The Short Form

$1,500 ($1,700 list) / PANASONIC.COM

Snapshot

Solid blacks, an accurate THX picture preset, and Amazon Video on Demand distinguish Panasonic's G10-series plasma TV from the flat-panel crowd

Plus

• Solid blacks and good shadow detail • Accurate, natural-looking color (especially in THX mode) • Decent picture quality from Amazon VOD

Minus

• Somewhat dim picture in THX mode • 48-Hz display option creates image flicker

Key Features

• 46-inch, 1080p-resolution screen • THX certified, with THX picture mode • Viera Cast media streaming (includes Amazon Video on Demand, YouTube, Picasa, and weather forecasts) • Viera Image Viewer for slide shows and AVCHD video playback via SD card • Inputs: 3 HDMI; 2 component-, 2 composite-, and 1 S-video; RF Ant/ Cable; PC RGB; Ethernet; SD Card slot • 44 ½ x 30 ¼ x 15 ¾ in; 68 lb (with stand)

When Pioneer announced earlier this year that it would stop making TVs, our tear-filled eyes turned hopefully to Panasonic. Could it fill the void left by the departure of Pioneer's category-leading Kuro plasmas? Luckily for devotees of the technology, Panasonic stepped up with no fewer than five new series of plasma sets, most of which incorporate its new, more energy-efficient NeoPDP panel. Positioned squarely in the middle of the company's lineup, the G10-series sets offer high-end features like THX video certification and Viera Cast media streaming at a reasonable cost - in the case of the 46-inch TC-46G10 model it shipped me, around $1,500 (street price).

As with Panasonic's Z800-series plasmas last year, the TC-46G10's THX badge means it has a picture preset that provides optimal settings for watching movies in a light-controlled environment. Simply select THX from the Picture setup menu, and all parameters - including brightness/contrast, sharpness, and, most important, color - get dialed in for THX-certified viewing. Other picture improvements include a 600-Hz (take that, 240-Hz LCDs!) "sub-field drive" to increase picture stability on fast-motion scenes and an "Infinite Black" panel. Also, Viera Cast lets you connect the TV to a home network and do things like stream standard- and high-def movies from Amazon Video on Demand, watch YouTube videos, check out a customized weather forecast, and view pictures stored on Google's Picasa Web photo-sharing service.

Looking at the TC-46G10, it's clear that Panasonic chose to up the design ante for the G10 series. The screen is bordered by a svelte 1 ½-inch gloss-black bezel that flares out in a silver-toned edge at the bottom, and there are no front-panel features to distract from the screen's infinite blackness aside from a Panasonic logo and a power button. A cluster of essential controls is located on the panel's left side for those times when you can't locate the remote.

Back-panel inputs include a pair each of HDMI and component-video jacks along with an Ethernet connection. The side-panel A/V convenience input, meanwhile, offers up a wider-than-average variety of inputs, including both HDMI and RGB PC ports and an SD Card slot for viewing digital pictures and high-def video recorded with an AVCHD camcorder.

The remote control has a sleeker look and feel than earlier ones I've handled from Panasonic. Its centrally located Volume and Channel keys have backlighting capability. A trio of Viera-themed buttons (Viera Cast, Tools, and Link) are prominently placed, although these are arguably less useful than the Menu, Input, and Info buttons, which get buried among the keypad's button clusters. The onscreen Input menu can be customized to show only active connections; you can also custom-label these using the remote's alpha-numeric keypad. Most picture-size formats (aspect ratios) can be selected for both standard- and high-def programs.

SETUP

The Ethernet port on the Panasonic's rear panel made setup more eventful than usual - this is the first TV I've tested that can connect directly to the Internet without any intermediary hardware. As with Profile 2.0 Blu-ray Disc players, adding the 46G10 to my home network was a snap. I simply strung Cat-5 cable from my Powerline Ethernet adapter to the TV, chose the Automatic option in the set's Network setup submenu, and let DHCP do the heavy setup-configuration lifting.

If you're mainly using the 46G10 to watch movies in a dark home theater, the THX mode will also make picture adjustment easy. After selecting THX Option in the Picture menu, the set's grayscale closely tracked the 6,500-K industry standard, while its measured color points adhered for the most part to the SMPTE HD spec (see Test Bench for details). To put that in plain English, the 46G10 delivers exactly the sort of specs you want to see in a THX-certified TV. But the picture proved too dim for my taste, even with contrast pushed to maximum (the default setting) in THX mode, so I made adjustments in Custom mode as well. (Custom can be tweaked independently for each input, while the other presets, THX included, are global ones that remain fixed as you switch sources.)

Other settings that I chose in Custom included Warm 2 for color temperature and Size 2 for HD Size, which allowed the TV to display full-rez 1080p images with no overscan slicing off the outer edges. (The Size 1 option displays pictures with 4% overscan.) I also selected Light for the black level, and switched on 3:2 Pulldown for my viewing tests. The 46G10 offers numerous noise-reduction modes, including Video, Block, and Mosquito options. All of these were effective at cleaning up noisy pictures, although Block also blurred fine picture details to a degree.