How To Make a TV Tester Happy ...

Panasonic recently lent us its new TX-P42V20 TV for testing, so we got straight to work in the lab and our initial test results are quite simply excellent.

Panasonic TX-P42V20

Not happy with a contrast ratio that's three times better than what the crème de la crème of the LCD world can mange (14000:1 on average), the V20 is incredibly responsive and we could really tell the difference.

We recently added some new tests to our standard procedure.  We now measure the time it takes for the previous frame to disappear entirely from view with several different combinations of colours.  The longer it takes, the more ghosting will be visible on the screen, making moving objects look blurry.

15 ms for MVA and PVA LCD panels, but 8 ms for the plasma

Amongst other products, we've also tested the most recent LCD TVs with PVA and MVA panels.  Both end up with an average response time of 15 ms using this procedure (remember, lower is better).  That means it takes these TVs 15 ms to completely remove the previous frame from the screen, or to put in another way, a fast-moving object will appear to be in two places at once for 15 ms.

In the same test, the Panasonic V20 was almost twice as fast, with a response time of 8.5 ms.  That's incredible: this plasma is almost twice as responsive as its nearest LCD rivals.  We're just hoping that it won't have any input lag either ...

Of course, we'll keep you up to date as we continue to look at the V20, with the first results in the Face-off soon.

To be continued ... 

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