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52 of 58 people found the following review helpful.
Remarkable picture, beautiful design!
By Amy S.
~~My Setup~~The Panasonic VIERA TC-L47WT50 47-Inch is remarkably thin and the industrial design is gorgeous. I did not wall mount the unit, but put it on my media console. For console use, there's a bit of assembly involved with attaching the unit to the stand and you will need two people to do it safely.I have it hooked up to a Panasonic blu-ray player, TiVo TCD748000 Premiere XL DVR (Black), Apple TV MC572LL/A (2010) [OLD VERSION], and Xbox 360 4GB Console via an Onkyo HT-RC180 7.2-Channel A/V Surround Home Network Receiver (Black). Because my AV receiver does not support HDMI 1.4 (only 1.3), I cannot pass 3D or audio return channel (ARC) through the receiver. I solved this by connecting my hardware directly to the Panasonic with HDMI cables and using the TV for video switching.For audio, I am runinng an AmazonBasics Digital Optical Audio Toslink Cable, 6 Feet from the TV to the Onkyo. I hooked the TV up to the Internet with an AmazonBasics RJ45 Cat5e Ethernet Patch Cable (14 Feet/4.2 Meters).I have a Kinect Sensor with Kinect Adventures! unit for my XBox 360. I used to attach it to the top of my TV, but due to the Panasonic's thin width and lack of an real bezel, I set the Kinect in front of the TV. It works well there and maintains about a 1-inch clearance between the top of the Kinect and the Panasonic logo at the bottom of the TV.After the hardware was attached, turning on the unit prompted an initial walk-through that was simple enough for a technology luddite. As a professional user experience designer, I appreciate the time and development that goes into making the user's first experience pain free. And it was.~~2D~~I tested the 2D picture for a week using all of my video sources and watching a variety of shows, movies, and sporting events. It's exceptional--crisp, clear, and beautiful. The high refresh rate prevents the ghosting you see on less expensive units and the viewing angle is certainly the widest I've seen. I even rearranged my TV room to allow for more seating at wider angles.~~3D~~I didn't think it was fair to review a 3D TV without fully testing this feature, so even though I'm not a fan of 3D generally, I purchased a pair of Panasonic VIERA TY-ER3D4MU Active Shutter 3D Eyewear. (You can charge these using the 3 USB ports on the side of the TV. Each pair takes about 30 mins to fully charge.) The glasses fit on top of my regular glasses and are light-weight and easy to wear.I have two 3D channels with my Comcast package--ESPN3D and Xfinity3D. (The channels remind me of the HD channels we had a decade ago--mostly nature shows and sports, not much else.) To test, I watched a college football game, a college basketball game, a nature show, and a concert. One of the sports games was recorded on TiVo and one was live. Both ESPN3D games stuttered a bit, making for frustrating viewing, but I definitely got a sense for 3D sports and as the 3D capture technology improves I suspect these glitches will fade.To access 3D, the Panasonic will first detect the signal. Then it will ask you to press the 3D button on your remote and follow the instructions for setup. You are supposed to turn the glasses on after the signal comes in (there are quite a few ways the signal can be interpretted and the tv must sync to the glasses and tell them how to "read" the picture).For the most part, the 3D picture is impressive. I found that the sports images are less crisp than produced videos (which makes sense). The viewing angle is less wide with 3D on (I'd say about 90 degrees for a clear view).Signal loss can be a problem. If at any point the TV "thinks" it is in 2D, the glasses lose their pairing and you have to resync by sliding a button at the top. Ergo, commercials have to be in 3D to prevent this from happening--so there weren't any commercials (hurray!).The glasses are annoying if you want to look at your phone, flip through a magazine, and so on. However, wearing them generally and looking around the room is not a problem.I was pleased that my TV Premiere XL performed so well with 3D.~~Smart Apps~~The VIERA Smart apps are accessed from the Internet button on both remotes. You can add and delete apps and customize which screen they appear on. When viewing apps, whatever is currently playing on the TV will still be playing in a small window in the middle (love this!).Social Networking TV--These feature is exceptional! You can add your Facebook and Twitter accounts and and watch tv while your feeds stream. The television picture is wrapped in a network-specific skin. I am able to watch tv playing from my TiVo while still using the TiVo remote. I can use either Panasonic remote to scroll through feed content. You can even "Like" or "Comment" on streams. With Twitter, you watch the feed of a specific hashtag or handle--great for sports or awards shows. One of my new favorite ways to use this feature is to listen to Pandora (via TiVo) and have my Facebook and Twitter feeds up. This is useful while you're doing other things around the house.Pandora--The Pandora app for VIERA is excellent. I have Pandora on pretty much all of my devices and this is one of the better implementations.~~Negatives~~My only general critique is that the glass screen on the Panasonic is incredibly reflective in the bright room where my TV lives. It reminds me a lot of the screens on Apple iMac. It will take a bit of getting used to and some room darkening shades.Some people are frustrated that, at this price point, the unit doesn't come with 3D glasses. I think it's a smart choice for Panasonic to leave them out to keep the price a bit lower for consumers who aren't ready to adopt this fledgling technology that doesn't have a lot of content available. You can always add glasses later and they'll probably come down in price over time.~~Summary~~Overall this is an excellent TV. The 2D picture is remarkable and the design is beautiful and unobtrusive in even the most minimalist environments. The Internet features are some of the best I've seen.I don't expect to use the 3D much until the Olympics. Panasonic is the exclusive TV partner with the 2012 Olympics and this is one of their signature TVs. I expect they will want the 3D capability to shine.
