9000]

Originally Posted by frozendexter

Could I also put in a request for the settings you used with this plasma.

Thanks.

Me too please!!!!

[nburcombe]

I've been in the service menu but its scary and doesn't control in a natural way.

To enter the menu you need to lift the panel on the front of the TV, hold down the Volume V (down) button and then with the remote control in the other hand press 0 (zero) three times....it'll pause for a sec and then blink onto a simplistic grey menu. The TV mode will switch to Dynamic and it'll suddenly look crap.

After this it's the coloured buttons that appear to cycle the item you're after Red and Green (if that's the two on the furthest left (not got remote in front of me)) and Yellow and blue change the value up and down.

At this point I ducked out and I'm still scouring this forum for more information. I'd love to get a list of the calibrated settings from this review. Any chance? Moderators? Reviewer?

Nick

Ive been reading some of the reviews concerning the Panasonic TH-46PZ80 HD TV and I'm afraid this is not my experience of this TV. I was foolish enough to purchase one. It developed a fault at 6 weeks, a thin black pencil line appeared in the centre of the screen reaching to the far left edge and expanded rapidly to engulf the entire screen and to date it still doesn't work correctly. Fitted with a new D Board, to no avail and now to be fitted with a further D Board and another supporting circuit board, its still not working. At time of writing this Sat 14 Feb 2009 its not been working again since 7.00, an expensive blackboard this. Make up your own mind but for me no more Panasonic,s. Not reliable and certainly not the best available. By the way if there's anybody out there knows what causes this fault can they let me know because I don't think my repair men have any idea.

[Ally]

In the review, which i thought was brilliant btw, there's a picture of the colour/contrast/brightness/sharpness and the settings are set for each except the sharpness? it seems not to be adjusted as there is no line showing, does this mean that we should leave the sharpness off?




many thanks

[Ally]

anyone....

[simonoaks]

Originally Posted by J B Menhams

Ive been reading some of the reviews concerning the Panasonic TH-46PZ80 HD TV and I'm afraid this is not my experience of this TV. I was foolish enough to purchase one. It developed a fault at 6 weeks, a thin black pencil line appeared in the centre of the screen reaching to the far left edge and expanded rapidly to engulf the entire screen and to date it still doesn't work correctly. Fitted with a new D Board, to no avail and now to be fitted with a further D Board and another supporting circuit board, its still not working. At time of writing this Sat 14 Feb 2009 its not been working again since 7.00, an expensive blackboard this. Make up your own mind but for me no more Panasonic,s. Not reliable and certainly not the best available. By the way if there's anybody out there knows what causes this fault can they let me know because I don't think my repair men have any idea.

You have been unlucky, nearly everyone's view of this screen is a positive one. Stop getting it repaired and just take it back to your retailer for a new one.

[Paulsul]

Originally Posted by J B Menhams

Ive been reading some of the reviews concerning the Panasonic TH-46PZ80 HD TV and I'm afraid this is not my experience of this TV. I was foolish enough to purchase one. It developed a fault at 6 weeks, a thin black pencil line appeared in the centre of the screen reaching to the far left edge and expanded rapidly to engulf the entire screen and to date it still doesn't work correctly. Fitted with a new D Board, to no avail and now to be fitted with a further D Board and another supporting circuit board, its still not working. At time of writing this Sat 14 Feb 2009 its not been working again since 7.00, an expensive blackboard this. Make up your own mind but for me no more Panasonic,s. Not reliable and certainly not the best available. By the way if there's anybody out there knows what causes this fault can they let me know because I don't think my repair men have any idea.

May this can help the repair man to have an idea. I think black lines are caused for bad joint soldering.

YouTube - Hyundai Plasma 4240 tv repair
YouTube - Hyundai plasma 4240 tv reapir pt2

[Ally]

Unlucky is the correct summing up here, the Panasonics are very reliable sets and probably just behind Pioneer in PQ etc, there will always be a few bad apples as is the case in most things in life, but i would stress that in panasonics defence it really is a few.

[simonoaks]

Originally Posted by Paulsul

May this can help the repair man to have an idea. I think black lines are caused for bad joint soldering.

YouTube - Hyundai Plasma 4240 tv repair
YouTube - Hyundai plasma 4240 tv reapir pt2

again, why should he research what to do to help- a repair man, just swap it, it is not a generic pz80 fault, just a plasma fault, could happen to any screen. Not his job to diagnose and advise, just change it and enjoy waht everyone else is getting.

[DaveEllis130]

After a year and a half of trying to pursuade my dad to buy a high def tv and PS3 (we both love COD4), he finally took the plunge a couple of months ago and purchased the 46" PZ80 and PS3. Don't get me wrong, i love my sony 40" W2000 (despite occasional minor backlight issues), however after doing a direct comparison using the Dark Knight blu ray, I was blown away by the PQ of the of the PZ80. No motion judder during the tricky panning shot of the skyscrapers at the begining, blacks look superb, could not fault it.

He still can't quite beat me at COD 4 but he's getting close, partly I think due to the quality of this tv.

[hilly10]

Originally Posted by daveellis130

after a year and a half of trying to pursuade my dad to buy a high def tv and ps3 (we both love cod4), he finally took the plunge a couple of months ago and purchased the 46" pz80 and ps3. Don't get me wrong, i love my sony 40" w2000 (despite occasional minor backlight issues), however after doing a direct comparison using the dark knight blu ray, i was blown away by the pq of the of the pz80. No motion judder during the tricky panning shot of the skyscrapers at the begining, blacks look superb, could not fault it.

He still can't quite beat me at cod 4 but he's getting close, partly i think due to the quality of this tv.

+1