Panasonic PT-50DL54 50 in. HDTV-Ready DLP TV

First of all we love this TV, from its look to it's performance. But before I go into the detail let me tell you how I arrived at the Panasonic PT-50DL54 50.

First decision was Plasma, LCD, or DLP. My thoughts were plasma is both expensive and fragile, gases can escape either through trauma or normal use. Not to mention I did not have a wall that was good for mounting such a TV, so why pay the extra for the flat-panel form factor (this ruled out flat panel LCD).

Because I wanted a larger screen, a tube was out of the the question, as they do not make tube much larger than 38-40". So projection was the only answer for us. Not to mention you get a much larger screen for a lot less money with projection (LCD or DLP). So the difference from LCD to DLP. First DLP is a top-notch projection-only medium, using Texas Instruments Digital Light Processor(DLP). Because manufacturers have to buy this processor from TI many manufacturer have not make a DLP TV (Sony for example). But DLP is the new choice for Digital Cinemas around the country because of it quality. But beyond the slick TI technology, the fact was in my opinion looking at DLP a LCD(Liquid Crystal Diodes) side by side the choice became much easier, the DLP was brighter, with better color differentiation, and blacker blacks. So that's how we came to DLP.

I looked a lot of DLP TV's but narrowed it down to 3. Samsung (among the highest rated), RCA, and Panasonic. The Samsung price point was a bit higher, so I narrowed it down to the Panasonic and RCA. The RCA I saw is the store was malfunctioning, and I didn't like the look of the unit itself. So by process of illumination I started to do a lot of research on the Panasonic PT-50DP54.

So let's look at what I liked about the Panasonic. First the picture quality is fabulous, plus you can choose from a few viewing modes like, Cinema, Vibrant, etc. which allows you to tailer your picture to you preference or current lighting conditions. You can also toggle through different aspect ratios 16:9 (widescreen) 4:3 (standard TV) etc. This will give you the option of watching 4:3 broadcast without stretching it to fit the 16:9 format.

Now for the techies: This TV has 2 RCA inputs and 2 Component Video connections. The component video connections offer the highest picture quality very necessary for digital components like Digital Cable, Digital Satellite, DVD player etc. The TV has 2 built in speaker for Stereo sound (which I don't use) for those using the speaker on the TV the RCA inputs are fine.

There are a few drawbacks, to this TV, I'll start with the small ones and move to the more important ones. 1) There is a slot for your digital camera memory card so you can view pictures on your TV. The problem is there is only a slot for a small memory card, and PCMCIA. My camera uses Flash memory card, and where wasn't a slot for it. I had to buy a convert to PCMCIA ($12 at Best Buy).

The next drawback for some may be that there is no integrated tuner, or even cable card slot. This means you need to either buy a HD Tuner, or get a HD Cable box from you cable company. For me this wasn't a drawback as I have DirecTV, and the cable card wouldn't help me. Also if I did have cable, I would probably buy the separate HD Tuner, as I like the coaxial and fiber connections to my digital receiver for full Dolby or DTS sound quality, not sure all cable enabled TV's have all such outputs.

The single biggest issue for me is the Picture in Picture (called split screen in the Panasonic). The problem is that you can't split the same input into the split screen. That is, you can't split two cable channels or two satellite images. You can only split the DVD and TV, or any combination of two different components. Which is useless in my opinion.

The price on the unit was $3299, but I was able to get the price down to $2499. I've seen it as low as $2299 since I bought this unit. But overall I'm very happy with this TV