23 of 29 people found the following review helpful.
Flagship Performance and Features
By J. Finkel
The Viera TC-L47WT50 is Panasonic's 2012 flagship 3D LED-LCD HDTV. It offers a host of luxury features that likely covers every consumer's wish list. Performance is excellent overall, with only a few minor issues.==Menu==The menu is the similar to previous Viera menus (and close to Samsung's layout). Most settings are easy to access and the picture settings most users should leave alone are sensibly located under "Pro Settings." All menus are responsive, attractive and easy to read. Most common functions can be accessed with just one or two buttons. The setup wizard takes very little time to go through but also provides substantial guidance. For my personal wi-fi setup, I had to use the green button on the remote to switch to capital letters and also select "open" for "security type"; I use WEP.==Picture==The picture on most LCD's is rather good these days, but few models can compete with the Viera WT50. Thanks to LED local dimming, an IPS panel, and IFScc calibration settings, the WT50's picture is breathtaking. Out of the box, colors are fairly accurate, rich and vibrant. The Cinema mode preset works well for dimly lit and dark rooms. Once calibrated, this TV really pops. As with most LCD's, the brightness is more than abundant, making it a good TV for any room. Contrast, gamma, gray-scale, line resolution, viewing angle, and screen uniformity are all excellent. The black levels are good, but don't reach the inky blacks found on high-end Viera plasmas. Switching on the adjustments to improve black levels works, but creates worse problems. Screen is glossy, which I prefer, and does not suffer badly from reflections.It took me a while to find any issues/artifacts with the picture. Eventually I discovered that certain content with slight gradations of blue seem to form large blocks (like macro-blocking from compressed action scenes). This only happened with content from my cable box (1080i), but did happen with different channels. I viewed the same content on my Samsung B8500 and the artifacts were not present. I tried every combination of video correction settings on the WT50 and did not find a solution. To put into perspective, this only affected the picture for about 30 seconds out of dozens of hours of viewing.==Aesthetics==The bezel of the TV is roughly ¼" all around, which is impressive and attractive. The depth of the TV is just 1.1", also impressive. While the bezel itself is minimalist, there is a clear plastic strip on the bottom of the panel with "Panasonic" written in the middle, which by default lights up. The strip is clear and unobtrusive. The subtle white light can be disabled. The stand is not for me, with its two striking, silver projections; it would have been nice in brushed metal instead of plastic. This TV would look amazing mounted on a wall.==Build==The TC-L47WT50 is fairly light at 28.7 lbs. or 35.3 lbs. with stand, making it easy to setup by oneself. The stand seems sturdy enough, but is mostly plastic. The stand doesn't offer any tilt and only swivels +/- 15°. Inputs are streamlined: there is one component/composite input, which requires the included adapter cable. There is a VGA port and 4 HDMI, but no DVI. An SD card slot and three (yes 3!) USB 2.0 ports round out the inputs. The flimsy buttons on the TV are inconveniently placed and will be inaccessible if wall mounted. The back of the TV is impressively all metal, attractive and very sturdy. The touchpad remote seems like a gimmick that I can't imagine most people using more than once or twice. The main remote is responsive and has a good layout. It is similar to most Viera remotes.==Motion Handling==One option I always look for right away is smoothing out motion (sometimes separated into blur and judder). Most LCD's have issues producing clear, smooth, flowing video of motion. This is a major disadvantage vs. plasma, which does not suffer the same problem. The refresh rates (240Hz) are used to adjust the way your eyes see the motion on the television by refreshing/adjusting the image on screen. I believe the "1920 backlight scanning" means that the backlight flickers 32 times per second, which is supposed to help motion perception. In the best TV sets, the video is processed so that there is no stuttering and also no "Soap Opera Effect," a problem introduced when there is too much processing that can make any video look unnaturally smooth as the processing tries to correct the normal variations in speed that us living things tend to do so much when we move about. Unfortunately, with the WT50, you have only basic control over the motion handling. I found that using "moderate" or "strong" motion handling produced a "Soap Opera Effect." However, the "weak" setting seemed effective enough at reducing motion blur for all but the most active content. For sports, you may want to use "moderate."