Panasonic VIERA G10 Series TC-P50G10 50-Inch 1080p Plasma HDTV Description:
50″ Plasma, 1080p, THX, Viera Cast, H.264, IP Camera Ready, PC Input, NEO PDP Panel which is brighter, Full-time 1080p TV lines of moving picture resolution, 3 HDMI, Native contrast ratio 40,000:1, Dynamic contrast infinite black 2,000,000:1, Game Mode, Anti Reflective Filter, 600 Hz Subfield Drive
- Amazon Sales Rank: #10177 in Consumer Electronics
- Color: black
- Brand: Panasonic
- Model: TC-P50G10
- Dimensions: 30.30″ h x 48.00″ w x 4.20″ l, 70.60 pounds
- Display size: 50
Features
- 1920 x 1080
- Native contrast 40,000:1, Dynamic contrast 2,000,000:1 Infinite black for the brightest whites and darkest blacks
- THX Certified display
Customer Reviews:
P50G10 Delivers a quality HD experience with extras
The P50G10 is my second HD Plasma experience, the first being a 2004 Panasonic, which still looks and works quite well. It has found another spot in our home to make room for the new G10 in our family room. When searching for and finally selecting the new Panasonic G10, I was comparing choices against this first experience considering both the manufacturer and the plasma technology. While I have a few smaller sized LCD’s, mostly in the 20-32″ range, I have never been overly impressed with the picture. The seem a bit cartoonish, even in HD mode, so I quickly settled on a plasma as my technology choice. Having made that decision the alternatives in terms of manufacturers narrowed quickly. Wh Pioneer exiting the Plasma business, and considering my experience with my original Panasonic plasma the brand decision was made. Selecting which model from Panasonic boiled down to scouring the 2009 product announcements and available reviews (CNET), and making the trade-offs on size, cost and availability. This all led me to the P50G10, which was a good fit on all points.
I have had the unit installed and working for 4 weeks now, and must say its been an extremely satisfying time. The G10 is a major step up, from my previous plasma, in terms of picture, inputs i.e. 3 HDMI vs 1, and ability to control each picture setting independently. I have tweaked the picture setting on the Standard and THX settings a bit to sharpen and brighten the picture a bit, but most of the other settings are very good out of the box. As the unit is stand mounted, and in a room with mostly indirect and overhead lighting there are no issues with glare or light reflection, from the main glass or its glossy black bezel.
In the process I also moved up to a Panasonic BMP-BD60 (will write a separate review on it) Blu Ray player and the 1080P picture is nothing short of amazing. As these are both Panasonic units they inter-operate with VieraLink which simplifies and automates the way the two units operate together, a nice but not essential feature. I setup a Wireless ethernet bridge (Linksys WET54G) to feed the VieraCast function on the G10, and it works flawlessly. At this time the amount of content available is limited, but one can see the potential, if Panasonic can bring more content services to this function. The G10 does employ a set of power consumption controls. There are both Input Idle and In-Activity based auto-power off modes to save on power consumption, which is good as plasma’s are a bit power hungry.
To be balanced the G10 does have a few shortcomings. The sound from the onboard speakers is a bit thin. You can mitigate this some by pumping up the Bass control and turning on the Bass Boost, but its just not a rich sound experience. I think Panasonic can do better with some higher quality speakers and a small sub-woofer. I, and I suspect most others, have a surround system connected and utilize it for a better sound experience.
I also preferred when Panasonic placed the additional inputs into a trap door on the front of the plasma, the G10 has these on the left (facing) edge. To me it was more convenient and accessible to have these set of inputs up-front.
All in all, the G10 is a high quality Plasma with terrific features and future expandability. If offers a near perfect picture across multiple inputs and types of content.
Best picture quality and price combination
I bought the TC-P50G10 three weeks ago, and am very happy with it. I did a lot of research and tried out a number of TVs before settling down on this one, so I thought I would share some of the information and my experience with the TV, and hopefully make your decision in choosing the TV a bit easier.
First thing first. According to my research, the Panasonic G10 probably has the best picture quality among all TVs in mass production as of the time of this review (May, 2009). Most importantly it has pitch dark black level, scorching brightness, high color accuracy, and good motion processing.
