CES - Televisions

As much as we love plasmas' image quality here at CNET, there's no denying that they're power hogs . However, at CES 2009 we've seen several plasma manufacturers showing off new energy-efficient panels. Like Panasonic's NeoPDP plasmas, the Samsung PNB550 series of plasmas claim to consume nearly 50 percent less energy compared to past models. Here are the full details.

Key features of the Samsung PNB550 series:

Home theater is Samsung's game at this year's CES. Though the company did announce the new P3 touch-screen MP3 player, an inch-thick plasma TV, feature-packed Blu-ray home theater systems, and backlit LCD TVs dominated the show.

Samsung unveils P3 touch-screen MP3 player Photos: Hands-on with the Samsung P3 player Samsung's slick HT-BD7200 Blu-ray home theater system Samsung's funky Blu-ray and DVD players Samsung's PN-B850 series of plasmas get down to an inch thick Samsung HT-BD1250: 5.1-channel home theater offers Blu-ray, Netflix, Pandora Samsung HT-BD8200 home theater sound bar includes Blu-ray, Netflix, Pandora Samsung DVD-H1080: Portable-sized DVD player for the home … Read more

From the Consumer Electronics Show, Larry Magid talks with Wall Street Journal columnist Walter Mossberg about Palm's new Pre cell phone and Yahoo's new Internet TV. Both Mossberg and Magid were impressed by the Palm phone, and Mossberg had some good things to say about Yahoo's TV initiative.

Today's stories:

Palm calls it a comeback with the Palm Pre

High hopes at Yahoo, Intel for Internet-enabled TV

LG's home theater announcements came fast and furious at CES. Streaming is big: The LH50 series of LG LCDs will stream Netflix and other broadband content; the BD370 Blu-ray player will stream Netflix, CinemaNow, and YouTube; and the LG LHB977 Blu-ray home theater system also will offer online content. Read the stories below for more home theater goodies from LG.

LG's 240Hz line flashes backlight really fast LG clips wires on high-end LCD lineup LG LHB977: Blu-ray home theater system streams online video, includes extra inputs LG Blu-ray players stream Netflix, CinemaNow, and YouTube LG LCDs offer Netflix streaming and other broadband goodies … Read more

Of the 42 individual models of plasma and LCD TVs that Panasonic announced at the 2009 CES, the X1 series lives on the bottom rung of the totem pole. That didn't stop the company from endowing the plasmas with so-called Infinite Black technology, however.

The Panasonic rep we talked to explained that Infinite Black caused the TVs, when displaying a completely black screen, to basically fade down to nothing, as if the TV was turned off. The new entry-level panels also improve upon the contrast-ratio spec for the entry-level PX80U series from last year, doubling it from 15,000:… Read more

The epic battle between plasma and LCD manifests itself in numerous ways--Hz oneupsmanship, contrast ratio and viewing angle specs, lifespan claims--but until now, panel depth was a frontier comfortably dominated by LCD, with ultrathin models like the Hitachi UT37X902. Now Samsung and Panasonic aim to claim that frontier themselves, the latter with the new inch-thick Z1.

Panasonic's press material uses the term "Z1 series," which indicates to us that the company is planning other screen sizes with inch-deep panels. But for now the only size the company sees fit to announce is the 54-inch TC-P54Z1, due in … Read more

The ability to properly deal with native 1080p/24 content is a big deal to some videophiles, because it guarantees that a display can capture the correct cadence of film. Panasonic tried and failed to implement 24p with its plasmas last year, but, according to the company, it has improved its processing for this year with the V10 series.

The four-model V10 plasma lineup includes the 50-inch TC-P50V10 ($2,299 MSRP) and the 54-inch TC-P54V10 ($2,699), both due in June, as well as the 58-inch TC-P58V10 and the 65-inch TC-P65V10 (both $TBD), due in August.

Panasonic's V10 models … Read more

Last year, our Editors' Choice plasma, the Panasonic TH-50PZ800U, earned a good portion of its praise by virtue of excellent color accuracy, which we lay at the feet of THX Display Certification. For 2009, Panasonic has included THX in two series of plasma TVs, of which the most-affordable will be the G10s.

The company's G10 series of plasmas comes in four screen sizes. The 42-inch TC-P42G10 ($1399 street), the 46-inch TC-P46G10 ($1699), and the 50-inch TC-P50G10 ($1999) will ship in March, while the 54-inch TC-54G10 ($2,399), a new screen size for the company, will ship in May.

THX Display Certification consists of a series of hurdles the TVs must clear to earn the all-important THX logo. While we're generally pretty skeptical of a certification program that refuses to divulge the height of those hurdles--aside from vaguely mentioning that they include certain minimum specifications for contrast ratio, color gamut based on the HDTV standard, uniformity, viewing angle, gamma, and still picture resolution--in our tests of the PZ800 and other THX plasmas from LG delivered improved color accuracy, at least.

Update March 13: According to the Panasonic manual unearthed by the folks at AVS Forum, and later confirmed by Panasonic, the G10 models will have 24p compatibility; previously, Panasonic indicated that the feature would be reserved for the step-up V10 and Z1 lines. According to Panasonic, the G10 and G15 lines will refresh at 48Hz, which leads us to suspect that they'll suffer from the same sort of flicker seen on the 24p modes of last year's PZ800U and PZ850U models. The V10 and Z1 lines, however, will refresh at 96Hz, which shouldn't introduce flicker. We'll know for sure when we get the displays reviewed.

Panasonic's answer to other TV makers' Internet connectivity is called VieraCast, and new for 2009 the company is adding the capability to view content from Amazon Video on Demand. We'd like to see Netflix streaming added too, a la LG, but that's not in the cards so far. Check out our hands-on look at VieraCast for details.

… Read more

Update 3-11-2009: We've posted reviews of three products in this series, albeit with smaller screen sizes: the 42-inch TC-P42S1, the 46-inch TC-P46S1 and the 50-inch TC-P50S1. Judging from their identical specifications, we expect the picture quality of the larger 54-, 58- and 65-inch models to be similar to those of the smaller ones. See the reviews for further information.

As we've been reporting for years, plasmas are much less energy efficient than LCDs. Panasonic aims to level the playing field with its new NEO PDP plasma panel, which uses half as much energy to create the same brightness, … Read more