Customer Reviews

Panasonic CT-34WX54 34" TheaterWide HDTV-Ready Flat Screen TV

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have had this unit for about a week now. I have nothing but great things to say as the picture is fantastic. The sound is so good that I have to get new rear speakers to handle the added sound. Still getting all my other accessories, DVD, DVD recorder, VCR, CD player, CD recorder installed correctly so they can be handled by the units remote. Should be something else. HD is the coming trend...keep it coming.

I have one small complaint though in that when delivery was made, they only sent the driver out with the unit, and it was quite a struggle for him to get the unit out and off of the truck. We had to enlist the help of another male to get delivery, unpacking and finally placement of the unit. The delivery papers distinctly state

I've been working for a major electronics retailer for the past 4 years and this is definately the best image for this price that I've seen. So great that I had to get one! The built in NTSC tuner is pretty strong too. Much better than the Sony that I had before this. Only thing that would make it better would be a built in ATSC tuner.

My wife and I have been looking for a HD television for about 6 months now. We originally started looking at rear projection televisions, but quickly found that the total area they consumed would be too much for our living room. We took a breather for a couple of months, and began looking at tube HD televisions. After reading several reviews of the CT 30WX54 (the 30" cousin) we decided to check it out. Our local Circuit City had the CT 30WX54 and the CT 34WX54 side-by-side, and we went with the 34". The picture is beautiful, DVDs look great, television is awesome and XBox is cooler than ever.

If this is your first HD TV, you'll need to pick up a few extras, component cables for your DVD player, the Monster component kit for XBox, and a new stand, because, man, this is one heavy TV!

Compared to other models by Sony and Samsung in the same size range, the Panasonic really comes out on top between quality and price.

A couple of side notes:
* There are only two component ports on the back, you'll probably need to pick up a DVI-HDMI cable to hook up your cable/satellite box if you are using them up.
* HEAVY HEAVY HEAVY, make sure you get a friend to help you move it in. This is NOT a one person job.
* It's a lot bigger than it looks at the store. Remember the showroom is huge, chances are yur living room is not.

While I agree with all endorsing reviews of this tv so far, my feedback will be more based on overall experience rather than technical.

I want to start saying that I believe, not only I have a great tv now, I also have had a great value.

Having crispy picture from all-angles, now watching HD programs and DVDs are so pleasant.

I must admit the sleek design and slim look of LCD and plasma tvs still take my attention every time I walk into any electronic store. However, after I bought this tv, I dont feel jealous looking at those expensive ones anymore. Realizing that we will see more of falling prices in all plasma, lcd and other high tech tvs, as far as my opinion this tv is an optimum buy as it is in great price while you can get great picture and audio quality, so you don't have to be waiting years flat panel prices come down to your budget or feel guilty when you check their prices in two years or so, if you dont care about its depth and weight.

I think it is very important to have 180 degree viewing visibility especially after spending a nice chunk of a money. We do have regular size living room. Having some of the seatings are positioned in a narrow angle when watching the tv, the picture can be seen in any angle. In addition, the screen size does not seem like a small screen, so it is very satisfactory for an average size living room. I also want to mention that at no price, 'rear-projection' tvs cannot keep up with this one as their main defect is not having same picture quality from all the angles you possibly can view a tv.

Think how often you move a tv around the house, and decide whether its weight matters to you or not.

With even less price than low end projection tvs, I can recommend this tv to every one.

My wife and I had to unexpectedly go and buy a new TV as our old 10 year old Sony Trinitron had said goodbye to the RF tuner. So we figured we might as well try and buy an HDTV so we'd be set for the future.
I own an Xbox, a progressive-scan DVD player and now HD cable service from Comcast. I wanted a TV that gave me plenty of inputs as well as excellent picture quality.
The clarity on this TV is amazing, we looked at regular projection TV's, plasma, LCD, LCOS, and DLP. The only TV's in our price range were the direct view tubes, and the smaller (50" and below) projection TVs.
We bought this TV going off of word of mouth and also looking at comprable sets side by side in the store.
The analog section of this TV is excellent, it does not display much noise in the picture, as I've noticed other TV's don't handle it nearly as well.
I only have a couple of quibbles with the TV in regards of features, some are just the nature of tube TV's. It does not display 720p as a format, just 480i, 480p, and 1080i. But in looking at how TV's display the 2 hi-definition formats (1080i, 720p) to the naked eye it's indiscernable, most the sports coverage (ABC, ESPN, FOX) all display their formats in 720p, but the cable boxes look like they "side convert" so that you can view all HD content regardless of resolution.
The other problem I have is with the remote, I wish the light would come on whenever you hit a button on the remote, instead of having to hit the light button everytime. Also the codes that are built into the remote seem to lack codes, as Motorola cable boxes don't have a code on the TV remote, so you just have to do an "auto-search" to find a code that does the basics (no guide functions).
This is definently the best tube TV available on the market, (as this is about as large as they come) and have enjoyed it every minute of watching it.

