Panasonic TH-50PF9UK 50-Inch Plasma Monitor
If you regularly follow the “big box” store advertisements in the Sunday newspaper, or catch the tradeshow announcements, you’d think that it was all over for plasma technology these days. LCD monitors and HDTVs are now available commercially in screen sizes as large as 70 inches, with 1,920x1,080 (1080p) resolution de rigueur on models as small as 37 inches.
Granted, resolution is an important part of the display equation, but not the only part. LCD monitors may be bright, but they still have some catching up to do when it comes to faithfully reproducing grayscale images and standard video color gamuts, not to mention achieving silky-smooth black levels.
The availability of 1080p resolution in LCD displays did upset the apple cart somewhat for plasma manufacturers. In particular, Hitachi, Panasonic, and Pioneer were tripped up by the fact that, until recently, they couldn’t jam two million pixels into plasma monitors smaller than 65 inches.
But all three companies are reclaiming ground with a new generation of 50-inch 1080p plasma displays, starting with Pioneer’s PRO-FHD1 consumer HDTV and continuing with Panasonic’s TH-50PF9UK professional monitor. The latter is one of three new 1080p pro displays from Panasonic, the others being the 65-inch TH-65PF9UK and the immense 103-inch TH-103PF9UK.
Interfaces and Remote
There will be a lot of interest in this product with its low MSRP of just $5,995. The TH-50PF9UK retains Panasonic’s classic dark gray finish that’s been seen on Panasonic industrial and broadcast monitors for years. There are no speakers attached, but you can order them as accessories and hook them up to the 16- watt speaker terminals.
The remote control has a clean layout, but there are a few too many small buttons for my liking. It’s obviously adapted from a consumer remote as it includes rocker switches for channel up/down and a 12-button numeric keypad. There are also controls for Picture-in-Picture, an “off” timer, and surround-sound modes.
The connector complement is basic, to say the least. The TH-50PF9UK ships with one fixed input slot holding a 15-pin VGA jack. The remaining three slots can be populated with any of 11 different expansion boards, some of which span two slots (composite/S-video/component) and one that spans three slots and includes a compact PC/server. There’s also an expansion slot for CAT5 UTP interconnects. On the review model, slot 3 was set up with three BNC jacks for component YPbPr video, while slot 2 contained a DVI-D jack for both PC and HDCP signals. Panasonic also shipped the TY-FB8HM, an HDMI 1.2 interface card. All of the analog and digital interfaces have stereo audio connections with the exception of the HDMI card (HDMI carries digital audio through its connector).
Menus and Settings
The four inputs can be accessed directly, along with four different sub-menus. In the Picture menu, you can set basic parameters, such as brightness, contrast, color saturation, color hue, and sharpness. Panasonic provides four preset image modes—Standard, Dynamic, Cinema, and Super Cinema—and you can tweak each of them as needed.
The Aspect Ratio control provides four different options with lower-resolution video: Normal (4:3), Zoom (fills image width to screen), Full (anamorphic stretch of image width), and Just (non-linear image stretch). Native HD content is automatically displayed full screen. There is also a 1:1 pixel map setting, which when turned off, provides 5% to 7% picture overscan with 1080i video sources.
An advanced menu lets you fiddle with red and blue contrast and brightness to calibrate to a specific white point, turn black extension on or off to reveal or hide shadow detail at low luminance levels, set the video input level at 0 or 7.5 IRE, and choose from four different picture gamma curves—2.0, 2.2, 2.5, and S-curve. Unfortunately, there are no green channel adjustments or preset color gamut tables. Panasonic has also provided four “green” power conservation settings—Power Save, Standby Save, Power Management, and Auto Power Off. The first setting lowers overall luminance levels, while the second reduces standby power consumption. The power supply can also be turned off automatically if no signal is present, using Power Management for the PC input and Auto Power Off for all other inputs.
