Customer Reviews

Panasonic PT-43LC14 43-Inch Widescreen HD-Ready LCD Projection Television

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

 

 

I just bought this TV from Circuit City, and it is an excellent product! The picture quality is superb, the color rendition is true and life-like, the sound is very good, and it is all encased in a thin, compact 14" deep, 65-lb. box! This TV does a marvellous job with both SD and HD signals, unlike some other HD sets, which display SD signals worse than conventional TVs. Another plus - there is no burn-in to worry about, unlike plasmas and conventional projection TVs. The included universal remote control is easy to use, and the TV's menu is moderately easy to navigate. The TV was ready to go straight out of the box, and did not require a complicated setup. I would definitely recommend it, it is an excellent set for a very reasonable price!!!

Have had PT-40LC12 for two years now and have experienced the same problems other reviewers have mentioned -- 2 lamps in 2 years at $330 each. Now the lamp ballast has gone bad and that will run another $1,000 for parts and labor.

Have heard lamps and lamp ballasts are an issue with all LCD and DLP rear projection, but can only cite my personal experience here.

I first purchased this TV a few weeks ago. After a week or so, I noticed that on certain cable channels (analog, not digital) the audio was out of sync with the video. This was usually in the range of 0.1 - 0.5 second lead in the audio. Confused, I watched some movies and it did the same thing. Thinking it was a problem with the TV, I had the only person I knew with a truck drive 2 hours to my house to bring it back, we brought it back no problem, got the new TV, that person left, and the TV then wouldn't turn on. Extremely aggrevated, I called the place where I purcahsed it and they agreed to deliver a new one for no charge. I got the new one and it has the same audio out of sync problem as the original, except sometimes it seems worse. This happens on the both the HDMI, and component outputs of the DVD player (and yes I did try a different DVD player). So either the store gave me back the original, or panasonic needs to review their schematics.

Have a PT-45LC that is two years old. Have had to replace the lamp 5 times, at $300 a lamp, and now the ballast or something else is blown and the TV needs servicing. Nearly $2,000 just to run the TV for two years! We follow all the suggestions and are nuts about cleaning the filter, but the set just eats up bulbs. They last about 1,000 hours, not the 4,000-5,000 hours Panasonic claims, just long enough to be OFF of the 6 month warrantee. One lamp blew while under warrantee and it took 4 weeks for them to replace it. NICE! Unless you have money to burn, don't buy a Panasonic Projection TV. The company doesn't care about your satisfaction, and the product stinks.

After seeing the picture postcard like LCD displays in many stores, I fianlly gave in to the temptation of buying a HD LCD tv - and what a tv it is!
I am glad I listened to my friend who has had this set for a year and a half.

Was surprised to see the rating that this tv has on amazon. Looking closer, I found that some of the negative rating were for other Panasonic tv's and not this one. A goof up somewhere.

Singling out any one feature may do injustice to the many this one has to offer. Let me explain each on its own merit:

1. Picture: First thing that would bowl anyone out is the picture quality - crisp picture, great rich colors, excellent contrast, just too pleasing to the eyes. To compare the video from different sources:
a. HD Cable channels: This tv enhanced the clarity of the HD channels even further, when comparing to some of the pictures I have seen in TV stores.
b. Standard TV channels: The TV has a "normal" video mode for watching standard width format SDTV programs. Standard TV channels look very preety good on this TV, easily comparable to my old Sony Trinitron.

Room Lighting effect: The TV has 3 main preset modes for different lighting conditions. Vivid is great in a well lit room. The Normal mode is good in "drawing room" dimly lit conditions. The cinema mode brings home the theatre in low light conditions. Plus, the TV has good manual setting controls to change the picture "look" as per user tastes.

2. Sound: After setting this TV up, I did not feel the need for connecting my Onkyo speakers for a month after listening to the surprisingly good sound from this set. With the speakers lying around and the availability of so many slots for hooking these up behind the TV set, I did make the connection. Luckily my neighbours are on vacation.

3. Looks: The TV, with the matching stand looks stunning. With its low depth, it is as good as a flat panel TV for people who do not want to hang it on the wall.

4. Remote: The remote is very easy to use and has a lot of controls on it. It was easy for my fingers to get used to this one after being trained to use the Sony for so many years.

5. Controls: The TV has manual and auto channel tuning. You would love the search option where by it keeps showing a small window of 3 channels on the side which playing the cahnnel you want to see on the big part of the screen. Thus I do not miss any action while watching the TV guide for what's next!

