TCP50S1 or TC-50PS14

[festivus]

Both of these Panny plasmas look to be great buys. I can either at roughly the same price. Which one is better?

Does Panny make good plasmas?

[BattleZone]

Both of these Panny plasmas look to be great buys. I can either at roughly the same price. Which one is better?

Does Panny make good plasmas?

Yes, Panasonic makes excellent plasmas. The one area I would caution you about is to look at the 1080/24p performance. Last year was the first year they supported this format, but running their panel at 48 Hz caused flickering. This problem is apparently still present in this year's lower-end models, while the higher models refresh at a higher rate and don't have the flickering.

1080/24p is an increasingly important resolution/feature. It is the format of nearly all Blu-Ray movies as well as both sat companies' "1080p" movies.

[Getteau]

I can't tell you the difference between the S1 and the S14, but I bought an S1 a couple of months back and liked it so much, I bought a second one three weeks later. I have a Blu-Ray player hooked up to one of them, but haven't had a chance to watch a Blu Ray disc yet (the Blu-Ray's are still boxed up so it's been regular DVD's since we moved). So I can't confirm/deny Battle Zone’s 48 Hz flickering comment. However, I think all of the TC50 models are now 600Hz, so that may not be an issue any longer.

[spartanstew]

While the 50PS14 is really too new to find any actual reviews, I'll say that the 50SI is probably better.

From what I can glean, the 14 has no AR filter, has a more reflective screen, is missing Game Mode, does not have an integrated SD card slot, one fewer HDMI input and the contrast ratio is lower.

[BattleZone]

One of the best places to do research and read lots of people's experiences with your model:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=167

[festivus]

I went to the panny site and did a compare:

http://www2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/vModelComparisonResults?storeId=15001&catalogId=13401&catGroupId=103502&surfCategory=All%20VIERA%26%23174%3B%20Flat-Panel%20HDTVs&cacheProgram=11002&cachePartner=7000000000000005702&items=330262|347247|

Looks like the S1 is the way to go unless you want a 15 pin PC input. The "Viera Image Viewer" looks to simply be an SD slot and the S1 has that.

Almost the same TV with S1 having better contrast.

[bobukcat]

Does Panny make good plasmas?

Two links to answer your question:

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=156196

http://hdguru.com/panasonic-tcp50g10-50-plasma-review/416/

[festivus]

Thanks everyone. I went ahead and got the S1. Now I have another question. My HD DVR, the Dish vip622, has an HD setting where I need to choose 1080i or 720p. With my new 1080p set, which would be the better selection?

[bobukcat]

Thanks everyone. I went ahead and got the S1. Now I have another question. My HD DVR, the Dish vip622, has an HD setting where I need to choose 1080i or 720p. With my new 1080p set, which would be the better selection?

Nice choice! I would recommend you try both and see what looks best to you. Chances are you won't see much difference. FWIW I have mine set to 1080i for both my older 768P plasma and the new 1080P one.

[Getteau]

My S1's are connected to DTV HR21's which are both set to 1080i.

[festivus]

I'll do my best to explain this one...

Initially after I got my S1, I had the HDMI from my vip622 going to the TV and the optical out from the 622 going to my surround. I use the TV sound to mimic a center channel since the center channel on my surround is fuzzy/fried. Not the speaker, the channel itself. Also, if one of us goes to bed we turn the surround off and use only the TV speakers to cut down on the bass. The issue with this hookup was that the audio coming out of the TV and the surround were a split second out of sync. It was very annoying. So I tried to use the l/r rca audio connection to the TV from the 622 instead of the HDMI audio. Same problem. I didn't have this problem with my old Philips CRT set. No matter the connection, it seems that either the TV or the surround is processing the sound slower/faster.

So to avoid this echo effect I now use the optical out on the TV to the surround. But then I lose true surround since the TV outputs only 2 channel audio.

Just wondering if anyone else has encountered this and how they might have fixed it.

[Getteau]

Do a search on the DirecTV part of the forums for the issue and you'll find the techie details for what's going on (I think the threads were in the hi-def receiver section and they may be related to lip-synch issues). IIRC, you'll need to configure your receiver to have a delay because I think it's processing the signal faster than the TV. I have the same issue with my DTV HR21, Sony receiver and my Toshiba 65" TV. So now, I either connect the TV to the receiver like you have, or I mute one or the other if I wire the receiver directly to the DVR.

[festivus]

Thanks. I did a quick search and couldn't easily find the other thread. But I found a ton of articles on this issue online. Thanks for the tip to look for "lip sync". I think that you're right in that my receiver is processing the sound faster than the TV is processing both sound and video.

My receiver is old so I don't think that I can configure a delay. I don't remember that as one of the settings. But I'll check. If not I'll probably just have to deal with less than 5.1 coming out of the TV. Connected the other way the echo is unbearable.