Panasonic Viera TH-50PZ800U

For the last year or so, our reigning favorite plasma TV was Pioneer's PDP-5080HD "Kuro," which got there by dint of its game-changing black-level performance, which is still the best we've tested outside of OLED. But many of Panasonic's 2008 plasma TVs, including the TH-50PZ800U, come mighty close to the vaunted blacks of those Kuro models, and this set's THX mode adds significantly improved color and video processing performance compared with other Panasonic plasmas. The bad news, of course, is that THX will cost you hundreds of dollars over the company's step-down, non-THX TH-PZ85U series. Whether that extra scratch is worth the better picture is entirely up to you, but we can say with certainty that Panasonic's TH-50PZ800U is a worthy competitor to the Kuro, and in many ways, it performs even better. For shoppers looking for the ultimate plasma TV that may be enough, at least until the new Kuro models debut later this year.

Design
In photos, the Panasonic TH-50PZ800U looks a lot like every other HDTV on the market: a glossy black rectangle. In person, however, it's a lot more striking and less glossy. In fact, the black frame around the screen isn't glossy at all, it's simply fronted by a big pane of glass that lends the panel a somewhat more sophisticated look than a typical set, where the frame is raised a quarter inch or so from the surface of the screen. Below the screen the Panasonic's frame has what resembles a pair of pursed lips that protrude forward, bearing the logo and hiding a set of inputs behind a flip-down door.

An HDMI input, an AV input, and an SD card slot hide beneath a door on the front panel.

The stand looks identical to the sloped number common to lower-end 2008 Panasonic plasmas such as the TH-46PZ85U and the TH-42PX80U, but unlike those stands, this one swivels, courtesy of a lazy-Susan-like base hidden underneath. Including stand, the TH-50PZ800U measures 49.9 inches wide by 33.4 inches tall by 15.3 inches deep and weighs 92.6 pounds. Divested of stand, its size shrinks to 49.9 inches wide by 31.2 inches tall by 4.1 inches deep and its weight shrinks to 81.6 pounds.

Panasonic's remote remains the same as last year, and we remain fans of its layout. The medium-length wand groups the distinct sets of right-sized buttons in an easy-to-feel arrangement, and although we'd have liked to see some backlighting, we didn't really miss it after a few minutes of becoming familiar with the button arrangement.

A familiar yellow-on-blue menu system leads to the television's setup functions, and although the graphics lack the panache of a Sony or a Samsung menu, navigation was intuitive enough. We liked that the company renamed its previously confusing "Normal" command to "Reset," which more accurately describes what it does to your picture settings.

Features
As we mentioned, the big step-up feature between Panasonic's TH-PZ85U series and the TH-PZ800U models such as this is THX Display Certification. The certification involves testing in a number of categories such as contrast ratio and color accuracy, according to THX, and the TH-50PZ800U has a special THX picture preset that, when engaged, causes the TV's picture to comply with the certification. We'll detail its effects in the Performance section below, and we describe more about the certification itself in this blog post.

One of the TH-50PZ800U's biggest features is THX Display certification, which manifests partly as a an appropriately labeled preset picture mode.

Like most plasmas in Panasonic's 2008 lineup, the TH-50PZ800U has a native resolution of 1920x1080 pixels, or 1080p, which is fast becoming a standard feature on all flat-panel HDTVs. As we've said before, however, the difference between 1080p and lower resolutions is difficult to discern, even at this relatively large screen size.

Picture controls on the TH-50PZ800U aren't as extensive as seen on many higher-end HDTVs. While we appreciated the capability to adjust all of the five picture modes, including THX, and the fact that the Custom mode is independent per input, we couldn't adjust color temperature beyond the three presets. Advanced picture controls on the TH-PZ800U include a color management control that we left off in THX mode; a "C.A.T.S." mode that changes contrast on the fly and so should be left turned-off; two species of noise reduction, and a black-level control. In case you're wondering, the step-up TH-PZ850U series does include adjustable color temperature and a host of other picture tweaks, although it lacks THX certification.

The advanced picture menu offers a few notable selections, like a 24p mode and a zero-overscan HD size selection, but it lacks detailed color temperature adjustments.

Panasonic also touts the mysterious Game mode, which turns out to be little more than an easy way to select a particular input. A quick press of the "Game" button on the remote toggles between any of the inputs that have been labeled "Game" in the input naming menu. Pressing that button does not engage the Game picture mode (which is simply another connection of adjustable picture settings) nor does it affect video processing or lag time between controller and screen--although, to be fair, such modes on other HDTVs have little value as far as we can tell.

