cableRules, go look at plasma in a true home theatre retailer. Ontario has Trutone, Gibby's and others.

I would never compare sets in Best Buy or Futureshop.

First off, it is Blu-ray not Blueray.

Second. So after 3 days of research online and all the glowing reviews. You look at a poorly setup TV and said it look like crap and that the LED that BB was pushing which was setup to look it's best looked better.
OUch! It was 2 stores and the G25 looked the worst in both. With the S2 second worse. Another brand Plasma looked best beside them. But I can't name it in this topic.

The LED was cranked to max as well i"m sure.

In BB or FS you are likely only standing a few feet from a 50 inch screen. Plasma's have a different pixel structure then LCD. They are not intended to be viewed standing 2 or 3 feet away from it. Do yourself a favor and go to a decent audio/video store and watch a plasma there. I am watching a 720p panny 50inch at about 15 feet away. Again it is a sweet picture, great blacks and colors. I to have viewed Plasma sets beside bright LCD/LED sets in the bigbox electronic stores. They do look worse, I think it's a combination of distance viewed, source, lighting and the way it's set up.
I am more then satisfied with my TCP50C2 720p set. The rising blacks issue I believe is pretty subtle to the untrained eye. I don't believe the blacks turn gray. Like others have said check out a quality audio/video store and view a plasma in the proper setting. FS,BB, Costco stores give a 30+ day return, try one out see what you think. Mine has a couple hundred hours+ on it now, I think the picture looks better with age. I have played with the settings and I am very happy with it.

Just bought a TCP-50G25 yesterday, liking it so far, it has the similar image characteristics as my 5 year old Pioneer PDP-4360HD, great black level and more realistic colors, at least to my liking. The only part I didn't like about this plasma is its implementation of SD programming materials, it's noticeably worse than the 720P Pioneer, perhaps the aspect of filling 1080P resolution with 480i or less SD material just takes too much of a toll as comared to 720P down-converting, though I didn't buy this TV to watch SD programming so it's not a real issue for me.

The LCDs are bright, but I suspect I will get tired of the artificially bright/vivid images rather quickly.

Legacy, I just might buy one today and try it out.
Thks

cableRules, go look at plasma in a true home theatre retailer. Ontario has Trutone, Gibby's and others.

I would never compare sets in Best Buy or Futureshop.
Good idea but, the smaller shops don't have the best price or return policy.

Plus I have already devoted more time to this then I need to. I can't run all over to all the little shops looking for the best TV environment.

I'm going now to buy a plasma at the big box store and bring it home and tweak it to death!
Thks

I was in another store today and again the Panny's looked the worst. I think some Panny owners think they have the best picture. I say go in and look at the Panny compared to other plasmas. You will know then what I'm talking about.

Today I found a helpful clerk that took all plasmas off vivid and put on standard & then cinema. That improved the look of the Pannys but still not great and not the best picture detail. I will not buy Panasonic. Case closed for me. If I go plasma it will be LG or Samsung. Both beat the Panasonic in the stores with better picture detail and less grainyness.

http://www.testfreaks.com/televisions/panasonic-tc-p50g25/

There are some reviews from the pros in this link which I only came across a couple of days ago, it reinforced my decision.

At the end of the day it is your money that you are spending on a TV that you will be watching, if you are happy with your decision, then that's all it matters and is the most important aspect of making a personal purchase.

quite honestly I'm surprised that the Pannies looked the worst. For plasma, it's the closest to fully calibrated out of the box and the most film-like than any other current TVs out there.

cableRules:

I can relate to your story of how the Panny G25 didn't look good in a big box store environment. Everything I read online basically told me "Get the G25!" But in that big box store, it looked horrible. Just horrible.

So I went to a local shop. This shop pushes plasmas. The picture was better in the smaller local shop.

So I took a chance on it and bought it from the big box store because they have a better return policy. I don't regret it at all! There are a number of reasons the PQ looks like crap in the store environment. But when you get it home and hook it up to all your quality components and a video source that's not split 50 different ways, chances are it will look 100% better than in the store.

My point in sharing this with you is that whatever TV you decide to go with, the PQ will, without a doubt, be much better at home than in the store.

ANd plasma is usually multitudes better at home than in-store. Don't forget that in-store brightness level is very close to the brightness of a sunny day of spring. Something that you'll never encounter at your house.

Also bear in mind that movie theatres have picture brightness at 16 ftL at best, plasma in THX mode is around 35 ftL and LCD vivid mode can surpass 100 ftL easily.

Thank you Mappy, David & Legacy [yesturday]. Finally a confirmed honest opinion that describes the Panny in store that I have been trying to get across here.

Quick recap:

1st store I saw the G25 was horrible. Even the clerk agreed and thought maybe the panel was shot from being on vivid display setting for a year.
2nd store the G25 looked better but still behind SAmsung and LG.
3rd store again the panny was the worst looking plasma by far. The clerk agreed, saying his top seller in plasma is LG with low return rate also.

So today is a new day????? Maybe I will try the G25!

