1. Panasonic Viera 1080P Plasma HDTV Review Great Sound
Excellent Pictures Perfect Price
The Panasonic Viera 1080p Plasma HDTV can play music and videos off a flash drive, an SD Card,
or your computer (via your home network). It provides a broad selection of streaming Internet
programming. Its audio capabilities are a feast for the ears (by television standards, at least). And this
42-inch HDTV does all of that while using very little electricity. But much of its behavior feels rough
around the edges, as if Panasonic hadn't quite thought things through. And frankly, this set's image
quality isn't exceptional enough to justify the $1299 (as of February, 2012) estimated price.
The Panasonic Viera 1080p Plasma HDTV received an unexceptional score of 81 in our image-
quality tests, doing particularly poorly in color and skin tones. One judge strongly disliked the color,
finding it greenish and murky. Other judges objected to flat and muted hues.

2. In my own capacity as a judge, I found this HDTV at its most disappointing with Blu-ray discs,
perhaps because of the more complicated images it had to process. In a bright daylight scene from
Mission: Impossible III (chapter 7), the contrast was so extreme that faces looked as if they had been
photographed at night, while the sky blazed white hot.
Motion also caused some problems. The judges noted shimmering and other artifacts in our football
test, in a brick wall that the camera panned across in Mission: Impossible III (chapter 7), and in our
diagonal-panning test movie.
Whatever faults the picture had didn't extend to the sound. Television audio has its compromises, and
I always recommend that people who want the full home theater experience invest in a separate
receiver and external speakers. But the Panasonic Viera 1080p Plasma HDTV's sound system is
good enough to help you delay that purchase. In our tests the sound was deep and rich, and I noticed
subtle effects from our Phantom of the Opera Blu-ray disc (chapters 1 and 2) that I hadn't caught
before. Even with the volume turned all the way up, I heard distortion only once, and that was during
a very loud organ blast. The simulated surround won't fool you into thinking that speakers are situated
behind you, but it will help you feel immersed.
This is a reasonably easy HDTV to set up and use. The main on-screen menu is legible and
attractive, and it includes some short but useful descriptions. It isn't always intuitive, however. For
instance, pressing the right-arrow button won't take you to the next submenu; you have to press the

3. OK button for that.
Neither button is convenient to press. Panasonic designed the remote control in such a way as to
make the circle of arrows - with the OK button in the middle--too high for easy reach. On the other
hand, the volume and channel controls are perfectly placed for quick access, and the numbers are
reasonably handy, as well. A black ridge on the back gives the remote an unusually good grip. The
remote isn't programmable, but almost every button on it is backlit.
When you press the remote's Input button, up comes a scrollable list of inputs to help you move the
TV's attention from your DVD player to your game console to broadcast or cable channels. Nothing
unusual about that, but the Panasonic Viera 1080p Plasma HDTV's Input screen has some nice
touches. From this screen, you can assign labels that will help you identify what's connected to each
input. You can also select a 'Not used' label, which will save you from having to scroll past that
particular input.
A separate Viera Tools button on the remote gives you a handful of convenient options. You can use

4. it, for instance, to go to the HDTV's media player (more on that below), change the video mode, or
turn on the Eco option, which can shut off the TV after 10 minutes of no signal or 3 hours of no
activity.
Speaking of saving power, this Energy Star HDTV sips an astonishingly low 42 watts when on. (Many
DVRs consume that much when off.) This result constitutes a PCWorld record, as the Panasonic
Viera 1080p Plasma HDTV is the first HDTV to receive a PCWorld Green Score of 100. As with most
modern sets, the amount of juice it drank while off was so small that our meters couldn't record it.
Perhaps the lack of Wi-Fi helps keep the power consumption down. You'll need to buy an ethernet
cable or use a separate Wi-Fi adapter to get Internet access on your HDTV. But once you do get
connected, you'll find a nice batch of streaming video, audio, and data options. Among them are
Facebook, Netflix, Pandora, Picasa, YouTube, two pay-per-view services (Amazon and CinemaNow),
and weather and sports channels.
You can use the same network connection to enjoy photos, music, and videos off your computer--
assuming that your computer is running a DLNA server. That's not much of a problem: Windows
Media Player will work fine. If you're not network-savvy, the Panasonic Viera 1080p Plasma HDTV
also comes with both USB and SD inputs. That way, you can copy media files from your computer to
a flash drive or SD Card, carry the small device into another room, and plug it into your HDTV.
Whether you use USB, SD, or DLNA, the Panasonic Viera 1080p Plasma HDTV does an exceptional
job with photos. It finds all the.jpg files on your media, displays them in thumbnails, and lets you
select one to view, or start a slideshow. You get plenty of slideshow options, including various
transitional effects and musical choices.
It isn't so versatile with video or music, however. Rather than displaying all of the appropriate files, it
forces you to drill down into folders to find movies and tunes. The only audio format it plays is.mp3. It
listed but couldn't play the.mp4 files I gave it, and it didn't even see my test.avi and.mpeg files. The
Panasonic Viera 1080p Plasma HDTV's specs page promises support only for
"AVCHD/MPEG2/JPEG/MP3 playback."
Panasonic doesn't give you much information online; as I write this, you can't even download a PDF
version of the manual. Luckily, the print version that comes with the TV is well written and nicely
illustrated, with a FAQ page and an index. The colorful quick-setup guide does a lot to help you get
plugged in and going. The Panasonic Viera 1080p Plasma HDTV does many things well.
Panasonic viera 1080p plasma hdtv