The TH-50PZ00U offers five aspect ratio controls for HD sources, more than most HDTVs on the market. There's also a setting, called "HD Size 2," that lets the TV display every pixel of 1080i and 1080p sources without overscan or scaling, and we recommend using it unless you notice interference along the extreme edges of the screen, which can occur on some HD sources. Unfortunately, selecting the THX picture mode doesn't automatically engage HD Size 2; you must go into a separate menu item to do so. We'd prefer HD Size 2 to be the default for all modes, or at least available among the standard selection of aspect ratios. A selection of five modes is also available for SD sources.

A new menu for 2008 deals with burn-in or, as the company calls it, "image retention." There's a pixel orbiter that moves the entire image gradually around the screen, along with an option to set the 4:3 mode to include gray bars to either side of the picture (as opposed to black, which cause image retention more easily than gray). On the off chance that the plasma retains an image, there's a scrolling bar that slides across the screen as a sort of eraser.

We would have liked to see an energy saver mode on this TV, but it does include one nice extra that really helps ameliorate power consumption. When you first plug in and set up the TV, it asks you whether you're in a store or home environment. Choosing "home" engages the Standard picture preset by default across all of the inputs, which saves quite a bit of power over the Vivid preset. This savings is reflected in our Juice Box measurements below, where default was measured in Standard mode.

The Panasonic TH-50PZ800U lacks picture-in-picture, but it does include a thoughtful "Surf Mode" control, which can be set to restrict the TV's tuning options. You can set it to "all," "favorite," "digital only," or "analog only."

With three HDMI inputs and a PC input, the back panel of the TH-50PZ800U has plenty of connectivity.

The jack pack of the TH-50PZ800U is as well equipped as any high-end HDTV we've seen, starting with three HDMI jacks on the back panel and a fourth available out front. A VGA-style PC input is also onboard (1366x760 maximum resolution), along with two component video inputs, an AV input with composite or S-Video, an RF input for antenna or cable, as well as an optical and an analog audio output. In addition to that last HDMI input, the front panel also sports a second AV input with composite and S-Video, as well as an SD card slot for displaying digital photos on the big screen.

Performance
Thanks primarily to the accuracy of its THX picture mode, the TH-50PZ800U is one of the best-performing plasmas we've ever tested. It can't quite match the depth of black evinced by Pioneer's Kuro plasmas, such as the PDP-5080HD, but it most other areas, including color accuracy and uniformity, it's superior.

We typically go on and on about calibration but with the TH-50PZ800U we didn't have to do much beyond increasing its contrast control a bit to approach our 40 footlambert baseline light output. Compared with other picture modes and to the company's own TH-46PZ85U, THX on the PZ800U delivered superior color temperature and especially primary color accuracy, and despite the fact that THX mode didn't pass blacker-than-black parts of the video signal (while the Custom mode did), we left brightness alone for optimal performance. Check out our full picture settings for details.

After a brief setup, we were ready for our comparison, which this time around included Panasonic's own TH-46PZ85U and Pioneer's PDP-5080HD from the plasma camp, and Samsung's LN52A650 and Sony's KDL-46XBR4 from LCD land. We popped the trusty No Country for Old Men Blu-ray disc into the PlayStation 3 and moved through our standard image quality tests.

Black level: As we've come to expect from Panasonic plasmas at every price point, the TH-50PZ800U reproduced deep blacks. It matched the PZ85U's black levels to our eye, and while it still wasn't quite as dark as the Pioneer Kuro, the difference was hard to discern even in side-by-side comparisons of the darkest scenes. When Llewelyn returns to the getting place in the middle of the night, for example, the silhouette of the hills appeared extremely dark along with the frame of his truck, and the depth of the shadows looked equally impressive in our completely dark room.

Shadow detail also looked as good as the Kuro, and better than any other set in the room. The Panasonic doesn't have a Gamma setting but, according to our eyes and measurements, gamma was excellent (averaging right around 2.2 if you're curious). As a result we saw all of the detail in dark areas, such as the dawn-lit hillsides when Llewelyn makes his escape, and they didn't look too bright, as we complained about on the TH-46PZ85U.

Color accuracy: The TH-50PZ800U outclassed both of the other plasmas in our comparison in this department, and just about equaled the color accuracy of the Samsung LN52A650 LCD and PN50A550 plasma (the latter according to our measurements, since we didn't have it on-hand to compare directly). The key was in the Panasonic's fine primary color palette, which rendered accurate greens in the desert shrubs, reds in Llewelyn's toolbox and especially the cyan in skies and water, for example. Grayscale accuracy, while a bit red according to our measurements, was still well within our tolerance, so skin tones like Sheriff Tom Bell's scraggy, ruddy mug and the baby-faced deputy looked natural and not too reddish (the Pioneer) or bluish/washed out (the PZ85U).