6. Connectivity: It is easy to hook up the HD box, computer, DVD player, Tivo Xbox and everything else together on this box. It has multiple s-video, component and composite slots.
The TV offers these video connect options to connect the source to the TV. These are listed below in the order of quality, the best listed first:
HDMI
SVGA
Component
S-Video
Composite

7. Extras: SVGA cable is inside the pacakage, saves a few good dollars.

8. Bulb Life: A few reviews here said that the bulb has a short life. They have mentioned a differnt TV model and not this one. Mine has been good since I bought it and my friend has not had to replace it for 18 months now.

9. Computer monitor: I used the SVGA cable to hook my computer to this TV. With a wireless mouse/keyboard set, am able to use my computer without moving a muscle. What I love even more is that I can surf the net and watch my favourite sport together on the same huge screen.

This product is highly recommended!

I've had this set for almost a year and it's been great. The picture is great in Hi-Def and it is good at displaying at non Hi-Def as well. The main complaint others have seems to be the bulb wearing out, mine hasn't yet. And, I think the sound is pretty good.
Update: this TV is now close to 4 years old (I think) and no blown bulbs yet.

My husband and I bought this t.v. for my parents as a gift to them for helping us remodel our kitchen. We bought it in December 2005.

We are now the proud owners of the television after they received notice that the bulb needed to be replaced. Again. The first replacement bulb (7/07) set them back $450! On a $1200 t.v.! Acc to Panasonic, the bulb is now *only* $250.

Bottom line: instead of forking out another $250, and spending good money chasing a crappy product, they went out and bought a new Sony plasma t.v.

I'm embarrassed that I bought such a pile of junk for my parents. I stuck to a brand name because I thought the quality would be better. Boy was I wrong. Panasonic should be ashamed of themselves for soaking people hundreds of dollars for a part that probably costs them $10.

I realize this TV is no longer available, this might serve to be more historical than anything else.

We have had this TV for 4 years now. I know exactly when we got this, it was during the 2004 ALDS series against Los Angelos. I am a Red Sox fan, this is a time frame that I can never forget. Our previous TV (a 27" Sony that we'd gotten when we were married in 1993) had picked that week to go flakey, at one point everything was red and that wouldn't do.

So we've had this TV now for four years. Two days ago this interesting nag message has appeared when we start the set, it tells us that we have to replace the bulb and reset the bulb timer. It is just a nag screen, you can get past it, but not with our Harmony remote (so we had to go on a treasure hunt to find the original remote...).

I am now searching for a replacement bulb, holding my breath, thinking it will cost $300 - $400 to replace. My first Google search showed from $125 - $177, not bad for 4 years.

We are a family of 5, we really don't watch that much TV (obviously if we can go 4 years). This is our only TV set in our house so it gets all the use of TV, DVD, VCR, Wii, Playstation, etc.

The TV was perfect for our family room, we sit about 10' from the set, 43" is about as large as I'd wanted to go, any bigger and (at the time) the image would appear too blocky. HD images are absolutely stunning on this screen. I tend to favor HD channels only when I do watch TV, I only watch/buy widescreen DVDs too. I haven't tried BluRay or the like with this set, though I have no reason to think it wouldn't be as stunning as HD channels.

I only gave this 4 stars because a lot of detail is lost in low light images (this might just be the bulb too, I will find out in the next week).

Two of the features that I liked when we got this (it beat out a Sony) was the memory card slot for viewing photos and the computer inputs on the side. I used the memory card input once (I think the first day or two of getting it). I used the PC input once also. Four years later and I just remembered it had the memory card slot while searching for the model number.

So here's the skinny, after 4 years it is still kicking, I think we could probably go along another month or so before we replace the light, though I will most likely order its replacement tonight (Murphy's law would put the time it dies during an important Patriot's Game or something like that). We are kicking around the idea of a 2nd TV (wow, fast lane here) for our bedroom and Panasonic is at the top of my list during my research (though that will be a true flat screen LCD panel).

So, I hope this either helps someone looking at a used set or Panasonic in general.

I have to agree with the review Kiril wrote. I'm quite happy with the Panasonic PT-43LC14...I've had it now for 10 months and have had no problems. TV programs can look grainy at times, but I believe this is to be expected with a larger screen. I bought the tv for watching dvds and have been quite happy. The speakers have a bit of trouble with low frequencies in that the speakers will rattle, but I'll be buying a home theatre system one day. There are a multitude of connectors on the back, and you can even connect your computer to the tv. Great for games!
I did purchase the 5 year warranty with the set, so if *anything* goes wrong in that time, it will be replaced for free! It was $475, but worth it IMO, when you consider one of those lamps are $300. Plus the peace of mind is also nice.
Overall, I'm not sorry I purchased this set.