Panasonic VIERA TX-P42G20 (TXP42G20B) 42-inch Full HD 600Hz Plasma TV with Freeview-HD

The sockets on here, which we will go through now, are the same on all three models.  So on the rear of the TV there are three HDMI sockets, two Scart sockets, one Component - which is the red/green/blue socket, one Analogue Audio Out, one Digital Optical Audio Out.  There is also an Ethernet connection so you can get yourself a wireless dongle, connect it into the back of the Ethernet port on here, and you can also connect wirelessly to your Internet system at home so you can have some Internet TV directly on the set itself.  And you have also got a direct PC connection so if you want to connect your laptop directly into the TV, there is a D-Sub socket on the rear of this TV so you can do that as well.

On the side of the TV you have got two USB sockets - which I will come back to in just a moment.  There is also one SD Card reader; so if you have got a digital still camera at home, just take your card out of the camera, slide it into the side of the TV, and you can have all the photographs that you have got on your SD Card showing directly on the TV screen.  There is also another HDMI socket on the side of this TV, making four in total.  There is a headphone socket, Composite socket, which is the yellow/red/white - units like Wii Games consoles use Composite - it has got that on as well.  And you have also got a physical On/Off switch - so instead of just putting the set into standby, you have also got On/Off so you can physically switch it off if need be.

Now, going back to the USBs that are on the side of this TV, you have got two USB sockets on here.  If you put a memory stick in the side of the TV, you can also basically download anything you have got onscreen - whether it is from your PC, or whether it is TV material - you can record it directly onto the memory stick as well.  So you have got two USBs.  No Panasonics previously have had USB sockets on - but you have now got two USBs on the G20 series.

So, if we take you through the rest of the specification on this TV:  They are Full HD, so they do all three formats of High Definition - 720p, 1080i, and 1080p resolution.  You have also got built into this TV: Analogue Tuner, Freesat Tuner, and you have also got the DVD, the Digital Tuner. 

Now, the DVD Tuner, the Digital Tuner on this TV set, is an HD Digital Tuner as well.  So, just plugged into the normal TV aerial, we have got on this set now things like ITV HD, just through the TV aerial socket itself, and BBC HD.  So you are not having to get a satellite dish or Virgin Cable Box - that is coming through just the TV aerial itself. 

Now, not all regions are broadcasting High Definition through your normal TV aerial system at the moment - they are in the Northwest of the UK and they are in some of the southern regions around the London area as well - but you would need to check in your local region to make sure that you are capable of picking up High Definitions through your normal TV aerial to make sure that you get that facility.

However, if you can’t at the moment, you have also got a Freesat built into this range of TVs.  So on the rear of this set you have got a satellite connection as well.  So if you connect a satellite dish to the back of this TV, you have got Freesat on the TV as well.  So you get BBC HD and ITV HD through that service as well - along with another 163 channels; there are a lot of TV channels on Freesat - a mixture of High Definition, Standard Definition, and radio channels.

If we go into the Menu on the TV, there is a button on the remote control that says Menu.  It gives us three options:  Picture, Sound and Setup.  We will deal with the bottom one first - Setup.  When you receive a Panasonic TV, you un-box in your home, put the TV aerial into the rear of the TV, switch it on with your On/Off switch on the side, and the TV will say, “Please Wait” - it will tune itself in and set itself up.  That’s all you have to do!

Once the TV has tuned itself in, you need to make maybe some adjustments to the Colour, Contrast and Brightness, to how you would like that TV picture to look.  So on the remote, as I said, we have got a button that says Menu - press the Menu button.  Picture is highlighted in yellow.  We press the OK button in the centre of the remote - and it puts us the Picture Menu up.  Now then, this is a brand-new model from Panasonic.  As we said, extremely good Contrast; we are looking at five million to one Contrast on this set.  In the Preset modes on here, we have got Normal, Cinema, THX, Professional 1, Professional 2, back to Dynamic.  There are more adjustments you can make on this TV than I have seen on any other TV ever available.

If we go into the Professional Settings - and you have got two Professional Settings:  you have got Pro 1 and Pro 2 - you can set the Professional Settings for TV viewing for yourself - you can even go into the Professional 2 Settings and preset it for, say, maybe your DVD viewing as well.  If we go into this, in the Pro Settings, it gives us the normal settings for Contrast, Brightness, Colour and Sharpness.  However, you have got Advanced Settings as well, where we can go into the White Balance on the TV - and we have got Red-Gain, Green-Gain, Blue-Gain, Red Cutoff, Green Cutoff, Blue Cutoff - we can alter the individual three primary colours to your own liking.

You have also got, if we come out of there, Colour Management, where we have got Red-Hue, Green-Hue, Blue-Hue, Red-Saturation, Green-Saturation and Blue-Saturation - there are a lot of adjustments that you can make to this TV.

But if you do mess it up and it all becomes too complicated, just go down into Reset to Default, click it on OK and it will just reset the picture to how the manufacturer set the TV up; how it came out of the box.  And then you can just go back into the basic settings and adjust the Colour, Contrast and Brightness to how you want it - but if you really want to tweak it and play around with it, you have got a lot of specialist adjustments that you can get into and tweak up the picture to give you that really fantastic detail that you want from a set like this.

So, what we have also got on here, if we just come out of there, is THX.  Very few TVs meet THX specification.  If you have got a DVD at home, a lot of movies are recorded in the THX format.  If you select THX on the TV, it will then set the Contrast and Brightness levels accordingly on the TV to how the filmmaker wanted you to view that movie.  So it will give you an exact representation of that movie onscreen, if you select THX.

You have then got Cinema, Normal and Dynamic - which are just presetting the Colour, Contrast and Brightness to predetermined levels.  However, you can then go into that and alter those Contrast levels, and Brightness, and Colour, and Sharpness to wherever you want it for your standard TV viewing.

You have also got on here C.A.T.S. Adjustment - which is basically an automated Contrast adjustment.  If you switch it on, there is a little photocell at the bottom of the TV which will constantly measure the ambient light of the room and keep the picture to its optimum performance for you.  So if you have got that switched on, it will basically adjust the Contrast and always keep it at optimum picture performance.

If we come out of there now and go into the Sound Menu, you go on here adjustments for Speech and Music.  Now, previously on Panasonic TVs, that is the only two preset modes you had - which just give you Base and Treble adjustment.  However, apart from Base and Treble, if you go into User Mode now, which you have never had before, we have an Equaliser - and so we can alter the Base and, yes, we can alter the Treble at this end - but we have also now got a range of mid-tone adjustments we can make.  So we can alter the tone in the centre here to bring out the vocals more, so you get more clarity of speech on there as well.

So, an excellent set.  It has got Surround Sound built in as well, where we have got Surround Sound Off - that is just standard stereo sound; V-Audio to throw the sound out at a wider angle, and V-Audio Surround to give you a Surround Sound effect as well. 

So not only excellent picture quality - we have also got a superb sound system in there. 

What I would say, because there is a lot to go through on this TV - the specification is higher than you will see on any other TV that is out there at the moment - is please give us a call at the shop or go to our website which is www.soundandvision.co.uk - or just click the link at the side of the screen if you want any more details.  Thank you.