---

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #48861 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Panasonic
• Model: TH-42PZ80B
• Released on: 2008-03-06

Reviews
Black tones are just as deep and lustrous as can be, while colours are natural too - What Hi Fi Sound and Vision, July 08, TH-42PZ80 Five stars

Manufacturer's Description

With its 2008 Panasonic Viera Plasmas, Panasonic brings an astonishing 1,000,000:1 contrast ration to the table. advanced pixel resolution and image-processing technology with the plasma TV's natural ability to beautifully reproduce fast moving images, so every detail is rendered with amazing clarity, and all the action is delivered with a high degree of fluidity.

What is a Plasma TV? A plasma TV is a thin, high-resolution flat panel screen that uses a matrix of tiny cells that are charged by precise electrical voltages to create a picture. Plasma displays are bright, have a wide colour range, produce deep, true blacks, have a wide viewing angle, and are light enough to be wall-mounted or placed on a stand. Plasmas come in a range of sizes.

What's New This Year?

• Super Contrast--native contrast ratios on the PZ85, PZ800 series are 30,000:1, double last year's 15,000:1. Dynamic contrast ratios are up to 1,000,000:1.
• new anti-reflective filter; lead-free "Tough Under Force" panel is resistant to impacts and scratches
• Built-in SD card slot with Photo Viewer/Gallery Player software
• x.v. colour and Deep colour (HDMI 1.3 features)
• 24p native reproduction
• Game Mode auto-adjusts image quality suitable to games and includes anti-image retention
• Viera Link is now compatible with Onkyo and Yamaha home theater systems
• At least 2 HDMI inputs on all models (4 on PZ800 series)
• THX Certification on PZ800 and PZ850 series

---

Amazing colour reproduction The incredible black reproduction of a Panasonic High-Definition Plasma TV results in impressive contrast and beautiful, natural colours. So you'll get warm, accurate skin tones, gorgeous greens, breathtaking blues and vivid reds. For colour that's as rich and bold as life itself, look to a Panasonic Plasma TV.

---

Consistent brightness from any angle A Panasonic Plasma combines anti-glare and anti-reflection technology with the natural light-emitting properties of plasma, to give you a super-wide viewing range with a crisp, beautiful image from almost any angle.

---

Smooth, graceful motion When you're watching sports or movies with fast-motion graphics, you want a TV that can keep up with the action. With over 900 lines of moving picture, self-illuminating plasma displays eliminate afterimages in fast-action scenes. So whether you're watching a sporting event or an action-packed movie, you'll always get the most impressive viewing experience possible.

---

1,000,000:1 Contrast The Panasonic's Real Black system (a pre-discharge suppression system) and improved panel production processes combine to reproduce outstanding blacks with superb contrast. Each image is richly expressive, from bright scense, like scorching desert landscapes, to dark cave scenes. Compare the image produced by conventional HDTV on the left to the Real Black image produced on the right

---

More colours Viera HDTVs support the xvYCC colour profile (Extended YCC colourimetry for Video Applications), or "x.v. colour" for short. Standard RGB colour space allows the display of a portion of the colours that are viewable to the human eye. The next generation "xvYCC" colour space actually offers  an available range of colours that exceeds what human eyes can recognize. Next-generation "xvYCC" colour space supports 1.8 times as many colours as existing HDTV signals Lets HDTVs display colours more accurately Enables displays with more natural and vivid colours

---

Deep colour Where x.v. colour expands the available range of colours your HDTV can display, Deep colour increases the number of colours your HDTV can display within that range, for smoother transitions from colour to colour. Lets HDTVs and other displays go from millions of colours to billions of colours Eliminates on-screen colour banding, for smooth tonal transitions and subtle gradations between colours Enables increased contrast ratio Can represent many times more shades of gray between black and white.

---

Connectivity

Viera flat panel HDTVs interact with an array of high-definition devices and services, making it easy for consumers to access and enjoy content as never before. As of 2008, Viera Link is compatible with Onkyo and Yamaha home theater systems.

	Videos and stills recorded on SD cards can easily be viewed via the SD slots on Panasonic Blu-Ray Disc players and Viera HDTVs.
	Viera Link means easy connectivity via HDMI cables. Finally, consumers can easily operate their Blu-Ray Disc players, DVD recorders and home theater systems with a single remote control device.
	Equipped with an RGB input terminal, VIERA can connect with your PC and serve as a large-screen monitor.

---

Long Life Panasonic plasma panels are rated to last 100,000 hours, which is about 30 years of regular or 11 years of non-stop usage before the brightness of the display is halved.

---

Get Full HD with Blu-Ray Disc Players A Panasonic 1080p plasma television is able to render 1920x1080 pixels, but standard DVDs have a resolution of just 720x480. Blu-ray discs output true 1080p High-Definition resolution and have a storage capacity ten times greater than standard DVDs, so no pixel gos to waste.

---

Customer Reviews

Great Television but will buy from Comet or Laskys
Excellent TV, recommended buying but not Panasonic TH42PZ80B from Amazon....buy Panasonic TH42PZ82B from Comet or Laskys. Why? Read on.

My first dilemma was what to buy LCD or Plasma?

