Panasonic Viera TC-P50X1

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Panasonic TC-P50X1

The capability of a TV to reproduce a dark shade of black is the number-one criteria for awarding a good picture quality score here at CNET. Often better blacks dictate higher prices, but in the case of Panasonic's newest line of entry-level plasmas, which includes the TC-P50X1, that's not the case. This HDTV reproduces superb blacks and excellent shadow detail, while costing a relative pittance for a big-screen HDTV. Unfortunately, two major problems prevent it from earning higher praise, namely that it suffers from less-than-accurate color and the presence of faint on-screen lines that may be a deal-breaker to sharp-eyed viewers. Nonetheless, the Panasonic TC-P50X1's otherwise commendable picture will appeal to numerous HDTV shoppers.

Updated August 19, 2009: Panasonic has fixed the problem with the faint diagonal lines. The company sent us a third review sample, with a manufacturing date of June 2009, and it didn't show the lines we mention below. The company didn't divulge more information on the problem, however, (check out the full story). Since the change happened relatively late in the product's lifespan, and there's no easy way to tell which new models have the lines and which do not, the rating and other conclusions of this review will remain unchanged from its original publication.

Design
(Editors' note: Many of the Design and Features elements are identical between the Panasonic TC-P50X1 and the Panasonic TC-PS1 series we reviewed earlier, so readers of the earlier review may experience some deja vu when reading the same sections below.)

Panasonic's TC-P50X1 makes liberal use of glossy black on its exterior. Shiny black plastic covers the entire frame--which is a tad thicker than the frame on the G10 series--with the exception of a slim strip of silver shaped to mirror the gently curved bottom edge of the panel. The only other accents are the Panasonic logo, an indicator light, and a big power button that nonetheless blends nicely into the frame. Speakers are invisible from the front--they're mounted along the bottom edge of the panel and face downward--and controls and inputs are tucked into either side, hidden from view. All told, the TV's styling is understated and probably won't draw many "ooohs" and "ahhhs" from guests.

A silver accent along the bottom breaks up all of that glossy black.

Including the matching, nonswiveling stand, the TC-P50X1 measures 48 inches wide by 32.4 inches high by 15.3 inches deep and weighs a substantial 79.4 pounds. Sans stand, the panel measures 48 inches wide by 30.3 inches high by 3.8 inches deep and weighs an even 75 pounds.

The remote is similar to last year's, but it's 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 are 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).

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

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 wish it offered access to a few that were more useful, such as picture modes.

Features
Unlike nearly every large-screen flat-panel HDTV on the market today, the Panasonic TC-P50X1 does not have 1080p native resolution (1920x1080 pixels). Instead, its pixel array is 1,366x768, aka 720p resolution. We didn't really miss the extra pixels, however, and as usual found it difficult to tell the difference between the TC-P50X1 and higher-resolution displays. Check out HDTV resolution explained for general details and the Performance section of this review for specifics. The X1 models, including this 50-incher and the 42-inch TC-P42X1, are also missing the higher-contrast, more-efficient NEO PDP panel found on step-up models like the TC-PS1 series.

Panasonic's standard setting, which is dim by default to save power, is one of five adjustable picture modes.

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, 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.

This entry-level set offers a smattering of advanced picture settings.

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 four aspect ratio options with high-def sources, including a Zoom mode that allows adjustment of horizontal size and vertical position.

An automatic pixel orbiter, which moves the image imperceptibly around the screen, is one of a handful of options to combat burn-in, aka "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 automatically or in user-set periodic intervals. You can chose 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 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-P50X1 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 pot and SD card slot, the side panel offers a second AV input with composite video.

The back panel connectivity is adequate, with two HDMI and two component-video inputs among others, but there's no PC input.

The side panel adds a third HDMI input, an SD card slot, and a composite video input.

Performance
Deep black levels are the high point of the TC-P50X1's picture quality, and we didn't miss having full 1080p resolution. We did encounter an unusual uniformity problem that will discourage sharp-eyed viewers, as well as a few color accuracy issues, but otherwise the TC-P50X1 performed very well for the price.

