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I bought a Panny Plasma about 5 months ago and have been very happy with it (GT-50). Picture quality is silly good.
As mentioned, you can probably get a decent quality picture with one of the presets - but definitely look to calibrate it a little bit. Get a bluray player for sure (I grabbed a sony off amazon for a good price). I don't use the sony apps much but also have it connected to wifi. The standard preset is your worst picture. Plasmas aren't as energy efficient as other types so frequently the standard picture is the one that allows the TV to meet certain requirements while providing the worst possible picture. I have the disney world of wonder disk which has some calibration - but found some good settings I could use on my TV that provided a really nice result.
Hooking up viera tools to wifi is easy. I use netflix constantly (having a 3 year old who needs her curious george fix). My remote has a netflix button and it loads it right up. Otherwise I can hit the internet button and select it. Also easy to find youtube videos on your phone and play them to your TV. Options are pretty good in navigating netflix (not much different than any other app interface). However, for some searches I find it easier to go to my desktop, search and then just add it to my instant queue and then grab it from there on my TV.
Also keep in mind this is a plasma TV. Image retention is going to be a concern as well as uneven phosphour aging. Your first 100 hours are the most sensitive for aging and the first 1,000 hours have the most rapid aging. From there the aging is much slower.
Limit the amount of letterboxed/widescreen type content with black bars as it can lead to uneven aging in the first 100/1000. Try to stick to as much full screen content as you can early and then phase in the rest.
Also any TV program with static images can leave a temporary ghosted image - this usually resolves itself with varied normal viewing but something worth noting. History channel can be pretty persistent on my TV as well as fox sports programming. My TV has an image retention tool that runs black/white slides across the screen for 15 minutes to help clean IR. Also the disney WOW disk has a pixel flipper that can help by activating all pixels and providing a snow type screen. It can take a bit to really burn an image in where it will never resolve but it can happen so be careful with video games or other things where you'd run a static image over a long period of time over a long number of days.
As for cables - I've had good luck with the mediabridge cables bought on amazon .... I know a lot of people who have had success with monoprice as well
Uneven phosphor aging (otherwise known as “burn-in”) was a problem on early generation plasma displays (5-7 years ago) due to a shorter lifespan and use in industrial applications
The lifespan of the latest generation of plasma TVs has dramatically improved (60,000 hours) and an improvement in phosphors has almost eliminated the possibility of uneven phosphor aging when used in a consumer’s home.
Most people watch a variety of programming ranging from movies to news and reality TV. This variety in programming results in an evenly aged panel.
I know that's from their site, however I would draw a distinction between burn in and uneven aging for most practical applications ..... in the early days the uneven aging would lead to a burn in
Todays are much better which is the reason I was comfortable enough to invest in one. It's improved to the point where just the uneven aging isn't going to create a burn of a static image (like the espn logo during a basketball game). To create a burn of a static image you generally are going to have to work at it.
However, the phosphors still need to age and their life span is such where they age most rapidly out of the box - very quickly the first 100 hours, fairly quickly from 101 to 1,000 and after roughly 1,000 hours the aging is much more gradual with much longer set half lifes for phosphors than in previous generations
At this point you can pretty much expect to get some temporary retention & ghosting that will resolve typically in less than a day at most.
The other issue that is still happening is someone get a new TV, breaks out the DVD player and gets excited and goes on a movie marathon with the letterbox bars aging the center of the screen but not the top and bottom. Keeping in mind the phosphors age much more rapidly out of the box they can create an uneven looking screen even in full content. The other that happens is someone doesn't have HD setup or simply watches a lot of 4:3 programming with the side black bars and then the sides don't age at the same pace in that more sensitive early time.
Most sites recommend limiting "black bar" viewing to 25%-30% of total viewing in the initial stages of the TV
Here is a webpage that does a good job detailing the common issues - granted they are selling their own product to help "clean" retention ..... but a lot of good information regardless of what can happen and judging by reading pretty much any plasma forum it is definitely still happening out there
I do agree with the overall theme of your post though. Varied content, improved technology and most channels being full screen have helped remove this as a major concern or being as big of an isue as it once was. It's just that the issues are still there to a degree and many people simply do not know or understand.
One group likes to overstate the issue, another has no idea it exists with the truth being in the middle. It's out there, but can be lessened - just know it exists and be careful in the early stages with the set.
An update here aprapos of nothing. The HDMI cables didn't work, I kept getting an input error or lost signal error or something can't remember. a TWC guy came out and upgraded my box and did some stuff but it kept happening. Seemed to me it happened about the same time of night or after the tv had been on a certain amount of time.
Anyway, a different tech came out and hooked up........individual cables? He said something about signal going up and down the same cable in HDMI cables or something.
Seemed to work, I haven't had that problem. Only issue is this Panasonic came with limited inputs and the individual cables i think sucked them all up.
I bought a Panny Plasma about 5 months ago and have been very happy with it (GT-50). Picture quality is silly good.
As mentioned, you can probably get a decent quality picture with one of the presets - but definitely look to calibrate it a little bit. Get a bluray player for sure (I grabbed a sony off amazon for a good price). I don't use the sony apps much but also have it connected to wifi. The standard preset is your worst picture. Plasmas aren't as energy efficient as other types so frequently the standard picture is the one that allows the TV to meet certain requirements while providing the worst possible picture. I have the disney world of wonder disk which has some calibration - but found some good settings I could use on my TV that provided a really nice result.
Also keep in mind this is a plasma TV. Image retention is going to be a concern as well as uneven phosphour aging. Your first 100 hours are the most sensitive for aging and the first 1,000 hours have the most rapid aging. From there the aging is much slower.
Limit the amount of letterboxed/widescreen type content with black bars as it can lead to uneven aging in the first 100/1000. Try to stick to as much full screen content as you can early and then phase in the rest.
Also any TV program with static images can leave a temporary ghosted image - this usually resolves itself with varied normal viewing but something worth noting. History channel can be pretty persistent on my TV as well as fox sports programming. My TV has an image retention tool that runs black/white slides across the screen for 15 minutes to help clean IR. Also the disney WOW disk has a pixel flipper that can help by activating all pixels and providing a snow type screen. It can take a bit to really burn an image in where it will never resolve but it can happen so be careful with video games or other things where you'd run a static image over a long period of time over a long number of days.
I have a 2 year old 1080p 3D Panasonic TC-P42ST30 and agree about the image rentention. When I first got it I made the mistake of falling asleep a couple times with a BR movie playing... and woke up with the menu screen on.
It retained the ghost image for a few days but finally faded. I've read that burn in isn't a problem like it used to be... and I would agree.
2 years of solid viewing and I'm happy. The 3D is pretty cool too...although I'll probably skip it on the next TV I buy.
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Panasonic disagrees
