FlyingScot July 25, 2008 13:10
You can invest the change from 2 grand in some incontinence pants....... or a new sofa.
heavyhank July 25, 2008 08:53
It`s a tuesday morning, the sun is shinning and there`s a mammoth of a box in my living room, containing quite possibly the biggest purchase i`ve ever made.
There are no words to describe my elation as i prised open this monstrosity of cardboard revealing its inner delight.
Putting it together, easy peazy. This thing was a lot less cumbersome than the 36 panny crt that had served me til now..i remember having to attach a railway sleeper to it and hire a small army just to lift it, so the fact i could manage this one by myself was a mighty fine start.
Anyway. Having no statalite dish meant no free sat for me just yet. but that wasn`t the point!
The year i spent delliberating over where my hard earned cash should go led to the conclusion that in this rapidly changing market, this tv was probably the most feature packed and future proof purchase i could make (for my budget). knowing that panny could deliver..this was my choice.
When first swithed on (after working through the set up menu) the first thing that popped up was a dirty and blurry image of star trek next gen on my virgin STB...my heart sank! although i wasn`t expecting the earth..some sd performance would have been nice. However it soon became clear to me that this was an isolated experience (after all i belive this series was made about 100bc)
As i switched to discovery channel and newer material, it soon became clear that this thing could do sd very nicely. the image although not so sharp as my 36" was still very comfortable viewing. Colours were vibrant and motion was well calculated, not to mention the size of the image! All was going well.
Now onto HD. I put the spiderman bluray into the tray and sat back. After a few seconds of watching the tv work out what it was doing..bang! i was greeted with such imagery that i actually leaked out a little pee! the blacks were stunning, the colours popped and the detail was very good.
However, it didnt take long to realise that something wasn`t quite playing ball..motion!
It seemed every time the camera panned, even slowly, the whole thing became almost unwatchable. Now i understand that 24p isn`t ideal for movie watching but this was just silly.
My dissapointment led me to wander hopelessly through the menus, now un-interested in any imageery this tv had to offer..utterly un-happy,it seemed the whole purpose for buying this tv had been crushed. When suddenly i discovered this odd little setting that i remember reading about but not paying much attention to...
Intelligent frame creation.
After switching this on my seamingly empty bladder was again in spasms..WOW!
This looked real!! even the missus, usually completely un-interested in such things, jumped out of her seat! The only way i can describe it is imagine watching those documentry programes that show the making of a film, where everything looks unpolished and the actors look like real people and not works of art. I could almost see the make-up! In fact, the whole thing looked so real that the CGI looked embarrasingly fake! I was blown away.
All of a sudden it became clear to me what 24p was about and, i believe is this tv`s best feature. Coupled with 100hz technology this tv is capable of delivering breathtakingly smooth motion with only the fastest of camera pans showing just a hint of frame rate.
Having not seen many other tv`s running, its hard for me to make a comparrison. However, one of the few i have seen running was the sammy 50" 720p and although impressive, the difference shats from a great hieght on the argument that 1080p isnt noticably better than 720p.
All in all i would have to say that this tv is a very decent purchase. The price more or less matches the performance and the list of features means lots of tweakabillity for personal taste.
The colours (probaly due to 10bit processing) are fantastic, the black levels are good, and motion with IFC is eye popping.
My only gripe is the fact that shadow detail could be better although still not to be laughed at.
Based on my limeted range of comparrison i would give this tv 8.5/10