Panasonic has also added Film Cadence Detection to its Plasma televisions this year. On the UK models, this option is called “Clear Cinema”. We’ll find out how well this works later on in the review. Two options to help prevent, or to alleviate Plasma display Image Retention, are also helpfully placed in the picture menu. We’re glad to see an easy shortcut to the “White Scrolling Bar” pattern being made available to users – it’s been present on Panasonic Plasma displays for some time now, but hidden away in the service menu. If you do have a marathon session of TV viewing from a channel with a particularly garish fixed on-screen logo and find it lurking around afterwards, then this “screen wipe” should sort things out. 2D Calibration Panasonic’s calibration menus have been improved this year. The on-screen slider control now appears fixed at the bottom of the screen, which is an improvement over last year’s models. On the 2010 displays, the on-screen graphics sometimes covered up the area of the screen that was being read, obviously skewing the measurements. Secondly, the low-end controls seem to have much more scope for adjustment this year: they are much less coarse. Because of the worsening TV sales crisis, Panasonic was forced to leave the North American market. But 3D televisions are still in use. And since TVs last longer than glasses, you may need to buy new 3D glasses to replace your broken ones. This article will help you find the suitable glasses model to ensure they work correctly with your TV. The Panasonic GT30 handled motion from 3D sources correctly. On last year’s displays, we had to dig around in the menus to find the option that played 3D 24fps film material without judder. This year, the TX-P42GT30 simply displays the image with cinema-quality movement, with no adjustments necessary. By “cinema-quality”, we mean that there is no false motion being added to the picture (no “soap opera effect”) – unless the viewer wants to turn it on, that is – and also no judder beyond what you would expect with 24fps film content. No matter what “flavour” of video we threw at the display – 24p (most Blu-ray movies worldwide), 50i (European sources) or 60i (American/Japanese video camera material), the TX-P42GT30B reproduced motion correctly.

CR850, CRW854, CX800, CXW804, CXC725, CXE720, CXM710, CX700, CXM715, CXW704, CS630, CSF647, CSN638, CST636, CSX639 Size: The best 3D glasses are not one size fits all. If you can find glasses that offer adult and child sizes, that is advisable. This makes a difference in terms of comfort (how tight or loose the glasses feel on your head) and the size of the lenses. If you can see around the edges of your lenses while looking straight ahead, you might not have the best 3D experience. There is another, more subtle improvement under the hood when compared to last year. When we ran Chroma Resolution test charts from a Blu-ray Disc source through 2010’s Panasonic Plasmas, we noticed that the thin red and blue horizontal lines in the test pattern were not distinct, and instead were smudged into a more purple-ish tone. Although not a huge issue, it was ironic, given that compared to other TV makers, Panasonic is unusually vocal in promoting high quality chroma processing whenever it sells its Blu-ray Disc players! Blu-ray Disc and other consumer video formats use a 4:2:0 sampling system, meaning that they display 1920×1080’s worth of luminance detail, but only 960×540’s worth of colour. The TX-P42GT30B can display all of the detail present in a 4:2:0 signal, which is an improvement on last year. In practice, this will go unnoticed by nearly everyone, but it does mean that tiny coloured details will be reproduced more faithfully on the TX-P42GT30. Console Gaming Remember to turn the power off and unplug active 3D glasses for cleaning. Also, don’t use any chemicals or liquids to clean your 3D glasses. FAQ Polarized: A polarized 3D image uses a different type of polarization for each image. Correspondingly, polarized 3D glasses feature a different type of polarization in each lens to allow each eye to only view one of the superimposed images. This type of 3D glasses is also passive, but it’s preferred over anaglyph because it allows the viewer to experience 3D images in color.

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Of course, for further picture fine-tuning, the Imaging Science Foundation (ISF) controls are still present, and have been expanded slightly this year. Panasonic’s midrange Viera HDTVs have typically produced excellent picture quality at very reasonable prices, so if the GT30 performs well, then it should be one of the main Plasma televisions to beat this year. Let’s find out how it performs! The reasonably accurate Greyscale performance that the TX-P42GT30 produced “out of the box” in the THX picture mode meant that images were largely free of unwanted colour casts, without any specialised calibration work being necessary. Of course, that’s also an option for users who want to squeeze every last drop of performance from the plasma TV. TC-P50ST60, TC-P55ST60, TC-P60ST60, TC-P65ST60, TC-P55VT60, TC-P60VT60, TC-P65VT60, TC-L65WT600, TC-P60ZT60, TC-P65ZT60 The [Colour Management] menus introduced last year have been expanded to also include control over the Luminance (Brightness) of the colours, adding the final level of control in addition to the existing adjustments for Saturation and Hue. With last year’s Panasonic flat-screen TVs, we found that even without control over Luminance, there were no huge errors anyway, but more control is always welcome. There are still no adjustments for secondary colours, but we’ll find out later if that’s a big problem or not (our guess is not).

Battery: Active 3D glasses need a power source, which is usually a rechargeable battery. Ideally, you want a battery that can charge in just hours but can last for months on standby. There are also feeds for the dual tuners on the Panasonic TX-P42GT30B. These are located facing down quite near the bottom of the display, and at first, we were a little wary of forcing the breakout adapter cables into the ports, in case we damaged something. A little force is needed to attach the short extension cables into the tuner inputs, and from there, the appropriate connections can be made. Operation The TXP42GT30 retains Panasonic’s signature “clean” Plasma look: the Plasma panel’s driving method results in only a very small amount of fine noise being added to the image. Oddly, we did notice that when we displayed static, single-tone test patterns, the top 100 or so lines of the GT30 displayed a higher amount of subtle noise compared to the rest of the image. We’re not sure what the cause of this is or if it affects every unit, but we mention it for completeness only (we weren’t troubled by it). AS650, AS740, AS750, AS800, ASE650, ASF657, ASF757, ASM651, ASM655, ASN658, ASN758, AST656, AST756, ASW654, ASW754, ASW804, ASX659, ASX759, AX900, AXC904, AXW904 As long as your 3D glasses use the same technology as your images, they will work. However, if you'd like to enhance your overall user experience, here are a few additional aspects to consider.Anaglyph: An anaglyph 3D image uses color to distinguish two superimposed images that your brain merges into one. This is a passive technology, meaning it requires no power to work. Anaglyph 3D glasses feature two lenses, each a different color — typically red and cyan, but there can be other color combinations. These are the least expensive 3D glasses (often the frames are cardboard), though more expensive models exist. From our point of view, the Panasonic TX-P42GT30B has excellent motion performance. Just remember that it is a Plasma TV, and as such, there are some Plasma-specific artefacts to be found in the picture. Viewers who think they might find these especially objectionable should ideally try to demo some fast-moving sports material (using the “THX” or “Professional” picture modes) in stores. 3D Material Panasonic has given most of its lineup a refreshing new menu redesign for 2011. The menus are now drawn in sleek transparent grey, which matches the design of the GT30 itself quite nicely. Some of the menu options have been re-arranged so as to appear in more logical positions: for example, the [3D Settings] screen is now accessed from the [Picture] menu, rather than from a generalised Setup menu. Additionally, with the two “Professional” picture modes, the settings are now accompanied by visible numbers, which is new for the UK variant models and is helpful during the process of finding the best picture settings (which we’ll do in the “Calibration” section).