Panasonic VIERA TXP50V20 (TX-P50V20B) 50in Plasma TV with Freesat and Freeview-HD

They are finished in this slimline grey metallic finish; a beautiful finish to the TVs.  They are full HD - so they have covered all three formats of High Definition.  They are also 600Hz scanning.  Now, if you take, say, a standard TV which scans at 50Hz, which means it is fifty images per second making up the picture - these are 600Hz.  So it is going to cope with fast movement extremely well.

We are also looking at a Contrast ratio (now we have said before that the Contrast ratio is one of the most important factors to look at on the TV; it determines how good the black level is - the better the black level, the deeper that black level, the more natural colour palette you achieve, the better depth of field, and the more detail you get on darker scenes) - well the Contrast ratio on here is five million to one.  It is one of the highest Contrast ratios you will achieve on any TV.

We will go through the sockets first of all on the TV.  You are looking on the rear of the set:  Three HDMI sockets.  There are two Scarts.  There is also a Component In - which is the red/green/blue socket - things like Xbox 360 use that; you have got that on there as well.  There is also an Ethernet connection on the rear so you can connect this up to your computer system at home.  You have also got Optical Out - so it is a Digital Optical socket to feed the sound out of the TV through an external amplifier.  You have also got Analogue Audio Out.  And there is a PC socket on here so if you want to plug your laptop directly into it you can do that through the D-Sub socket or through one of the HDMIs.  You have also got an Analogue Audio Out.  And there is also a satellite connection on the back of here as well, which I will come back to in just a moment.

On the side of the TV, you have got a further HDMI - so that makes four HDMIs in total.  You have also got two USB sockets on the side of the set.  There is an SD Card reader - so if you have a digital still camera or a video camera which takes an SD Card, you can slot it into the side of the TV and have your footage displayed onscreen.  There is also Composite Video In - things like Wii Games consoles use Composite - you have got that on the side of the TV.  And there is also a headphone socket on there as well.

So, let’s just go back to that socket on the back of this TV.  It has got a satellite connection on the rear of here.  This particular range of TVs have got two Tuners in them:  They have got Freesat HD and they have got Freeview HD.  So with the satellite connection on here, you can connect it to a standard Sky satellite dish and you will get BBC HD and ITV HD without any additional cost.

However, you have also got now an HD Freeview Tuner in this set.  So if you live in a region where they broadcast HD just through your TV aerial, you can utilise that on this TV and get BBC HD, ITV HD, Channel 4 HD - just through your standard TV aerial system.  So two HD Tuners built into the set as well.

So, we will just recap slightly there:  You have got a set here which has an extremely high Contrast - five million to one; 600Hz scanning; it uses the top plasma screen - the Neo PDP plasma screen - so extremely long-live products.  You have got two HD Tuners, HD Freeview and HD Freesat as well.  So, specification is really unsurpassed - extremely high spec.

The TV menus themselves are very straightforward and easy to go through.  On the remote control you have a button that says Menu.  If we press the Menu button on there, we get the Menu onscreen.  Three Menus:  Picture, Sound and Setup.  We will take the top one first of all:  We will just press OK on the remote and it puts us into the Picture Menu.  At the top of the screen there we have got preset modes for Normal, Dynamic, THX, Cinema - and back to Normal. 

If we take the THX mode that is on there, because the Contrast is so high on this TV, because it can achieve certain white and black levels, there are very few panels which are allowed to display this THX logo.  It basically means that if you get a DVD which has been recorded in THX, you select THX on the screen - it will portray that DVD for Contrast and Brightness levels exactly the way the director wanted you to view that movie.  So, as I say, it is a THX-rated Panel as well - so extremely high-rated plasma panel on this TV. 

If we go down from there - we are in Normal mode at the moment - we have got options to adjust individually the Contrast, the Brightness, the Colour and the Sharpness to however you want it. 

You have also got on there a system called C.A.T.S. which is an automated adjustment for the Contrast level.  So if we switch that on - I don’t know if you can see the actual Contrast changing there on the set as we flip that between Off and On.  If we put it on, there is a photocell in the front of the TV which constantly measures the ambient light of the room, to keep the TV at always optimum Contrast performance for you as well. 

As we come down from there, you have also got things like Picture in Picture - so if we had, say, another source plugged into this TV, such as a satellite, we can have the standard analogue TV picture on here as well as your satellite picture.  You can split the screen half-and-half or you can have it just displayed in the corner of the screen.  If we access that now, it puts the blank box down here because we have nothing plugged into any of the AV sources - but we have got the option then, once we are in that mode, if we just come back to that a second - we can take that off - but if we just go back into that, for the Picture in Picture, and access that again, we can also adjust that so we can split it on the screen itself to go half-and-half, which we will show in just a second - there we go.  So we can split that - so if we had, say the TV broadcast here, which are on here now, we could have the Sky image in this section of the screen also.

So we will just come out of that now.  There we go - back to the full screen again.

So you have got, in that Picture Menu, all the adjustments for the Contrast, Brightness, and Colour, and Sharpness - as well as Picture in Picture on there.  If we just come out of that just for a second; if we go into Setup - and all I am doing is clicking down on the remote control here.  Press OK - we have got these Advanced Settings which are switched off.  We click those On, and then go back to the Picture Settings, we get additional features on here now:  Advanced Settings - which wasn’t there before.  If we access those, you have now got individual settings to the three primary colours - for the Red, the Green, and the Blue for the Gain and the Cutoff.  So you can really tweak this picture up to get the optimum performance from it.

If we come out of there just for a moment and then go down to the Sound Menu:  You have also got an extremely good sound system built into this TV.  You have got adjustments for Music and Speech.  But you have also got a User Mode.  In the User Mode it then gives you access to a Graphic Equaliser.  So as well as just adjusting the Base and the Treble, you can adjust the Base at this end of the region here - but you have also got all the Midrange adjustments as well as the high frequency tones as well for the Treble.  So you can really tweak the audio to exactly how you want it for Base and Treble.

If we come down from there as well, this TV has also got a Surround Sound system built into it.  It doesn’t come with additional speakers - what it does is throw the sound out and around you just from the TV set.  So we have got Surround Off at the moment; we have got Virtual Audio that will throw it out at a wider angle - so you get a better sound stage at the front - but then we have got Surround Mode, Pro Surround Mode - which attempt to throw the sound out and around you as well.  So a very good sound system.

What I would say, if you would like more details on this TV - because it is far too much to go through in this short video clip - is please give me a call.  My name’s Chris - you can get hold of me at Sound and Vision on 01204 861 861.  Go to our website, which is www.soundandvision.co.uk - you will get more details there.  Or just click the link at the side of the screen.

We also at the moment have a refurbishment going on at our Leeds store, so by the time you are looking at this video clip we may also have the Leeds store open as well - which all the details will be on our website for that store as well. 

Thank you for watching.