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General discussion

What PANASONIC.. Inputs, Quality, Resolution...

Oct 14, 2005 9:09AM PDT

Hi, I know that there are many posts on this topic, but after browsing I still couldn't find a good answer.

I am looking at the Consumer Panasonic TH-42PX50U and the Industrial Panasonic TH-42PHD7UY. I am prety sure that I will end up geting one of them but I am having trouble deciding them.

The main issue that I am confused on is the inputs, the Industral model claims that it uses BNC inputs, while the Consumer claims to RCA. I just have a normal cable box with a coaxial cable coming out of it and a PS2 with the "red/white/yellow" plug. In the future, I also may need Component (RGB) and a VGA input. I can't seem to figure out which plasma has the correct kind of connectors. I am thinking that the consumer's RCA wold work better (it rins a bell), but I'm not sure.

Another issue is picture, I know that these Panasonics are suposed to be good, but are there any other better (cheaper) brands? Does the Industrial one have better quality?

The last issue is the resolution. BOTH plasmas claim to a 1024 x 768 resolution. Does this mean that it is a 720p plasma.. Not true HD. Do I want a 1080i or 1080p plasma? I don't know about this. I need to know what the resolution of those are and if that is good.


Thanks for reading-
K9calamity

Discussion is locked

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As an addition
Oct 14, 2005 10:04AM PDT

It seems that the consumer model would work better because of the RCA inputs.... Any other comments?

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RCA to BNC adapters
Oct 14, 2005 12:56PM PDT

There are lots of cables and adapters out there. BNC type of connectors are better, one good reason for the avarage consumer, they "lock" on to the jack. These connections are hanging down at the bottom of the plasma, if you end up with lower cost RCA connections, it is possible and likely that they could fall off eventually. I haven't had time to check the spec's on these 2 set's, I just finished installing the industrial panasonic 50", and it's great. There is also room for an adapter card (or upgrade card) plus descrete on, off and input codes if you are looking at a programmable remote. For even higher end integration there is an RS232 port. All in all very good sets.

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Thanks
Oct 15, 2005 6:14AM PDT

Thanks, I thought that they were two different entire things!!! Thanks for the info!

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Connectors, resolution
Oct 16, 2005 7:08AM PDT

Even though it wasn't mentioned specifically in the prior replies, the BNC connectors constitute the component input jacks, so you need adaptors to use a standard RCA cable. The "lock-on" explanation seems plausible, although the cable-to-adaptor connection is also vertically oriented.

By definition, HD is 720p and above; 1080 is the upper limit of the spec. The resolution breakdown for Panasonic TH-##PHD8UK (this year's replacements for the 7UY) sets is as follows:

37" - 1024 x 720
42" - 1024 x 768
50" - 1366 x 768
65" - 1366 x 768

By definition, all of these qualify as HD. It's interesting to note that you don't gain any resolution between the 50" and 65" model, which means the pixels on the latter are more spread out.

The only sets I've seen whose native resolution is 1920x1080 are DLP units from Mitsubishi, the smallest of which is a 52-incher. Compared with the 50" Panasonic, this has roughly twice as many pixels (2 million vs. 1 million).

I think printer resolution is a good analogy. Professional typesetting is typically done at 2400 or 1200 dpi, while standard laser printers produce 600 dpi. There's a four-fold jump in the number of dots between 600 and 1200 dpi, but it's pretty hard to tell the difference.