Black: 0.005
White: 33.57
Full-On/Full-Off Contrast Ratio: 6,714:1

All the measurements were made in the THX mode. The full-on/full-off contrast ratio above was taken with the Contrast setting on 92 and the Brightness setting on 58.

This is the third best full-screen black level we’ve ever measured on a plasma set. It’s exceeded only by the last couple of generations of Pioneer KUROs (as a group) and the Panasonic Premiere TH-65VX100U professional model mentioned in the review. The latter was measured with the 25 IRE+PLUGE pattern on Digital Video Essentials: HD Basics, which allows for a slightly lower setting of the Brightness control than the Spears & Munsil High Definition Benchmark Blu-ray Edition used here. Using DVE on the TC-P58V10 produced a black level of 0.005 foot-lamberts—the same result we obtained on the TH-65VX100U. The latter sold for $10,000 when we reviewed it back in April 2009. Other recent Panasonic consumer sets have had considerably higher black levels, but they’re still consistently better than the current production plasma sets we’ve tested recently from LG and Samsung—the other two major set makers still in the plasma hunt.

The color tracking (measured in the Warm1 Color Temp setting) was fair at best out of the box. In our experience, even THX-certified sets need some calibration love. The calibration produced a better result, but I elected to let it go a little blue across the low-mid brightness region (but no more than just a bit over 6700K) to avoid excessive red shift in the darkest grays. (The THX calibration was done in the service menu, starting from the Normal color temperature setting. The THX mode is called Cinema in the service menu.) The Delta E after calibration maxed out at 3.63 at 40 IRE and was under 2.2 at all other points.

The color gamut is shown by the white triangle in the CIE chart, the Rec. 709 HD standard by the (barely visible) black triangle. In THX, as shown, the color points are nearly perfect. This is not true in the other picture modes (not shown), which produced an oversaturated gamut.—TJN