speshlj said:I finally got the Sears 42" version set up and was just checking it out a bit. I've never owned a plasma before, only lcds. I connected SD card, looked great, but when I put on a dvd movie (tried a few), i felt like the movie opening and closing credits were a little blurry and the picture wasn't as clear as my lcd (i was viewing from 6 feet away and was basing my comparison to my previous 32" Envision LCD that was there). Any idea why this would happen or how to fix? I'm kind of annoyed by it. Overall, good picture, but I feel it is not as good as even my 32" Envision LCD from Staples. If I breakin will that help? I can't understand why there would be clarity issues on the movie, but not my sd card pictures.

The problem might relate to the resolution of the signal you're observing and your distance from the screen. The SD Card is probably displaying images at 1080i with 1,080 lines of vertical resolution, whereas the DVD signal, at 480p, shows less than half as many lines vertically. There is another doubling of the resolution in the horizontal direction as well, and so the 1080i signal has over 4 times more pixels compared to a 480p signal. If you were 20 feet away, you probably could not see this difference, but at just 6 feet, it should be fairly obvious.

Your observations regarding the sharpness on your 32" tv are likely rooted in the same issue. When watching a dvd, both the 42" and 32" tvs will show 480 lines of vertical resolution, but the 32" tv is smaller, so it has a higher pixel density and may appear sharper.

You could exaggerate this effect by comparing standard definition cable on even smaller tvs, like a 19" tube, which can appear ultrasharp because they compact so much information into such a small space. For similar reasons, a movie that looks nice in the center of a theater will look blurry and unslightly if you sit six feet away.

Somewhere in the middle of these two extremes is your living room. How does HDTV look in your room? How do video games look? What do you spend more time watching?

If the larger pixels on a 42" tv continue to bother you when watching dvds, consider an upconverting dvd player to enhance the resolution from 480p sources, or upgrade to a blue-ray player. If you continue to have problems, consider moving a few feet away from your tv set.

Keep in mind that sharpness is not the only consideration in picture quality -- the plasma picture should have a few other advantages over your 32" lcd, including more accurate colors, deeper blacks, smoother motion, and a better viewing angle.

If you still have an issue with the clarity at 720p, you may want to adjust the picture controls a bit.

Also, try googling "what size tv should i buy?" There are a variety of opinions, but I think you'll find very few who suggest 42" and above for 6-foot viewing spaces. I say this only to illustrate that the issue could be larger than the particular technical features of your television -- I happen to enjoy a 42" tv at 8 feet.

kahluatex said:speshlj said:I finally got the Sears 42" version set up and was just checking it out a bit. I've never owned a plasma before, only lcds. I connected SD card, looked great, but when I put on a dvd movie (tried a few), i felt like the movie opening and closing credits were a little blurry and the picture wasn't as clear as my lcd (i was viewing from 6 feet away and was basing my comparison to my previous 32" Envision LCD that was there). Any idea why this would happen or how to fix? I'm kind of annoyed by it. Overall, good picture, but I feel it is not as good as even my 32" Envision LCD from Staples. If I breakin will that help? I can't understand why there would be clarity issues on the movie, but not my sd card pictures.


The problem could simply relate to the resolution of the signal you're observing and your distance from the screen. The SD Card is probably displaying images at 1080i with 1,080 lines of vertical resolution, whereas the DVD signal is at 480p, showing less than half as many lines (480) of vertical resolution as the SD Card. There is a doubling of resolution in the horizontal direction as well, and so most people would say a 1080p signal has over 4 times more detail compared to a 480p signal. If you were 20 feet away, you probably could not see this difference, but at just 6 feet, it should be fairly obvious that one signal has much more detail than the other.

Your observations regarding the sharpness on your 32" tv are likely rooted in the same issue. When watching a dvd, both the 42" and 32" tvs will show 480 lines of vertical resolution, but the 32" tv is smaller, so it has a higher pixel density and may appear sharper.

