My Butt Won't Get Off The Couch
Written: Sep 28 '04 (Updated Jan 16 '06)
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Pros: Incredible picture. Deep rich colors. Deep blacks. Lots of features.
Cons: Price, Plasmas generate heat and consume much power. Poor connector placement. Butt rash.
The Bottom Line: I'd buy it again and again and again. Best picture I ever saw on an HDTV plasma unit.
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| glenhamilton's Full Review: Panasonic TH-50PHD6UY 50 in. TV |
I have come back to update this review with more information, now that we have had the TV for over a year. Fortunately, the picture is still crisp, bright, and a pleasure to view, there are no troubles, and it works as good as new. My wife is still amazed at the richness of the colors on HDTV shows. My friends won't go home at night. Now there are newer versions of this TV at a less price of course.
My review for this TV are the same comments I would make if I were reviewing my wife: This TV is absolutely beautiful to look at it and you can't stop watching it, the initial cost is steep, regular daily energy usage, it turns on quickly, needs some accessories, will likely last for many years, and you will spend a lot of time with it. Ok, in all fairness, my wife's review of me is analogous with a used, black and white TV.
We don't really watch TV as much as you would think. It amounts to viewing some comedies, nature shows (for our son), occasional sports, science shows, holiday specials, and a few other movies. After doing a couple of week’s research on various brands and models, I settled on this one. Being an electronics engineer, I probably did more analysis on this stuff than was really needed. You know engineers... they over analyze everything.
WHY BUY THIS PLASMA:
If you want the best high definition and color possible, nothing beats plasma TV, and this one has superior specifications. The TV has a small space/depth footprint as it is about 4 inches (or less) in depth. If you are concerned about purchase price, power usage, or "burn in issues" (read below about these issues), then plasma is probably not for you. Consider a less expensive LCD instead.
WHERE TO BUY:
For something this expensive, the natural tendency is to buy from a local retailer and have them deliver and install it, especially, if it is a wall mount job. I'm a bit adventurous, so I bought it from one of the large on-line retailers that specialized in plasma and LCD TV sales and has a great reputation for delivering. WARNING: There are lots of scam artists out there ready to take your money by offering great-sounding deals on legitimate looking web sites. You better stick with one of the very few reputable suppliers that is an "Authorized Dealer" for the brand you are buying. Don't take the dealers word for it. Call the manufacturer to verify it, and ask about the dealer. Our experience was great, and uneventful. The TV arrived well crated, in original packaging, shipped by a company that specializes in transporting these devices, and included a tilt indicator to show if the TV had been improperly handled. The bottom line savings to us was $700 better than the lowest price local chain store (after shipping costs, and no sales tax). We also bought the 5-year extended in-home repair warranty, which added 5% to the cost of the TV. Again, you want that warranty to be provided by a nationally recognized leader. If you are not so adventurous and buy locally, visit ALL the stores in your area. We saw big difference in prices. End of the calendar quarter promotions are not uncommon.
SPACE & WEIGHT: As for weight, I'm not going to compare that spec to my wife. I'm not that stupid. We didn't want to obstruct our nice window views with a big screen TV, so we opted for a flat panel TV that could be mounted above the fireplace. The point here is that a small footprint is one of the biggest advantages of a plasma TV. You can mount it on the wall with a very sturdy bracket. Even when you place them on a TV stand, you can push them practically against the wall to save more room for your kids to damage your carpet! This model weighs 110 pounds, so it surely is not lightweight, and you will want to be sure you have plenty of help to setup the TV without risking damage of dropping it or tipping it over. This weight is typical for 50-inch models at this time. Technology advances will surely lower that weight in the future.
WHERE DO YOU INSTALL IT:
I suggest you mount it on a wall to get it completely out of the way and run less risk of damage by kids or other forces of nature (like earth tremors if you live in California). We ordered a separate steel wall mount bracket ($150) that is very strong. If there is an earthquake that destroys our house, I'll bet that the TV will still be mounted to what’s left of the chimney. The bracket have a wide "V" shape cutout so you can lift the TV above the "V" and lower it into position where it will securely rest.
The biggest problem was mounting the TV since it weights so much. We didn't have a team of weight lifters to mount that thing, and being that it is really expensive, I didn't want to take any risks with it. Thus, I mounted a strong steel eye-hook into a stud near the ceiling of the chimney, tested it for 250 pounds of pull, and then hooked up a ratchet strap to pull up the TV and slide it down into the bracket. Then I removed the eyebolt and patched the tiny hole. The ratchet system ($12 at hardware store) prevented the TV from falling as we lifted it.
