Panasonic TH-50PF9UK: Input Configuration

Interchangeable blades are a feature of this line of Panasonic industrial plasmas. With the 720p sets, they came standard with a component and some combination of s-video and composite inputs. If you wanted HDMI, you had to pay extra. With the TH-50PF9UK, you get a component and a DVI-D input. Now, since this display is really just a monitor – no pesky tuners or anything – trading in an s-video input for DVI-D is HUGE. For a HD display, s-video and composite are all but useless. Having two HD capable inputs will probably save many users from having to purchase a separate blade. With an HDMI to DVI cable, most any source can be used with the display – you just don’t get integrated audio.

Those of you using a computer (or HTPC) will be glad to know that you have access to a PC Input (15pinHD) that is 1080p capable. On top of this, there is an empty slot ripe to be filled with any blade you need (at an additional charge of course). While I personally would have preferred an HDMI input over the DVI-D, the display has no speakers and DVI-D has no appreciable picture quality difference from HDMI.

There have been a couple of changes to the menu system that I’d like to address:

POS. / SIZE

This menu adjusted the position and size of the image on the screen. You can stretch/compress the horizontal and vertical dimensions or reposition the image on the screen. In addition, there is a 1:1 pixel matching mode. HTPC users rejoice! 1:1 pixel mapping could really make the difference between a great picture and a mind-blowing one. Setting the exact picture size and timing will eliminate the display’s need to scale or deinterlace all the while eliminating 3:2 judder. You absolutely cannot get a better picture out of your HTPC. The 1:1 pixel mapping is only available for 1080i (component or DVI) or 1080p signals (DVI only) since it is obviously attempting to match the native scaling of the display. After you engage the 1:1 pixel mapping, you lose the ability to stretch or compress the picture, you can only adjust it horizontally and vertically. I found that this worked very well with my HTPC but with the OPPO 970HD, I experienced artifacts around the top and bottom of the screen due to the additional information in the edges of the picture (not present in PC sources).

PICTURE

The Picture menu houses all your standard picture adjustments. In the other Panasonic plasmas I’ve reviewed, there were three different “Picture” menus (default settings) that were selectable. Out of the box, it was set to Dynamic (which was a bit too bright but probably works well under fluorescent lighting) with Standard and Cinema modes following next in decreasing order of brightness. The TH-50PF9UK added an additional mode called “Super Cinema”. The manual describes “Super Cinema” as presenting a “Velvety Picture” (whatever that means). Super Cinema seems to ape Dynamic except that the Sharpness isn’t so high.

With the 720p TH-50PH9UK, Panasonic split the second input into two halves, one with s-video and the other composite. This created a headache for remote programmers because there were no discrete codes for each half of the blade. While some users may not experience any problems, custom installers were pulling their hair out trying to work around this issue. For this reason, I don’t suggest investing in the double blades unless you can confirm that a) you won’t have the need for discrete codes or that b) discrete codes are available for the blade you are looking at. In the case of the TH-50PF9UK, the double blade was replaced with the DVI-D blade so this shouldn’t be an issue.

Remote Control

Once again, the remote hasn’t changed. It is lightweight and functional. There are individual buttons for each of the inputs as well an input “scroll” button (for whatever good that would be). The lack of backlight and no individual buttons for the different aspect ratio are the only real drawbacks.