We recently purchased this television after only about a week of research into the HDTV market. I had seen plasma screens in other people's homes, and while the picture on those sets is fantastic, the units are far more expensive. We decided to go with a direct view set because of the price and the size of the room that the TV now sits in. We picked the Panasonic model over the comparable 34" Sony model based largely on reviews from this site, as well as Circuit City's site, all of which said that Sony's model had "grainy" SDTV (normal cable) reception.

We have Time Warner Cable service, and the picture is really spectacular (especially on channels like HBO HD and Discovery HD Theater that feature full screen HDTV - ESPN HD has dark gray bars on the outer most edge of the screen for most programming). Standard cable channels come in great, although in my estimation not as good (about 95% of the quality) as the 27" Sony Trinitron from 1987 that the HDTV replaced. Also, unless you want to have SDTV channels stretched out to fit the 16:9 ratio, there are light gray bars that run from the top to bottom of the screen on the sides of all SDTV channels (similar to the horizontal, black letter-box bars that show up on a widescreen DVD). It takes some getting used to, but really does not matter to us.

All-in-all, buying an HDTV is an investment for the future, and I think that if you have the space for this unit (it is quite large), it is an excellent value (we bought it from J&R Music World in NYC for $1200 in late November 2004). On that note, the TV has an HDMI input in the back, which from what I understand, is the best way to connect HDTV boxes and also leaves open the possibility that HDTV will not be the standard in the future. Keep in mind just how heavy this unit is. My brother and I (both in our late 20's) really struggled to get it inside the house. But now that it is here, we could not be happier.

Finally, this stand complements the unit nicely: http://www.bello.com/AV/avs-422t.asp (available at J&R or on Amazon.com). Enjoy this set, highly recommended!

Unless you're prepared to go above the $5000 price tag for a TV, tubes still rule. In the computer monitor world, I still have yet to see anything better than my 22in Sony Trinitron monitor from 2001(!). Tubes still provide the sharpest picture and the truest color. For the same price as we paid early this year ($1200 +the inevitable service contract) my parents bought a 42in projection model. The colors on our Panasonic are much brighter, the blacks much deeper and darker (on their Samsung projector the blacks, esp with HD/DVD look more gray than black).

The clarity for DVD and HD is orders of magnitude better than both my 27in Sanyo (the set this one replaced when we bought a place with a bigger living room than our apt.) SD and my parents' projector. For SD channels, the Sanyo doesn't look better but does lack the "gray bars."

The Sanyo, of course, is a 4X3, and this set a 16X9; fortunately more and more DVDs are being made to take full advantage of the latter's ratio and more and more programs are being broadcast in it (meaning that "letter box" using "anamorphic ratios"--another way of "stretching" video--will hopefully soon be a thing of the past). However, for the time being, its either gray bars or using the cable boxes' "stretch" function.

If you're fortunate enough to have a cable box which doesn't take over all the functions of the TV regarding picture size, the Panasonic deals with this is better way than the Scientific Atlanta cable box. There's a setting called "Just" (justify?) that does what the CPLV function of Cyberlink's PowerDVD program does: it "adjusts"--i.e. stretches--the picture at the edges while leaving the middle 2/3rds untouched. This is a much superior method for 4X3 programs. (Unfortunately the cable box just stretches everything, making Gwynneth Paltrow looks like she might weight more than 100lbs!)

The Panasonics five modes, 16x9, ZOOM, Full, JUST and 4X3, are quite handy. When watching, say, "Friends" on DVD--all of which were filmed in 4X3 ratio--the ratio on the Panasonic can be switched to the 4X3 setting, thus allowing them to be viewed as they were intended.

