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Panasonic Viera TH-42PZ85U 42-Inch 1080p Plasma HDTV

List price: $1,499.99
Amazon price: $699.99
You save: $800 (53%)
Prices subject to change.

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Product Details

Binding: Electronics
Brand: Panasonic
Color: Black
EAN: 0037988241835
Label: Panasonic
Dimension: 0.23 x 41.9 x 0.3 inches
Manufacturer: Panasonic
Model: TH-42PZ85U
Publisher: Panasonic
Studio: Panasonic

Features and Descriptions

1920 x 1080 Resolution
1000000:1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio for the Brightest whites and darkest blacks
4096 Shades of Gradation for spectacular Color Reproduction
Viera LinKâ„¢ HDAVI Control lets you operate all of your home theater components by pressing a single button on your TV's remote control
GalleryPlayerÂ® allows you to enjoy the world's finest high definition art and photography on your Panasonic HD plasma TV

Ratings & Comments (Average: 4.5

)

- Stop shopping and BUY it.
I did a bunch of research, not just on line, and settled on this TV and I'm very happy with it. It did fail while under warranty but Panasonic sent a guy out to fix it in a hurry. Well done.

- disappointing quality
In the old days when you paid a premium for electronic up-grades, your quality increased.
(for example: a diamond stylus on a Panasonic turntable eliminated all hissing; a big Panasonic reel-to-reel tape player out-performed cassette and 8-track tape-players).

Today this is no longer the case:
HD and LCD big screen TVs are steps down in quality!

All picture formats are rotten:
The "4:3" ratio reduces the wide screen display to normal width leaving 1/4 of the sides blank.
"Zoom" cuts off the peripheries -- the tops of heads--and sport box scores.
"Full" squishes everyone fat, squatty and short.
"Just" blows everybody in all directions--everything is stretched out of proportion.

If I want a normal view I go to the bedroom and watch my old Panasonic.

Digital High Definition sound quality has taken a hit, too.
Digital sound breaks up regularly (and I've got cable). Try to listen to classical music on PBS--like "Live at Lincoln Center" and during the quiet passages the digits break and interrupt the whole piece.

I'm a loyal Panasonic buyer.
But within a year I've lost audio on 4 channels, including ABC.

This whole (forced) move to HD is a real bummer.

Maybe the next technological "improvement" will be BH ("Black Hole" TV where the consumer and all his/her money is sucked in and disintegrated.)

- FANTASTIC!
Fabulous, Fabulous, Fabulous. HD & SD, Great blacks no trailing. Can't wait to get one for the living room only BIGGER! HA!

- Panasonic TV
When the item was delivered the screen was broken. I was able to purchase a similar TV elswhere brand new for less money

- Phosphor Trails: Scourge of the Plasma
In October, I purchased a Panasonic Viera TH-42PZ85U Plasma Television from Amazon. One of the caveats about owning an HDTV is that it requires quite a bit of time to tweak picture settings in order to ensure that your TV is giving you the best possible picture. In the proceeding months, I've fiddled with the various settings, like color, contrast, brightness, and even used a THX calibration disc and blue filter glasses in order to calibrate my set for optimal viewing from all of my sources (FiOS, DVD, PS3/Blu-Ray, DVR, Xbox). Overall, I've been quite happy with my Panny.

However, in recent months, I've noticed a very disturbing and annoying trend occuring in my TV: phosphor trails. These are green or blue trails that are left behind a moving object in a high contrast scenario. It occurs, as I understand it, because plasma pixels cannot shift directly from black to white, or vice versa. They have a brief green or blue phase in between. An example of this might be a hockey game that has players with dark jerseys on a white ice background. This scenario is plagued by phosphor trails on my TV. The players leave streaks as they move across the rink. I love hockey, and this is a major issue for me. Another example might be a movie or TV show where a person with light skin is moving through a dark room. This scenario is even worse for me. Light objects on dark background leave horrible green trails and are physically taxing on my eyes. Video games often have high contrast scenarios like this, and this effect is present in many that I own.

Unfortunately, I don't have a video camera capable of accurately depicting this phenomenon. On the cheap point-n-shoot I have, the effect is far worse than it appears in person. Nevertheless, I'm very close to selling my TV, cutting my losses and getting a Samsung LN46A650 LCD. I know that I may just be trading one issue for another, as LCD's have problems of their own, but I've just about had it. If a representative from Panasonic or Amazon is reading this, please contact me, as I would love to remedy this somehow.

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