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  • Introduction

  • Design

  • Smart TV Features

  • Picture Quality

  • 3D

  • Conclusion

  • Science Introduction

  • Black Level

  • Viewing Angle

  • 3D Performance

  • Other Tests

  • Introduction
  • Design
  • Smart TV Features
  • Picture Quality
  • 3D
  • Conclusion
  • Science Introduction
  • Black Level
  • Viewing Angle
  • 3D Performance
  • Other Tests

Introduction

The Panasonic Viera TC-P65VT50 is swinging for the fences and both our objective and subjective tests have shown that it’s a home run. Accurate color, smooth motion, and well above average audio quality are just a few perks this TV brings to the table. If you’re looking for a TV with solid core performance, 3D capability, streaming content, or just want a suitable host to your home theater hub, the VT50 is an expensive—but worthwhile—investment.

Design

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Panasonic's minimalist design aesthetic is quite attractive.

Panasonic’s TC-P65VT50 is straddling the line between conservation and progress. It’s quite thin for such a massive plasma, though it dwarfs smaller televisions that squat within the shadow of this colossus. Despite its considerable weight and size, it’s not the monstrosity it could have been. Panasonic specifically followed a “single plate of glass” design to minimize bezel and give the appearance that the display is floating comfortably in mid air. The stand, which upon first glance looks perfectly boring, is actually laid over with a gradient that brightens from black to white.

It’s clear that Panasonic has learned a lot from its past design choices.

The on-set controls and ports are tucked away behind the TV, leaving its face blemish-free. We feel that any changes in port or control placement might have been overkill, but Panasonic hit a smart middle ground between over-innovating and clinging to safe harbor. The P65VT50 has 4 HDMI inputs, and 3 USB inputs, and a dedicated slot for an SD/SDXC card on the left side of the L-shaped port cutout on the back of the TV. The lower portion features vertically inclined inputs. Here, you’ll find inputs for an Ethernet cable (LAN), a VGA cable for PC connection, the antenna jack for broadcast cable, and a Component/AV splitter. The TV comes with a combined component/composite cable that allows for either an HD (component) connection or an SD (composite) connection. This split connection only allows for one component or one composite connection at a time.

It’s clear that Panasonic has learned a lot from its past design choices—the VT50 is one of their most handsome plasmas to date. Its design has been improved from last year’s VT30, plus it’s much slimmer and more aesthetically sound than the VT20 series from two years ago.

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Smart TV Features

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Panasonic’s Viera Connect smart platform is faster and easier to use thanks to some smooth processing.

The Panasonic VT50 doesn’t have any new features where its menus or smart content are concerned, but the overall experience feels snappier thanks to cloud-based processing. While we've traditionally maligned the processing speed and content found within the Viera Connect platform, it seems like Panasonic has finally gotten its act together.

Panasonic’s smart platform is still organized in a terrible fashion.

Panasonic’s smart platform is still organized in a terrible fashion, employing a labyrinth of menus restricting your access to basic content. Fortunately, the TC-P65VT50’s internet features are much more smoothly integrated into the TV and everything from apps to web sites loads a lot quicker. The Touch Pad remote, coupled with this new speed, vastly improves your browsing experience.

The 3D, USB, and settings menus remain unchanged—and that's fine by us. Picture, sound, and 3D settings are still allocated to azure-colored, opaque menus that hug the left side of the screen to allow live previews of changes in settings. The USB menu houses all of your picture, video, and music content under one roof, be it connected via flash drive or through Panasonic’s wireless Viera Link system.

{{photo_gallery "Software and Internet Landing Page Photo", "Internet Features 1 Photo", "Internet Features 2 Photo", "Internet Features 3 Photo", "Browser 1 Photo", "Browser 2 Photo", "Browser 3 Photo", "Apps 1 Photo", "Apps 2 Photo", "Apps 3 Photo", "Local Media Playback 1 Photo", "Local Media Playback 2 Photo", "Menu Main Photo", "Menu 2 Photo"}}

Picture Quality

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While we’d expect nothing less for an MSRP of $3699, it’s always a breath of fresh air to see a TV that doesn’t cut corners.

Over time, we've found that rating and testing the average HDTV—be it an LCD or a Plasma—is often a game of give and take. If a TV has great core performance and screen dynamics, it sometimes has the drawback of using an excess of electricity. Other times, we'll find that if a TV is very bright, it’s not very dark.

This is flagship quality.

This is not the case with the VT50. While Panasonic’s smart platform is poorly designed, everything else that this TV brings with it is top quality. It tested with inky deep blacks, accurate and vivid colors, and ear-pleasing audio. As we expected, it handles motion-based content with ease. What does performance like this add to your electric bill? Only around $20 per year. This is flagship quality, hands down.

3D

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Panasonic’s 3D technology is currently playing catch-up to LG and Samsung, but it’s definitely hot on their heels.

3D is not so new anymore. Sure, it’s a lot newer than color talkies or wireless remotes, but it’s becoming more and more common amongst new TVs. 3D is also sweeping through the world of cinema—be that good or bad.

There are a number of things we look for when we’re testing a TV’s 3D capabilities. First and most importantly, how is the native 3D? Native, full, or “real” 3D is achieved when a TV receives the proper signal from a connected Blu-ray device via HDMI. This is the most immersive, and unfortunately, most problematic area of 3D performance because it stresses the back, middle, and foreground 3D effects to their limits. This often results in distracting crosstalk and greatly diminished color and contrast performance. Second, if the TV has a 2D-to-3D conversion setting (and most of them do), we subjectively test whether it’s convincing or just a tacked-on gimmick. Finally, are glasses included? Are they way too expensive for any sane person? Are they comfortable?