And that's another thing that was not readily obvious on SD but can be glaringly obviously on HD: quality of the source makes all the difference. You can really tell when a show or film was shot on the cheap. The early years of "Friends" were clearly shot for a low budget. The later years (7 thru 10) look much better.

Finally, SD channels look worse on this TV because they are of lower quality. It has NOTHING to do with the TV. I find it odd that none of the half dozen reviewers I read seemed to have understood this.

If one goes from a 5x telescope to a 10x telescope the garish billboard several miles down the road isn't going to better looking! It's going to look even worse.

The one drawback for all HDTVs has nothing to do with the sets. Unfortunately, there is still little true HD content available. Those satellite providers who say "ALL our channels are HD!" are trying to exploit the misunderstanding of those who do not realize that most HD content (50 to 75% on avg) is really SD content that has either been up-rezzed or, to borrow a term from the music world, "remastered" from the source (i.e. a new transfer has been made from the original film or tape). Only Discovery HD, to my knowledge, carries 100% truly HD programming.

The set also has nearly every type of connector one might need. I haven't tried the HDMI mostly because they cost about $150! But also because my beloved Sony 5-discchanger nor does my cable box have the output ports. The optical input port has made a gigantic difference in the sound quality as compared with the RCA connectors I had been using (i.e. the two cables, one white, one red, for right and left channels respectively).

Those expressing enthusiam for HDMI should know that built into its specifications are measures allowing "content providers" to destroy your legal rights to make personal copies of shows. In other words, the HDMI interface makes so-called "Digital Rights Management"--in reality Rights Destruction Technology--that much easier to implement. (The ultimate goal, obviously, is to charge us, say $15 or $20 a pop to record "ER" or "Deadwood" in the idiotic war against "pirates," a war in which the only tactics considered are those which penalize those of who are law-abiding; but, of course, it has nothing to do with stopping piracy in the first place.)

Bottomline: it's a great set with bold brilliant color. Since I already had a surround sound system, I've never used the on-board speaker (and probably never will, after hearing true surround, how can you ever go back??).

It's clearly worth the money. As one reviewer notes, those obsessed with size (no pun intended) shouldn't fall for the salespitch. Obviously, the dimensions of one's room have to factor in, but if you have a cozy living room (euphemism for smaller!) or, better yet, the money for a really nice TV for the MBR, this set cannot be beat.

We looked at four different retailers for a 36in but found only ONE 36in and it was a Sony SDTV. Apparently, as manufacturers are phasing-out CRT (tubes), the bigger tubes are disappearing first. I would have preferred a 36 or 40in tube, we were out of luck. The 34in has proved excellent for our room size and lay-out. A 42in or bigger set would dominate the room and put us uncomfortably close to set.

My grade an A- (only because of the aforementioned size issue).

I will concur with the one reviewer who remarked on the set's weight. It is prodigiously heavy. Fortunately, we had it delivered. When my wife and I have had to move it, it is a bear. Be very careful, especially since these days, nearly all the weight is in toward the screen, making the set extremely uneven and awkward.

Just as the other reviewer said, it is a 2 person job to move this unit around. But, once you have it in place,you are going to enjoy a fabulous picture and wonderful sound. I highly recommend this unit!!!!!!!!

I was shopping for a tv for over 3 months. I kept saying to my wife "I have to do more research" I was originally going to by a Hitachi Rear Projection television but I talked to a lot of people and found out that it goes out in like five years. I love LCD and DLP but they are out of my price range. I decided to go with the tube. I was deciding between the Toshiba hfx83 and the Panasonic Ct-34WX54. I decided to go with the Panasonic and...

I totally love it! This is the best television I have ever seen. The HDTV picture as well as the dvd and regular tv were phenominal. I love the split screen feature where I can watch too shows at once. Amazon was great with delivering the TV on time and bringing it right into my Living Room.Believe me this is the best decision I've ever made and I'm sure it will be the best you did.

It's been 2 years now. And looking back I can safely say that this HI-DEF TV is a great buy. The HD channels that DirecTV offers are gorgeous. I'm so glad I bought this TV because now I can watch my favorite movies in its theatrical form - Widescreen. Thank you Panasonic.