TC-L42E50 Full HD TV

TC-L42E50 Full HD TV

Got the baby home, set it up, hook up to my 15TB home server w/ HDMI, play some 1080p clips. Wow, it's so clear and real looking, this is some great monitor/TV I told myself. Flipped to the movies folder, open Avatar, wow, so this is 120hz, looking real smooth, real clear.

IN FACT, it's so real and clear, I double check my refresh rate (at 60hz from source) all the codecs. The images looks like a pre-rendered animation, totally flawless. But after the first 5 minutes, it feels kind of weird to me as the movie somehow look much smoother, but "cheaper" at the same time. Then I remember the stuff I heard....soap opera effect.

I never consider my eyes to be sensitive in any case (if anything, years of looking at multi 27" monitor should have desensitized me...), so whenever I heard SOE, I'd just brush it off as some people's sensitive eyes. IT'S NOT, it's very much noticeable to anyone, albeit some people just don't care about it when watching movies in the first place. In 300, all the grains are gone! Now it's really looking like animation, watching them fighting the monsters.

TC-L42E50 Full HD TV

By now, 2 hours after I unpacked it, I'm panicking and start looking at all the menu items. After much google, some site suggested to use Game mode, so the TV wouldn't add additional frames by itself to smooth out the frames. BINGO, the movies are looking absolutely stunning, got the good colors, no bleeding, black is pretty black (not as black as the best plasma...but blacker than most mid price monitors out there, which is a tall order for this size and price). So I open up some calibration graphic test for monitor and tune it abit, I'm pretty much set -- happy.

 TC-L42E50 Full HD TV

TV equipped with Internet capability, but it's definitely a nice feature to have. The setup in the room is such that I don't need the wireless capability and the added expense of an adapter, because I'm able to simply connect an ethernet cable to my router from the TV and I'm good to go. So far, I haven't had any connectivity problems or real lag. While all the subscription services included in the Viera Cast have their own advantages and uses, the Twitter software is what may give me the most utility. I'm still trying to figure out how to tweet efficiently, but that's secondary to following my feed by the hashtag of whatever event or show I'm watching. I've tried out a few Netflix movies to test the functionality and didn't experience any problems. It includes a pretty simple interface, even for beginners.

TC-L42E50 Full HD TV