Panasonic PT-47WX49 for $850 (1 Viewer)

[Eddie Sanchez]

Found the PT-47WX49 at my local Sams for $850...I have been wanting to get one, but don't if to get this one at this price...or wait till mid next year and get a PT-47WX42 which is newer right????? Which one is better??? Or would you buy it just for the price...I haven't seen at any other place that cheap...........

 

[Patrick Sun]

IIRC, the only big knock on this particular set (last year's vintage) is that it locks into FULL MODE in the 480p mode, meaning if you are playing non-16x9 letterboxed DVDs (that have the black bars already encoded into the frame of each shot) and sending that signal to the PT-47WX49, the TV won't scale the output to make the letterbox presentation look "right", it'll look squished down vertically (to fix it, the TV would need to zoom it out vertically).

But if you don't play many non-16x9 DVDs, it won't be a problem for you.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

You could either get a player that can scale non-16x9 DVDs to appear as 16x9 to the TV or play them in 480i to get around the problem. Players that can do that include the Panny RP91, Toshiba SD3800 and 4800, JVC players from these last couple years, and some foriegn imports.

For $850, I'd jump on the 47wx49 myself. Oh, IIRC, the wx49 also requires more work to turn off things like SVM--must open chassis and disconnect cables.

From what I understand, the wx49 is just as good as the newer wx42 after you do the various tweaks.

_Man_

 

[Jose T]

I would jump on the one at that pirce. It was my first RPTV purchase a year ago. I've had no problems and you get a great picture with some tweaking. I also had the set calibrated in November by Elilab.

 

[Eddie Sanchez]

non-16x9 letterboxed DVDs??? would this be 4:3 Full screen DVD's. If I understand right it wouldn't scale down full screen DVD's to look like 16x9 right???? I have a panasonic RP82 would this DVD player work????

 

[Brian Harnish]

Eddie- What Man is talking about (from reading previous posts) are pseudo-widescreen DVDs. In other words, those DVDs that are letterboxed but 4x3, instead of true 16x9 format. That's the only reason I'd see one wanting such a scaling feature on a DVD player for.

Of course, I've never owned a widescreen set (gulp!), so I could be completely off base here.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Eddie, first figure out how many of non-16x9 letterboxed DVDs you have in your collection. If it's not too many, I wouldn't let it affect your purchasing decision. The future is 16x9 DVDs, so make your move!

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Eddie,
Here's the thing w/ last year's Panny's, including the wx49. When you feed 480p video into them, they will lock into FULL mode, which is their 16x9 mode. That means they will do the usual stretching needed for 16x9 content to look right on a 16x9 TV. This can be a problem for any non-16x9 content, both letterboxed and 4x3 fullscreen.
Since you have an RP82, which does not do the kind of scaling/aspect ratio control to correct for this, you will need to play such DVDs in 480i and let the TV do the linedoubling for you.
Anyway, for $850, I wouldn't worry about this issue unless a large # of your DVDs are non-16x9. Even then, I would at worst just buy an extra player w/ the scaling capability and use it for non-16x9 DVDs. That would still only end up costing you ~$1000. With a good scaling player, your non-16x9 letterboxed DVDs should look at least as good as the RP82's non-16x9 image in any TV's zoom mode--in order to fill the width of the screen.
_Man_

 

[Rich Wenzel]

is that $850 for a demo model or is it brand new in box? if its the latter, and you can afford it, jump all over it.

Rich

 

[Eddie Sanchez]

Those TV's are brand new in box. All my DVD's are 16x9 widescreen anamorphic. maybe for a 2 or 3 fullscreens but other than that all I buy are 16x9 widescreen anamorphic...so it should be problem right...how does cable tv and direct tv looks????

 

[Eddie Sanchez]

last message should have read "SHOULDN'T be a problem"

 

[Patrick Sun]

Usually, for cable TV and DirecTV, it's garbage in, garbage out, so if you have a good feed, it should look good to decent on any of these RPTVs.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Then what are you waiting for, man?! GO GIT IT!!
_Man_