Panasonic's ultrathin TC-P54Z1 VIERA plasma priced at $5,999.95
By Darren Murph 
posted Mar 5th 2009 11:41AM
posted Mar 5th 2009 11:41AM
[Via CNET]
posted Mar 5th 2009 11:41AM
The percentage of electronics at the end of their lives which were recycled.
The EPA found that the percentage remained consistent from 1999-2005. Even as recycling rates went up, the amount of electronics reaching end of life outpaced the increase, leaving the figure static. (source: EPA, July 2008)
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Companies are still making Plasma TVs? They can hardly sell the low end Plasmas what makes them think they can sell a high end one like this? I just hope these CE companies don't start pissing and moaning about losses they are incurring and asking the government for a bail-out, because this is proof that its their own fault.
another person who likes tech but doesnt know tech. plasma is better than LCD, just the consumer is not smart enough to know that. just like beta was better than vhs. plasma will always be the second choice because of urban legends that will always haunt it.
Lower priced 42" and 46" Panasonic Plasma TVs were flying out the door during the Christmas season. So why do you say they hardly sell? I know my brother picked up a 42" Panasonic at Christmas and the dealer told him he got the second to last one He had 40 of them to start with. Plasma's still sell.
I don't care about the price. I am just glad that one of these thin-is in tvs are available for sale. They'll come down evntually.
Now we are talking! This thing will be able to be had for well under 5K buying online. If I was in the market, I would throw this some serious consideration. Easily one of the most impressive items shown in Vegas back in January.
Just a question unrelated to the content: why does the byline in my RSS reader show PRODS@WEBSLOGSINC.com as the author of all the posts? It didn't before.
Lets see, lcd is lighter, brighter, good blacks, no glare, very good colors, no burn in, affordable, last forever and come in 120hz.
Plasma, heavier, great blacks (so are new lcd's), not as bright, burn in, great colors (so are new lcd's) going out of production,
So, how is plasma superior. All of the lcds can be calibrated to perform as good as plasmas if we are talking about the new LCDs (sony, samsung, etc. And forget Kuro, it is out of the game. Just like HD-DVD. R.I.P.
@titolajko: uh, ok, sure. Let's dissect this point by pseudo point.
Plasma is heavier: ok. that is true -- so this is a problem: 1) when one is lugging it home from the store and . . . . .?
Plasma has great blacks: and LCDs technologically cannot match them. It's a pretty simple limitation of the technology itself. Until their are as many LEDs as their are pixels, it will be impossible to control the black level in an LCD to the same degree as a plasma.
Not as bright: uh, see black level above. LCDs SHOW great in a store, but in all but the brightest rooms, this is a non-issue. Whereas black level differences are pretty readily observable in even a semi-dark room.
Burn in: none for plasmas either. I have four plasmas and no burn in problems. The oldest is more than 3 years old. Enough said. Everything else is either urban legend or early generation plasma issues.
Great colors: again, for color reproduction, LCDs can approach but cannot match plasmas. Again, we're talking splitting of hairs, but the edge goes to plasma (for anyone who has ever compared the two in a proper setting with properly calibrated sets with the same and a variety of source material).
Going out of production: certainly with Pioneer and Vizio departing the game, this is true. There is going to be a decrease in the number of units produced. However, Pioneer was a super high end niche brand, and in terms of volume, Vizio was always far more focussed on LCD.
And no, I have not seen a single LCD that can be calibrated to "perform as good as a plasma". They come close, yes.
Have you studied this topic at all? If you have, you'd know that 'resolution' and 'brightness' do not make the top three elements that result in the visual perception of a 'good picture'.
Having said that, the fact that LCDs DO show well on the showroom floor is a key reason why they're selling better (that, and the fact that they're a higher margin item than plasmas for their respective manufacturers, IIRC).
So, please let's not let the relative sales positions tell us which technology performs better. You can accurately say that LCDs are in the dominant market position all day long and no one can argue with that . . . but don't confuse dominant market position with "better" (or even "as good as").
120hz, thats so slow. im running 480hz.
why r people still talking about burn in. thats like talking about burn in on a crt tv. it CAN happen but never does. unless it in a doctors office showing the same loop with and image in the same spot all day.
last i checked the lcd's where putting in plastic that gives glare now too, better color and blacks because of it, but still glare.
do people really care about the extra 10-20lbs? my wall hasnt said a thing about it. the last stand i had could hold well over 200lbs.
Not to get the fanboys of Plasma or LCD going but...
One thing I have noticed is that Plasmas tend to generate more heat. Has anyone else seen this?
Trying to be an eco-conscious consumer I also wonder about power requirements on the new generation of TVs. Inch for inch how do the power draws stack up? Is one more power miserly than the other or is this mostly by manufacture?
I do agree that Plasmas generally look better and I am not suckered into the 120hz gimmick of some new LCDs. I do have to wonder if 'new' 240hz refresh rates will quell some of the arguments about interpolation when showing native 24hz video, like with Blu-Ray. Has anyone done reviews of this feature yet?
I've seen 240 Hz in action, and if you hate 120 Hz, you'll hate 240 Hz twice as much.
If you're one of those mouth breathers that prefers to watch the soap-opera artificial smoothness of 120 Hz, you'll LOVE 240 Hz...because everybody knows higher numbers means more better!