I still find it hard to believe that the worst looking plasma instore after taking home can magically with tweaking transform into the best plasma picture???

And what's with the Panny S2 & G25 width. THey still big, heavy and built like a tank. Panasonic made no effort to trim the fat for 2010 models gee!! SAmsung and LG did!

What is your guys viewing distance from the 50". Mine is 12' and can make it 14' if I have to. In rooms with daylight viewing?

And thanks to "57" for letting me ramble on in this topic, in my struggle for the best TV choice.

http://www.testfreaks.com/televisions/panasonic-tc-p50g25/

There are some reviews from the pros in this link which I only came across a couple of days ago, it reinforced my decision.

At the end of the day it is your money that you are spending on a TV that you will be watching, if you are happy with your decision, then that's all it matters and is the most important aspect of making a personal purchase.
Some of those reviews state the graininess and the poor SD channel picture. But overall yes the G25 got a good vote. What about the left to right panning futter?

to answer your question:

1. if you're looking for subjective "the best looking plasma", I can't promise you that because there is no tangible measurement with regards to that.
2. however, if you're looking for objective, measurably "the best looking plasma" and the ability to be tweaked to perform as close as possible to ISF/THX standards, then yes. I can guarantee you that the G25 is currently the best looking plasma on the market.

For my 50", I used to sit about 8ft away from it as per THX/SMPTE recommendation. However, now I use both my 50" plasma for casual viewing so the distance in the family room is about 12 ft away and maybe 15 ft in the bedroom. For my dedicated HT room, I use projection with CIH setup, but for (approx) 80" 16:9 area (96" 21:9 area) I watch from exactly 10ft away.

Well I decided to buy a LED. Check out my topic in the LCD section as this is plasma territory lol.

Thanks for all opinions.

Wayne

Enjoy paying more for a LED which is the same picture quality as a LCD unless you pay 2 grand or more for a full matrix LED which is still not as good to Plasma picture. I saw at future shop A LG 720p plasma and the G25 plasma next to a whole bunch of LED TV's and all TV's were put on torch mode I could tell. Yet the 2 plasma's had the best looking colors and eye popping picture out of the store, while LED's colors looked washed out and picture was blurry looking. Also this is the environment should favor LCD or LED due to the light in the store and plasma won on the torch mode settings for every tv. Remember you are getting a LCD tv unless your LED is full matrix with local dimming and thats twice as much money as the G25. Lot's of stores will set up or use a better source for LED to sell it because it's much more expensive.

Well that's what some LED haters say. It just isn't so with every model. Mid range to higher brand edge lit LED's beat LCD for sure. Now a Walmart Philips maybe not. Sure it's not as good as local dimming, but it beats LCD in many cases.

The SAmsung LED 6300 beats the LG 520 LCD no problem. I have proof, me! I don't need anyone to explain it, I had a LG LCD. Any clerk instore will tell you they same. And you can see with your own eyes the difference.

Now I don't want to slam plasma either. I just might switch to that. It has it's plus's. I just decided to go LED as it's the technology for the future. It's in the new Christmas lights we all saw this year. Some new Billboard advertising signs are LED etc. Also got the model for excellent price. And that it is up in the family room with a 6' ft wide window. And even some plasma with anti-glare screens it might have been a problem during the day. Also the repair depots rate any type LED the best.

cableRules, I don't know whether if you're aware (if you are, then disregard my post).

There is no such thing as LED TV. LED is only the backlighting technology used by the LCD TV (regular LCD use CCFL tubes as backlighting). LED side/backlighting tend to appear better (note I say "appear") due to the bluish-tinge of LED as opposed to greenish tinge of CCFL tubes. The bluish tinge creates the illusion of "pure white" which is actually the wrong colour temperature (it should be yellow/orange-ish 6500K colour temp).

Local dimming LED-backlit LCD is trying to mimic plasma by turning on/off certain areas within the viewing surface. The number of areas/zones per panel range from 64 to hundreds (maybe thousands nowadays?). However, each pixel on a plasma monitor can be turned on/off individually, all (approx) 2 MILLION of them.

Now, some people chooses LCD over plasma, and that's fine. No need to slam anybody who chooses different things.

You know your stuff and I value your opinion. I know little about these things. I just plug it in and want it to be a nice picture. The LCD LG I had was dull no matter how I adjusted the setting.

I think "appears to be better" Is all I need right now. That is confirmed by store viewing and in my experience with the LG LCD. But Still depends on the brand maybe. SAmsung has the Hyper Real Engine that brings amazing colors. And I have seen over the internet they can be tweaked to look even better.

Plasma looks great also, no doubts about that.

You are right. Buy what suits YOU best. Afterall, not only it's your money and you are the one enjoying the purchase.

As far as 3DTV goes, they are far away from being acceptable. This year JVC, Vizio and LG will all release passive-glasses 3D. Sony is already planning to do so in the following years to come. I'm usually an early adopter but after adopted active 3D back in the 80's (JVC VHD DiscLord system), I will not re-adopt 3D until at least passive 3D is in full swing for front projection system and at least 100 good titles are available for me to buy.