Customer Reviews

Panasonic TH-42PX77U 42-Inch 720p Plasma HDTV

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a preliminary review of my 42PX77U. I ordered this TV on Amamzon thru Vanns.com, and was very pleased with the entire transaction. It arrived on 7/30 so I've only had a few days to form this opinion, but I doubt it will go down.

I did a lot of research on HDTVs and the majority of what I read pointed me towards plasmas and Panasonic (quality/price ratio). Cnet.com was a great tool along with other customer reviews from different sites, including amazon. The picture, to me, seems much more realistic than LCD. Once you adjust the picture settings off Vivid and create a more realistic view, you begin to be amazed at the clarity and realism.

Some of the nice benefits to this model are the anti-reflective coating on the screen. I cannot control 100% of the light in my living room during the day and knew this feature would come in handy, and it has. It's $100 more from the base model, but it's worth it. The image is just as clear as the non-treated screen (42PX75U). The side speakers are great and produce clear audio. I also believe they help produce a wider range of sound coming from the TV. I do not have surround sound set up yet, but am quite pleased with the TV's audio. Having picture setting memory for each video input is great. I can have my HD cable, DVD and Wii set to three different settings that help compliment each experience.

Many folks comment on the poor standard definition viewing on their HDTVs, and I've witnessed it myself on some DLPs. But this TV can produce a nice, clear picture on non-HD channels. (A BIG plus given there are far more non-HD channels)

My TV is setup using the provided stand, which was fairly easy to assemble. Total assembly time, 5 minutes.

Lastly, I've been concerned with possible "burn-in" so I've scaled down the picture settings and only watch TV in "Just" mode to fill the entire screen. Panasonic recommends doing this for at least the first 100 hours during the TV's break-in period. Honestly, even with the picture setting scaled down, the HD picture still looks great. I guess everything is relative.

Bottom line, you cannot go wrong with this TV. You'll have a hard time finding a better TV at this price ($1350). If you buy online, do your research and make sure your vendor is reputable and a valid reseller of the brand you're planning to purchase. Local retailers will come close to the online price, but have a hard time keeping the TV in stock. That's why I purchased mine online...quicker turnaround. Good luck!

I'm sitting in front of my new Panasonic plasma TV, and I'm not sure I'll ever move off of this couch. I'm so pleased with the picture quality, and I'm very pleasantly surprised at how good the sound is. This purchase was a long time coming, as I had been researching flat-screen TVs for about year. I finally got serious a couple of months ago and got to work deciding which one was right for me. I have a small den, so a 42" screen was as big as I dared go. (I sit about 8.5 feet from TV.) I considered both LCDs and plasmas. I decided on plasma for two reasons. First because I'd read that if you go 42" or larger, plasma is generally better. Second, I felt the images on the LCDs were a bit exaggerated -- the colors pop *too* much. I think the plasma image looks more realistic. Once I decided on plasma, it was a choice between Panasonic and Samsung. Panasonic is a bit more expensive, but I felt the Panasonic reputation was worth it. I'm not concerned about not having 1080 because no one will be broadcasting in 1080 for a long time (and I'm not sure I could discern the difference anyway) and I don't have any intention of buying an HD DVD player. As I said, the picture is amazing. The HD channels come through brilliantly, and the SD picture is also very good. No complaints there. I assumed I would want to add some external speakers for this TV, but the sound turns out to be quite good. It's not the same quality that you'd get on a big stereo system, but it's much better than I would have expected, and there is no distortion at high volumes. (Granted, I don't crank it up *too* much.) Setup was very easy. I plugged it into the cable box, and we were ready to go. I'll add that I'm very pleased with the Eagle/CEVA delivery service. They delivered a few days earlier than originally promised. They were very courteous and careful with the set. They don't do setup -- just take the TV out of the box and set it down on the floor for you. Everything about this experience has been good. Amazon.com offered a highly competitive price that included free shipping, so I couldn't be more pleased.