If you are mounting on a stand, consider adding a flexible safety strap to prevent it from tipping over. Although it appears to be stable on its included stand since the TVis somewhat top heavy.
CONNECTIONS:
This model has practically every connection you would want to use. "Component Video" is one of the more widely used standards in the industry. Newer digital signal standards like DVI or HDMI are starting to replace component video and reduce the amount of cabling that is needed. Hooking up the TV is straightforward and probably does not warrant any further detail. BE SURE to connect all of the cables to the unit BEFORE mounting it, otherwise you won't be able to connect them easily. Panasonic could have put more thought into the placement of cables. Even though I don't use the s-video connection (we use component inputs), I hooked up an s-video cable just in case I want to use it later. I’ll just end it by saying you will want to think about how to route cables so they are not visually distracting if the TV is mounted on the wall. I used a hollow "U" shaped wood moldings from the hardware store to run vertically along side the fireplace to hide the wires. It looks as though it is part of fireplace. If all your video components use DVI, use that connection for best quality. Second choice should be Component Video. If you are resorting to use s-video, you probably are wasting a lot of money on this nice TV for that. Lastly, there are some video connections on the front panel. It is nice to connect our video camera to the front panel jacks and watch our videos in great detail.
LET'S FIRE UP THAT PUPPY:
Once the TV was connected to our HDTV TiVo receiver and surround sound system, we turned it on and sat there in amazement to watch HDTV for hours. Regular broadcast just can't match HDTV. We watch a lot more TV now as a result of this purchase, but we are really enjoying what we watch, and not wasting time with commercials. Our son watches more of the nature shows now without getting bored, hence he learns more. The TV appearance is equally attractive and looks nice on the wall. Colors are richly saturated and the "Black Level" is unmatched by any other TVs at this time. We don't use the built-in TV sound. That is pumped out through the surround sound system by our separate Sony receiver.
"IMAGE BURN-IN":
You will hear a lot about this phenomenon associated with plasma TVs. It refers to a temporary "shadow" (possibly permanent in some cases) where color degradation occurs on parts of the screen when you leave a static (non moving) image on the screen for extended periods of time. This should be a strong hint to not put your VCR or DVD on pause mode while you go talk on the phone for an hour. More importantly, don't let your kids use plasma with game units. Kids tend to pause the games for long periods of time, and even if they don't, the borders and menus tend to be static images. There have been times when we accidentally pause images for periods of up to an hour, but we have not noticed any ill effect from doing it.
ENERGY USE:
All this doesn't come for free. On the down side, plasma TVs in general will draw more electricity; typically 600 watts or more for 50 inches models. With a national average of 15 cents per kilowatt-hour, that means it’s going to cost you at least 8 cents per hour to operate. It sounds cheap, but adds up. The industry reports that an average viewer watches 75 hours of TV per month (not us). Thus, this TV will cost an average viewer about $6 per month. However, if you are considering a TV this expensive, you probably aren't concerned about energy costs.
REMOTE CONTROL AND FUNCTIONS:
Gee, there isn't enough space here to list all this stuff. You should check out the specs page. We used the remote control for a few days, but only to determine what functions we liked. The Panasonic remote was easy to use, functioned well at long ranges, and had several dedicated fast-action buttons. Yet, it is just one more remote we don't need laying around. I programmed the functions into our "Harmony 659" universal remote (I have a review of it), and placed the Panasonic remote in the drawer along with 12 others.
A downside with HDTV in general is that there still is not much content out there yet being transmitted in high definition at this time, but that is changing rapidly. We subscribed to a DirecTV high definition package that cost about $10 per month extra, but really worth it in our opinion. Once you start watching content in High Definition, you won't want to watch standard definition TV again.
SUMMARY:
High initial price.
Higher energy usage (all plasmas, not just this one).
Poorly located cable connections (if mounting on a wall).
Brilliant saturated colors with deep black levels.
Very heavy, but small space footprint. (all plasmas)
More display modes and features that you will likely use.
Plenty bright even in brightly lighted rooms.
Possible image burn-in issues (all plasmas)
Consider an extended in-home repair warranty.
We are really satisfied with this purchase and would do it again. Prices continually drop on these TVs so pretty soon they will be available in most people's price range.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 4700
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Epinions.com ID:
glenhamilton
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Member: Glen Hamilton
Location: Northern California
Reviews written: 14
Trusted by: 15 members
About Me:
Engineering Executive (electronics and software)
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