Hi
Well have had a few hours playing around with the Panasonic 32LXD52. First off you get zero in the box cable wise, but generously you do get a plastic cable tie! There is a recess on the back and a cover for the all the cables, however my expensive SCART cable has the wire coming directly out and not angled so I can't get the cover on (something to bare in mind if buying a new SCART cable). Took a few minutes to find where the aerial wire went as well.
On first switching on it tunes in for a minute or so, and sets up analogue and Freeview channels, no problems there. I have upgraded from a 4:3 29" Panasonic set so my main comparisons are with that.
Immediate impressions are how bright and in your face the picture is and not in a good way, with Freeview looking particularly horrible, contrasty and blocky (they keep adding rubbish channels and degrading the quality to make room and it shows). However a delve into the picture setup menu shows it is set for "Dynamic" which boosts and over processes everything in my opinion with contrast also full up, obviously set to ensure the brightest picture for demo's in shops but horrible to watch for any length of time. Setting the Panasonic to Auto (this should mean it adjusts based on the light level in the room according to the manual) and knocking the contrast down a bit and things were 100% better, once my eyes had recovered that is! Freeview pictures improved a lot now the set wasn't over processing although it still looks very compressed, this isn't a problem with the Panasonic just Freeview and a big screen. Analogue has more detail and no blocking, and turn on the 3D comb filter and analogue can still compete well with digital terrestrial if you get a good signal. I really think turning of analogue and giving us digital terrestrial is a big con?
Playing DVDs (via RGB, non progressive yet for me) and the Pany loves it. After the 4:3 29 that not being wide screen meant an even smaller letterboxed picture for wide screen films/video, then now to see a full 32 diagonal is a real pleasure. It really is very cinema like and I suppose LCD working in a similar way to a projected film (big bright light shining through colour filters) just adds to that feeling.
The sound quality, well I was actually very surprised at how good that was, I was expecting something average thinking it must have small speakers to fit into the slim profile, however looking behind the set there is some extra thickness in the case where the speakers must be so they are more substantial than it might appear, and so gives a pleasing sound and a decent bass response. A friend had thought the sound was coming from the amp and speakers rather than the TV, although not a patch on a good surround sound system of course.
Other observations, the heat that radiates off the LCD panel is amazing, you can feel it on your face from a foot away, of course this must be from the back light and I bet the heat pushed forward through the LCD panel is deliberate to speed up the response times by warming the LCD. What are the backlights in these things? Cant be cold cathode like LCD monitors, as LCD monitors never get hot like that. As for ghosting or blurring, seen none at all no matter how fast the action is.
A niggle, its a shame the Pany doesn't have individual picture settings per AV input, that would have been very useful.
So very impressed with the Pany 32LXD52, I bet it is super with high definition!
What sort of settings are people using with these sets? Currently I have set Picture mode to Auto, knocked down contrast by a quarter from the top, turned on colour management (not sure what that does exactly as seems not to make any difference), put MPEG filter on Mid, turned on 3D comb filter for analogue channels, and left brightness, sharpness, colour at mid settings.
Regards
Phil