As with other Panasonic displays, lack of user menu controls means there's not much to do when setting up the TC-P50X1. The Cinema preset delivered slightly more accurate secondary colors compared with Custom, but the former was too dim for our standard calibration, maxing out at only 29 footlamberts (ftl). Since primary colors were identical between the two modes, and there were no other major trade-offs in choosing Custom, we used that mode for our evaluation, which enabled us to achieve our preferred brightness of 40ftl. We would have liked to tweak the grayscale as well to address its somewhat bluish cast (see the Geek Box), but that's not an option in the user menu.

Our comparison involved a number of models from more expensive Panasonic series, including the TC-P46G10 and TC-P42S1, as well as a pair of large LCD displays, the Vizio VF550XVT and the Samsung LN52A650, in addition to our reference Pioneer PRO-111FD plasma and Sony KDL-55XBR8 LCD. Unfortunately, we didn't have any like-priced large-screen TVs to compare with the Panasonic TC-P50X1. We chose to watch "The Silence of the Lambs" on Blu-ray.

Black level: The Panasonic TC-P50X1's best picture quality characteristic is its capability to deliver a deep shade of black, which, as usual, lends the entire picture depth and pop in all lighting conditions. In a darkened home theater, watching dim scenes like the nighttime drive at the beginning of Chapter 7, the 50X1 handily out-blacked the LCDs (aside from the LED-powered Sony) and even looked a bit darker than Panasonic's own TC-P42S1 despite that more-expensive series' higher contrast ratio spec. The Panasonic G10 delivered a slightly deeper shade of black, however, and of course the Pioneer plasma was a good deal darker.

Shadow detail on the 50X1 was also solid, as evinced by the natural look of the subtle detail in brickwork in Chapter 6, with its realistic rise from black into shadow. Again, the G10 and Pioneer were the only ones in our lineup that obviously beat the 50X1 in this regard.

Color accuracy: The Panasonic 50X1 fell well short of ideal in this category, hindered by a highly inaccurate color of green compared with our reference display. The almost neon quality in green showed up very well in the night-vision view through Buffalo Bill's goggles, as well as in plants like the grass and trees around Quantico. The red Corolla next to Catherine Martin's car also appeared a bit too red.

The 50X1's bluish grayscale manifested, for example, as a bit too much paleness in Jodie Foster's face and in other delicate skin tones. We had to reduce the color control slightly to keep that tone natural-looking, but there was still plenty of saturation and "pop" left to colors, thanks to the 50X1's deep black levels. We were also very appreciative of the TV's consistent grayscale in dark areas, which didn't turn exceedingly bluish or greenish as we've seen on so many other displays, including the S1.

Video processing: As a non-1080p display, the TC-P50X1 can't be expected to resolve every detail of a 1080i or 1080p source, but it dealt with a static 720p source as well as can be expected. The set's nondefeatable 3 percent overscan prevented the extreme edges of the image from showing.

If you have a choice, we do recommend going in at 720p, mainly because the TC-P50X1 didn't correctly de-interlace 1080i content, whereas perhaps your external HD source will. We did not count lines to evaluate motion resolution (our test pattern only works properly with 1080p displays), but subjectively the 50X1 looked as sharp as the other plasmas with motion, and a bit sharper than the LCDs (aside from the Sony XBR8, which looked about the same).

It's also worth noting that with normal program material it was difficult to tell the difference in detail between the Pioneer and the Panasonic 50X1, despite the latter's significantly lower resolution spec (since both are 50-inch plasmas, they provide level ground for comparison). In the highest-detailed areas of our test footage, such as some computer-generated images from our Digital Video EssentialsBlu-ray, we could spot the overall softness in a side-by-side comparison, but in most other sources, including the "Silence" Blu-ray, we could barely differentiate the two from a seating distance of eight feet.

Uniformity: Most plasmas have nearly perfect screen uniformity, to the extent that we usually skip this section entirely in plasma TV reviews, but on the TC-P50X1 we encountered an issue we hadn't seen before. It might not be a classic uniformity artifact, such as off-angle problems or brightness variations across the screen--which were, as expected, basically nonexistent on this plasma--but it could be a deal-breaker for sharp-eyed viewers. Then again, most viewers probably won't notice it, at least until they read about it.

