Panasonic TX-P42GT30B 3D Plasma TV Review

The Panasonic TX-P42GT30B is the company’s mid-range 3D Plasma TV for 2011, featuring the 14th generation NeoPlasma (formerly “NeoPDP”) panel with “Infinite Black Pro”, Short-Stroke phosphor material for reduced trailing and 3D crosstalk, and a newly redesigned ultra-slim chassis. The TX-P42GT30B has also been through the THX Display Certification programme for 2D viewing, and new for 2011, for 3D viewing as well. Last year’s Panasonic Plasma displays needed quite a bit of calibration work in order to avoid unwanted colour tints when playing back 3D video, and actually doing this calibration through the 3D Active Shutter glasses required expensive specialised equipment. Hopefully, THX’s certification process will allow all users to watch tint-free 3-dimensional images without the need for extensive picture setup.
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!

Design

Although we feel that design isn’t terribly important in the scheme of things, there’s no denying that Panasonic has upped the ante this year. Although we had a look at these HDTV displays at February’s Panasonic convention, we didn’t really acknowledge the improvement until we got a review sample into our test room.

The design of the Panasonic TX-P42GT30B is considerably improved compared to the Viera G20 and GT20 displays that it replaces: it’s thinner, and more subtle and professional looking. The thin border surrounding the sleek-looking glass panel is styled with a brushed steel look, which makes the TX-P42GT30 feel like a smaller version of Panasonic’s professional Plasma displays (which we’ve always envied the design of). The outer edges of the plasma are rounded rather than being square, and there is a small silver border placed between the screen itself and the outer bezel.
In fact, the promotional images Panasonic has issued do the TXP42GT30 a disservice. In pre-rendered publicity pictures, the display looks pretty much the same as every other gloss black TV out there. Don’t judge the GT30’s looks until you see it in the flesh. Less practically, the TX-P42GT30B’s thickness has also been reduced to a mere 3cm (for most of the back panel – the deepest point, at the bottom of the unit, is closer to 5cm).

Build quality is also top-notch: no part of the TX-P42GT30B feels cheap or plasticky. It’s probably worthwhile pointing out that the TXP42GT30 does not ship with any 3D glasses, so they will have to be purchased separately if the owner intends to watch extra-dimensional content.
Although we spotted a newly revised remote control design at the company’s annual convention last month, it seems that it’s reserved for high end models only. The mid-range GT30 features a familiar Panasonic remote control, albeit styled in silver. We like this design and have no real issues with it, so aren’t really disappointed – although it looks a little plain when compared to the 3DTV itself. There is now a dedicated “3D” button on the remote control, which is a most welcome addition for European models. Strangely, although the Panasonic TX-P42GT30 features the new “VIERA Connect” online service, the remote control button used to access it still reads “VIERA Cast”. Oops?

Connections

The TX-P42GT30B’s design means that, like other manufacturers who have produced ultra-slim displays, Panasonic has had to incorporate the majority of the TV’s video inputs via break-out adapter cables. The exception to this rule is the 4 HDMI inputs, which are slim enough to be built directly in to the back panel. These are mounted facing side-ways to the rear left of the TXP42GT30. Since the HDMI inputs are located quite close to the edge of the rear panel, we found that they would sometimes stick out and remain visible from the front viewing position. Inexpensive L-shaped HDMI adapters or cables could solve this problem, should it become an issue.

Rear: 4 x HDMI, SCART, Component, aerial, Freesat, ethernet & audio outs

As for other connectivity options, there’s one RGB SCART input, one Component input, and a nearly useless Composite video input. It seems that the analogue RGB (PC “VGA”) input has been lost in the slimming-down process, but given that most computers can now output via HDMI, we don’t see this as too big an issue.
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

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).

[Picture] menus

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).
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

Note: Our Panasonic TX-P42GT30B review sample was calibrated using Calman Professional, the industry-leading video calibration software.

2D Mode Greyscale

Pre-calibration RGB tracking and delta errors (dEs)

We allowed our TX-P42GT30B to age for a few days, and then recorded the above measurements from its “THX” picture mode. The image on our TX-P42GT30 review unit had a slight excess of green in the picture, but as we usually find from THX-certified displays, the errors were negligible.

Post-calibration RGB tracking and dEs in [Professional1] mode

Cleaning up Greyscale tracking didn’t take long at all, and we were left with the above, highly linear result. We could mention that other HDTV manufacturers are introducing 10-point control (LG has it even on bargain-priced models), but given the quality of the above result, it hardly seems worth mentioning: all stimulus levels except for 10% have a Delta Error of about 2 or less, meaning that the picture will appear free of unwanted tints.
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.

Gamma curve in [Professional1] mode	Corresponding gamma tracking

Gamma tracking has never been consistent on any of the Panasonic Plasma TV sets we’ve reviewed. Measurements are strongly influenced by the test patterns being used to gather measurements (compare measurements taken with standard windows compared to smaller patches, for example), indicating some degree of unpredictability as to real-world performance. The above measurements were taken using the small APL windows from the AVSHD calibration disc with the TX-P42GT30’s [Gamma] setting set to “2.2″. As the “Gamma Y” chart indicates, under these conditions, the Panasonic TX-P42GT30B rose out of black slightly too abruptly, over-emphasising shadow detail. As is often the case with Gamma, the user would likely require a perfect “broadcast quality” display (or intimate knowledge of material as viewed on one) to notice any issues.

2D Mode Colour

Although there are still no dedicated controls over the secondary colours (Cyan, Magenta and Yellow), Panasonic has added three-axis control over the Primary colours this year. In other words, we can adjust the Hue and Saturation of Red, Green and Blue (top chart) and new for 2011, also the Luminance of each primary colour, too (bottom chart). The results speak for themselves – although the out-of-the-box performance was very good, the excellent level of control allowed for any colour errors to be further minimised.

Post-calibration CIE chart with reference to HD Rec.709

Post-calibration colour luminance (coloured bars = targets; black bars = measured values)

3D Calibration

Panasonic Plasma TVs haven’t had any obvious Greyscale or Colour errors for a while now, so the above results from 2D calibration really weren’t surprising. With 3D, however, it’s a different story. Last year’s first-generation 3D TVs produced a 3D image that was incredibly red-tinted out of the box. Correcting this required a non-contact calibration meter, specialised software, and a good amount of patience – and even then, the post-calibration image wasn’t entirely free of colour tints. Since the TX-P42GT30B has gone through the THX Certification process for both 2D and 3D images, we were enthusiastic to test this 2011 plasma’s out-of-the-box 3D performance.
Even before we began calibrating, we noticed an improvement: the Panasonic GT30 features discrete picture settings for both the 2D and 3D display modes. This is important, because 2D and 3D require different picture settings to both look their best. In other words, make a change to the “Professional1″ mode in 3D, switch back to 2D, and you’ll find that your 2D settings have been preserved and the change has only affected the 3D mode. This also means that users no longer have to re-purpose the “Professional2″ mode for 3D picture settings and manually change the picture mode upon entering or leaving 3D.

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