Phil,
yes, plasmas do "feel hotter". its only because its a phosphor based tech, i.e., it works by heating up its pixels. but as far as actual power consumption, plasmas only output brightness as needed and can control voltage down to each pixel. the average voltage of a properly set plasma is about 140W vs most lcds @ 120W. the neoPDPs from panny such as the Z1 are estimated to use half of current models, which should put them in line with or below LED LCDs.
oh and check out trustedreviews.com, they reviewed a couple of the 240hz sets and said there's absolutely no diff from 120hz. besides, not to sound like a plasma fanboy, but the new 1080 panasonics claim to have eliminated motion blur altogether, which is quite impressive without utilizing any interpolation techniques. the only other consumer display to have done so is the samsung 950...
im not eco friendly, no saying i dump oil in a river, i am alittle. but if i pay an extra $2 for my tv per month cause of electric, i dont care
120hz is also a multiple of 24hz, so a good 120hz set should be able to display 5 copies of each frame for judder-free motion without interpolation.
There are some plasmas that can change refresh rate to 48hz or 96hz when the source is 24hz. Unfortunately, I believe Panasonic goes with 48hz and some people experience flickering. (Correct me if I'm wrong guys.)
Ultrathin is stupid. A regualar flat panel is thin enough, and I wonder what people these companies spoke to during their market research because I am not going to pay 2x the price because it's half the thickness.
This TV looks sweet. Wireless HD is cool. I work at a Custom Electronics retailer and i'm looking forward to seeing this one when it comes in. i'm also looking forward to the V10 and G10 models which are only 2" thick just minus the wireless part. Prices will be around the same as the PZ800 and PZ850 series. (i've seen the panasonic price list). As Far as LCD vs. Plasma, i've sold both Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp, Pionner Elite, and Hitachi. And i prefer plasma waaaaaay over LCD. the whole 120HZ and now 240Hz, truthfully i can't stand them. it looks like somones got their finger stuff on the fastforward button. some people like it, but i can't stand it. If you look at the pro reveiws of these tv's, the reveiwers turn theses features off when they rank them, becuase they can't stand it either. And we sell more Panasonic plasma's than anything else in the store. It's sad to see Pionner go, but Panna is close to the same quality for a lot less price. If panasonic ever dropped out of plasma, it will be a sad day indeed.
Man, just another one of those situations where the general public is misinformed. Plasma is superior to LCD in the way that Apple is superior to PC's. Nobody here in Hollywood even uses a PC anymore. I don't get how these tewls are so easily persuaded to think that Plasma has all of these problems. They don't. So many sheep out there love to follow what they hear from emps at Best Buy. LCD does have a good product and its called LED but those will cost you an arm and a leg and they are at least 4 inches thick. Those are the only LCD's that can compete with a Plasma and it took them 10 years or more to get there. Plasma doesn't need 120hz or even 240hz for sports, because it never had the problem with trailing pixels in the first place! This is just one of the downfalls of owning an LCD...LOL!!!! Again us in the small percentage who can research and make decisions for ourselves to buy superior products have to put up with losers like the douchebags above who think LCD is better. No your Dodge Charger is not better than my Mercedes so don't pull up next to me with your mullet thinking you are a badass. At least the public got Blu-ray right!
Panasonic has a captive market now, this Plasma niche could be very good for them, I certainly hope so. I have a Panasonic 50" and a 42", I for one want to see Plasma live on, and as soon as a 65" Panasonic Plasma is cheap enough, I'm in again!
Slim PDP was out...technically with the Pioneer Signature Series Kuro just last fall. I mean, they were certainly slim enough! Amazing TVs..or rather monitors that is. I will support Pansonic when they get their design right...deeper blacks, better scaling both SD/HD, and nicer bezels with removable speakers.
I got a 50" Panasoinc Plasma a few months back. My brother got one, same as mine a few months before that, and my Dad also has one, the COSTCO version. Just because you more then likely are using a LCD screen for your PC, doesn't mean it makes a great HDTV and as good or better then Plasma. Far from it. All LCD has going for it is it's brighter, so if you can't control your lighting, get a LCD, anything else, go Plasma. Seeing the Brightness Cranked up at the store on all those LCD's so they stand out, but your NOT going to be watching your LCD at home with the settings like that.
Panasonic is invested heavily into Plasma's and I don't see them dropping them any time soon. If anything they'll get into the higher end Plasma's also like this current one. If I had the money for this one, I'd buy it. I don't want to watch Movies or GAME on a LCD screen. I hope in the future I've not forced to buy a LCD because I have no choice in the matter.
On and this whole 120Hz, or other Hz speed, really doesn't fix the Slow Response LCD screens have, it has to do more so with Blu-Ray and 3:2 Pulldown. What I mean, is a U.S. TV is showing 60 frames per second, 60Hz, while a Movie on a Blu-Ray Disc is 1080p/24 or 24 frames per second. To get 60 frames out of 24 frames, they use 3:2 pulldown. Show the first frame 3 times, then the second frame 2 times, the third frame 3 times again, and so on, so you get 111223334455566. Some people notice this, but it's the same on DVD's also, and never been a problem then. With a 120Hz, or 120 frames per second, you can now do 5 frames for each of the 24 frames, 11111222223333344444, or 5:5, this works out to 120 frames from the original 24 frames. The Number of frames are EVEN and so the effect is cured. I think it's pointless. It's more Marketing to get you to pay more money. You don't want it on watching normal HD TV programs. Generally it just better to leave it OFF. You can also have HDTV's at 48Hz or 48 frames per second. Same thing, but now it's 2:2, or 1122334455. Same thing with the 240Hz which is really overkill and pointless, but it's a bigger number and so it must be better. NOT......
If burn in is't an issue, then why does Panny's owners manuals warn of burn-in.
if you keep displaying the static image or something for xxxx hrs, then u'll know what's burn in...
otherwise, u do not have a chance to meet it...
Why do manuels for toasters say, "Do not put hand in toaster while toaster is on". Becuase people are stupid. They're just covering thier buts like every other company.