Panasonic VIERA TX-P50VT20B (TXP50VT20) 50inch 3D Plasma Television With Freeview-HD

I am going to briefly run through some of the general spec on the TV with you now, and then what we will do, we will spin the TV round and have a look at some of the sockets on the rear of the set.

So, first of all, the most special feature on this range of TV is the fact that they are 3D Ready.  They are equipped for 3D broadcast or 3D Blu-Ray DVD viewing.  The TVs themselves are also 600Hz sub-frame scanning - so extremely fast control of movement.  If you consider a normal TV scans at 50Hz, which means it is fifty pictures per second making up your image - these sets scan at a ratio of 600Hz.

Also the Contrast ratio - which we have spoken about several times before in various other video clips - is one of the most important features to look for on a TV.  The Contrast ratio is relevant, whether you are watching Standard Definition, or High Definition, or in fact 3D viewing - whatever it may be.  It determines how good this black level is.  So the higher the Contrast ratio, the better the black level.  The Contrast ratio on this TV is to infinity; it has THE best Contrast level of any TV you will purchase. It is un-measurable - the black level is that good.  So, the inkier that black level, the more natural colour palette you achieve, the better the depth of field, and the more detail you get on darker scenes as well.  So, one of the highest Contrast ratios.

What we will do - as I said, I don’t want to go through all the spec with you now - we will spin the TV round and we will have a look at some of the sockets on the rear of the set.  Okay, so let’s run through the sockets on the rear of the set.  The socket we have here is for Freesat. This TV has got Freesat HD built into it - so if you want to get BBC HD, ITV HD, then you can do that through a standard satellite dish; just take a cable from the dish into that socket there and you are up and running with a Free HD service - and that is called Freesat.

Just to the right of that you have got an Ethernet port, so if you want to connect this up to your computer system at home you can do so via Ethernet - you have got that on there as well.  Coming down, we have got an Optical Out so you can feed the sound digitally from this TV through an external amplifier.  So if you want to get Dolby Digital from the TV for Surround Sound, you do it through that port there where you have got Optical Out.

Underneath that you have got a VGA connection for a PC connection.  Just to the right of that we have got Audio Out which is the red and white audio there; so yet again you can feed the signal out of here for Analogue Sound, right and left, the stereo sound, out of this TV through an external amplifier.  And next to it you have got Audio In, which in conjunction with the Component feed.  So here we have got the red/blue/green connection - DVDs, some games consoles use this connection.  That is your picture information for the input, and that is the audio input to marry up with the picture information there.

Just to the right of that you have then got two Scart inputs - AV1 and AV2.  And then running down here we have got three HDMIs all in a row down here for your High Definition connections.

Just next to that we have got your aerial coaxial socket.  So if you plug your standard aerial into here, this TV, as well as Freesat HD, has also got a Freeview HD Tuner built into it.  So through this aerial socket you will get BBC HD, ITV HD and Channel 4 HD - as long as they are broadcasting in your area.

On the side of the set we have two USB sockets - so there are two USB sockets just here.  So, yet again, if you have got any information on a memory stick you can just pop it into a socket on the side of here and you can have photographs or music - whatever you have got stored on there - coming through the TV.

You have also got an SD Card reader - so if you have got any footage on an SD Card from a digital camera or camcorder you can put that into there, and have your video or still footage on the TV. 

You have got, coming down from there, another HDMI - making four HDMI sockets in total. There is then a headphone socket just underneath that.  And then you have got the Composite Video Input - the yellow/red/white inputs.  Yet again, things like Wii Games consoles use those sockets.  Well, you have got that on there as well.  And then just underneath there you have got a physical On/Off switch which is just to the side of the TV as well.

That completes the array of sockets - a multiple array of different sockets on there; two HD Tuners, Freesat HD and Freeview HD.

So we will spin the set round now and we will go through some of the features on the TV.  Okay, so let’s quickly just recap on some of the spec on this range of products.  They are Full HD, 720p, 1080i and 1080p resolution; 600Hz scanning - one of the fastest scanning ratios on any TV so they are going to cope with extreme movement really well.  The highest Contrast ratio that you will get on any TV that is out there at the moment - the Contrast ratio is to infinity, it is un-measurable; so achieving that really good black level, so a really good depth of field and good detail on dark scenes.  They have Panasonic’s Neo PDP plasma screen in here, giving it up to a hundred thousand hours’ lifespan.  If you compare that to many other products that are around sixty thousand hours - one of the most longest-live products you will achieve from a TV set as well, at a hundred thousand hours.