I bought this set through Costco (it was cheaper so look around). I actually have the TH-42PC77U which is the same set but with an anti-glare screen. Depending on where you're putting it you might want to spend the extra $100.
I was a little concerned that this was a 720p set given all the hype about 1080p. I have 1080p 52" Sharp LCD in the family room and was going to go with another, but smaller for the master bedroom. However, after reading Consumer Reports review of this set I thought I'd give it a try (it was certainly cheaper).
Set up was a breeze. You have to mount the stand, hook up your cable box, etc. and you're done. It's that simple. It's not fancy. My Sharp has enough settings to make a rocket scientist happy. This is more of the variety - turn it on and it works. That's fine with me!
Now, the picture. The SD channels look better on this set than they do on my 1080p LCD. Why? Well, it doesn't have to upconvert the 480 to 1080, only to 720 so it's not as grainy. Think of it this way, if you have a picture on your pc and you enlarge it, the image gets grainier right? Pretty much the same thing on your HDTV.
OK, the HD picture - we're talking 720p versus 1080p here right? I can't see the difference between the two sets. My wife thinks I'm crazy because I was running between the two rooms to compare the image but nada, zero, zilch. Looks great. The blacks are terrific, no cloudy images, no blur on action.
The only thing I messed up was not ordering a bracket at the same time. It's on its way so I'll have this hanging on the wall in no time.
You won't go wrong with this set! You can get a pretty good price as well, I believe they're on closeout but don't let that hold you back. Just shop around for the price.

I've had my eye on this TV for about 6 months partly because of the reviews that I have read on Amazon about this and all of the other Panasonic Palsma TVs. I went to Costco on that tax free day for MA in August and all they had left was a floor model. I got a super deal on this floor model. I was concerned about the fact that this TV was a somewhat "used item" particularly because of all that I have read about proper break in procedures. I took a chance and bought the TV.
I can't believe the picture. Called my cable TV company to get the High Def box and the picture is amazing. Bottom line, you can't go wrong with this TV. I would have bought through Amazon but I couldn't pass up the deal at Costco.

I've had my TV for almost a month now, and am really enjoying it. The HD picture quality is excellent (I use Comcast), and the SD quality is just as good if not better than any of the other HDTV's I've seen. Regarding the "break-in" period, I didn't worry about it too much. I placed the settings at normal levels(I used CNet's settings listed on the 50" model) and then just zoomed in on any channel to make sure it filled the screen. I'm out of my 100hrs and had no problems at all. This is a great TV and well worth the price.

After owning the TH-42PZ77U for a few weeks I can't imagine why anyone would choose a higher priced Sharp, Samsung or Sony (or any other)42" lcdtv over this fantastic plasma. This isn't my first plasma, I've owned a 720p LG plasma going on 3 years now and even as good as it was...it doesn't hold a candle to this set. There is some debate as to whether or not 1080p makes a difference on any screen below 50"...but I can tell you that this little plasma has the best HD picture (broadcast/HD-DVD) that I have ever seen....much better than a 46" Sharp 1080p lcdtv owned by a friend of mine...that also cost over $700 more.

The only con I can find with this tv is the lack of inputs compared to other 42" plasma/lcd's. However that really isn't an issue for me yet, but at least one more HDMI input may come in handy in the future. I guess the myths that are still making the rounds about plasma technology (and even passed on by some salespeople) are keeping sales lower than lcd, thereby lowering the prices and making this the best bang for the buck in the 42"-50" size segment. This set eliminates the one and only (in my opinion) advatantage that lcd's have with it's anti-glare screen coating. Now you can have plasma picture quality in a brightly lit room without reflections ruining the experience.

In short.. the very reasonable price, superior black levels/overall PQ, lack of motion blur in fast action sports, 100,000 hrs to halflife panel, anti-glare screen, stylish good looks....make this a no brainer if you are in the market for a 42"-50" (TH-50PZ77U)and your friends with more expensive lcdtv's will be jealous. ;)

I got this TV in on Monday and Direct TV will be out on Saturday to hook up my HD DVR so at this point my experiance has been SD signals, an upconvert DVD player and a Xbox360. I followed the calibration that CNET had on this TV for movie watching and bought a Sony Upconvert DVD player to watch King Kong last night and WOW did it ever look good so I can't imagine what actual HiDef will look like. I am still in the "break in" period so I was a little worried about playing my 360 on it but I still cranked it up to play about 10 minutes of Gears of War on it to just see what it looked like in HiDef; my mouth hit the floor when I saw how good it looked. Also, like I have heard about other Pannys, standard def TV signals looks very good. Some stations looke better than others but still all looked good.
Also, the anti-glare works as advertised. I always had a glare from some windows on my old tv but that is now a thing of the past.
If you are looking for a great plasma but don't want to break the bank, you can't go wrong with this one.
Saturday can't get here quick enough (come on Direct TV!!).

