Customer Reviews

Panasonic TH-50PX50U 50-Inch Flat-Panel HD-Ready Plasma TV

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

We priced this TV at several different places. Amazon had the lowest price... and no sales tax to pay either! Shipping fees weren't much more then stores in town were going to charge.
The picture is BEAUTIFUL. Sound is GREAT. Set up is SIMPLE. We just plugged in the power cord and connected our cable and it was ready to go. No other accessories were needed.
We did purchase a wall mounting bracket in town. It was less expensive and we could have it up and ready when TV was delivered. The TV does come with a stand.
My only complaint would be that Amazon uses a company named Eagle to ship. Eagle's service is stinky. The day it was supposed to be delivered... no phone call and no delivery. TV was in town for almost a week before being delivered. Be SURE TV works before signing delivery papers!! Once you sign the delivery papers, the TV is yours. In home warranty only.

The TV is awesome. DVD's playing through the HDMI port produces an incredible picture! Some older DVD's and standard definition broadcasts don't look as good, but is fine for everyday viewing.

The biggest thing to worry about when buying any large TV on-line, is delivery and warrantee. Amazon uses a 3rd party delivery service which was not that great. First, they did not even call me to schedule the delivery per schedule, so I had to call them to do it. Who knows when they would have gotten around to calling me. Then on the day of delivery, the driver calls at 4PM saying that he's running late. I'd been waiting since 8AM.

They finally get to my house, and tell me that they only drop the TVs off at the curb, and that they cannot move it inside or unpack it. I pointed out that the paperwork that they brought clearly states that the TV will be moved into the room of my choice, unpacked, and plugged in. Since Amazon doesn't accept large TV returns, there was no way I was going to sign anything until I knew it worked first. To make a long story slightly shorter, I had to move, unpack, and test the TV myself while I distracted the two delivery men by calling their office and having them talk to a supervisor.

It was also very difficult to track my shipment, and hard to even find a phone number to call. The link Amazon sent me didn't work, and I had to search through Amazon's site to find it. Amazon should definitely use a different service.

I bought a Dell 42" plasma. It had so many problems it wasn't funny. Matter of fact Dell knew it and continued to ship them.
Found the Pansonic on Amazon $1500 cheaper than buying it locally. Shipping was fast even though they wouldn't set it up as advertised but what a deal and tv. I keep waiting for problems and they aren't there. HDTV is high quality, remote
is feature packed and the picture is very adjustable to your own
taste. I'm watching it right now and highly recommend the Pansonic TH-50PX50U. I'm going to order a 42" version for the bedroom. Amazon is great. Shipping was resonable and the price you can't beat. We are happy in Birmingham, Alabama

I have had this TV for almost 2 months. We have watched multiple movies and HDTV shows via local cable company. Everything has been great. In fact, my father just ordered one for his house after coming to ours. My wife loves it because she can see it perfectly from the kitchen which is about 175 degrees to one side. Crazy!!!

Dean Mimmack wrote that he couldn't get the Panasonic plasma to properly display widescreen movies without distortion (stretching, fat-face etc).

The Panasonic does indeed properly display widescreen movies (of course it does!). Unfortunately it's clear Dean had a set-up problem that he wasn't able to diagnose. The problem he describes leads me to believe the problem was with the set-up of his DVD player.

A DVD player must be "told" what type - that is what shape/size - display you are using. Because the world is filled with standard 4:3 televisions (the "squarish" screens that have been the standard up until now), and with the advent of 16:9 displays (that's the rectangular dimensions of the new wide-screen dispalys), every DVD player has an output option for either a 4:3 TV or 16:9 widescreen TV.

Many DVD players are defaulted to the 4:3 mode (because most people own a 4:3 TV). That tells the DVD player to send the appropriately formatted signal for a 4:3 without distortion. But if you send that signal to a widescreen display, that's where these troubles occur. In the 4:3 mode, the DVD player creates a 4:3 image (squarish) in the middle of the plasma, with black bars on the sides (wich the DVD player considers unused space, since it is viewing the widescreen display merely as a squarish 4:3 display).

This, I gurantee, is what was happening with Dean Mimmack's set-up. My guess is that this was the Panasonic plasma was the first wide-screen display he was using with that DVD player. So the DVD player had been properly outputting a 4:3 image to his former 4:3 TV, but was still set to the 4:3 default when he hooked up his new Widescreen TV. Hence the distortion.

Now, as I said the DVD player sending a 4:3 image to the widescreen display will send it to the middle portion of the display, with black bars on the side. Many people don't with this mismatch between their DVD player and Widescreen set never even see these black bars. Why? Because many widescreen displays have an automatic default action to fill the screen with whatever signal they encounter. So the plasma detects a 4:3 image and automatically goes into one of it's "zoom" or "stretch" modes to make it fill the TV screen. So you don't see the black bars, but what you get is the cropped off or stretched-looking images. (A funny thing is so many people get used to this so fast they no longer see their TV image as stretched. It's amazing how many friend's homes I've come into watch DVDs, and they've had this problem for a year and never even noticed it).

