M
martinthorn
Guest
Having had this 42" plasma for a month I thought I would write down
my thoughts about the screen so far.. This is a mini-review of the
second unit I received as the first one was returned due to a faulty
DVB tuner. The screen has a resolution of 1024x768, and can display
3/4 of the Hi-def resolutions : crucially for some 720p/50Hz is the
missing one. I don't have a Hi-Def scaler yet so this review is based
on Standard Def material..
After one month I can honestly say that I am happy with the screen.
You read about other screens looking terrible out of the box, however
this one (in fact both the ones I have had) looked good as soon as it
was switched on. Of course, after tweaking settings, the picture improved
(turning colour, contrast and brightness down a touch and changing
picture mode to 'standard' instead of 'bright').
I used the THX test screen found on the Star Wars DVDs to set the
brightness/contrast, the black blocks test was passed ok suggesting
the black levels are reasonable. People on this forum talk about Panasonic
blacks a lot, well I find the blacks on this TV to be very good : I had
to set the brightness/contrast carefully though to avoid dark areas
becoming too black (where THX was handy).Colours are natural with
skin tones looking how they should.
Sound through the inbuilt speakers is excellent for a TV, however for most viewing I use my external sound system.
DVD picture quality is excellent.
Picture quality on Sky is good when the source is good. On some of the
less well known channels the poor bit-rate gives a poor picture. For
example FashionTV looks terribly pixellated ( ) and colour banding
is to be seen quite a lot. On the other hand the main channels, BBC1 to
Ch5 etc look excellent..
Picture quality of the inbuilt digital tuner is a little bit better than Sky :
I think the bit-rates are higher which helps. Occasional colour
banding can be seen if you look for it.. Automatic setup is easy, it
found all the channels available without a fuss. There's an 8-day EPG for
the DVB where you can set reminders and see what's coming up.
Picture quality of the analogue inbuilt tuner is good when the recieved
signal is good : my ch4 reception is excellent(as good/better than digital),
the others are noisy : most likely due to the antenna being in the loft
and not on the roof.
Fancy Features :
Noise reduction : kept to minimum
Super Digipure : kept to a minimum (sharpens image like philip's pixelplus)
Movie Theatre : off (can't see difference between off and on !)
Colour Management : off (I think colour looks better without it)
Picture Management : on (seems to help with contrast and blacks)
As I don't have a laptop I can't comment about connecting a PC to the
JVC other than I know that it has a connector specifically for this.
The remote is unfussy and well laid out. Good, but offers no support
for other AV kit other than JVC videos and DVD players.
Overall very happy with the TV so far and would buy it again now if the
existing one vapourised somehow ! In fact it's probably dropped below
the £1750 that I paid by now..
'Ope this is of interest..
Martin
my thoughts about the screen so far.. This is a mini-review of the
second unit I received as the first one was returned due to a faulty
DVB tuner. The screen has a resolution of 1024x768, and can display
3/4 of the Hi-def resolutions : crucially for some 720p/50Hz is the
missing one. I don't have a Hi-Def scaler yet so this review is based
on Standard Def material..
After one month I can honestly say that I am happy with the screen.
You read about other screens looking terrible out of the box, however
this one (in fact both the ones I have had) looked good as soon as it
was switched on. Of course, after tweaking settings, the picture improved
(turning colour, contrast and brightness down a touch and changing
picture mode to 'standard' instead of 'bright').
I used the THX test screen found on the Star Wars DVDs to set the
brightness/contrast, the black blocks test was passed ok suggesting
the black levels are reasonable. People on this forum talk about Panasonic
blacks a lot, well I find the blacks on this TV to be very good : I had
to set the brightness/contrast carefully though to avoid dark areas
becoming too black (where THX was handy).Colours are natural with
skin tones looking how they should.
Sound through the inbuilt speakers is excellent for a TV, however for most viewing I use my external sound system.
DVD picture quality is excellent.
Picture quality on Sky is good when the source is good. On some of the
less well known channels the poor bit-rate gives a poor picture. For
example FashionTV looks terribly pixellated ( ) and colour banding
is to be seen quite a lot. On the other hand the main channels, BBC1 to
Ch5 etc look excellent..
Picture quality of the inbuilt digital tuner is a little bit better than Sky :
I think the bit-rates are higher which helps. Occasional colour
banding can be seen if you look for it.. Automatic setup is easy, it
found all the channels available without a fuss. There's an 8-day EPG for
the DVB where you can set reminders and see what's coming up.
Picture quality of the analogue inbuilt tuner is good when the recieved
signal is good : my ch4 reception is excellent(as good/better than digital),
the others are noisy : most likely due to the antenna being in the loft
and not on the roof.
Fancy Features :
Noise reduction : kept to minimum
Super Digipure : kept to a minimum (sharpens image like philip's pixelplus)
Movie Theatre : off (can't see difference between off and on !)
Colour Management : off (I think colour looks better without it)
Picture Management : on (seems to help with contrast and blacks)
As I don't have a laptop I can't comment about connecting a PC to the
JVC other than I know that it has a connector specifically for this.
The remote is unfussy and well laid out. Good, but offers no support
for other AV kit other than JVC videos and DVD players.
Overall very happy with the TV so far and would buy it again now if the
existing one vapourised somehow ! In fact it's probably dropped below
the £1750 that I paid by now..
'Ope this is of interest..
Martin