Panasonic 8 Series Plasma's on Panasonic.com now

[HDTV1080P]

At least Panasonic is honest and correctly labels their displays, something that most other manufactories do not do. When it says 2:3 it is talking about 2:3 pulldown which is also known as 3:2 pulldown. There is no benefit of using 1080P/24 on the 80 and 85 series since the native refresh rate of the display is 60HZ. The 80 and 85 series is targeting the lower end videophile market. Now it is believed that the higher-end Panasonic 800 and 850 series will offer true multiplies of the original frame at 48HZ. Specs can change before a product is officially released and hopefully this important BLU-RAY feature will not disappear or Panasonic will lose some sales to Pioneer which offers true 1080P/24 on all their displays.

[dobyblue]

It won't disappear. Specs can change, but the -800 series is far too close to launch right now.

[donutman925]

My bad I forgot that the comcast deal would be in this falls model line which is the 850 series. I wonder if the statement below about the 800 line means its already been professionally calibrated?

"THX™ Certified Display"

http://www.bigpicturebigsound.com/Pa...DTV-1368.shtml

[Sonny]

Looks like im getting some new TV's Sorry about that I ment the 800/850 for the 24fps

[celsior360]

From their Japan site,

the spec of Pz80

http://panasonic.jp/viera/products/pz80lz80/spec.html

the spec of pz800

http://panasonic.jp/viera/products/pz800/spec.html

if you scroll down to point no.9, it mention something about 1080p/24... I am not a Japanese but I assume both these model can handle 24fps...

anyone got any idea too???

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by celsior360

if you scroll down to point no.9, it mention something about 1080p/24... I am not a Japanese but I assume both these model can handle 24fps...

anyone got any idea too???

All the new models will accept a 1080p24 signal, only the -800 and -850 (and now I'm thinking the -85 may possibly as well) will have a 48Hz refresh rate, avoiding 3:2 pulldown. The -80 series will definitely use 3:2 pulldown and display at 60Hz.

The reason I mention the -85 series is that the manual states the vertical refresh rate range starts at 48Hz, which I hadn't seen before.

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by Footbaggin

So my Panny 50pz85u came today and I've spent the morning putting it through the ringer. This is an incomplete review because I haven't seen it yet in total darkness. I will compare the set to the pio 5080 because it's the only other plasma I've owned. I'm the opposite of a panasonic fan-boy. Nor do I necessarily feel pio deserves all of the praise it gets.

First impressions:
This set is phenomenal! It can torch like an LCD if you want it to, which is great for daytime viewing, but the blacks are still deep, rich, and detailed. Despite the nay-sayers I've seen on this forum, the contrast is undoubtedly increased (although, again, I haven't seen it in darkness). The blacks aren't as good as my 5080 but the brightness puts the pio to shame!

The styling is nice. It's thinner than the 5080 and matches my ps3 much better. The dreaded speaker-shelf at the bottom is just quite simply a non-issue. I don't know what everybody's talking about with that. It's barely noticeable. I guess it would stand out a little more if you plan to mount the TV on a wall, but using the stand it just kind of blends.

The 1080p factor makes a huge difference to people like me who notice SDE from 8ft away.

Unlike my kuro, this set is 100% buzz-free. Even on a completely white screen.

Unlike my kuro, this set suffers from ghost reflections, but this is only noticeable when viewing certain content such as text on a black screen from extreme angles.

PQ:
The colors are quite accurate and uniform, I'll know more about this in the dark and after finishing my run with the break-in DVD. However, the picture looks smooth and crystal clear. The image is obviously much sharper than the 720p pio. There is more dither and video noise than I saw with the 5080 however, especially in bright spots (unusual huh?). Overall, I think the 5080 has better processing.

I was pleased to see no more banding or false contouring than the 5080 shows.

This set handles diagonal lines flawlessly. Even in video games it's thus far "Jaggie-free".

After about an hour of gaming I started to notice definite occurances of green-fringing on fast movements. I have never seen this phenamenon before so I don't know if it's a panasonic specific issue. I've only seen it on games so far. I investigated the issue and everything I read online seems to hold this as an issue common to all plasmas including kuros. But I never noticed it before. See this article. http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/2007/...hosphor-trail/
Now that I've seen it, it's hard to ignore, but I'm sure I'll just get used to it like interlace flicker on my SDCRT.

I put in planet earth on Blu-ray to do my jutter test. I cued up the mountain episode with it's constant slow pans. I can honestly say this set does not jutter any worse than my 5080 which supposedly shouldn't jutter at all due to it's 72hz feature. Even my wife agreed with this. That said... I am very happy I did not wait or pay for the 800u. I wonder if running at 48hz might make the green-fringing worse for 800u owners.

Conclusion:
I'm freakin' thrilled with the new panasonic 50pz85u and I feel bad about my previous panny trashing. The next generation of panasonic plasmas will be the leap into the future, but the 85u is a huge improvement imho.

I'll post more thoughts as I conjure them.

There's a first look at the 85 series from a poster on AVS.