The solution: Go into your DVD player's "set-up" mode and you will find an option for setting your screen type: 4:3 or 16:9.
If you are using a widescreen display, choose the 16:9 option.
Viola. Fixed.

I feel sorry that Dean didn't have someone to help him out, or that he didn't seek better help. Too bad. I hope he still has the plasma and eventually figured things out.

Rich H.

This TV is excellent rendering gorgeous, magnificent reception. And the support personnel, once you are connected, are very helpful and knowledgeable.
The problem is the worst support system of any company or industry I have ever encountered. I have never been on hold for less than an hour and more often two hours or more. Luckily I have a speakerphone and was able to do other things. Even when the recording said the wait would be less than half an hour, it was over one hour.
This is true for this TV and their DVD recorders.
If their business is this good that they have such a high volume of callers they desperately need to hire more support techs.
It is the TV that gets the 5 stars. Their support system earns minus 10.

My TV was delivered yesterday - less than a week after I ordered it. I will not repeat what the other reviews say about the product - except that it is great and took me less than 5 minutes to hook up (power and cable and done!).

I will comment on the shipper though. Mine was delivered by Moving Soultions, part of North American Van Lines. The dispatcher was great - she gave me a four hour window, but did tell me that I was the last delivery of the day, so they would be on the far end of the time window. They actually arrived later than the window, but it had been snowing all day. They called me twice with time updates during the delay. The delivery guys were great - they unboxed everything and went through the stand assembly instructions carefully before putting it together. They got it all assembled and secured, gave me some hints and put it just where I wanted it. I could not have been more happy with the service.

I purchased this TV on 10/06/05. On 12/22/05, it popped and flashed in the back and was NOT working at all. I was promised in home service and had purchased the service contract. I DID NOT get in home service, the service center sent a tech and I HAD TO HELP CARRY IT TO THEIR VAN. It was gone for 2 1/2 weeks, and I AGAIN HAD TO HELP THE TECH CARRY IT INTO MY HOUSE Upon return.

It is not fixed, the surround sound crackles and pops like a blown speaker. The service center is blaming me, saying that I didn't let their tech hook up the DVD player, so this popping is MY FAULT.

I've tried to contact Panasonic, but there is a 77 minute wait time to speak to a csr. I work, I can't hang on the phone for an hour during the day. I have left a couple of messages with the secretary for someone to call me back, and haven't recieved a call yet.

I WOULD not buy a phone plug from Panasonic after this!!! And I don't recommend anyone else buying their products either.

We also suspect this was a used or refurbished TV because there was not all of the packing material in the box. No one at Panasonic has denied this. But, we were charged retail price for the TV. We thought we were buying a NEW ONE.

We now have a 4000 TV that worked for 2 months, and nobody wants to address the situation. If you want to see what people think of this tv, look at how many USED ones are for sale. We are going to just pay a tech to come out here and fix this, then ours will be for sale. I need a reliable Television that will last more than 2 months before a breakdown and has service techs that will back up their work. This is ridiculous!!!!

The surround sound is still not working. Guess that was probably the problem with its old owners, too :-( Sure wish Panasonic would back up their products, especially the expensive ones. I don't want to eat 4000, but I like surround sound, so I don't know what else to do.

The first thing we need to do is setting DVD player to Progressive scan mode and the second thing is to upgrade cable or satellite TV to HD receiver. Then watching TV is just mind blowing, and I would not even think of going to a theater.

I purchased the TH-50PX50U in mid feb. after several months of intensive research. Even though I was already a big fan of Panasonic video products, I checked the specs on comparable models from Samsung, Hitachi, LG, Pioneer and others. At this time, I have had the set for eight days and I'm totally satisfied. The performance of the set hooked up to digital satellite is fantastic, I can hardly wait to get HD programs. A few reviewers have complained about the speakers but I found them to be quite adequate. Even so, its rediculous to buy a plasma set like this without a decent home theatre system. My system includes the following: Panasonic DMR-EH50 dvd hard drive recorder, Sony DVP-CX995V dvd/cd changer (400 disc capacity), Aiwa surround sound receiver with an Aiwa 150W powered sub-woofer. I replaced the primary front speakers with a pair of Bose 301 speakers. Watching dvd's on this set is truely remarkable. I watched "black Hawk Down" on this set via the Sony changer with progressive scan and was completely blown away, literally. This film won oscar's for sound and editing (should have won for cinematography, but I digress) and is an ideal "test disc" for your entire home theatre system. I had originally decided on the 42" set from Panasonic model 42PX50U but after rearranging some furniture in my viewing room, I discovered I had just enough space to fit the 50" set. Trust me on this one: If you're considering the 42" model but have enough space in your viewing room, (and your budget) go for the larger set, you will be glad you did. The price difference is about one thousand dollars from several merchants that I compaired. Bottom line: buy this set kick back and enjoy it. You will never want to go to the neighborhood multiplex again.