Panasonic TH-42PW5B

We have owned this Panasonic PLasma TV (TH-42PW5) for just about 7 years now buying it just as they started to become availanle to all. It is used everyday for about 5 -7 hours a day. It is still perfect. This is a problem though. As a techno freak i want to upgrade to a 1080P but i still cant justify upgrading...this one is still too good!!!!

It is ion silver which i think is much nicer than the gloss black AL:L sets are today.

Im glad to have the beautiful old plasma!!!

I have spent nearly two years traveling from store to store, sampling high definition television sets, from the very first 34" Sony tube TV's, through the latest 2nd generation DLP front and rear projectors, but particularly the plasma sets in various iterations. In the last two months, I have had very cooperative dealers feed identical HDTV and DVD signals to two plasma screens, namely the Pioneer 50" Elite and Panasonic 50" set. In the past, I have been very impressed with the luminance of the Pioneer model, and its generally exemplary spatial resolution. However, upon closer inspection, dark areas of an image appear to be gray, and if calibration is off, tinted a pale green. Moreover, these dark areas show rather visible video noise. I confirmed this behavior by displaying the THX gray scale test pattern. By comparison, the Panasonic screen exhibited far better black rendition, approaching the best that CRT sets can produce. This difference alone added remarkable vibrancy to the picture. Moreover, the color rendition, particularly blue skies, was far more realistic than the Pioneer sets. As both sets used an identical pixel arrangement, the spatial resolution was quite comparable. While the Pioneer sported a far more flexible set-up menu, with more color temperature adjustment steps, as well as video noise reduction, it still was not possible to produce an equivalently pleasing picture. Thus, I lean toward the Panasonic. My only reservations with these plasma sets is the ability of their scalers to produce visually acceptable, though admittedly much lower resolution of our NTSC broadcast signals, as well as the need to show 4:3 material with gray bars, to prevent burn in. I simply find it heretical to view 4:3 classic movies through the stretch mode- it's ok for "casual" viewing, but seems an oxymoron to spend so much money on a "high definition" device, but one which cannot provide accurate geometry of a picture!

wow - we fitted ours to the wall above the fire -- best tv we have ever had a must buy -- blade is just the best on this plasma - the reds and black and amazing ..

After spending 2 months surveying the plasma market I was just about to give up. Either the contrast ratio was too low or the resolution, was it HDTV compatible etc. The technical terminology made sense, the better spec the more expensive but after all that, the picture quality for home cinema wasn't the best. In fact I scoured the high street shops including Harrods where they had quite a number of plasma tvs. I have to admit I was straight away put off the Pioneer, it looked good but the picture quality where ever I went was 'awful' and they were all playing dvds. I was impressed by the Samsung but knew it was 'rubbish' because all the shops were always playing animations. Finally I saw the Bang & Olufsen and I have to admit it was damn 'good' the plasma one. I soon realised that was out of my league and that they were playing high definition dvds. So I was confused... until I contacted some internet suppliers who told me that Panasonic was the best. I went to shops to survey Panasonic and realised that yes, there was something there. I was put off by the resolution initally on the 42-TH42PWB buy impressed by the good deals availabe on the web. They told me that the Panasonic was also the Toshiba 42inch but I later found out that it was an older model. Anyway I bought it (the Panasonic). When I took the Plasma out it was beautiful - I wanted to cry. i have only felt such an emotion when I had my baby. Anyway I also shuddered, it's all glass. What happens if I break it? Soon I plucked up the courage and attached it to a destop stand cos my walls were just plaster board and couldn't take the strain. I plugged in my sky via Scart to RCA and it didnt work, it was a cable problem. I ran to the nearest shop in record time and attached a working cable. My god, sky news, the red and the blue were so intense, the quality was perfect, it was amazing. I was blown away better than any demo in any shop - it was brilliant. Yes there was some pixelation but that was expected when they were broadcasting recordings, the actual digital picture was perfect. Contrast ratio was excellent, I didnt even realise what that meant but now I do. It means 'bloody good picture'. Now all I needed was sound, I soon placed an order for home cinema sound. It had RGB output. I bought RGP component lead from IXOYS (very expensive) and set it all up. Now I played a DVD with sound, the picture quality was amazing. The sony DAV was multiregion and progressive scan. I played Star Wars Phantom Menace Region One. My god I couldn't believe it, it was actually better than the £14,000 Bang & Olufsen! When you watch a film on Plasma with this quality it feels like you're in a cinema... but better. I have no doubt in my mind that this is the best choice of plasma going. Forget the Fujitsu, shun the Sony, throw the Toshiba and lose the LG - just praise the Panasonic.