Customer Rating: 
Summary: excellent!!!
Comment: Love the TV - color is great. Even before getting digital service it was a vast improvement over old set. Picture is clear and sharp; screen is non-reflective. Just love it!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Panasonic TH46PZ85U w/pedestal, on a TV stand: Video fabulous. Audio distorts.
Comment: The stereo pair of down-firing speakers built into this plasma TV may work fine if the TV is wall-mounted, and there is carpeting on the floor between the set and the viewer. But when the set is placed on a television stand like mine is, high frequency treble sounds distort.
There are two problems with the speakers.
1) They have a limited frequency range on both ends. (I don't expect much from built-in speakers, but better speakers should come with an expensive plasma set.)
2) These speakers fire downward at about 45 deg. The sound they emit bounces (a) off the pedestal and stand, (b) up to the ceiling, then (c) down to the viewer. Speaker Acoustics 101 teaches that bass sound from a speaker (or woofer) is omnidirectional. Conversely, treble from a speaker (or tweeter) follows a narrow path.
Factors 1 and 2 combine to cause clipping in the higher tones of some voices--on some cable, network and HD channels. At the same time, the overall sound quality of speech (music and background music) on other channels comes through with flying colors.
Several female voices on CNNHD, for example, sound scratchy or metallic. On CBSHD, half of Katy Couric's speech sounds metallic. It's most noticeable (and aggravating) when i and e sounds roll off the top of her mouth (like they should).
This TV speakers' flaws are exposed by making a simple test. While a high-pitched scratchy voice is speaking, place your hands against your head just in front of your ears, palms facing backward. When you do, the scratchiness is minimized and overall speech smoothes out.
Based on what I know about acoustics, I doubled a 28" wide terry cloth face towel and placed it on the pedestal and stand, below and forward of the speakers. It worked! The towel absorbed or attenuated enough of the metallic high tones to create more accurate and pleasant sound reproduction.
It took three months for me to arrive at the moderately successful fix. Neither Panasonic nor the seller nor the cable guy could make the faulty speakers sound better.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Better than LCD by far
Comment: I've owned nothing but LCD's since the CRT days and thought the rear-projection models were pretty good, but found the flat panel versions lacking. After much research and this purchase, I can definitively say that Plasmas just look a lot better.... no screen blur, no pixelation during motion, good contrast and dark blacks - great look with computer display through HDMI. I highly recommend this TV specifically and would urge everyone to take a good look at Plasma and don't assume that LCD is better. I have seen no screen burn in issues at all - even leaving static computer desktop images for hours and hours days on end.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Awsome
Comment: I bought after reading reviews from Amazon and CNET. It lived upto my expectation. I am having it for about 2 weeks now.
Customer Rating:
Summary: I finally made the right choice
Comment: So, after being completely dissapointed, and overcharged with a 42" Dell plasma (Phillips tv packaged in a Dell skin) that suddenly stopped working after a mere 3 years, I finally got the Panasonic plasma that I had wanted in the first place. The 46" Panasonic Viera is a great plasma, period! The colors are sharp, the blacks are deep, the packaging (skin) is pleasing, and the setup and remote are completely intuitive. I did have one little glitch with the way non-HD channels were displaying, but one call to Panasonic and their customer service representative understood the problem, passed it on to the techs, who then spent time to recreate the problem, and then called me within 48 hours (can you believe it, they called me!) with a very quick and easy solution. Needless to say I am not only very impressed with the plasma, but with Panasonic customer service as well. I highly recommend the 46" Panasonic Viera Plasma television.
Summary: excellent!!!
Comment: Love the TV - color is great. Even before getting digital service it was a vast improvement over old set. Picture is clear and sharp; screen is non-reflective. Just love it!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Panasonic TH46PZ85U w/pedestal, on a TV stand: Video fabulous. Audio distorts.
Comment: The stereo pair of down-firing speakers built into this plasma TV may work fine if the TV is wall-mounted, and there is carpeting on the floor between the set and the viewer. But when the set is placed on a television stand like mine is, high frequency treble sounds distort.
There are two problems with the speakers.
1) They have a limited frequency range on both ends. (I don't expect much from built-in speakers, but better speakers should come with an expensive plasma set.)
2) These speakers fire downward at about 45 deg. The sound they emit bounces (a) off the pedestal and stand, (b) up to the ceiling, then (c) down to the viewer. Speaker Acoustics 101 teaches that bass sound from a speaker (or woofer) is omnidirectional. Conversely, treble from a speaker (or tweeter) follows a narrow path.
Factors 1 and 2 combine to cause clipping in the higher tones of some voices--on some cable, network and HD channels. At the same time, the overall sound quality of speech (music and background music) on other channels comes through with flying colors.
Several female voices on CNNHD, for example, sound scratchy or metallic. On CBSHD, half of Katy Couric's speech sounds metallic. It's most noticeable (and aggravating) when i and e sounds roll off the top of her mouth (like they should).
This TV speakers' flaws are exposed by making a simple test. While a high-pitched scratchy voice is speaking, place your hands against your head just in front of your ears, palms facing backward. When you do, the scratchiness is minimized and overall speech smoothes out.
Based on what I know about acoustics, I doubled a 28" wide terry cloth face towel and placed it on the pedestal and stand, below and forward of the speakers. It worked! The towel absorbed or attenuated enough of the metallic high tones to create more accurate and pleasant sound reproduction.
It took three months for me to arrive at the moderately successful fix. Neither Panasonic nor the seller nor the cable guy could make the faulty speakers sound better.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Better than LCD by far
Comment: I've owned nothing but LCD's since the CRT days and thought the rear-projection models were pretty good, but found the flat panel versions lacking. After much research and this purchase, I can definitively say that Plasmas just look a lot better.... no screen blur, no pixelation during motion, good contrast and dark blacks - great look with computer display through HDMI. I highly recommend this TV specifically and would urge everyone to take a good look at Plasma and don't assume that LCD is better. I have seen no screen burn in issues at all - even leaving static computer desktop images for hours and hours days on end.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Awsome
Comment: I bought after reading reviews from Amazon and CNET. It lived upto my expectation. I am having it for about 2 weeks now.
Customer Rating:
Summary: I finally made the right choice
Comment: So, after being completely dissapointed, and overcharged with a 42" Dell plasma (Phillips tv packaged in a Dell skin) that suddenly stopped working after a mere 3 years, I finally got the Panasonic plasma that I had wanted in the first place. The 46" Panasonic Viera is a great plasma, period! The colors are sharp, the blacks are deep, the packaging (skin) is pleasing, and the setup and remote are completely intuitive. I did have one little glitch with the way non-HD channels were displaying, but one call to Panasonic and their customer service representative understood the problem, passed it on to the techs, who then spent time to recreate the problem, and then called me within 48 hours (can you believe it, they called me!) with a very quick and easy solution. Needless to say I am not only very impressed with the plasma, but with Panasonic customer service as well. I highly recommend the 46" Panasonic Viera Plasma television.