I was under the impression that LCD is better technology and Plasma is on its way out. I went into the showrooms to have a look at the televisions and I realized plasma's deliver a better picture when compared to LCD's.I did a lot of research on both the technologies and realised problems with first generation plasma's like "burn in screen" or "image retention", higher energy consumption, low panel life which made people choose LCD are no longer an issue with new generation plasma's.

New generation Plasma's compete with LCD televisions in all categories and win in all the important categories like resolution,response time, colour reproduction, viewing angle, noise reduction in picture etc.
The plasma's have similar panel life to those of LCD's.
Plasma's beat LCD's by miles when it comes to delivering fast moving pictures like football or motor racing.As LCD's have higher response time the pictures appear fuzzy when they deliver fast moving images.
LCD's have a slight edge when it comes to power consumption and weight.

I had to choose between plasma's which deliver great picture and consume a little more energy or LCD's which consume less energy and deliver an OK picture. I was faced with a moral dilemma as I consider my self to be a green person and cycle to work, recycle stuff etc. In the end I decided to choose plasma over LCD as the differences are not so high and the power consumption of plasma's varies with the kind of picture on the screen. If you are watching a movie like Dark Knight which has plenty of dark scenes in it then the plasmas will consume the same or less amount of energy as LCD's.

Next was which brand?

Again more research showed that Panasonic and pioneer are the best plasma TV manufacturers, Panasonic with Viera range and Pioneer with Kuro Range. Panasonic is the largest manufacturer and invested heavily in a new plant to manufacture plasma screens. Panasonic believes plasma technology will be the choice of people who do a bit of research before buying a TV.

Panasonic PZ range has a contrast ratio of 30,000:1 and dynamic contrast ratio is 1,00,000:1.Pioneer's Kuro range has similar specifications.

The differences in picture quality between Panasonic's PZ range and Pioneer's Kuro range are very very few and far between.
Kuro range costs almost twice as the Panasonics PZ range.

This made me choose Panasonic PZ range.

Panasonic TH42PZ80's technical specifications (can be found in the other Amazon reviews),product reviews(not in Amazon but written by proper telly geeks like HDTV org, AV forums etc based on their testing) prompted me to choose this model.It has also won quite a few awards from independent reviewers.

When I walked into Curry's the picture looked great but the telly had a hideous silver bezel and looked cheap when it was switched off.It was by serendipity that I found there is another version in UK which is made exclusively for Comet and Laskys called Panasonic TH42PZ82B.This version is the same as Panasonic TH42PZ80B but had a black bezel instead of the silver bezel.
{Check links in the comments of this review for current price,availability and specifications}

I went into Comet to check out Panasonic TH42PZ82B version and there it was all black and shiny and much better looking than Th42PZ80B.

I got the telly even though it was £20 more and i had to pay another £15 for the same day delivery.*At the time of writing this review*

You might need an extra pair of hands if you are unable to handle heavy objects for fixing the base stand.

The setup is breeze once you have switched on the telly.

Remember to reduce the brightness and contrast to half during the first 200 hours.

Turn off the "over scan" feature which comes as factory setting to get the full picture.

Buy Panasonic TH42PZ82B from Comet but word of advice to any one who buys from Comet, DON'T buy their monster cable's and monster power surge kits.Instead buy THOR HDMI cable's from B&Q which are around £20 for 3 metres and Belkin power surge kit from Comet or other electrical stores. I *personally* believe extended warranty Electrical stores offer is like snake oil, as if some thing can wrong with electronics it will go wrong in under 6-8 months and you are covered by the manufacturer warranty for that period any way.

Hope this review helps.

[]

Class leading performance at the price
If you haven't read all the other reviews, suffice to say this TV is doing very well in the reviewer stakes. However, it does actually perform as well as described.
Compared to equivalently priced LCD's, the picture quality is superior; it is of similar sharpness, but colours, particularly blacks and dark details, are far superior to LCD, and equivalent to CRT.

Ergonomically, the remote and menus are easy to use.
Sound is adequate for normal programmes; anyone serious about home cinema will have (or need) a surround setup.
Switched off, it looks unpreprossessing (as much as 42+ inches of black rectangle can do), unlike e.g. the LG models with holes in them.

Switched on, it is quiet - the cooling fans are just discernable if you put your ears right next to the top of the TV, but not from a normal viewing distance.

Earlier serial #'s had problems with an obvious electrical humming; any good retailer should swap those out. Models supplied now should not have this issue.

Negatives:
- there's no PiP - would be a 'nice to have'
- the gloss finish shows the dust up

panasonic do it again!!!!
I have to say from the off im a big panasonic fan . I have owned their tv`s for the last 10 years or more and have never once been dissapointed. That said this is my first trip into plasma displays so i was a little worried that the standard would drop considerably from my old 36" c.r.t tv which was excellent. One of the main reasons i bought the display was for hd souces eg Xbox 360 Playstation3/Blueray and Hd-dvd so it was with those particular sources i started with all where excellent with the games showing really improved frame rates over lcd tv`s. The big test for me was the comparison to my old tv which this tv outshines in every way apart from sound. The picture is excellent, vibrant, detailed and clear. Overall i could`nt be more pleased with this display it stands up very well if not on par with the pioneer kuro line which by the way is far more expencive. Buy with confidence!