Panasonic TH37PE-30 Viera. First thoughts amd review.

GalacticaActual

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This review is in no way indoresed or aproved by Panasonic or any of thier affiliates.My ramblings below are not necseraly the views of Avforums or any one else on this web site.

The Viera 37" PE30.

Recently I have gone through a number of standard 100hrz crt televisions.Call me picky and fussy if you like(the otherhalf would use more extreme language :D )but none of them were up to the standard I was expecting.Anyway after much resaerch on these very forums and just not being happy with the loewe televison I had recently purchased, a trip in to the world of Plasma seemed to be my best option.
I purchased the pe30 from kent home cinema.For those of you in the know this is our very own av sales from the forum sponser section. the guys and girls there were very helpfull and after a few demos I setteled on the viera. A word to the wise, If you are planing to pick up your plasma from your place of purchase and not have it delevered because you are impatient :D
Make sure the car you take is big enough. The 37" Viera comes in quite a large box for protection and would only just fit across the back seat of my Mondeo Hatch back!
Got the thing home and installed. I did not go for a wall mount but the pederstooll stand looks very good on my home cinema consoll.
First impression by the mrs, "the actuall look of the thing is very smart and sleek isint it" OK so far so good, shes happy :) lets start to see what my new toy can do.

Sky digital .
The digi box is hooked up to av 1 with a good quality fully wired scart lead. I must say that I was plesanlty suprrised. I had been warned that the picture would never look as good as a crt and to a certain point that is true.However some channels on sky do look better than others. ON the Viera some solorization and colour noise is evedent with sky. It is very simular to some of the problems with panasonics Acuity 36" crt sets, although it is no where near as bad.
The verdict , not as good as a standard tv but quite whatchable none the less.

Vcr playback.
My little boy likes thomas the tank engine. In fact thomas seems to be on the tv more than anything else these days. I dont own may tapes any more but the play back(standard composite through a decent scart connected to av 2 )is a bit snowy and noisy but again not really a problem.
The verdict, poor, but not really a problem if you dont watch a lot of videos.

Playstation 2.
This is hooked up to the other RGB enabled scart. the picture is, in my opion, very good with hardly any solorisation or colour noise at all.
The verdict. What can I say? very good, rivals most crts for colour reproduction and image quality. :thumbsup:

DVD play back.
Well this is it. the big one, the very reason I bought the thing in the first place. Useing a pioneer dvd757ai hooked up with JVC component leads, the picture ,even on lesser encoeded discs looks very good. My player will out put a progresive scan signal straight to the panansonic (ntsc only mind you). Bad boys 2 ntsc, startrek 2 ntsc , even rambo 2 ntsc, all looked very good indeed. you get a very cinematic image with colours and flesh tones all looking like they should. Pal dvds although not a direct progresive scan signal from my player also look the business. Even with the picture settings to half way due to still running in the plasma detail and image quality is very impresive .
The verdict :thumbsup:

Minor faults and problems.
The veira being a consumer model plasma tv and not a disply panal buy its self has limited picture tweeks. You can not adjust over scan on this set. my panasonic overcans the image right up to the 5% safe action lines to the left and right of the picture. This is a minor problem and does not really spoil my viewing pleasure, but it is a bit of a pain that it cannot be sorted out .
Also on very fast movments from a still piture.Ie two people talking then a fast camera pan away from them, there is very slight image combing effect. Now I must stress that you really have to be looking for it to see it and in most cases you probably wont even notice it at all, but I thought I would mention it anyway as I know there are people out there who would appreciate this information ;)


Other points of intrest
Almost perfect geomatry(apart from the over scan). No dirtyscreen effect and very good contrast and colour reproduction.

overall verdict.
for Home cinema this takes a lot of beating for the price. The screen , stand and extra warranty all cost together less than two and a half thousand pounds. For dvd playback and movie watching this is as good as any crt I have recently seen :smashin: :smashin: sky tv and video playback however are merly average to poor so be warned if that is what you will be mainly watching. Am I happy overall ? well I think I can finally sit back and start to enjoy my movies again :clap:
Thanks for reading.
Any comments, pointing out of errors of difference of opions are more than welcome. I await your responces with baited breath :)
Dave.
 
dalepearson said:
Why is Sky dodgy on plasma's compared to CRT, or are people just being picky.


Its something to do with the way sky channels broad cast. Low bit rate or some thing. a plasma has to be fed really good images to get the best out of it. also the biiger the screen the easer it is to see some digital artefacts that are aparent with sky.
 
I am thinking of getting a plasma & the size of the room dictates that it will have to be 37" max.
Unfortunately the room is a bit narrow 2500w x 5400lg.
The screen will have to be mounted on the long wall which will give you an effective viewing distance of something like 2000mm, once you have sat down.
Do you know what the optimum viewing distance is? or how to calculate it.
How close do you have to be before the screen starts showing artifacts?

Thanks in advance for any advice
 
What Hifi has a guide - have to take their word for it for now,
8-10ft away / 28in to 32 in or 10-12ft 36-42in , 12ft+ 42-50in

seems resonable but on the 2m distance that would put you in the 17-26in screen size!!! Best take a measure and go to a shop.
 
David-Sheekey said:
Over 80 hours of watching now and still happy :thumbsup: :smashin: :thumbsup:
Are you still running your picture settings half way?? If not what are they at.....just curious!
 
I had mine delivered on Tuesday, set it up with a DAV 500 cimema kit and its the best picture and sound i have ever heard!
I'm sure the picture will get better after i have run it in, my settings are on normal and have them on just under half way, how long should it stay this way?
What about picture sharpness?
Got mine from JL with the stand and DVD included for £2399 and 5 yrs guarentee!! The Dogs B's!!
Need to buy some decent leads though, my sky + is hooked up in the other room so all i have is the DAV connected! :clap:
 

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