Let’s get one thing straight: the Panasonic TX-P55VT50 is a superb HDTV display, particularly for owners who do not intend to perform advanced calibration on the plasma TV either themselves or with help from a professional. Its out-of-the-box picture quality – with [THX Cinema] mode engaged – is pretty much unrivalled on the consumer market at this time of writing, thanks in no small part to class-leading black-level and contrast performance, as well as sufficiently accurate greyscale and colours.
However, we have one complaint about the TX-P55VT50B, and it’s not an insignificant one given that our reviews are aimed at the video enthusiast audience who care about squeezing the last drop of image fidelity from their TVs. The measured black level in the [Professional] modes – the most calibration-friendly picture presets that can let us improve greyscale and colours to near-perfection – is nearly twice as high as that in [THX Cinema] mode which lacks the more advanced picture-affecting controls.
Although this does not mean that the perceived black is twice as bad in the [Professional] modes due to a combination of the luminosity response curve of the human eye, and the fact that most real-world content contain brighter areas which distract us from lighter blacks, there is still a visible difference in a dimly-lit viewing environment which film enthusiasts typically adopt for critical viewing. Users who calibrate their televisions are the very ones who are most likely to pay particular attention to the black level: it simply doesn’t make sense for them to have to sacrifice one for the other, on a flagship display no less.
As it turned out, maximum brightness was also lower in the [Professional] modes (79 cd/m2) compared to [THX Cinema] (100 cd/m2), making the former less suitable for use during the daytime. What this means is that the step-down ST50 series may be a more attractive proposition for the tweakers and tinkerers out there: it has no such limitations imposed on both ends of the luminance range across all its presets, perversely delivering higher contrast ratio than the VT50 in their respective most adjustable picture modes (even though the ST50 only offers 2-point instead of 10-point white balance). Nevertheless, for those who just want the best possible picture out of the box without fuss, no other flat-screen television on the market is a match for the Panasonic VT50.