I agree with the other reviewers here so far - this is an excellent plasma. This is my first HD/Plasma TV, and based on my research and the reviews, Panasonic is a great brand, and I was not disappointed. Let me start off with the good things:

1. Excellent HD picture. (I do not have a true HD source yet - my upconverting DVD had done a great job so far.)
2. Great latitude - deep blacks are easily handled.
3. Anti-glare screen allows easy viewing in bright rooms.
4. Built-in stereo speakers work very well.

And now, on to The Annoyances:

The TV cannot process bitstream audio - only PCM. Why is this an issue? Because now instead of having only 1 cable (HDMI) go from my DVD player to the TV, I need 2 - HDMI and analog L/R audio. Sort of defeats the purpose of having 1 cable for audio & video. I could set the DVD to output PCM, and then I'd get sound to the TV speakers, but then I couldn't get DD 5.1/DTS out to by home theater amp. I sometimes like to have the TV speakers on, and I sometimes like the amp. So I need the analog audio out to the TV as well. (The TV has digital optical audio out, but Panasonic tech support tells me that is for the ATSC tuner - I thought it was maybe to pass the bitstream audio from the HDMI through to the home theater amp.) And because of the No Bitstream capability, my DVD player annoyingly tells me every time I press play, "HDMI audio not supported." Bleah!

Also, my wife and I like to use closed captioning a lot. There is a Quick Menu option to get to it quickly, but that is only functional when using the ATSC tuner, not when using a back panel input. We have Satellite TV, so turning the CC on/off is somewhat of a pain.

So despite these issues, I still recommend it.

p.s. Regarding the whole "how much is HDMI/DVI really better than component video?" argument, I can definitely see a difference in quality of HDMI over component with my DVD player. This probably varies from brand to brand, so check it out yourself.

I did a lot of research into TVs, reading reviews and consumer reports.
I am very happy with my decision. I have owned this TV for 1.5 years now,
and it continues to work great.

I love the standard and HD picture on this TV from my standard cable
programming. The DVD quality is also very good. The TV appears to have
a sophisticated algorithm for effectively upconverting standard TV and DVD
signals to make them look HD.

I do suggest spending the extra money on the anti-glare screen if you keep
the TV near a window or coffee table lamps. I find I never have to worry
about closing the window shades or anything.

Here are some surprise features with this :
I get basic, basic cable. However, the tuner on this Panasonic TV picks
up a wide range of TV channels that I don't think I am paying for.
For instance, it picks up both NBC and NBC-HD and several other NBC
channels. I receive 780p HD broadcasts for most of the major networks
even though I am not paying for a HD option.

Even better, the TV picks up pay-per-view channels that apparently people
in my neighborhood are watching. On a Saturday night, there may be as many
as 5 movies playing on a bunch of channels obscurely located from 87-1 to
87-15 (exact numbers probably depend on where you are located).


Now some caveats : I bought an up-converting DVD player/recorder, and
it has poor picture quality on this TV, although many other reviewers found
it worked great for them. I think the reason is because this TV is already
essentially upconverting standard tv signals with its own algorithm. So
be careful hooking up DVD recorders as tuners to this TV. If you do, and
you find the picture stinks, see my other reviews where I describe how you
can maintain your Panasonic picture quality and still use a DVD recorder.

One concern I had was that plasma TVs have a reputation for not lasting
as long as LCDs, but I was satisfied from reviews that this issue has
been solved in the last few years, and since the picture for plasmas is
probably better than LCDs, which tend to have a tinsel-ly computer monitor
look to the picture, I thought it was time to plasma. It is true that
there is some temporary burn-in with plasmas, for instance, when a DVD
ends, and it shows the disk main menu for a long period of time, you can
see a ghost-like image of the disk main menu when you change the channel.
This goes away quickly though, and it hasn't bothered me so far.

I have had this TV for about three months now and I have nothing but great things to say about it. The picture quality is amazing especially using a DB2 antenna to get local digital channels. The side speakers produce very good sound quality. Everyone that sees this TV is amazed by it. I have trouble convincing people that its not a 1080P even when the incoming signal is 720P.