I chose the Panasonic plasma over Sony and Samsung LCD for a few reasons. (1) Compared to 120Hz LCDs, Panasonic is significantly cheaper than Sony and Samsung. (2) I think the G10 is better in handling motion than the 120HZ LCDs. (3) The colors on the plasma are more appealing to me than those on the LCDs. (4) It has superior viewing angle. It looks perfect from any angle you will actually watch the TV without washing out the color, prserving the quality of the color.
The third point on color appeal is subjective and calls for description of subjective experience. There are lots of technical comparison of the colors on different displays on the internet, but my perceptual experience is that the colors on the panasonic plasma is very vibrant, punchy, tantalizing, and mesmerizing. The colors look like things in real life, but they are more intense than real life. A friend said “it’s prettier than real, but not distorted. It is just like an enhanced colorful world.” If you prefer high fedelity to real life colors, you can use the THX mode to tune it down to be very faithful to studio color measures. LCD in comparison is also very vibrant, but it doesn’t look as realistic. It’s more like computer graphics and less like colors of living things. Technically, this may have to do with the deeper black level on the plasma than the LCD.
Before the G10, I had the Panasonic Viera TH-46PZ80U 46-Inch 1080p Plasma HDTV. Both TVs have very appealing colors, but I returned the PZ80U and got the G10 because the G10 has a number of important improvements over the PZ80U: it has a brighter plasma display, has a VGA PC input, lower energy consumption, and more accurate color. Also, its frame is more compact, so I can fit a 50″ G10 into the space that would only hold a 46″ PZ80U. In fact, the G10 is brighter and more contrasty than last year’s top model Panasonic TH-50PZ850U 50-inch Viera 1080p Plasma HDTV.
What else do I like about the TV? It is very bright for a Plasam TV. According to tech specs and online reviews, it is the bightest plasma ever made. In Custom Mode, it is more than bright enough to watch in my room with direct sun light (sun light in the room not on the TV). In Vivid Mode, “you should prepare to put on your ski googles”. In fact, it’s too bright and overly constrasty and saturated for regular viewing. However, it is quite useful in displaying low resolution and low quality online video such as YouTube or Netflix Instant Watch. The extra boost in brightness, contrast, and saturation make the low quality online video look much more appealing and lively.
VieraCast is kinda cool. Not a deal maker but certainly not a drawback. I used third party firmware DD-WRT to set up a Linksys WRT54G2 Wireless-G Broadband Router as a wireless bridge. So the TV can get online without running a cable to my main router.
I find this TV fits my needs perfectly. But no TV is perfect, at least not for the technically savvy.
So here are the cons:
(1) The sound is mediocre. It is fine to watch a TV show, but lackluster to watch a good movie or music show.
(1.2) True Cinema 24-frame mode flickering is perceptually disturbing because the refresh rate is set to 48 Hz in the mode. It is a pitty because motion does look much more life like and less video like in True-Cinema mode. Wish the TV could run at 72 Hz.
(2) My PC only has VGA out but no DVI out. (This point does not matter for those with DVI out on their computers. A DVI to VGA cable will work fine) The VGA input on the TV does not support 1080 HD. It only supports up to 1280×768. Panny should not cut corner here. Although this problem doesn’t really matter for video contents because most computer video resolution is less than 1280×768. And the pixel interpolation effect on the Plasma is more like a CRT and less like an LCD. So the set is reasonably good at displaying contents with resolution lower than its native res.
(3) VieraCast needs improvement. The content is still limited. The search function of Youtube on VieraCast is not as easy to use as on a computer. The Amazon video on demand price is way too high (but this is not really Panny’s problem). I wish a firmware upgrade would enables Netflix streaming.
(4) The remote is not as well laid out as the one on PZ80. The 3 big buttons above the directional keys are occupied by the rarely used VieraLink, VieraCast and VieraTool. The commonly used Menu key is moved to a small key. Totally wrong choice of ergonomics.
(5) VGA PC input is paired with RCA audio input. I wish it is a 3.5mm (1/8 “) mini jack instead, which will allow a single cable cable integrating VGA video and mini jack audio. Now I have to use two cables.
(6) The stand does not swivel.
Regardless of the above drawbacks, overall I find this TV to have the best picture quality and price combination. The pros by far outweigh the cons. The picture quality of this TV is truly amazing, as such some calls it “The New King of Plasma.” Anyone seriously considering an HDTV should take a look at this one, now that the Pioneer Kuro exited the market. I use it with a PS3, the Energy 5.1 Take Classic Home Entertainment System (Set of Six, Black), Denon AVR 589 receiver, and an Antennas Direct DB2 Multi Directional HDTV Antenna for HDTV over the air reception. It’s a lot of fun to watch BD movies, play some games, and watch some TVS, stream some video on Netflix via my laptop.