In 2011, Panasonic was a key player in the budding 3D market. That's not saying much, though, as 3D looked universally awful last year. That's why we were surprised to see fairly impressive—though still imperfect—3D imaging from the P65VT50. Its active 3D suffered from mild crosstalk issues (image ghosting), but for the most part we found it to be palatable, convincing, and headache-free. Their 3D technology now maintains better color integrity, but at a huge cost to contrast. And the 2D-to-3D conversion is a decent distraction, but simply isn’t convincing enough to stay fresh in the long run.

Unfortunately, Panasonic has elected to not include any of its “active shutter” 3D glasses—retail price $60 to $100—with the VT50. This is a huge oversight on Panasonic’s part; considering that its 3D tech is decent this year, it's a shame you'll have to shell out so much extra money just to enjoy it.

Conclusion

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It's worth getting excited about the VT50.

2012 has so far introduced some excellent flagships from LG, Samsung, and Toshiba. The Panasonic Viera TC-P65VT50 is one of the finest we’ve reviewed this year.

The VT50 has highly accurate color, a large contrast ratio, smooth motion, and a wide viewing angle. It’s everything you’d want in a plasma, no matter the price or extraneous features. On top of that, it tested with well above average audio, and 3D that—while not as convincing as LG’s or Samsung’s—does not detract from the TV’s overall performance.

While Panasonic’s smart platform is organized in a clunky, heavy-handed fashion, the company's cloud-based processing is finally coming into its own. The P65VT50 showed us a much quicker interface and shorter load times. Its system menus are easy to use and easy to read, plus the new Touch Pad remote brings with it the same ease of use as a wireless mouse. This makes web browsing much more pleasant—at least, as far as TV browsers are concerned.

There’s no arguing that the Panasonic VT50 is a visually appealing TV. Even if you don’t like the gradient stand, its “glass and metal” design gives it a classy air, despite being so large. Its overall design could only be improved if Panasonic found a way to let it swivel without compromising the sturdiness of the stand. It's a solid all-around TV, but with comparable flagship plasmas retailing at around $2,200, the VT50's $3,699 MSRP is a little steep by comparison.

Science Introduction

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Overall, the P65VT50 excelled by performance standards, testing with accurate color, a wide contrast ratio, a large viewing angle, and smooth, error-free motion. This is a key formula which leaves little room for any drawbacks—in fact, even the VT50's audio was above average, something most people wouldn't worry about when considering a television purchase. In short, the VT50 performs the way a flagship television from a household-name company like Panasonic ought to.

Black Level

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In the tradition of the plasma TVs before it, the VT50's black level was impressively dark.

Black level is the most important aspect of the contrast ratio formula, with the caveat that the TV still needs to be bright enough to be watchable. Black level is hugely important in bolstering a TV's contrast ratio, determining aspects of its viewing angle, and perhaps most importantly, providing a convincing base for shadowy or dark content. For example, a scene that takes the viewer through space will be much more realistic looking if the space is immersive in its darkness.

The VT50's black level of 0.03 cd/m2 is very dark. It's not the darkest we've ever measured, but many plasmas and almost all LCDs struggle to get darker than 0.05 cd/m2. Those two hundredths of a candela make a very big difference. This is an example of what makes the VT50 such a high-quality plasma television.

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Viewing Angle

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Plenty of viewing angle to go around

The P65VT50's large screen size and wide viewing angle of 139° grants you a decent amount of flexibility in regards to where you can watch TV from. The flexibility this viewing angle provides is highly valuable. Being forced to watch the VT50 from direct center, or only a handful of degrees to the left or right of that, would severely limit its flexibility in rooms or set-ups of particular size.

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3D Performance

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While still imperfect, Panasonic's 3D tech is getting steadily better.

3D is the newest kid on the block within the realm of "extra" TV features. It ranges from an immersive experience to a throwaway gimmick, and can be one of the trickiest phenomena to describe and catalogue while reviewing a television. The Panasonic TC-P65VT50 impressed us with its 3D showing, using active shutter technology to display a consistent 1080p image.

Panasonic's past problems involved a struggle to avoid crosstalk. Crosstalk refers to the distracting presence of an image meant for one lens of your glasses leaking into the other. The result destroys the ability for your brain to "translate" 3D properly, resulting in a two-dimensional mess. The VT50 parses its two images with just enough space to create a depth-of-field that is convincing (and preserves color integrity) without straining its own capabilities beyond what looks natural.

Unfortunately, their 2D-to-3D conversion setting is not of the same quality. It's a weaker, less impressive way to force non-3D content to appear 3D: we like to call it diet 3D. The end result is an image or series of images that look to be floating just millimeters in front of the background, which fails to impress, and is not worth the effort of charging and syncing one or more pairs of glasses.

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Other Tests

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Meet the tester

Lee Neikirk

Lee Neikirk

Former Editor, Home Theater

@Koanshark

Lee was Reviewed's point person for most television and home theater products from 2012 until early 2022. Lee received Level II certification in TV calibration from the Imaging Science Foundation in 2013. As Editor of the Home Theater vertical, Lee oversaw reviews of TVs, monitors, soundbars, and Bluetooth speakers. He also reviewed headphones, and has a background in music performance.

See all of Lee Neikirk's reviews

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