The Short Form

Price $2,400 ($2,999.95 LIST) / panasonic.com / 800-405-0652

Snapshot

This high-rez DLP has all the bells and whistles, but its picture quality falls short of its competition.

Plus

•Low-price 1080p HDTV •Ample connectivity options •Great feature package •Better-than-average sound system

Minus

•Poor shadow detail •Inaccurate color

Key Features

•1,920 x 1,080 resolution (1080p) •1080p-compliant HDMI inputs •CableCard slot •Inputs: 2 HDMI, 2 component-video, 2 composite/S-video, RF antenna/cable; VGA •Outputs: stereo audio, digital optical audio •39.4 x 56.4 x 18.9 in; 81.6 lb

SETUP When tweaking the set's picture to your preferences, you can choose between four aspect ratios (4:3, Zoom, Full, H-Fill) for both standard and high-def sources, as well as three adjustable picture presets (Standard, Vivid, and Cinema). Unfortunately, the inputs aren't truly independent - the same input types share the same picture settings. So, for example, whatever you set for one HDMI source will be carried over to the other, and so forth.

In addition to the standard picture adjustments (brightness, color, tint, and so on), there are three color-temperature settings and a plethora of picture adjustment options, including Color Management (which supposedly enhances green and blue), two noise-reduction modes to clean up poor-quality sources, a defeatable 3-D Y/C comb filter (for composite-video and NTSC broadcast sources only), and selectable black-level control. There are also controls for Dynamic Iris, Gamma, and Black Extension, and for Red, Green, and Blue color levels. The Cinema preset mode and Warm color temperature provided a color temperature closest to the industry-standard gray, but even with all of this adjustability at our disposal, S&V Executive Editor Rob Sabin and I couldn't get the set fully calibrated across its entire grayscale (see Test Bench). Eventually we had to settle for getting more accurate grays in the brighter part of its range at the expense of a little lean toward red on darker scenes.

PICTURE QUALITY With our HD DVD player locked and loaded, I cued up The Italian Job and jumped to the opening heist. Right off, I noticed a lack of the detail and clarity I'm used to seeing in this scene on other HDTVs, which takes place in a dimly lit Venetian villa. Although the set's 1080p screen displayed excellent sharpness in well-lit areas of the picture, the rich woodwork and fine architectural details in the shadowy background were simply lost as Steve Frezelli (Edward Norton) applied the liquid explosive that brings a safe loaded with $35 million in gold bars crashing down into a boat basin two stories below. This effect was even more exaggerated during the underwater scene that follows: As John Bridger (Donald Sutherland) is trying to open the safe and free the brilliant booty, I could see an obvious lack of detail in the numbers he was scrawling on the safe door.

Later, when the gang stopped in a snow-covered mountain pass in the Alps to toast their good fortune with some Dom Perignon, I noticed some obvious projection-screen grain or noise in the bright sky that made the passage look dim compared with the crystal-clear vista and mountains that normally add a grand sense of depth to the picture on my day-to-day plasma. Skin tones were also a bit unnatural, skewing toward pink - a problem we couldn't fully adjust out. And the snow scenes could at times be seen to take on a bluish tinge rather than white.

After the movie ended, I pulled up the baseball playoffs on ESPN-HD, specifically the National League Divisional Series, St. Louis Cardinals versus San Diego Padres. Here again, the set showed excellent, sharp detail in the well-lit stadium, but its tendency to exaggerate red was obvious in the red parts of the Cardinals' uniforms, especially the caps.

BOTTOM LINE Panasonic is a respected name in the world of flat-panel plasma TVs, but when all is said and done, the Panasonic PT-61DLX76 61-inch 1080p DLP HDTV is a mediocre offering in a crowded field of similar TVs. The company clearly put some effort into equipping this HDTV with a solid feature pack, including 1080p resolution, at a relatively low price. Unfortunately, its picture quality falls short of its considerable competition, making it less of a bargain than it appears.

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