Panasonic Viera TH-46PZ86FV

In a crowded marketplace that's increasingly dominated by LCD TVs, Panasonic's devotion to plasma remains unabated.

This TH-46PZ86FV is one of the manufacturer's plasma screens--indeed, one of their best--with a Full HD panel, a built-in HD digital tuner and several other options.

But before we look at the rest of the TV, let's start with the screen, and, in particular, the glossy finish it shares with all other plasmas.

The anti-glare coating that Panasonic has applied is reasonably effective, and avoids the irritating reflections that plague other manufacturers.

Around the outside, a plain frame rests on a rotating base but because plasma screens offer such good viewing angles, you'll probably never need to use it.

In terms of connectivity, you get all the options you'd expect:


When you first switch it on, the same old menu pops up to guide you through installation and the assigning of channels, and it's a shame that Panasonic hasn't thought about updating this recently.

It's seriously starting to show its age, especially with settings where the different options only offer a few presets rather than a continuous scale.

Equally troubling is the fact that the information about the source currently displayed describes the resolution and aspect ratio, but not, bizarrely, the refresh rate.

Excellent Test Results

Our first tests revealed a series of scores that are entirely classic for a plasma screen: a very deep black, ranging from 0.09 to 0.12 cd/m² depending on the settings.

On the other hand, whites are pale, especially in bright images.  The usual rule of thumb for a plasma is that the lighter the scene, the paler the whites.

This means that in our tests, where we displayed a small white square in the center of the screen--taking up 10% of the total pixels--it was a bright 180 cd/m², but when we measured the brightness of a totally white screen it was only 66 cd/m².

The different values for whites have a knock-on effect on contrast, causing the ANSI ratio to fluctuate between 650:1 and 850:1.  If you really stretch a point, you can get up to 2000:1 but only on testcards with very small white areas.

Upscaling

Although these initial statistics might make you think twice about the 46PZ86FV, there's no need to be afraid: in the flesh, the performance is excellent.

The picture is a little less sharp than on an LCD screen, even when showing a 1080p source.  What's more, this TV--like many of its cousins from Panasonic--is also very good at upscaling standard definition sources like DVDs.


24p Real Cinema vs. 24p Playback

While Panasonic's entry-level TVs are marketed as offering '24p Playback', the PZ86FV is said to offer '24p Real Cinema'.  What's the difference?

The cheaper 'Playback' models accept 24 Hz signals but use a 3:2 pulldown to show them.  This creates very slight jerkiness that is likely to irritate a specialist, but is largely invisible to the average viewer.

The 'Real Cinema' TVs, however, interpolate extra frames to take a 24 Hz signal up to 50 Hz, doing essentially the same job as Sony's Motionflow system, Samsung's Motion Plus or Philips' HDNM, to name but a few.

To add yet another piece of jargon, Panasonic calls its implementation of this system Intelligent Frame Creation, which then boosts the frame rate once again up to 100 Hz.  Once you've seen the results with it turned on, you're unlikely to want to go back.

That said, the same colored fringes that counted against the TH-42PZ81E are back.  They're still not a deal-breaker, as they only occur in very specific circumstance.

We noticed them in our tests when very contrasting objects moved very regularly across the screen, but this is only something that occurred in our test videos, not in any of the movies we watched in real life.

The PZ86FV is the leader of the pack when it comes to TVs right now.  It's by no means perfect, and a real Home Cinema kit will give much better results, but it does its job very well.  While the majority of TVs we test disappoint us in one area or another, this model from Panasonic is a quiet hero.