Panasonic Viera TX-P46G20B review

The 46in Panasonic Viera TX-P46G220B is the very first TV we’ve seen to have a built-in Freeview HD tuner. Beyond that the set has pretty much everything else you could want in a high-end plasma TV including a Freesat HD tuner, network port for streaming home and internet media, and the ability to record TV shows to a USB hard disk.

Of course, none of that matters if the main screen’s not up to much. Fortunately, this isn’t the case, as the TX-46G20B uses one of Panasonic’s high-end 600Hz, NeoPDP plasma panels. This has a native contrast ratio of 5,000,000:1 (not a dynamic contrast ratio, as quoted for LCD panels) and it shows.

Watching Casino Royale on Blu-ray, we were hugely impressed by the pure black and the impressive bright whites in the opening black-and-white scenes. To get the best picture we switched the TV to its THX Movie Mode. This puts the TV into a mode where it closely reproduce the HD colour standard used in filming movies, has improved deinterlacing, scaling and smoothing.

It also turns off the TV’s other features, such as Vivid Colour and 24p Smooth Film (Intelligent Frame Creation for non-24fps footage), which creates additional frames to make the on-screen motion appear smoother. However, you can turn all of these options back on if you prefer.

General image quality is astounding. The range of colours is stunning and everything looks incredibly natural. We were impressed by the level of detail picked up in the Parkour scene in Casio Royale, and we could see the layer of hazy dust in the air; on other sets, this scene can just look grubby.

The 24p Smooth Film option is excellent. It subtly improves motion without drawing attention, unlike the crazy full-on modes on Sony and Philips TVs, which can make films look a little like cartoons. It’s not perfect, though: in particular, it struggles when an object is moving behind railings and creates an odd flicker.

In Spider-man 2, it didn’t cope perfectly with Spidey swinging against New York skyscrapers, and his legs flickered a little. It’s not that distracting and is a rare occurrence. Besides, these problems exist in all frame creation modes on every TV that we’ve reviewed. Motion otherwise is fantastic, with the 600Hz panel making sure that everything moves smoothly. Even fast-moving objects and scrolling text move with no blurring or problems.

Standard definition footage from DVD is handled just as well. Upscaling is top-notch, with no jaggies on objects, while retaining a high level of detail. Upscaling can often boost MPEG-2 artefacts around objects, but that wasn’t a problem here and we saw very little evidence of this.

When it comes to TV, you’ve got plenty of choice with analogue, Freeview HD and Freesat tuners to choose from. HD channels over Freeview and Freesat look fantastic. Standard definition digital channels are handled well and are upscaled neatly with few artefacts or jaggies. There’s an eight-day EPG, although it’s slightly annoying that it has no preview window, so you can’t continue to watch TV while you work out what’s on. Instead, there’s a window that’s used to serve advertising.

Sound in all cases is excellent. The TV’s loud enough to be heard in even the largest of rooms and produces clear audio and thumping bass.

One of the neatest features of this model is that you can plug in a USB hard disk and use it to record TV shows and pause live TV. You can set recordings through the guide, although you don’t get all the options you’d expect on a PVR – the biggest omission is series link. You also can’t switch to a different tuner (such as Freesat from Freeview) to watch a different show while you’re recording another. Still, it’s a neat option to have.

As with other Panasonic TVs we’ve seen recently, you can play movies, music and images stored on a USB hard disk or SD card. Alternatively, you can plug the TV into your network (there’s a 10/100 Ethernet port and an optional wireless adaptor will be available in April for £80) and stream the content from a UPnP media server. The interface is neat and simple to follow, with thumbnails for photos and video, while music can be browsed by genre, artist and album.

Internet media is handled by Viera Cast. This lets you view YouTube videos, Picasa Web Albums, the current weather, EuroSport and few other foreign channels. You’ll also be able to make and receive Skype video calls from this summer, provided you buy the optional webcam.

As you’d expect from a modern TV, there are plenty of inputs for all of your devices, including four HDMI and component. There’s also a VGA input for a computer, although this will only support a maximum resolution of 1,366×768, not the screen’s maximum 1,920×1,080.

There are a few things that could put some people off buying this TV. First, the screen draws a lot of power compared to an equivalently-sized LCD. In normal use, we saw an average of 220W, but get a scene where the screen’s mostly white and power consumption can jump as high as 350W, although this will only be for a short period of time. Secondly, although the panel can technically support a 3D image, this TV doesn’t, so you may want to hold off buying until 3D TVs are more commonly available.

If none of the above bothers you, the Viera TX-P46G20B is an absolutely stunning TV with the best image quality that we’ve ever seen and it wins our Ultimate award.