Panasonic Viera TX

We’ve long maintained you can’t go far wrong with a Panasonic plasma. The company makes some terrific televisions, and because it’s truly plasma-oriented, all of its corporate love goes into these gassy giants. The S10 range are 1080p TVs that come in three sizes: 42, 46 and 50 inches.

As you would hope, and expect, this TV can handle 24p video, for optimal Blu-ray movie viewing. There’s also 400Hz image frame creation, which claims to do some motion-smoothing, but we’re yet to critically assess its aptitude in this regard. As a rule, frame creation is not something we’re thrilled about, because it can produce image problems of its own.

Because this TV is aimed at the more budget-conscious customer, there isn’t any access to Panasonic’s VieraCast service — so no YouTube access. We’re not sure if that’s much of a worry for anyone at the moment, but with strong rumours of the BBC’s iPlayer coming to services such as VieraCast in the future, it might be one to ponder.

What you do get is three HDMI inputs for your hi-def equipment. There are also component and VGA sockets present for HD analogue sources. Happily, Panasonic also includes an SD-card slot, which will enable you to view your photos on the TV at the press of a button.

The V Real Pro 3 Engine adds another steaming lump of jargon into the mix, but basically means this TV has Panasonic’s latest picture-processing technology inside. The company also claims it’s capable of producing 900 lines of moving-picture resolution. This might come as a shock to people who think their 1080p TV can do 1,080 lines, but sadly, moving images don’t generally produce a full-resolution image — at least, not on most TVs. Still, 900 lines is pretty good, and we’ll tell you what the picture actually looks like in our review of the TV, coming soon.

The 42-inch TX-P42S10 will be available in the next couple of weeks. If you want one, you should expect to pay about £900 or so, but some sites are already offering the TV for £850. Although it’s not the most highly specified TV on the market, we’re already developing quite a soft spot for it.

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Panasonic Viera TX

Not so long ago, Panasonic was telling us all that plasma was the future and we’d do well to remember that. The problem for Panny is that as good as plasma is for honking great TVs, it’s utterly hopeless for smaller screens. As the most popular screen sizes these days hover around the 32- and 37-inch marks, this year Panasonic is putting more effort than ever into its LCD range — it would be crazy for the company to ignore it.

In the past, we’ve always been impressed with Panasonic LCD TVs — they produce a great picture and decent sound but don’t make much of a fuss about it with crazy aesthetic statements. The new Viera TX-37LZD800 looks really very smart indeed, though — we’d go as far as to say it looks as good as Panny’s plasma range.

There’s also some pretty smart technology knocking around inside these TVs too. The LZD800 has an IPS Alpha panel, which offers a very wide viewing angle, up to 178 degrees in fact. We watched a demonstration of this at the TV launch, and it was actually pretty impressive. The LCD panel in the LZD800 also offers a contrast ratio of 10,000:1 and Panasonic’s ‘clear panel’ tech is supposed to help produce fantastically sharp images.

There’s also a feature called 100Hz Motion Picture Pro 2, which is a ridiculous name for anything, let alone a picture-processing system. Ignoring the awkward moniker, it’s designed to greatly improve fast-moving action, such as sport and Jason Statham movies. It does this by turning 50 interlaced frames per second into 100. But it also adjusts the backlight, which Panasonic claims enhances the resolution.

Of course there’s all the usual technology knocking about inside this screen, including a Freeview tuner, a smart sound system with two woofers and two tweeters and a very generous selection of inputs, including four HDMIs, component and VGA in, although curiously it will only accept XGA (1,024×768-pixel resolution) inputs via the PC connection.

All in all, the 37LZD800 looks like a smashing TV, and we really look forward to having a play with it, although UK pricing and availability haven’t been announced yet. Keep it CNET for a review in the near future. –Ian Morris

Update: Read our full Panasonic Viera TX-37LZD800 review.

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Panasonic Viera TX

As much as we love plasma TVs, if you want a smaller, 1080p plasma for your bijou domicile, you’re out of luck. While you could very well argue there isn’t any point to 1080p on smaller sets — you’d be hard pushed to see the difference over 720p — there are always people who insist on the maximum resolution possible. So enter the 37-inch Panasonic Viera TX-37LZD80.

The TX-37LZD80, and its 32-inch little brother the 32LZD80, are LCD televisions with full support for all the trimmings, such as 1080p/24 playback, 10,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio and x.v.Colour. It also happens to be an elegant-looking TV, with clean lines and no-nonsense styling.

The screen in the TX-37LZD80 is the IPS alpha, which means you should get some of the widest viewing angles around. When we visited Panasonic‘s 2008 product line-up show earlier in the year, they demonstrated the effectiveness of this, and it has to be said, we were impressed. Viewing angles can be an issue if there are lots of you sitting around a TV at crazy degrees, but not with this puppy.

In the audio department there’s plenty going on too, with the V-Audio surround with BBE ViVA HD3D Sound system, designed to give you a virtual surround sound of sorts. We’re certain it won’t fool you into thinking there are explosions happening all around you, but it’ll probably broaden the sound stage a little and make movie viewing a more vivid experience. The TV can also provide audio description, for people who have sight problems.

In the boring-but-essential area of connectivity, the Panny has three HDMI sockets, component and VGA in, as well as a couple of Scart sockets and composite video in. You also get an SD card slot, so you can view photographs directly on the TV from a memory card.

The best thing about the 37LZD80 is the price — we found it online for £765, which really isn’t bad at all, especially if you’re a gamer who simply must have a 1080p TV to play GTA IV on. –Ian Morris

Update: Read our full Panasonic Viera TX-37LDZ80 review. 

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Panasonic Viera TX

Panasonic doesn’t much care for LCD. It’s often telling us how much better plasma is than the liquid crystal displays of other manufacturers. But you have to admire Panny — even though it thinks the technology is inferior, it still produces great televisions using it. The Viera TX-32LMD70 is one such success story — it has made Crave froth with a rabid technological hunger.

The TX-32LMD70 is certainly a handsome-looking machine. Finished in a tasty matte black that says a big “no thank you” to the rather uncouth trend towards shiny piano black. We think the styling is a winner. The speakers are hidden too, so your eyes are not irritated by unsightly technology. All you see here is a nice black case and a 32-inch LCD screen.

Panasonic has included everything you’d expect in a 32-incher. It’s got built-in Freeview as well as two HDMI sockets and component-in for hooking up all your high-definition toys. Plus there’s the usual retro array of Scart and composite video inputs. The set also has Viera link, which enables you to control other Panasonic equipment using just one remote control.

While the screen is only capable of displaying 720p, it will happily accept a 1080p signal via HDMI and downconvert it to the correct size for the TV. There’s also provision made for plugging in a PC, with support for resolutions up to 1,366×768 pixels.

A quick fiddle with the TV proved that it doesn’t just have all the features we need, but it also has a very nice picture, and the set-up to tune the television in was a dream to use. For a company that wants you to buy a plasma, Panasonic has certainly done a good job of persuading us to buy an LCD. -Ian Morris

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