Panasonic TH-42PC77U 42" Plasma TV

Anyone who remembers my incursion into the arena of electronics reviews in epinions might be surprised that I am not just back, but back with another review of a plasma tv, indeed another plasma tv of the same size (42") and same manufacturer (Panasonic) as the one I bought a year ago. The reason I have another one so soon can be explained in one word: burglary.

A 42" television set on its metal stand is not light (76 pounds). (I can't imagine wall-mounting it, even if I had any walls not blocked by bookcases!). Yet, a burglar (or two) walked out the door with mine, literally over my head. I even said something to him, thinking it was my partner returned from work. (Another indicator of the boldness of the thief was that the theft occurred just after 5 PM, when people are returning home from work.)

So awkward and heavy it is, but not sufficiently so to be burglarproof. That applies to the new 42" plasma tv as well as to last year's. Would a 50" one be? I recall that a 50" one was what I originally planned to buy, but none were in stock and the salesman convinced me that being 5-6' away from the screen, 42" would be fine and would draw less power. (There was no rise in electricity usage with it.)

I was pleased with my Christmas present to myself last year. I mostly watch DVDs rather than telecasts and don't have HD-tv, so the high-definition is not fully used. (More on the picture, later/below).

Rarely have I found anything plug-and-play, but the first plasma tv was. I now realize that my initial success owed something to looking at the connections to my older tv. This time, with the predecessor stolen, I couldn't copy the hookups and had some difficulty with getting the DVD connection right (though this seemed to be cable-box-to-DVD rather than connections to the back of the tv--mystifyingly, since neither of them was stolen...)

A year ago, I was amused to read in the instructions--which were under the tv--that two people should lift the tv out of the box. I went right on and assembled the stand and maneuvered the tv onto it (it wasn't nearly as heavy as the smaller-screen flat-panel it was replacing). This time, I had the assistance of my friend with a van (to keep the plasma upright in transit).

The first-time setup procedures are straightforward. It took less than two minutes to go through. I don't know that I ever had the picture optimized to my taste on the previous Panasonic plasma tv. Tastes for vivid, standard or cinema picture mode no doubt vary from viewer to viewer. I tend to vivid (no surprise to those who know me!), sometimes setting "cinema" for DVDs. And I set "color temperature" to "cool" (also no surprise for a San Franciscan originally from Minnesota!).

I'm not entirely sure what the "Picture" numbers mean, but I increased "brightness" +20. There are also numbers for "color," so any user can make incremental changes in all three of these settings.

There is also a "color management" setting, which enhances greens and blues, a setting for black levels (which I find very satisfying--and I watch far more black and white input than most plasma tv viewers), and three different "visual noise" reduction settings. Being of the "plug and play" persuasion, this is more fiddling than I want to do, but it is reassuring to know that I could--and that other more finicky (or geeky) types can fiddle to their own drummer (to teeter on mixing metaphors).

There are also nine audio calibrations that can be made via the DVD menu, including bass, treble, and balance.

There is a lock function that is on the menu rather than the remote. I can remember being puzzled by how to unlock what I had inadvertently locked with a button on a remote of an earlier configuration, so thoroughly approve of having this function in menu

The picture looks better (and the blacks blacker) and more 3-D (at least deep) than on other plasma tvs I've seen in stores and in friends' houses. Even without hooking to external speakers, the Surround sound is also quite good. The depth is less than four inches, so could be wall-mounted (if I had any walls available). The aspect ratio is 16:9 (or 4:3) with fullscreen, zoom, or justify

I don't like having to change input settings (with the remote). I think that the system should figure it out, default to cable, and seek video input if the cablebox is off, but... I realize that some users have multiple other connections to the empty holes on the back of mine.

The remote is fairly intuitive. My old one works and I could have kept using it. (Also, I should note that the Panasonic batteries in it are still working after a year.)

There is none of the problem of looking from peripheral angles at the screen (as in rear-projection tvs), though I don't want to watch it except from close to a 90-degree angle.

Panasonic's estimate of the tv's life, is 60,000 hours. (I had a discussion about tv life-expectancy with my electronics-purchase advisor, he convinced me that it's difficult to know how long LCD TVs will last, and that in 5-10 years I'll want another tv. Before then, the HD DVD production standard will also be set. He swears by Panasonic, and I defer to his judgment, greater experience, and research before he bought what he recommended to me. That is, he put his money where his mouth said to go.) My first one was gone long before approaching 60,000 hours (alas), but the rationale still seems sound to me.

There seems to me to be less electronic hum with the TH-42PC77U than with the TH-42PX50U, but as I wrote of its predecessor, even with our new double-paned windows, there is enough urban noise to muffle the slight electronic hum. Maybe in a cork-lined chamber deep in a snowdrift the hum might bother me.

(I don't know if there are options in stands. Mine is black like the one pictured here. The previous plasma tv and stand and remote were silver.)


If you want specs, "View details" (link above the reviewe) has an abundance of them, and I see no need to paste them into reviews (mine or other epinionators').