P54v10

Hello,

Ok, I am now about to pull the trigger on a Panasonic TC-P54V10. Users seem to be in love with it. I checked it out (they only had the 58" version on display). It looked good. It was hard to tell anything because they had the Best Buy video playing and that just doesn't do any TV justice. Of course they had a Samsung LED 8500 series playing Batman and it looked insane.

So my question, does the P54V10 (plasma's in general) do that motion thing that the new 120hz/240hz systems do? I love that.

Thanks. Also, it seems the P54V10 ranges from 2300-2500. Does anyone know if there's any sales for possibly 2200 or so?

Does the contract ratio being only 2mil vs the samsung being 5mil play anything with color vibrancy?

Thanks!
Jeff.

The Panny plasma will look much better in your home than it does in the showroom. There is NO motion blur with plasmas, so you don't need to worry about refresh rates such as 120 or 240 Hz. For what it's worth, Panny does post a sub field drive of 600 Hz. As far as contrast ratios go, don't even consider them. Every company has their own method of measuring contrast ratios, and none of the numbers are anywhere near accurate in the real viewing world. IMHO, the Panny plasma is the best HDTV in current production. You can't go wrong with it. :2cents

HiDefRev,

Thanks for the info!

I noticed you said there NO motion blur. Do you know that look on new tv's where some ppl call it the "soap opera" effect. That's what I'm looking for. Does this tv interpolate frames like that? Nothing was super clear on at and I couldn't find evidence at BB.

I just want to confirm because I love how that looks and would like a TV that did that very well. It's not the most important thing, but I am very curious.

Thanks
Jeff.

Only the LCDs that have an option to interpolate the frames that are repeated can give you that soap opera effect. Plasmas thank God do not do this IMO, but if that is what you really want, then you will have to get a LCD and live with the other areas where they come up short compared to plasmas. Some of those things are:

1. Poorer black levels that look dark gray instead of black which on dark or space scenes. Although the Samsung 8500 is a local dimming LED backlit LCD so you will get very good blacks but shadow detail will suffer because of the tech. When looking at a space scene you will see less stars compared to a plasma and that will give you some idea of what you lose on a local dimming LCD to get the great black levels.

2. Viewing angles will be much poorer with the 8500 compared to the V10 and even other florescent backlit LCDs. It is hard to see just how poor the viewing angles are in the ultra bright stores but at home in typical home lighting it will be much more pronounced. I own 2 LCDs and it is much worse at home compared to what you see in those ultra bright stores.

3. The 55" Samsung 8500 costs $2,000.00 more ($4400.00) than the V10 at 54" that costs $2400.00 right now. That is a lot more money just to get a Soap opera look, but you have to decide if that is worth it along with the viewing angle and shadow detail issues the 8500 will have also.

Will people be watching this at different angles? If so they will have a big drop off in PQ and contrast ratio moving even a seat or two away from dead center so you should consider that as well.

Hope this helps!

I haven't seen it that low price in a while. It seems to be out of stock everywhere. I see PC Richard (LI, NY) has it listed for ~$2200. They're out of stock as well.

Here are the links I've been checking. You're right, everyone is pretty much at the same price. You might be able to get 10% at Best Buy which will get you down to <$2200, sometimes they send coupons around in the mail. Maybe they've got a discount if you sign up for a Best Buy card too?
http://hhgregg.com/ProductDetail.asp?SID=n&ProductID=23417&BrandStore=All
http://www.vanns.com/shop/servlet/item/features/463341111/panasonic-tcp54v10
http://www.onecall.com/ProductDetails.aspx?id=97503
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9317161&type=product&id=1218091193163

I haven't seen it that low price in a while. It seems to be out of stock everywhere. I see PC Richard (LI, NY) has it listed for ~$2200. They're out of stock as well.


Most of the V series TV are on back order with stock expected in 3 weeks from now...:(

Looks like V series is very popular or they are not making enough of them...

I can tell you the the 54V10 is AWESOME. I am very happy with mine after two weeks now. There is no blur so don't worry. I returned a Samsung 558000 LED for my V10. I know in the store the LED looks really good, and they do have real good PQ. There is no doubt, but at home the V10 is better. One of things I didn't like about the 8000 LEd was the 240hz soap opera effect. It made movies look terrible and cause a lot of strange effects when watching HD tv. I had to turn it off.

Most of the V series TV are on back order with stock expected in 3 weeks from now...:(

Looks like V series is very popular or they are not making enough of them...

Ordered mine two weeks ago and still waiting for stock to come in!