Panasonic TC-P50ST30

The Panasonic TC-P50ST30 3D TV is the middle child in the ST30 plasma HDTV line offered by Panasonic for 2011. Does that make it the best value of the year for the highly regarded plasma family from Panasonic? It well might.

Panasonic engineers must not sleep because when they saw that plasma TV’s were enjoying a comeback in consumer favor in recent years, they tripled their line-up. A new three-tiered model offers ST, GT and VT choices, with ST representing the value entry and VT the high-end choice.

Panasonic TC-P50ST30

Screen

If you’ve waited until now to get a plasma TV, your patience will be rewarded. Panasonic has achieved new levels of excellence with the TC-P50ST30 at a very attractive price. There are significant increases in black level and brightness. At 50 inches, it will fit comfortably in many rooms while providing a “big screen” feel.

The P50ST30 has full HD 1080p resolution that generates very rich colors that will astound you the first time you see it. Part of the credit can go to the patented Infinite Black Panel Display, Panasonic’s proprietary technology which adjusts the luminosity while minimizing pre-discharge. What does that mean for you? That means it will give you deep, luscious black levels and crisp, bright colors at all brightness levels.

600Hz Subfield Motion works behind the scenes, supercharging the refresh rates of thousands of pixels, practically eliminating ghosting and crosstalk from your eyes. Hockey fans will see the puck in sharp detail as it blisters from the point and cracks off the glass behind the goalie. The TC-P50ST30 will give let football fans feel the pain when their favorite receiver gets a hard hit in mid air from a speeding defender. No blur trails, lags or second images will detract you from the game.

Are you a gamer? Or will your kids take over control of the TV when the new game titles come in every month? The gamers in the household will appreciate the P50ST30’s Subfield Motion drive we mentioned. Games are notorious for pushing TV screens to the limit of color, motion and sound. It will barely break a sweat whether you are rolling cars in Grand Theft Auto or guiding Kratos through trials and tribulations in God of War III.

Cabinet

You better be ready when the guys come over for the big game and they lay their eyes on your P50ST30. They will be patting you on the back when they see the lush color coming from the TC-P50ST30’s beautiful cabinet. Panasonic has emulated the look and feel of a trendy tech gadget with its clean aluminum band outer rim and gloss back bezel that butts right up against the edge. Rather than trying to fit everything and the kitchen sink into the design, Panasonic opted for an unfussy look but with full functionality.

Setup

Panasonic’s commitment to clean design and usefulness extends to the packing material of the TC-P50ST30. Many of your friends order HDTVs only to spend two hours wrestling the box off the unit. Panasonic has designed simple plastic clips that easily pop back, allowing you to simply slide the box off. Once free of its enclosure it will only be minutes before you have installed the TV on its swivel stand or on the wall.

Picture

Throughout television retailing and online discussion groups, Panasonic is highly regarded as one of the top manufacturers of HDTVs, especially plasma TVs. Interestingly, plasmas like the TC-P50ST30 fell out of favor for a time and yet Panasonic never gave up on the technology. Now that plasma has returned to a positive light in consumer’s eyes, Panasonic has tripled their production and improved their manufacturing.

The TC-P50ST30 is a good example. It employs short-throw phosphor technology that provides superfast decay time to phosphorous when illuminated. This short-stroke technology was introduced to the HD line in 2010 and was so successful Panasonic utilized it in all plasma models in 2011.

One of the most impressive things about the P50ST30’s picture is its ability to minimize reflection in daylight or bright room right. At the same time it offers wide viewing angles with clarity at sharp angles. No one in the room will get a fuzzy picture, even with the whole extended family over for movie night.

Sound

A very clever engineering and design scheme was achieved by placing the Panasonic sound bar on the bottom edge of the TV behind the bezel. While you do have the option of connecting this TV to a multi-speaker surround sound system, with the P50ST30 you get great sound out of the box. We recommend clearing the floor and area near the TV to allow the sound to bounce off of the floor and rear wall, creating a full, rich sound experience.

You may get comments from people viewing the TC-P50ST30 that background sounds are louder than foreground conversation in movie and TV scenes. In that case, we suggest disabling surround sound from the settings on the internal menus which should eliminate that problem.

Energy

Two things are dominating consumer’s minds: the economy, and the environment. Panasonic recognizes their responsibility to promote green technology and, as a result, have reduced energy demands on the TC-P50ST30 by almost 25 percent year-to-year. Not only that, Panasonic consistently beats Energy Star 4.0 standards.

Additional Features

As good as the P50ST30’s picture is, you probably enjoy some activities outside the house! Whether it is football, baseball, golf, or tennis you can take pictures all day, return home and, using the internal SD card of your camera, immediately view photos and videos on the TV.

Another great development from the Panasonic laboratories is the addition of web apps to the existing Internet options. This year Panasonic has renamed the former Viera Cast as the new Viera Connect. The change represents the ability of the TC-P50ST30 to connect you to many online services such as Skype, Netflix Pandora and Twitter.

For 2011 Panasonic has added sports to the Viera Connect package. You’ll get to choose between Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer, the NBA and NHL hockey. Each will have access to current games, as well as a library of past games that you can access at any time. You can also pull up team history, stats, scores and standings. As Internet and TV continue to merge, Panasonic is at the forefront.

Conclusion

Plasma TVs are considered by engineers, industry experts and consumers to be the best picture available in HDTV. The Panasonic TC-P50ST30 gives you top-flight picture quality with deep, rich blacks and bright, sharp whites combined with full two- channel stereo sound. The fact that Panasonic is offering the TC-P50ST30 at such a great price may be the best value in home entertainment for 2011.

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