Panasonic TC-P50S1

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Panasonic TC-PS1 series

For HDTV shoppers who recognize that burn-in and product lifespan, two bugaboos that have plagued the public perception of plasma TVs since their introduction, are largely not worth worrying about today, one potential hurdle on the path to plasma remains: power consumption. Plasma has always used significantly more power than LCD. Panasonic aims to narrow that gap with a new plasma display panel it calls, naturally, Neo PDP. The least expensive of the company's numerous 2009 plasma models to boast the new panel is the TC-PS1 series.

In our testing, we found that the S1 series model does indeed suck less juice than before. Its picture quality is also very good, starting with deep black levels that nearly rival the all-time champ in that department, Pioneer's Kuro models. Picture quality nitpicks include less-than-accurate color, which thanks to the company's minimal user-menu controls, cannot be adjusted. Despite these issues we found a lot to like about the TC-PS1 series, not the least of which is its appealing price point.

Series note: The 2009 Panasonic TC-PS1 series is available in six screen sizes. We performed a hands-on evaluation of the 42-inch model, TC-P42S1 ($1,199 street), but our remarks on picture quality also apply to at least two other models in the series, the 46-inch TC-P46S1 ($1,499) and the 50-inch TC-P50S1 ($1,799)--all three share identical specs but for screen size. The three larger models in the series, at 54, 58, and 65 inches, also share similar specs, but the screen size differences are great enough to warrant another hands-on evaluation of a larger model when it becomes available.

Design
The new Panasonic design looks a lot like the old, albeit more rounded on the corners and the edges. The TC-PS1 series sports the hidden speakers that have become fashionable in HDTVs lately, with sound coming from underneath. Glossy black covers the entire frame, with a slim strip of silver shaped to mirror the gently curved bottom edge of the panel. Once we tore off the Energy Star sticker, the only other interruptions among all that black gloss were the Panasonic and Viera logos along with an indicator light and a big power button that nonetheless blended nicely into the frame. The company's glossy black stand looks the same as last year, and still lacks swivel capability.

The remote is similar to last year's but not as good. Panasonic's marketing guys got to the button designers, judging from the unnecessarily prominent trio of keys--Viera Link, Viera Tools, and SD Card--that arc above the central cursor control. Each provides direct access to functions we'll warrant most users won't access frequently, and the trio relegates the more important, yet now tiny, Menu key to a secondary spot near the top of the clicker. We still like the feel of the keys, and appreciate the size, color, and shape differentiation that helps us forget that none of the buttons is illuminated. The remote cannot control other devices via infrared (IR) commands, but it does allow some control of compatible HDMI devices connected to the TV via Viera Link (aka HDMI-CEC).

The main picture menu lets you choose from among five adjustable picture presets.

Panasonic tweaked its menu design for 2009. The same yellow-on-blue color scheme is in evidence (albeit a lighter shade of blue) and navigation is basically unchanged, but the main menu actually has a couple of icons now, and edges throughout are a bit more rounded. Overall it's still one of the more straightforward, basic-looking menus on the mainstream market, but we wish the company would see fit to include onscreen explanations of more advanced items. A new Tools menu showcases some of the TV's functions, although we'd like if it offered access to a few more useful ones, such as picture modes.

A new Tools menu allows quick assess to a few functions.

Features
Aside from 1080p resolution, the power-saving Neo PDP panel represents the S1's major feature improvement over the company's entry-level TC-PX1 series. See the Performance section below for details on how much power the TC-P42S1 we tested actually saved. The S1 models lack the THX display certification, 1080p/24-friendly refresh rate and VieraCast interactive add-ons found on the step-up G10 series.

A couple of power-saving options are hidden in the setup menu, but there's no specific "energy saver" picture setting--not that it's necessary given the TV's dim, power-conscious Standard setting.

Compared with a lot of other name-brand HDTV makers, Panasonic offers far fewer picture adjustments. Yes, the basics are there, including Contrast, which the company was calling Picture for years. We liked that all four of the global picture modes, including the dim-by-design Standard mode (see below), are adjustable and that the fifth, called Custom, is independent per input. The company's Game mode is basically just a picture mode; it doesn't eliminate video processing like some other makers' Game modes.

The Advanced picture menu is pretty bare-bones.

