Panasonic TH-50PHD7UY

CNET editors' review

Panasonic's latest industrial 50-inch plasma, the TH-50PHD7UY, may be a little light on consumer features, but its performance ranks as among that of the best 50-inch plasma panels we've seen to date. Don't let the "industrial" label fool you; this panel and others like it--including its predecessor the TH-50PHD6UY--are perfectly acceptable for in-home use. Unlike consumer models such as the TH-50PX25U, the TH-50PHD7UY has a no-frills design and lacks a few key features, such as cable and over-the-air digital/HDTV tuners, digital inputs, and even speakers. But optional speakers and even additional inputs are available, and when all is said and done, it'll cost less than most other 50-inch panels on the market.

Editor's note: We have changed the rating in this review to reflect recent changes in our rating scale. Click here to find out more.

Design of Panasonic TH-50PHD7UY

The dark-gray-finished panel is mostly just a glass screen, with a few function buttons located on the lower left along the bottom. Panasonic does offer optional side-mounting left and right speakers, which make it look a little more like its consumer sibling, and they actually sound pretty good.

Measuring 48 by 29 by 3.7 inches (HWD) and weighing 95 pounds, the panel can be hung on the wall with optional brackets from Panasonic (including the TY-WK42DR1, the TY-WK42PR7, and the TY-WK42PV7) or from third parties. Or you can go with a conventional stand since none is included (the TY-ST07K or the TY-ST05K). A complete list of accessories can be found here.

The bare-bones remote is small and quite well laid out. Since this panel is missing so many consumer features, the remote doesn't have otherwise common buttons such as a numeric keypad for changing channels, nor is it capable of controlling other components. We found the basic-looking internal menu system logical and easy to navigate.

Features of Panasonic TH-50PHD7UY

The TH-50PHD7UY is pretty much just a monitor. Its 1,366x768 native resolution means it can fully resolve a 720p HD source and qualifies it as a true HDTV display. All other incoming sources, including 1080i HDTV and computer resolutions up to 1,366x768 at 60Hz, are scaled to fit the native resolution.

Panasonic's industrial plasma panels don't usually offer much in the way of typical consumer features, but the TH-50PHD7UY offers more than its predecessor. Dual-tuner PIP (picture-in-picture) as well as POP (picture-out-of-picture) are two features that will no doubt appeal to many people, especially sports fans wanting to keep track of two games at one time. A somewhat gimmicky feature is the 4X digital zoom, which allows you to divide the screen into zones and magnify the image. Like many new plasmas, this panel offers a variety of screensaver modes designed to prevent burn-in, which can occur if very bright static images are left onscreen for long periods of time.

The set offers three selectable color temperatures: Warm, Normal and Cool, with Warm coming the closest to the standard of 6,500K (see Performance). A setting called AGC (Adaptive Gain Control) in the Advanced Menu changes the contrast level depending on the content of the picture and is best left off if you want optimum performance for home theater. Also in the Advanced Menu are Gamma options; we recommend a setting of 2.2 to get the most accurate performance. Among the several preset picture modes, we found that Standard provided the best overall results.

Connectivity of the TH-50PWD7UY from the factory is quite limited. The input bay includes one component/RGB video input that also accepts RGBHV signals, one composite-video input (they use BNC-type connectors so you'll need to get inexpensive adapters if you want to use standard RCA cables), and one S-Video input, all with their own RCA-type stereo audio inputs. Also on tap are a 15-pin VGA-style PC input, an RS-232 control port, and a composite-video output. The good news is that you can purchase additional input cards (DVI, component video, and so on), and they are not expensive. As an example, an HDMI card sells for $145, while an additional component-video card costs $110. See more options here.

Performance of Panasonic TH-50PHD7UY

The picture quality of the TH-50PHD7UY is much more accurate straight out of the box than that of most consumer plasma TVs we've tested. Naturally it can still be improved with professional calibration, and once done, it is the best-performing plasma panel we've tested to date, bar none. The panel's fully independent memory per input includes the ability to calibrate the grayscale individually for each input/source, which makes it among the most flexible in terms of setup of any HDTV out there.

The color decoding is nearly dead on, with no red push and only a minor error in green. After calibration, grayscale tracking was near perfect, which indicates very good gamma implementation. Black-level performance, and therefore actual contrast ratio, is superior to any non-CRT technology on the market today. There are also virtually no false-contouring artifacts if black level (brightness) is set correctly.

After calibrating both the DVD component-video input and the HDTV DVI input (the set had an optional add-in DVI board), we looked at some of our favorite reference DVDs and HD content. The Finding Nemo DVD looked superb, with great color saturation and detail, while chapter 12 of the Seabiscuit DVD looked awesome, with natural-looking skin tones and plenty of detail. Meanwhile dark scenes, such as certain sections from the Signs DVD, looked nearly as good as they would on a properly setup CRT, with deep blacks and almost no visible low-level noise.

HD content from our DirecTV HD satellite feed looked excellent, and color saturation and detail again both appeared exceptional.