Home > Consumer Reviews > Panasonic TH-50PX75U 50-Inch 720p Plasma HDTV

I've been Brand Loyal to Panasonic for over two decades now, but this TV is the Best. I've had this for over six weeks and still am amazed by the picture quality. Standard Def is good, but the HD is to a new level. Absolutely no complaints. This TV is 720p and the difference between this and the 1080p is marginal as best - I see no reason to spend a lot more for the 1080p. Highly reccomended.

Recently bought the Panasonic 50 inch 77U at Costco, which is the same as the 75U, but has side mounted speakers and anti-glare. Awesome quality, easy to operate and unbelievable picture. Currently have it hooked up to my DirecTV HD-DVR, and the HD channels are awesome, but the standard DTV channels also look very good for a flat screen. I'm using the settings that J. Rogers listed in his review of this TV, and find that they're awesome for DTV and HD-DVD.

Standard was a huge concern, as the children watch kids channels that are in SD only. Paid a visit to CC and the salesman placed a Sammy 4661 LCD and this unit on a SD DTV channel; sold on plasma hands down. Then you add the improvements that Plasma has accomplished lately, coupled with Panny's reputation and it was an easy decision. Yes, LCD may be the latest craze, but talk to the LCD owners re: their viewing experience outside of HD-DVD and HD channels, and you'll find some are quite unhappy. Nice to have a balanced product, which at this time, I can find NO NEGATIVES to report.

Update: Purchased the Toshiba A2 HD-DVD player from Amazon (includes 7 free HD-DVD's) plus an amazon initial price of $237. Awesome picture and for those waiting out the HD-DVD / BR format war, please note that a good quality HDMI upconverting player costs nearly the same as the lower end Toshiba HD-DVD A2. Just buy your HDMI cables thru amazon.

I got this TV last week and am still viewing at zooms it to avoid burnin of logos on the screen.
Basically this TV is 16:9 and regular transmission is 4:3 so to avoid seeing everybody a bit fattened up you will have to watch it with vertical side bars. If you want to avoid that - there is a zoom feature which will enlarge the picture so that it fits horizontally on you screen.. rest is up to you whether you want to see the top or bottom of the picture - but the zoom really puts lots of dots in the normal tranmission.
Even wide screen movies - which are transmitted as 4:3 by stations will require zooming - otherwise you will end up with vertical bars to have 4:3 adjustment, plus the horizontal bars transmitted by TV stations. If you zoom them then the bars will disappear but the picture quality will be low.

Now the good part - the DVD player (regular - old one) hooked it up via component cables and picture is awesome. Not even a single extra dot. You just have to configure your DVD player so that it knows you have 16:9 TV. you will have to probably buy only the movies which have "widescreen" written on them to make this TV completely useful.

The normal transmission from CNN, HBO and local channels is fine and of decent quality if you watch it in normal 4:3 modes.

Another thing.. I tried to configure the TV in the recommended settings by most gurus and the picture looked very dull and faint.. I then added more color/brightness to my screen as everybody has a different liking (that is why they gave the color setting.. right?)

I've had my TH-50PX75U for three weeks now and overall it's been a very positive experience full of excitement and no remorse. I can't imagine wanting anything else for the combination of picture quality and price.

I did a lot of research and had my heart set on a 46-47" 1080p LCD. I'd read a lot of bad things about plasma: burn-in, running hot, etc. I also didn't want to spend the kind of money 1080p plasmas were demanding and I had to have 1080p. As I researched the flat panels I heard more and more that at 50" and sitting 10' away, the human eye cannot see the difference between 1080p and 720p. I also found reviews like Consumer Reports, CNET, etc. giving better picture quality marks to plasma TVs. When I finally went to various local electronics stores to see for myself I was amazed that the lower priced 720p plasmas looked as good if not better than the expensive 1080p LCDs. Reviews of 720p plasmas all pointed squarely at the TH-50PX75U as head or near the head of the class. When the right Cyber Monday sale came along and I pounced. I haven't looked back.

I want to first start with the excellent packaging that made it very easy to move into my house. The box has handles at the bottom to make it easy for two people to carry. For a very heavy and expensive piece of electronics this is a very thoughtful design. Inside the box it's a minimum of waste and styrofoam. No overpackaging here.

Looking at the instructions, putting the TV on the stand look intimidating but it's very simple. There are arrows on the stand and on the TV that make it easy for two people to line it up and set it on the stand. Out of the box it connected right away via HDMI to my Comcast DVR and I was watching HD for the first time in my own home in less than an hour out of the box. Following advice on the internet for the break in period, I went into the Picture menu and took the TV out of Vivid mode and into Custom mode where I am using the following settings during the break-in period:

Picture: +12
Brightness: +5
Color: -2
Tint: -5
Sharpness: -3
Color temp.: Warm
Color mgmt.: Off
Video NR: Off
MPEG NR: Off
Black level: Light

With these settings the picture looks a little dark but it's just amazing. Panasonic actually recommends setting all these to 0 (50%) for the first 100 hours but that was intolerable. Just be sure to fill the screen and not have any bars along the sides or tops for too long. According to everything I've read burn-in is just not an issue but the break-in period will determine the life of the panel so it's best not to have it set too bright.

Watching football is a completely new experience. Not only is the detail amazing but seeing the whole field like this you see all you've been missing. The TV itself is beautiful. The shiny black bezel is very thin all around and the speakers are completely hidden. The power-on indicator is an unassuming little red light in the lower left hand corner. Red's probably not as cool as blue but I like it. There are two HDMI ports in the back along with two component inputs and two composite/RCA/S-video inputs. There is also an optical and RCA audio output on the back. I tried using the optical out but it will not output Dolby 5.1. You're better off going right from your STB or DVD player to your receiver with your optical/coax audio or better yet HDMI.