Finally, the deep black levels of the PZ800U allowed even better color saturation than we saw on the Samsung PN50A550 plasma; brightly lit scenes had plenty of punch and vibrancy, and colors stayed true regardless of brightness levels. All told, the TH-50PZ800U exhibited the best color of any plasma we've tested.

Video processing: As expected from any modern 1080p HDTV, the TH-50PZ800U resolved every line of 1080i and 1080p sources. It failed to properly deinterlace film-based 1080i material, according to our HQV test, although as usual that failure was difficult to spot in program material.

Speaking of program material and resolution, it again bears mentioning that we really couldn't discern any difference in detail between the 1080p Panasonic and the 1366x768 Pioneer when watching the Blu-ray, or any other normal material. From a our seating distance of about 8 feet, fine details such as the fabric of a car seat, strands of hair, and shrubs on the distant prairie looked equally sharp on both displays.

During the TH-46PZ85U review we mentioned ineffective noise reduction, but for whatever reason the image on the TH-50PZ800U appeared a good deal less noisy in THX mode, even with noise reduction turned "off." (Custom mode, for its part, again evinced the same level of noise we saw on the PZ85U). Engaging NR on the PZ800U cleaned up the image further, although with high-quality Blu-ray sources we preferred to leave it turned off.

We tested the Panasonic's "24p direct in" mode by setting it to 48Hz and switching our PS3 to 1080p/24 mode. After doing so, the first thing we noticed was significant flicker, which was most obvious in brighter areas of the picture, such as the overcast sky or sun-scorched desert hardpan, but was present throughout. The flicker made the image basically unwatchable, and we much preferred the look of standard 60Hz mode. If it weren't for the flicker, however, the 24p mode would be great, because it did make movement appear more natural, removing the hitching in motion associated with 60Hz's necessary 2:3 pull-down process. We feel most viewers will notice and object to the flicker enough to abandon the 48Hz setting, however.

Uniformity: As with nearly all plasmas we've tested, the TH-50PZ800U's image remained perfectly uniform across the screen, and viewing angles were superb, with none of the drop-off in contrast or color accuracy typical of LCD.

We also noticed that the TH-50PZ800U introduced even less false contouring than the superb Pioneer or even the PZ85U. In one scene where the Mexicans' pickup crests a hill near the getting place, for example, its headlights caused faint contours or step-like gradations on the latter two sets, which were most visible along the extreme edge of the light as it transitioned into darkness; the PZ800U, on the other hand, showed no such contours (and to be fair, neither of the LCDs did either).

Bright lighting: Compared with the Pioneer, which has the best antireflective screen of any plasma we've tested, the Panasonic didn't do as good a job of attenuating glare. Watching dark scenes with the lights turned on and the windows open, reflected objects in the room, such as a white shirt and the silver edge of our laptop, were a bit brighter and more distracting in the Panasonic's screen than on the Pioneer. The PZ800U's screen appeared identical in antireflection performance as the one on the PZ85U, which in that review we declared better than the screen on the Samsung PN50A550.

Standard-definition: With lower-quality sources the TH-50PZ800U performed about average in THX mode. It didn't quite resolve every detail of the DVD format, according to the resolution chart on the HQV DVD, and as a result details in the bridge and grass from that disc looked a bit softer than the other displays in our test. On the other hand, the Panasonic did a fine job of removing jaggies from diagonal lines and a waving American flag, and its 2:3 pull-down detection kicked in effectively, if not quite as quickly as some sets we've tested. Its noise reduction performed well with low-quality material too, cleaning up the motes in skies and sunsets as well as the Pioneer, albeit not quite as well as the LCDs in our comparison.

PC: With our test PC connected to one of the HDMI inputs, the TH-50PZ800U performed perfectly (as expected from any 1080p flat-panel) in THX mode, resolving every detail of a 1,920x1,080 source with no trace of edge enhancement or shifted pixels, and text looked sharp and natural. When we tried the VGA input, however, we were only able to get a maximum of 1366x760 resolution (as the manual says), which of course resulted in softer looking text and an overall less-impressive image.

Juice box

Panasonic TH-50PZ800U	Picture settings
	Default	Calibrated	Power Save
Picture on (watts)	191.44	286.25	N/A
Picture on (watts/sq. inch)	0.18	0.27	N/A
Standby (watts)	0.18	0.18	N/A
Cost per year	$59.77	$89.11	N/A
Score (considering size)	Good
Score (overall)	Good

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