From seating distances closer than about 10 feet, we could make out a pattern of very faint, grayish diagonal lines that ran from the upper left to the lower right of the screen. The lines didn't move, but rather seemed to be a part of the screen or pixel structure. They showed up most in lighter areas, such as flat fields like the sky above the hospital and gray or white walls, as well as in lighter-skinned faces like that of Jody Foster as she stares at the newspaper clippings. In darker or noisier material the lines became much less apparent and often disappeared, but in many instances we could easily make them out--more easily the closer we sat to the screen (we find a seating distance of about 8 feet comfortable for a 50-inch screen). Once we noticed them, it was difficult to "un-see" the lines. Test patterns confirmed that the entire screen was affected.

We described what we saw to Panasonic, and the company's engineer said he would get back to us with an explanation. Panasonic did send us a second TC-P50X1 when we asked for it, to make sure that the issue wasn't confined to our particular review sample. Both looked basically the same, and both showed the lines. No adjustment we could make eliminated the issue.

Updated on May 28, 2009: The company got back to us with an explanation: "[Panasonic is] aware of the issue, but currently there is nothing that can be done to alleviate the lines. It is thought to be interference between the panel and front glass. At this time, a fix or software update to correct the phenomenon of the diagonal lines is not available. Engineers in Japan are continuing to study the phenomenon and investigate possible solutions and/or countermeasures."

We checked a number of other displays, including a TH-50PHD8UK and a TH-50PX600U (two earlier Panasonic plasmas with 1,366x768 resolution), and they lacked the lines.

Note that we have not yet tested a 42-inch Panasonic TC-P42X1, the TC-P50X1's smaller companion in the TC-PX1 series, so we can't say whether it shows similar lines. The two sets have different native resolutions, and since resolution could be a contributing factor to the lines, we are not going to apply this review to the 42-incher in a series review.

Bright lighting: The 50X1 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 plasmas did. 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. The 50X1's screen handled ambient light exactly like that of the other two Panasonic plasmas in our comparison.

Standard-definition: Standard-def picture quality on the TC-P50X1 was mediocre. It resolved every line of the DVD format, although details weren't quite as sharp as on the Samsung, for example. The 50X1 did a subpar job of 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 pulldown to remove moire from the grandstands behind the racecar.

PC: The TC-P50X1 does not make an ideal large-screen PC monitor. Its lower resolution means onscreen text isn't as sharp as it would be on higher-resolution displays, it lacks a VGA input for analog connections from PCs, and the diagonal lines we described above are clearly visible on the white backgrounds common to PC desktops. When we connected three test PCs via HDMI, we were unable to get the native 1,366x768 resolution to appear as an option in the driver software; the best we could do was 1,280x768, which did look fairly good given the caveats above. Nonetheless, if you're planning on regularly using your HDTV as a big monitor, we recommend a different display.

Power consumption: Like all Panasonic plasmas we've tested recently, the TC-P50X1's default Standard picture mode is relatively dim (28.8ftl), which allows it to score well in our system, as well as qualify for Energy Star.

As usual, the best way to evaluate its efficiency is to compare it with like-size displays after calibration to a constant light level. On that playing field, the TC-P50X1 (255.88 watts) outclassed most recent 50-inch plasmas we've tested, including the Panasonic TH-50PF11UK (336.35), the Vizio VP505XVT (383.83), the LG 50PG30 (324.85), and the Samsung PN50A650 (337.77). That's because, unlike those 1080p models, the TC-P50X1 has a 720p resolution--plasmas, unlike LCDs, use more power at higher resolutions. Compared with 720p 50-inch plasmas, like the LG 50PG20 (257.59) and Hitachi P50H401 (216.65), the Panasonic TC-P50X1's power use is typical.

Of course, like-size (52-inch) LCDs, such as the Sony KDL-52XBR7 (161.11), the Sharp LC-52D65 (121.6), or the Sony LN52A650 (140.8) all consume significantly less power than the 50-inch TC-P50X1.

Juice box
Panasonic TC-P50X1	Picture settings
	Default	Calibrated	Power Save
Picture on (watts)	217.95	255.88	N/A
Picture on (watts/sq. inch)	0.2	0.24	N/A
Standby (watts)	0.2	0.2	N/A
Cost per year	$47.11	$55.28	N/A
Score (considering size)	Good
Score (overall)	Average

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