An experience with the World's Largest 3D Plasma Panel

Televisions are getting larger all the time and with the vast improvements in technology, one could just dream about it and within a short span of time, it could become a reality. One may, more often than not, dream of having a whole side of their wall adorned with a large television display; this is luxury living to the highest degree, since these sort of concepts are only found in movies and or in the lifestyles of the rich and famous. It seems that Panasonic has made this dream a reality, when they introduced the world’s largest plasma TV panel with 3D capabilities, back at CES 2010.

When we heard that Panasonic had the world’s largest plasma panel, here in Mumbai, to say we were excited would be a gross understatement. Naturally, we wanted it in our labs for a full fledged review, but realized it wouldn’t get through the door so one quick road trip later and we arrived at the Panasonic Experience Centre at Andheri West.

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Experience Center

An interesting fact for the TV fans who might not know – Panasonic already lays claim to the title – World’s largest panel. This is, in fact, the third time they’ve designed and developed a super-large display that took the title. At their Experience Center in Mumbai, all three massive TVs are on display.

Here’s a quick video at the Experience Center -

On Video: World`s largest plasma display

The panels were lined up ranging from smallest to the largest and the largest one in the viewing room measured 103 inches, diagonally. Of course the ‘Big Daddy’ of the lot was housed in its very own mini theater and scaled in at a whopping 152 inches of pure plasma pleasantry.

Over 6 feet in height

The 152-inch plasma display goes by the title, TH-152UX1and apart from being eleven (.8) feet wide and six feet five inches tall, this television boasts of some interesting technical features as well. This particular HDTV strays away from the standard 16:9 aspect ratio. Instead, Panasonic has opted for 17:9. Sticking to the ‘no ordinary TV’ tag, this display features the 4K2K resolution making full HD 1080p appear inadequate and outdated, in comparison.

With 4K2K technology, it sports a resolution of 4096 x 2160 pixels. Apart from the seriously high resolution, the display also features full HD 3D capabilities designed to give viewers the feeling of watching a 3D movie in a cinema. Panasonic claims that by using the Professional-quality engine, it raises the colour processing of a single pixel from 20-bit to 30-bit. This ensures that colours are accurate and smooth across the entire display. As for connectivity, the TH-152UX1 features inputs for HD-SDI, DVI, HDMI and a few other inputs, including all of which is now standard.

The visual experience of this display is unparalleled. The folks at the Panasonic Experience Centre had a range of demo clips for our viewing pleasure and we were certainly left impressed. Fast paced action scenes, such as sports clips looked really good and the colours appeared to be quite accurate. Demo clips of high end cars with gloss and detail were well pronounced. We also noticed that the evidence of any sort of lag while toggling between the menu options of the TV were insignificant. 3D playback of this television was good, but we can’t say it was the very best we’ve seen. The level of depth, as compared to when it was in 2D mode could have been better portrayed. With high-end televisions nowadays, brands tend to add a high refresh rate, which causes a certain amount of ‘ghosting’ on screen. This, fortunately was not visible on the TH-152UX1.

Panasonic have set up the area to resemble a cinema

As you may have guessed, this is certainly not your run-of-the-mill large screen HDTV. The display weighs in at a 590kgs and will require you to leave an entire wall of a home free for mounting. It’s not a TV you’d use daily to watch regular cable TV, HD or not, on. Then again, the target audience is not the average video watcher with bucks to burn, this television is targeted at corporations looking for a really large display that can be used as a signage. The price, somewhere in the vicinity of Rs.4 crores, made us cringe, at the mere mention.

Certainly left us wanting more

Like we said, this is no ordinary TV and considering the large name, large size and large price tag, having a super – large home would have to be on the cards. Our experience left us with quite a bit of yearning and a sudden ambition to earn more money. Can you blame us?