I highly recommend it.
Good value; great picture quality
I’ve been researching flat panel TV’s for about a year now, and thru showroom viewing, friends’ recommendations, online reviews (purchasers and experts), and Consumer Reports, I had narrowed my field down to Sony LCD Z- and XBR Series, Samsung LCD and plasma(550, 650, 750), and Panasonic plasma (PZ-800, PZ-850). The Sonys had great picture quality but were pricey. Samsung also had some good values but I just cannot get past the “Touch of Color” red accents on their mid and upper level TVs. [Call me traditional, but I think TV's look best in black or gray.] The Panasonic sets from last year didn’t look quite as bright in the showrooms (Best Buy, ABC Warehouse, others) as the LCD’s but I just liked the picture quality better–more vivid colors and deeper blacks, better motion handling. The power consumption issue was a bit of a concern, but Panasonic claims that their 2009 sets are more energy efficient. The new 2009 Panasonic G10 Series TVs struck just the right value balance for me–great bang for the buck. I’ve had mine for about two weeks now and I’m thrilled so far except for native sound quality; it’s good, just not as exceptional as the vivid picture. Setup was easy, adjustments straightforward, and the manual is helpful. The remote could be better, as the VieraCast buttons have a needlessly prominent location on the relatively large remote. There are backlit buttons for Volume and Channel, but unfortunately the button to activate the backlighting is small and unlit. Small matter. Anyway, standard Cable, HD and DVD picture quality is really good and BluRay is nothing short of amazing. The SD Card viewer is cool, too. I’m not noticing any significant trouble with screen glare, even though my set’s in a bright room; I was waayy overworried about that pre-purchase. Overall, I’ve been very happy with my Panasonic TC-P50G10 with no regrets.
From the Manufacturer
From the Manufacturer Manufacturer’s Description (March 17, 2009)
If you demand the best from your viewing experience, the 50-inch TC-P50G10 was created just for you. The new G10 Series boast cinema-quality movie reproduction, clear, smooth sports and gaming action–even Web entertainment. It is all made possible by Panasonic’s Neo PDP technology, which delivers sharp, detailed images, deep blacks and remarkable brightness, all with lower power consumption.
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VIERA’s elegant designs match virtually all room interiors.
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The advanced AR filter keeps images sharp, with minimal glare.
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View breathtaking images with rich, vivid colors from anywhere in the room.
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600Hz Sub-field Drive gives you even greater clarity with motion images.
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With VIERA CAST technology, you can enjoy online content such as videos, photos, weather and stock information through an easy-to-use Web interface that’s built into the TV.
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Stunning Picture Quality
Time spent with family and friends can be even more exciting when you gather around the 50-inch TC-P50G10. 1080p resolution combines with a 480 Hz processor to bring you exceptional clarity and smooth, fluid motion–even during high-speed action. VIERA HDTVs offer incredible black reproduction, with a rated dynamic contrast ratio of up to 1,000,000:1, so you’ll get warm, accurate skin tones, gorgeous greens, breathtaking blues and vivid reds. And now, all of your friends and family can get in on the action thanks to an extra-wide viewing angle that provides an excellent view from almost anywhere in the room.
600Hz Sub-field Drive
600Hz technology lets you view superb full-HD motion and still images with 1,080 lines of resolution. For even greater clarity with motion images, Panasonic uses its own unique image-analysis technology. This technology converts the motion in each scene into data. And each frame is practically displayed for a shorter length of time than in previous systems, to reduce aftereffects.
Over 2,000,000:1 High Contrast (Native 40,000:1)
New VIERA models incorporate an improved panel production process and the new Real Black Drive system. A pre-discharge control system, the Real Black Drive system combines with NeoPDP technology to achieve next-generation black reproduction. When you’re watching movies, VIERA renders images just the way the director intended, even in scenes where it’s difficult to achieve a proper balance of light and dark.
Wide Color Viewing Angle
View breathtaking images with rich, vivid colors from anywhere in the room. Because plasma TVs are self-illuminating, images look beautiful from any angle. Black areas do not fade, and colors look virtually the same no matter where you sit.
AR Filter
This advanced filter keeps images sharp, with minimal glare, while dramatically reducing reflections from external light, which helps to produce clear images. This filter creates pure, crisp images in a wide range of colors.