==Calibration==If you plan to calibrate this TV yourself, you'll be happy to find the ISFccc settings for RGB gain (2-point IRE gray-scale) and hue/saturation/luminance (as opposed to RGB sliders used by Samsung) for primaries and secondary colors. These features will mainly interest videophiles with a color spectrometer. Considering the price tag and potential of the WT50, I would recommend spending the time or money on a proper calibration. I was disappointed to find that I could not hit the targets on the CIE diagram for blue and green primaries. This could be an issue with my specific panel or with the WT50 in general. Gray-scale and gamma came in line fairly easily. Pictures of my results are at the top of the product page. Note that 3D mode and Viera Connect picture settings have their own individual profiles that save separately - a terrific feature.==Sound==I usually don't bother even reviewing the audio for an HDTV. As TV's get thinner and thinner, so do their speakers. Regardless of how advanced speakers are technologically, small speakers can only do so much. Still, I was completely surprised with the fidelity and output from the WT50's speakers. Even the soundstage projected a basic presence. While I would still recommend external speakers, the internal ones will not disappoint.==The Third Dimension==At first I dismissed 3D HDTV as a novelty when it came out due to the lack of content. However, now that content is becoming much more widely available, I do appreciate having a 3D capable HDTV. My wife was particularly impressed by the 2D -> 3D upconverted content and actual 3D content is truly spellbinding. The Panasonic VIERA TY-ER3D4MU Active Shutter 3D Eyewear aren't cheap but I would not hesitate to purchase a pair. Unfortunately, none are included with the WT50. My wife did notice a slight flickering in the left eye of the glasses, but I did not. We both wear eyeglasses and were able to fit the 3D glasses over them. The 3D glasses are more comfortable and light than others I have tried in the past. The TV dims significantly when in 3D mode, but all the picture settings are saved separately for 3D mode (and for Apps), so it's easy to compensate for the differences.==Other Features==The feature list of the WT50 is amazing. The internal wi-fi gets great reception and speed on the second floor, with my router on the first floor; it can take 10-30 seconds to connect when powering on. Bluetooth is also included so you can connect a keyboard, audio device, etc. The USB ports give you even more connectivity options (though my third-party webcams won't work). You can also use your smartphone as a remote and interact with your TV through Panasonic smartphone apps. I did not notice any issues with input lag when in Game Mode.The "Viera Tools" button, located prominently on the remote, brings up the applications. The WT50 comes with many apps pre-installed (Amazon, Skype, Netflix, Pandora, YouTube, Hulu). I immediately setup the Amazon Instant Video service, which had become the main use of my Playstation 3. All the apps work great and I have no trouble getting HD streaming through Amazon with the built-in wi-fi. You can look up the full list of apps via the Viera Connect Apps Navigator on Panasonic's website.==Conclusion==The TC-47WT50 is priced and performs as a high-end flagship HDTV. It is capable of producing an amazing picture that rivals anything produced in the last 2 years. I'd recommend this model to anyone looking for the best combination of picture quality and features regardless of price. I recommend professional calibration and external speakers, but performance is impressive out-of-the-box.--My Settings--Note: I am not a professional calibrator. These settings reflect my best personal judgement and preference. I recommend them as a reference for your own custom settings. Correct calibration settings vary from one TV to the next, often greatly. My CIE diagram and IRE chart can be found in the product page pictures. Please leave a comment if you have questions or advice. UPDATE: I found that pushing colors to the full CIE range caused pixelation as colors approach the pure primaries. So, color accuracy is the only real negative of this tv (especially getting truly blue blues) but should not affect most viewers.CUSTOM MODEBacklight 20-60 (adjust for ambient light)contrast 90brightness 54Color 50Tint -3Sharpness 20 (set higher for SD content)Color Temp warmColor Mgmt offa.i. pic offCATS off (does not work for my tv's location)Advanced Picture Settings:motion weak1080p pure d. off (set to on for 4:4:4 input)black level lightPRO SETTINGS:high r +6high b +6low r -1low b -2hue: red 0, green 38, blue -5saturation: red 3, green 7, blue 30black extension 0gamma adjust 2.4panel bright lowcontour emph. offAGC 0color detail:hue: yellow 26, cyan -25, magenta 31saturation: yellow 15, cyan 15, magenta 0luminance: red 15, green 5,blue 24, yellow -6, cyan -10, magenta 0
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Impressive! SLIM! 3D, 240hz, 1080p, cloud based apps in a lightweight, energy efficient package!