They are 3D Ready; they come with two pairs of glasses - so you get two pairs of these glasses with the TV.  You can buy these individually as well.  They are approximately, at the moment, between £90 to £100 to buy individually.  Gone are the days of those old cardboard glasses with the coloured lenses.  What you have now - I will show you these here - those are the glasses.  They are powered; there is a battery in them - the battery is a little watch battery, it gives you up to about 280 hours.  Click the little button there - and that powers them up - you can see the little red light coming on there.  They are now powered and ready for use.  Obviously I can’t show you a 3D image on here because I am not showing it on a 3D camera - you are probably watching this on a standard 2D TV as well.  But it is permanently on display in our retail store - so pop in for a demonstration at any time.

The sets themselves have a really good Menu system.  On the remote control you just press the Menu button and on the Menu it gives us Picture, Sound and Setup.  You just jog it up and down and on the remote, highlight which one you want, press OK and then you have got full access then to all the settings for adjusting the Contrast; then jog down to the Brightness - and you can just set that up to your own liking, however you want it.  You can tweak that up however you wish.

If you come down in that Menu, you can also get into the Advanced Settings on the set, and you can start playing around there then with the three primary colours - the Blue, the Red and the Green - and you can tweak that picture up to exactly the way that you want it.  If you completely mess it up and you are not happy with the picture; if you get a little bit lost in those settings, just go to Reset to Default, press OK and it will put everything back to the manufacturer’s settings for you.

If we just come out of that and go down to the Sound Menu, you have got preset modes yet again for Speech and Music, which gives you a predetermined Base and Treble level - but you can, yet again, you can go into those and alter the Base and the Treble to wherever you want it.  But if you go up from there and into the User Menu, it puts a little Equaliser on there where you can alter not just the Base at this end - but you can also alter the Treble and then the Midrange adjustments as well.  So you have got a lot more variation over the sound once you get into the Equaliser on there as well. 

It really has a superb sound system built into this TV.  It has also got Surround Sound as well, where it forces the sound out and around you - and works really well.  So you have got Surround Sound built into the set; you can switch that off - you can have it just Standard Stereo Sound, or into Surround Sound.  So a very good sound system in here as well as superb picture performance.

One other thing you have got in here - you have got Viera Cast.  If we just enter that now; if you have got wireless Internet at all, you have got the option then of getting some web services through your TV - you could hardwire this as well - which then we can jump into things like YouTube.  And if we press OK we can go into things like Most Viewed and it will give us various listings there of anything that we want to watch.  And we can scan down that list on there.  And all that you do is highlight the one that you want to have a look at; press OK and it will display it down here on the right-hand side of the screen.

If we want to make this image bigger, we take this box - just click it over to the right - it is now highlighted over here.  You can see that box flicking over.  Press OK and then we will have it full-screen on there.  You can turn up the volume - and then you have got the match displayed on your screen there as well.

I will just come out of that, and out of that again.  That is Most Viewed; you have got Top Rated - or you can actually do a manual search - if you want to search for something through YouTube, you can do that through the TV as well.  All you do is go down there, jump down to the alphabets that are on the screen; access those and you can punch in whatever you want on there as well.

Let’s just come out of there for a moment.  We can also go onto Eurosport - and it will display what they are showing on Eurosport, and give us various options on there as well.  So if we want to go to this section on Liverpool there we can just press OK - and yet again that will be displayed on this side of the screen.  I will just come out of that.  And if we click over there and down, we have got Euronews.  So you have got various web functions through the TV set itself. 

You have also got - just one other thing through there - access to DVD Movies on Demand.  So I have got Movies on Demand there; so if we click on that it will give us a box display down here, which it normally displays around six movies in the box, and there are normally a couple of pages as well.  You can highlight any of those movies - and it will give you a price for the movie as well.  So we can click through any of those movies that are on there - and if we want to watch Sherlock Holmes at £3.49 we can access that and pay for that online as well.

So a TV there which is packed full of features.  To be quite honest, there are so many things to go through on this TV, it is impossible to go through them all.  I mean, you have got things like Picture in Picture on here as well, where you could have, say, BBC on one half of the screen and some satellite programme showing on the other half of the screen.  So, as I said, it is packed absolutely full of features.

What I would say, if you would like more details on this, please give me a call - my name is Chris - on 01204 861 861.  Or go to our website, www.soundandvision.co.uk - or just click the link at the side of the screen for more details.

Thank you.