You could exaggerate this effect by comparing standard definition cable on even smaller tvs, like a 19" tube, which can appear ultrasharp because they compact so much information into such a small space -- you would almost need your eyeball on the screen to see a pixel. For similar reasons, a movie in your theatre might look nice at 1080p, but if you sit six feet away from the ginormous screen, the image will become blurry and unsightly.

Somewhere in the middle between these two extremes is your living room. How does HDTV look in your room? How do video games look? What do you spend more time watching?

If the larger pixels on a 42" tv continue to bother you when watching dvds, consider an upconverting dvd player to enhance the resolution from 480p sources, or upgrade to a blue-ray player. If you continue to have problems, consider moving a few feet away from your tv set.

Keep in mind that sharpness is not the only consideration in picture quality -- the plasma picture should have a few other advantages over your 32" lcd, including more accurate colors, deeper blacks, smoother motion, and a better viewing angle.

If you still have an issue with the clarity at 720p, you may want to adjust the picture controls a bit.

Also, try googling "what size tv should i buy?" There are a variety of opinions, but I think you'll see that few, if any, suggest 42" and above for 6-foot viewing spaces. I'm probably only 8 feet from my 42" and I don't have a problem with it, but I can easily pick out a dvd signal compared to an hdtv signal (my brother-in-law didn't believe me until we conducted a "blind" test, which netted me $5!).

Thanks for the detailed response, greatly appreciated. These tv's are/were in my bedroom, which is like maybe 12 feet wide (maybe a little longer). There is little or no light in the room (we watched at night and have blackout curtains). We probably are sitting 5-7 feet from the screen. The 32" seemed a TINY bit too small, hence we upgraded to a 42"

TV looked better than DVD's too. We watch tv off a high def antenna in our bedroom, only have cable in the kitchen and living room. Even the Antenna view looked good.

Thanks again.

I purchased the 42" X1 at best buy a couple of weeks ago for $599 and love it. From my understanding the panels from the X1 are newer than the X14 along with the difference in imputs.

lol @ kahluatex for cramming 300-600 hours of TV into 1 week!

[delete this please, glitched and double-posted]

kahluatex said:
The only issue of any note is that my set does appear to have lost some of its brightness over time. I would guess it's about 85-95% as bright as it was originally. But I've tortured this set for 300-600 hours every week, and it's to be expected.

24 hours a day multiplied by 7 days in the week = 168 hours. How do you get 300-600 in a week?

SeniorChief said:megamands said:dhho1 said:speedy777 said:Lilricky said:Are you sure the model number is TC-P42X14? Can't seem to find it on Panasonic's site or Costco.

Yes! I just see at store in Seattle today. There is also 50" Panasonic TC-P50S14 1080p $1299.99 with PC input as well.

1080p is the deal. I won't waste $ on the 720p stuff.

you haven't researched enough facts between 720p and 1080p. What your friends and relatives say isn't always 100% right...

elaborate on this for me please, i'm looking for an excuse to buy a (much) cheaper 720p and will welcome any justification i havent thought of

This comes up in nearly every thread on HDTVs. You can also find a lot of information in dedicated threads on the subject on other websites. Here's an article to start you out.

I bought this TV from Costco for $599 but it may not be such a good deal if it is unable to play videos with sound from internet. I tried to hook up my laptop with the TV using a VGA cable(which has an audio cable in parallel purchased from Amazon -
http://www.Amazon.com/gp/product/B000EI3W8U/ref=ox_ya_oh_product)

I managed to get the video from the laptop on the TV using the PC input, but have no clue where the "audio input for PC" on the TV is. So effectively I can surf the web on TV but there is no audio on TV.

The panasonic website in tech description for this model says
PC Input Yes
Audio Input (for PC) No
There is also no headphone socket.
http://www2.panasonic.com/consumer-electronics/support/Televisions/VIERA-Plasma-HDTVs/model.TC-42PX14

Any suggestions on how the audio can be connected to this TV? I do not want to use the Svideo option due to poor picture quality. I do not have a HDMI port on my laptop.

Thank you for the suggestion. I will try it out today. I wonder why Panasonic would provide PC Input VGA slot but not PC Audio input 3.5mm jack. I will confirm if the solution worked.