THX Certified for Faithful Movie Image Reproduction
G10 Series Plasma HDTVs meet the high standards set by the Lucasfilm THX Certified Display Program, to recreate faithfully the visual ambience intended by the original movies creators. If you love movies and demand cinema-quality images in your home, this is the HDTV for you.
The Next Level of Video Gaming
Take your team to the championship and your gaming to the next level on the TC-P50G10. A specialized Game Mode helps ensure fluid and seamless gameplay by minimizing time lag when displaying game images. With Game Mode turned on, you get the motion resolution and enhanced details you need to win. And don’t worry about racking up all those long hours playing; anti-image retention technology and a remarkable 100,000 hour panel life ensure that your VIERA HDTV will still run smoothly and beautifully long after you score the game-winning goal.
Effortless Connectivity
Make the TC-P50G10 the entertainment hub for your friends and family, and the center of your multimedia world. A built-in SD memory card slot makes it easy to share your digital photos and home videos, while H.264 AVCHD video compatibility allows you to get the most out of your high-resolution AVCHD home videos. The new VIERA Cast feature lets you enjoy great web content–such as PICASA online photo albums and YouTube videos–right on your TV. And when you connect your compatible AV components with HDMI cables, VIERA Link technology lets you control them all with one easy-to-use remote.
Enjoy Exciting Web Entertainment in Your Living Room–No PC Required!
With Panasonic’s VIERA Cast technology, you can enjoy online content like Amazon Video On Demand, YouTube videos, Picasa Web Albums, stock information, weather and more. All through an easy-to-use Web interface that’s built right into the TV. No extra equipment required–just surf with your TV’s remote, and let the fun begin!
With VIERA Image Viewer, simply insert an SD card into VIERA to display photos and full-HD videos on the large screen.
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Share Your Digital Photos and Hi-Def Camcorder Videos on the Big Screen
VIERA Image Viewer provides a better way to share your digital photos and home videos recorded on your AVCHD camcorder. Just pop your SD memory card into the handy slot, and instantly display your digital photos and hi-def videos for friends and family.
VIERA Link
VIERA Link makes it easy to connect all of your compatible AV devices. That means your Blu-ray Disc player, DVD recorder/player, home theater system and hi-def camcorder can be operated by a single VIERA remote control. You can even view digital photos via the SD card slot, which comes standard on the TC-P50G10 and all new VIERA flat-panel HDTVs.
Exceptional Service
With its lead-free construction, TUF Display screen, and long lifespan, a VIERA HDTV is a safe, eco-friendly, durable and lasting investment in high definition entertainment. Of course, should your VIERA TV ever need service of any kind, you are entitled to the VIERA Concierge program–a free service made available to all VIERA owners to bring peace-of-mind to your purchase. Benefits of this extensive service program include: use of an exclusive toll-free expert hot line, live chat with a VIERA HDTV expert, priority service scheduling, and a personalized VIERA Concierge benefits card.
Rent or Buy more than 40,000 Titles from Amazon Video On Demand
With Amazon Video On Demand, Panasonic customers can now instantly watch more than 40,000 commercial-free movies and television shows, including hit new releases and the latest episodes available in HD.
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Using an intuitive interface, order movies right from their couch and enjoy instant playback without waiting for lengthy downloads or annoying commercials. Prices start as low as $.99 and no subscription fee is required |
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Find
Choose from thousands of movies and TV shows by browsing the Amazon Video On Demand store on your Panasonic TV. Access and add to your virtual collection of purchases via Amazon Video On Demand’s Your Video Library and re-watch anytime on your Panasonic TV, your PC or Mac and other compatible devices. |
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Rent or Buy
Renting and purchasing titles is a snap with the power of Amazon’s 1-click purchasing. Order new release movies and the latest TV shows right from your couch and you’re watching within seconds. Prices start as low as $.99. |
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Watch
Enjoy Amazon Video On Demand’s high quality video right from your Panasonic TV. Videos playback instantly, without waiting for a download. Purchases and rentals are added to Your Video Library and stored online by Amazon so you can conveniently watch them again on your Panasonic TV, PC or Mac, and other compatible devices. |
What’s in the Box Panasonic VIERA G10 Series TC-P50G10 50-Inch 1080p Plasma HDTV, Remote control, Remote batteries, AC cord, Pedestal with installation hardware, Cleaning cloth, Operating instructions, Quick setup guide