By Jeri Zerr
Wow! I am simply blown away with this Super Slim, HIGH EFFICIENCY LED-LCD 3D HDTV. It has 240hz 24p for very smooth play of rapid sports action. The video quality is absolutely remarkable.Cloud apps came pre-installed and ready for use:Amazon Video on Demand (and PRIME!), Netflix, Hulu+, Youtube, etc all came pre-installed on the HDTV. Additional apps , both free and paid, are available with activation of a (free) cloud storage account. This makes the number of apps allowed limitless! We have watched videos on all the apps listed above, very smooth! No hiccups, no streaming issues, no waiting for videos to load, no issues. I activated our wifi on the slower 802.11g channel to test the tv's handling of a slower wifi signal. We also experienced flawless operation on our 2.4 ghz 802.11n wifi connection. Our ISP/home network is a rock steady 30 mbps connection with multiple wireless video streaming devices - again no issues with bandwidth or video loading with this combination.High Efficiency: the energy label indicates $15 / year cost to operate; well beyond the lowest end of the scale. Ladies, if you are planning a tv for the bedroom and are concerned with hot flashes, this is your tv! We have left ours running a full 24 hours for days on end (the Roku box allows the HDTV to be used as a very large digital photo frame, yet we still cannot feel any extra heat anywhere around this model.Package included the expected:* 47" 3D HDTV - superslim and lightweight!* Power cord, base stand (star trek style...), owners manual* 2 remotes w/ 2 AA batteries for each - the "extra" remote is a remote touchpad allowing easy web navigation. It appears a blue tooth keyboard will connect as well!! :-)Package did NOT include:3D glasses - to my husband's dismay! He wants it all included!Impressive # of Ports:Inputs: 4 HDMI*, 1 PC, THREE USB, 1 SD Card, 1 cable/antenna, AND 1 Composite (via included adapter... it's small enough I have left it attached so I won't have to hunt for it later when needed..)NOTE: the HDMI ports on this model are NOT powered ie will NOT operate new devices such as the soon to be released Roku Stick. Quite honestly, with the cloud based apps we are already considering the retirement of our brand new Roku 2 anyway.Output: 1 digital audio outAll in all I would give this 3D HDTV 10 stars. It is simply an amazing cutting edge HDTV ahead of it's time. We own two of the high tech, wifi, internet apps Philips 46PFL5705D/F7 46-Inch 1080p 240 Hz LCD HDTV with NetTV, Black which are only 15 months old... even without the 3D aspect considered, the video technology upgrade of this Panasonic over even the newer HDTVs is absolutely remarkable.
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Communicate with Family and FriendsThe social networking TV app allows you to access social network sites and communicate with your loved ones while watching TV. Watch live sports games while upping the excitement by chatting with your friends as the game unfolds. Record an original message and set it as your answering voice message. Callers can record messages onto an SD Card (min. 512MB required), while you are away. *Skype camera not included with TV purchase
The VT50 series has DLNA compatibility and built-in Wi-Fi which gives you even more layout flexibility.Local Dimming and Super High Speed 1920 Backlight Scanning1920 backlight scanning working with a panel at 240hz gives you higher picture resolution and reduction of afterglow. Sports, action, and fast-motion scenes are crisp and clear. The WT50 features local dimming, which is a technology in which LEDs are dimmed individually or in groups behind dark areas of the picture, thus making blacks darker without affecting brighter elements of the picture. Smart VIERA Engine Pro A dual core processor chip for high-end models (only available on the WT50, GT50, and VT50 models) which provides enhanced differentiated image quality and processing at high speed. Image quality is enhanced to faithfully reproduce the beauty of the image.
3D 24p Cinema Smoother VIERA gives you naturally flowing 24p images with the look and tonal characteristics of film, and familiar TV-like quality. Panasonic's advanced source analysis and frame generation deliver smooth, natural, and lifelike images.