Beyond the basics there are three color temperature presets, of which Warm came closest to the D65 standard, although unfortunately no further provisions for tweaking the grayscale exist. A "C.A.T.S." function senses ambient light and adjusts the picture accordingly; a pair of On/Off settings affect video noise; and another allows you to set black level (the Light option exposed the correct amount of shadow detail). That's about it--there's no gamma, color management, or other more advanced settings.

You can choose from five aspect ratio options with high-def sources, including a Zoom mode that allows adjustment of horizontal size and vertical position. The Full mode can be made to match the pixel counts of 1080i and 1080p sources, without introducing overscan, if you select the HD Size 2 option from the Advanced menu. We recommend using this setting unless you notice interference along the extreme edges of the screen, which can occur on some channels or sources.

Numerous options are available to prevent burn-in, or image retention.

Panasonic also offers ways to avoid temporary image retention, aka burn-in, and address it should it occur. A pixel orbiter slowly shifts the image around the screen, and you can elect to have it happen either automatically or in user-set periodic intervals. You can choose bright or dark gray bars alongside 4:3 programs. And if you do see some burn-in, chances are the scrolling bar function, which sweeps a white bar across a black screen, will clear it up after a while.

The TV lacks picture-in-picture and cannot freeze the image temporarily to catch a phone number, for example. It can, however, accept SD cards with digital photos into a slot on the left side, which allows it to play back the images on the big screen.

Here's a look at the thumbnail screen that appears when you insert an SD card filled with digital photos.

Connectivity on the TC-PS1 series is adequate but not extensive, starting with three HDMI inputs: two on the back and a third on the side. Other back-panel connections include two component-video inputs, an AV input with composite and S-Video, and an RF input for cable or antenna. There's also an optical digital audio output. We would have liked to see a standard analog audio output and, more importantly, a VGA-style PC input, but the latter feature is reserved for step-up models in the company's lineup. In addition to the HDMI port and SD card slot, the side panel offers a second AV input with composite video.

The back panel offers a pair of HDMI and two component-video jacks, but no PC input.

The side panel adds a third HDMI input, a second AV input with composite video, and (not shown) an SD card slot.

Performance
Overall the TC-PS1 series delivered excellent picture quality, with deep black levels and shadow detail, the former helping lend plenty of pop or saturation to colors. Color accuracy itself was an issue, as we mentioned above, but not enough to spoil an otherwise commendable performance.

During setup we noted that the Panasonic's Cinema preset, as expected, came closest to the ideal dark-room picture settings. Speaking of presets, it's worth noting that, as we saw with last year's Panasonics, Standard was quite dim (just 22 Fl; about half of our nominal dark-room target of 40 and a quarter of the panel's maximum of 83 in Vivid mode), to the point where the picture seemed dull and washed-out compared with the other picture settings. The reason is simple: Energy Star 3.0. To qualify, Panasonic had to set the default picture mode, Standard, to be quite dim, since dimmer pictures use less power. For more, check out the Power Consumption section below.

Our calibration was relatively brief, bringing light output up to the aforementioned level, tweaking the color slightly and leaving the rest alone. We really missed having full grayscale controls; Panasonic is one of the last manufacturers left that doesn't implement those controls. Without them, the Warm color temperature preset was quite green, hampering overall color fidelity, an issue exacerbated by the inaccurate green primary color. On the flipside, grayscale tracking was excellent, maintaining a consistent color from light to dark areas, and gamma was very good at 2.25 versus the ideal of 2.2.

Check out this post for our complete picture settings.

Although the TC-PS1 is among Panasonic's lower-end 1080p plasma series, its basic picture quality specs, such as contrast ratio, are similar to those of higher-end models. That's one reason we compared it with the best HDTVs we reviewed last year, namely the Samsung LN52A650 and the Sony KDL-55XBR8 LCDs along with the Pioneer PRO-111FD plasma. We were unable to directly compare the S1 with any of last year's Panasonic plasma models. Our image quality tests primarily involved watching the Blu-ray of "Australia" courtesy of the Sony PlayStation3.

