Panasonic TH-50PF11UK

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Connectivity has always been sparse on Panasonic's industrial panels. The TH050PF11UK improves a bit in this regard by including two HDMI inputs, but most current consumer plasmas have three. It also comes with a component-video input that uses BNC-style connectors--you'll probably need to buy BNC-to-RCA adapters to use it. There's a standard-issue VGA-style PC input (1,920x1,080-pixel maximum resolution), but the monitor lacks any S-Video or composite-video inputs, and there are no side-panel inputs.

As with other Panasonic professional plasmas, most of the inputs are housed on removable boards that slide up into the back of the panel. You can replace any of the included boards--a long list of optional boards can be found on Panasonic's Web site.

Performance
Overall picture quality on the TH-50PF11UK was very good, albeit not the match of the best plasmas we've tested. The capability to produce deep black levels was a major strength, and while we would have appreciated a more-accurate primary color palette, that's by no means a deal-breaker.

Initial calibration of the professional Panasonic was a bit more in-depth than on the company's consumer models since more picture controls were available. As usual, those controls let us improve the grayscale beyond the presets, the best being the monitor's Warm color temperature setting, as shown in the Geek box. Grayscale tracking wasn't perfect, however, and in particular near-dark areas of the image dipped slightly into red. We would have liked some way to improve primary colors as well, but it wasn't available. We did appreciate having the Gamma setting available, and trying them all revealed that, as expected, the "2.2" setting came closest to the ideal of 2.2. We measured a gamma of 2.049 after calibration, which could be better, but it isn't terrible. For our complete picture settings, check out bottom of this blog post.

To perform our main image-quality tests we compared the Panasonic directly with a few other 50-inch 1080p plasmas, namely the Vizio VP505XVT, the Samsung PN50A650, and our reference Pioneer PRO-111FD. We also included the 52-inch Samsung LN52A650 LCD. We checked out the Apocalypto Blu-ray played via the Sony PlayStation 3.

Black level: Like most Panasonic plasmas we've tested recently, the TH-50F11UK exhibited superb black level performance. In Chapter 8's overhead shot of the hole where Seven and her child are trapped, for example, the black shadows in the recesses of the rocks appeared darker than the other displays aside from the Vizio--which as just as dark--and of course the reference Pioneer. Details in the shadows, such as the plants nestled between the rocks, also appeared quite natural and realistic--a bit darker and less natural than the Vizio and a bit better than the Samsungs due to their lighter black levels.

Previous Panasonic plasmas "floated" black, meaning they didn't maintain a constant level of black regardless of the brightness of other areas of the picture. According to our tests and observations, the TH-50PF11UK didn't have this problem, and maintained a consistent black level after calibration.

Color accuracy: The pro Panasonic served up a mixed bag in the color accuracy department. On the positive side, its color temperature and color decoding were quite good after calibration. We appreciated the neutral-looking grays and browns of the cliff face at the beginning of Chapter 8, for example, and the Aztecs' coppery skin tones, which looked relatively accurate compared with our reference Pioneer. Color in shadows, despite a mild red dip in near-black areas, was better than any of the other nonreference displays. We did notice that the Panasonic looked a bit less saturated than the reference display, despite its solid color decoding, an issue we chalk up to its somewhat lighter black levels. Skin tones also had a slightly paler, greener cast than we'd like to see, perhaps caused by a combination of the Panasonic's somewhat greener grayscale in midtones and the inaccurate primary color of green.

Green was skewed a bit toward blue, an issue we saw in the lush jungle foliage especially under shadow. The leaves looked a bit bluish compared with the reference and also slightly too intense. The difference certainly didn't ruin our appreciation for these scenes, however, and would be difficult to spot outside of a side-by-side comparison.

Video processing: In our resolution tests, the Panasonic pro model fared very well, resolving every detail of 1080i and 1080p sources, delivering between 800 and 900 lines of motion resolution and passing both the video- and film-based deinterlacing tests. This is the first Panasonic display we've tested that can pass the film-based deinterlacing test. We also appreciated that, unlike the Vizio, the Panasonic didn't show any false contouring, even in difficult areas such as the edges of the shadows around the campfire in Chapter 4.

(Update 1/15/2009) Due to popular demand, we also tested the 11K with 1080p/24 content. The monitor can be set to either 50Hz or 100Hz refresh rate, and at 50Hz, regardless of the content type, we noticed obvious flicker in the image, especially in bright areas. At 100Hz there was no flicker, and the Panasonic behaved similarly to a display with a refresh rate of some multiple of 24, such as the Pioneer PRO-111FD (72Hz in Advanced mode) or the Sony KDL-55XBR8 (120Hz). We watched the pan over the Intrepid from I Am Legend and the three sets' handling of the 1080p/24 signal looked nearly identical, without the hitching motion characteristic of standard 60Hz sets that must engage 2:3 pulldown with 24-frame content. The Panasonic might have been just a bit less smooth than the other two, but the difference was slight even seen side-by-side. The 11UK's adroitness with 24p sets it apart from the company's consumer plasmas, which either engage 2:3 pull-down for that hitching motion (in standard 60Hz mode) or introduce flicker (48Hz mode).

Bright lighting: The Panasonic didn't perform as well as any of the other displays under bright lighting, with the exception of the Vizio, which basically looked the same. The monitor reflected less light than the glossy-screened Samsungs, but didn't preserve black levels nearly as well, presenting a much more washed-out picture under the lights. The Pioneer did better than the Panasonic in both of these areas.

Standard-definition: The TH-50PF11UK is an average standard-definition performer. It had no trouble resolving every line of the DVD format, and details in the grass and stone bridge looked relatively sharp. It did have trouble smoothing out jaggies from moving diagonal lines and a waving American flag, however, making these areas appear less natural than any of the other displays. The Panasonic's noise reduction circuit has three strengths and one called Advanced. The three manual settings cleaned up moving motes in skies and sunsets quite well, but Advanced didn't seem nearly as effective. When we engaged the 3:2 pull-down setting, which is turned off by default, the Panasonic went into film mode without a hitch.

PC: Via the analog PC input, the Panasonic performed as well as we'd expect from any 1080p TV, delivering every line of a 1,920x1,080-pixel signal with no overscan (once we selected 1:1 pixel mode from the Pos/Size menu). There was some edge enhancement at default settings, but turning down Sharpness (to -12, if you're curious) delivered crisp text and minimal EE. Performance via the HDMI input was basically perfect. We did detect some flicker on the DisplayMate menu screen itself, but we couldn't replicate it in other areas so it's probably not a big deal.

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