Three screen saver controls help to extend plasma life. The first displays a scrolling white bar, which slowly moves back and forth on the screen like a windshield wiper, clearing “stuck” images. The second option provides a “negative” or reversed image. Both of these options can be left on-screen for pre-programmed intervals and will shut down automatically.
A third option is known as “wobbling,” but you’ll recognize it as pixel orbiting. In this mode, the entire picture is slowly shifted one pixel at a time, in a circular fashion. To the casual viewer, no motion is detected. But the static image is spread out over more pixels, which in theory should diminish differential aging of phosphors—the dreaded burn-in phenomenon.
Performance
After calibration for best grayscale in Cinema mode with 2.5 gamma selected, I measured full-white (FW) brightness at 70 nits (20.5 ft-L) with a 100 IRE test pattern. A small area pattern of similar intensity produced a reading of 113 nits (33 ft-L). Because of the monitor’s internal AGC system, full-screen, full-white brightness readings varied by only 6% across all four preset image modes.
Image contrast was clocked at 701:1 ANSI (average) and 905:1 peak, again measured in Cinema mode. Black levels averaged a super-low 154 nits, resulting in very high peak contrast readings, such as the 1,815:1 mark I logged when viewing test patterns in Dynamic mode. In Cinema and Standard modes, 256- level grayscale ramps show up remarkably clean and free of false contouring, a Panasonic signature for many years. The maximum color temperature shift from 20 IRE to 100 IRE was just 400 degrees Kelvin, performance comparable to a professional CRT monitor.
Red, green, and blue color coordinates are very close to the HDTV REC.709 and SMPTE-C color spaces. Only the green channel comes up a bit short, as it has a bit too much cyan in the mix and not enough yellow. Suffice it to say you’ll see a close match to CRT color quality, once you tune up the TH-50PF9UK.
Frequency response is good to at least 20 MHz, verified with 720p and 1080i luminance multiburst patterns. I saw some filling at 37.5 MHz in both modes. Chroma bandwidth is much better in 720p mode, but there is some color phase reversal at 37.5 MHz in 1080i mode.
Video Image Quality
The TH-50PF9UK works best with progressive- scan images, and can handle a wide range of scan and refresh rates through its RGB, component, and/or DVI inputs including 480p/576p, 720p, or 1080p with 24Hz, 24Hz sF, 25Hz, 30Hz, 50Hz, and 60Hz refresh rates. I did have problems getting 1080p scaled content to work through the HDMI connector, which may have been a copy-protection (HDCP) issue more than anything.
If you plan to use this monitor for image magnification, production, and post-production work, stay in Cinema mode and set your peak white no higher than 120 nits (35 ft-L). That will give you excellent dynamic range, smooth grayscales, and rich black levels without clipping. Live 720p and 1080i video from ESPN HD and Comcast SportsNet HD showed very well on this display, with accurate colors and smooth grayscales. Fast motion was also crisp and clean, something you won’t find on comparable LCD monitors and HDTVs.
The 1080i-to-1080p picture detail from a Silicon Optix Whitehorse video scaler was so good I could clearly see macroblock and mosquito noise compression artifacts on NBC’s Sunday Night Football during periods of fast motion and camera movement. I also tested some HD DVD clips from Superman Returns and King Kong to check for color saturation, grayscale reproduction, and shadow detail — all were excellent.
Conclusions
Panasonic’s TH-50PF9UK has a smooth, very CRT-like image when set up correctly and takes full advantage of its 1920x1080 pixel matrix. Its image quality is good enough to use as a reference monitor for many applications. An outboard video scaler can help with lowresolution analog video sources. Signal bandwidth and frequency response through the HD analog inputs could be improved, and green channel adjustments — something Panasonic has never offered on their plasma monitors — would be welcome for finer calibration of the display’s grayscale. For public display and signage modes, average power consumption is lower than in older models at 322 watts (measured in Standard mode for eight hours with mixed video content).
Pete Putman heads ROAM Consulting LLC based in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. In addition, Putman maintains HDTVexpert.com, a fast-growing Web site that covers digital TV, HDTV, and display technologies.
