I bought this plasma a couple weeks ago during a 15% + 10% stacking deal.
It's back in the box waiting for Dell to pick it up.
First of all let me say that I am
not one of those seriously anal home theater snobs who makes a huge deal out of minute details. I really wanted to like this unit, mainly because it was so cheap. I searched out as much info on it as I could (not much) before clicking the "Process Order" button and found that it is an LG panel which is generally considered mediocre. I was too quick to dismiss those complaints as coming from HT snobs (aka people who are much more serious about HT than I).
When it arrived I set it up and plugged it in. My first reaction was disappointment because I had hoped I could use the included stand to put it on my mantel over my fireplace (thought the mantel would be wide enough) but that was a no-go. So I would have to buy the $255 wall-mount. After setting it on the floor and hooking it up to my HTPC (home-grown XP Media Center Edition) via its DVI input I was amazed at the quality.... granted it was 640 x 480, but it honestly looked like a computer monitor! Like everyone else I was accustomed to blurry s-video TV out to regular tube sets. This looked positively dazzling in comparison. Then I set out to get my extra horizontal resolution so I used powerstrip to enable 848 x 480 resolution, which is the closest you can come to the panel's native 852 x 480 resolution. This looked even better (no scaling). Unfortunately, web pages and general windows stuff is difficult with only 480 lines of vertical resolution. But that wasn't really the intended UI anyway. Media Center looked fantastic (especially after applying the Beta 2 update that finally allowed TV to be viewed in 16:9). The quality of the TV coming from the HTPC (Hauppauge PVR-250 card) was just OK, but I really wasn't that surprised given the source material. The MPEG compression at the Best quality setting looked worlds better than my ReplayTV at its Best quality setting. I put in a DVD and expected to be wowed (HTPCs are progressive scan obviously). First DVD I watched was Starship Troopers. It's a 1.85:1 so no black bars! That was cool. In general it looked great--much better than NTSC TV. DVD generally looks great on EDTV panels because it's close to the native resolution.
However, even at a distance of nine feet from the panel I noticed several problems that, in the end, were too grating for me to keep this. First and foremost, there is VERY noticable false-contouring (also referred-to as solarisation) that seemed to come and go at random. In scenes where there should be smooth transitions of color there was very obvious banding and smearing in big blotches. Some scenes would be really bad and others would be perfect, but it cropped up too often to ignore.
The next issue I didn't really notice until watching Gattaca and Donnie Darko, which are both 2.35:1 (and hence still have the black bars on the top and bottom of the picture). During certain scenes, the black level would flicker... as if the brightness was being flipped from 50 to 80 2-3 times per second. Again, it was only at certain times (seemed to be during scenes that were generally dark). But I found this so annoying that I couldn't even keep watching the films. During Gattaca I turned some of the room lights on and that made it a little better, but who wants to watch DVDs with lights on?
Also, I have become disatisfied with the blacks on this set. I don't have anything to compare it with but the blacks are definitely more of a muddy gray on this set. I didn't think it would bother me, and I know it can be partially mitigated by placing a light source behind the set, but coupled with the other stuff it was just yet another reason to return it.
To give it one last shot at impressing me, I decided to calibrate it last night with Video Essentials (I had already turned the contrast down to a reasonable setting). In doing so I realized how little this set can be adjusted. As of yet no one has located a service menu, and the only options in the main menu are brightness, contrast, and color temp (for the DVI input anyway). No picture and tint controls! Furthermore, I tried setting the brightness and contrast at various levels and never came up with a setting that fixed the flickering effect described above.
After some more research I realized that this was not a good way to spend $2400. For $1000 more, I can get the top rated 42" Panasonic EDTV Plasma, which has the best blacks and best contrast of any panel and has a ton of adjustments in the menu. To boot it also has an orbiter and screen saver to help guard against burn-in. This planar has a "white wiper" thing that runs a one-inch vertical stripe across the screen at 10 or 20 minute intervals, but I don't really think that would help much. I am concerned about burn in since this is an HTPC and has the potential to freeze up and leave a static image on the screen. I would much rather have a screen saver built into the TV for this very reason.
A couple of downsides to the Panny--no DVI input (well you can get one but it's a $300 add-in card), and it still doesn't include a wall-mount (another $200) so I've decided to wait a couple of months before buying it. A new model is coming out in August and I want to see if I can either get that model for the same price or whether the current model will drop in price at that time. That will also give me some time to save up some more bones for the $1500 extra this is going to cost me.
I have seen the Panny plasma for as low as $3300 shipped. I realize that is more than the ~$2000 you are talking about here, but unless you are partially blind or have very low expectations I think you will end up being disappointed with its PQ... also Planar is new to the world of Plasmas (who knows what their quality control and warranty service is like). Panasonic, OTOH is known for being very high quality and having great service.
When it came down to it, I decided that if I was spending this much money on a TV set, I wanted to make sure I spent
enough so that I got a set with enough quality to make such a huge investment worth it. Believe me, I would rather buy a kickass RPTV for half the price, but I live in an apartment with a built-in cubby for a 27" TV and a fireplace below--a RPTV just wouldn't work in this location. Of course plasma is "cool" too and I won't deny that's a factor, but plasma has a lot of caveats for how expensive it is.
Anyway, no doubt some people out there are very happy with this panel. I was not, and like I said, I am not some super-picky perfectionist.
Anyway, I know there aren't many reviews of this model out there so I just wanted to throw in my two cents for those of you considering it. Also, if you don't have AVSForum in your bookmarks you should! Here's their
thread about this panel.
l2c