The remote is suprisingly small and not at all about trying to be a universal remote. This remote is for the TV. There is a button that brings up the menu to switch between inputs so going from cable or TV to DVD is easy. The inputs can be labelled or turned off if they aren't being used. The only input that cannot be turned off is the TV input which is too bad if you're using it as a monitor like I am (and I suspect most people are) since I have HD over cable. You can use the aspect button to cycle through 4:3, H-Fill, Just, Full and Zoom. It will remember for the particular signal (SD or HD) what you last selected. The sound from the speakers is pretty nice and once you adjust the bass and treble from the flat out-of-the-box settings it's even pretty nice to listen to music on while you are waiting for you HTIB to be delivered. Changing the picture settings is very easy and there are a lot of choices. There are no independent color settings in the user menus but lots of other things to fiddle with like those I illustrated above.

I can't wait to hang it on my wall. It's going to look like a picture. I also can't wait until the HD DVD wars are over. BBC's Planet Earth on Discovery HD Theater looks amazing in cable thru HD. I can just imagine with less compression from a DVD it must be out of this world. This TV makes me want a hi-def DVD player like you can't believe. It also makes me not want to watch SD any more. SD looks good but not great but what do you expect when you blow up what's a poor quality image to begin with. You are going to blown away when you watch you favorite shows in HD for the first time. I can't wait to see the Summer Olympics in HD in 2008. Everyone is coming to my house for the NFL playoffs / Superbowl. When is that HTIB going to get here?!

Pictures of the back of the set can be found in the product manual on the Panasonic website. For everything you want to know I highly recommend downloading the PDF from the Panasonic website.

Nothing is perfect however so I have a couple of nits. None of these are showstopper for me since I knew all about them except the last one going in. If I could give 4.9 stars I would only deduct .10.

- I would have liked a dedicated PC input. I am relieved to hear however that most of today's HTPCs support 720p output and using one of the HDMI inputs is not an issue except that I am using them all.

- I would have liked 3 HDMI inputs. I already have my Comcast DVR and a DVD player hooked into the HDMI inputs. That means only analog inputs are left available.

- Screen glare is kind of annoying when I notice it but once there's something on TV I find I stop noticing it and forget all about it. It will be better once we take the Christmas tree down and there isn't anything flashing on and off behind me :-). I am convinced the glass front is one of the reasons the picture is so good. It's not hidden behind tinted plastic like an LCD. You pick your poison.

- When the screen shows black and white (like credits) I see a rainbow effect -- like a yellow and blue flash if I move my eyes. My wife doesn't see this effect but I see it and it's annoying. Others have reported it on the internet so it's worth trying out in the store to see if it's tolerable for you. This would be my .10 deduction.

I am more than convinced this TV was the right choice over the Philips 47" 1080p LCD I was sure I was getting until I saw this TV. Not that the Philips wasn't nice but the Panasonic was just in the next tier above. If you can find a good deal (sub-1500$USD) pounce on this TV. You are not going to be disappointed.

Here is my initial opinion of this TV, which I've had for only a short while.

Picture
After adjusting the settings a bit, I was pleased with the picture. SD looked decent, and HD looked good. The blacks are very good, almost CRT like, and the brightness is fine, even it a well lit room. The white can seem dull sometimes, but I've only ever noticed it during some commercials with white backgrounds. For regular TV and movie watching, the white level seems great. Where this TV really seems to shine is its color. I am extremely impressed with how lifelike its colors are, especially in HD. The picture seems more realistic, compared to other models I had looked at.

At first, I did feel that I was missing a little bit of depth, compared to other TV's that I had considered, but I was happy overall. The picture looked good, but it didn't have the "wow factor" that I had hoped. Well, as a few days went by, my concerns began to slip away. The picture just seems to get better and better. I'm now seeing that depth I was missing before. HD looks amazing and SD looks pretty darn good.

Also, I have not experienced any image retention, screen door effect, or "burn in" what-so-ever, and believe me, I've been looking for it. I was also originally concerned that I would miss out on the best possible picture with only a 720P set, but I didn't think that 1080P is worth the extra premium for my situation, and I still feel that way.

Sound
I was expecting small plastic sounding speakers, but what I got was rather impressive sound from this set. It's not quite as good as the sound from the PZ700U, but is more than adequate for watching TV shows and movies.

Features/Options
This TV has basic inputs and options. Nothing fancy, but very functional. It would be nice to have another HDMI and a PC input. A swivel stand would also be nice. The remote is very basic, nice big buttons, but the button locations take a bit of getting used to. There are a good number of picture adjustments, but an auto adjustment would be nice for inexperienced users.

Build Quality
The TV itself seems well built. Its hefty, and feels like a well built piece. Connections all feel solid, and the casing feels strong as well. The stand is sturdy, and weights quite a bit too. The remote is decent, but I've seen nicer. Not a big deal since I will be using the cable box remote anyway.

My Grading
Picture: A
Sound: B+
Options/Features: C+
Build Quality: A
Value: A+

Overall: A
I am very impressed with this TV. I was initially afraid I would feel regret for not getting the "latest" and "best", but I am 100% satisfied with my purchase. I spent months comparing TVs, and my conclusion was that the 50PX75U is the best value for my money, and with my experience so far, I still believe that is true.