Black level: The S1 performed admirably in this area, and if we had to guess (and we do, since we didn't have a direct comparison on hand), it equals or exceeds the black-level performance of the best Panasonic plasmas from last year. Compared with the displays we did have on hand, it couldn't compete with the Kuro, but handily beat the Samsung and compared well with the Sony in terms of delivering a deep shade of black and preserving shadow detail.

In the nighttime scene around the campfire from Chapter 10, for example, the Panasonic's letterbox bars, shadows, and black sky all appeared quite dark and realistic, although not as deep as on the Pioneer. Details in shadows, such as the darkness between the cattle and the shades along the edges of the hills, looked every bit as realistic as we saw on the Pioneer, and better than either of the other two displays. Shadows also appeared quite clean, without the excessive noise we complained about in last year's TH-46PZ85U review.

Color accuracy: As with most previous Panasonic panels, the TC-PS1 series falls short in this area. The problem is green. Despite any user-menu adjustments we made, skin tones, for example, had a slightly greenish-pale cast compared with the reference displays. Nicole Kidman's pale face during the close-up in Chapter 2, for example, looked even paler and a bit less lifelike. Part of the issue was that we had to turn down the color control a bit to make up for some red push in the color decoding, which decreased saturation accordingly. The other part had to do with the plus-green color temperature, which also affected whites such as the slightly greener-looking white parasol carried by Kidman into the harbor in Chapter 3.

The grass and shrubs of the Ashlight House also appeared a good deal more neon-like and less natural. The sky above the Aborigine kid in Chapter 1 and the sea under Kidman's plane in Chapter 3 both appeared markedly greener than the azure hues of the reference displays. Both issues were because of the inaccurate primary color of green and secondary color of cyan, respectively.

In its favor, despite our reduced color control setting, the Panasonic S1 still managed very good saturation and colors certainly popped--not quite to the extent of the Pioneer and the Sony, but still satisfactorily. We lay the credit at the feet of the Panasonic's solid black levels, which as usual increased apparent saturation.

Video processing: In resolution tests the Panasonic performed as expected, delivering every line of a static 1080i and 1080p test patterns. Its de-interlacing was sub-par according to test patterns, passing the video de-interlacing test but failing the more important one for film-based sources. As usual, however, instances of improper de-interlacing were difficult to notice.

Panasonic makes a big deal about its new "600Hz sub-field drive," which it claims delivers better motion resolution. There's nothing incorrect about that claim as far as we can tell. According to our test, the TC-PS1 series resolved all 1,080 lines of resolution in the Monoscope pattern, beating the former champ, Pioneer's PRO-111FD, which "only" resolved between 900 and 1,000 lines. As usual, however, it was basically impossible to see any difference between the two sets' ability to deliver detail in fast-moving scenes; as far as we could tell, both looked equally superb in this regard. For that matter, we couldn't discern any difference between the plasmas and the Samsung LCD, which only resolved between 300 and 400 lines with dejudder turned off, during regular program material. As we've said before, to our eyes superior motion resolution is quite difficult to appreciate.

Bright lighting: The S1 did a solid job attenuating ambient light in a brightly lit room, but did not perform as well in this regard as the matte-screened Sony or the Pioneer plasma. We could make out some sharp reflections in the glass of the Panasonic's screen, and the light washed out the darker parts of the image worse than on the Samsung, but reflections still weren't as distracting as on that set.

Standard-definition: The TC-S1 series was a mediocre performer with standard-def material. It resolved every line of the DVD format, although details weren't quite as sharp as on the Samsung, for example. The S1 did a sub-par job with moving diagonal lines and stripes on the waving American flag, leaving plenty of jaggies along the edges. Noise reduction was solid, on the other hand, and both Video NR and MPEG NR settings contributed to removing moving motes and snow from low-quality shots of skies and sunsets. Finally, the set properly engaged 2:3 pull-down to remove moiré from the grandstands behind the racecar.

PC: Via HDMI, the Panasonic performed extremely well, resolving every line of a 1,920x1,080 source and showing text and lines with no edge enhancement. We did notice faint diagonal lines in some flat fields in the highest-resolution test patterns, which were perhaps an artifact of the screen itself, but they weren't distracting in most material.

Power consumption: Power Consumption testing was only performed on the 42-inch TC-P42S1, not on the 50-inch TC-P50S1. For details, see the TC-P42S1 review.

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