List Price: $2,499.95
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I had researched for about a year or so before placing a pre-order for this set. In 2010 I purchased a 55 inch Samsung C8000 LED set, and had bad luck with two units which were unrepairable, and needed to be replaced. Finally I got one without a problem, and it looked pretty great with bright content, but in blacked out scenes, or letterbox content there was a "flashlight" and cloud effect that was just too distracting. This is in a completely dark room by the way. It was at this point that I decided I was going to buy the best TV on the market with little regard to cost, and almost everything I read led to the upcoming VT30. So I placed my order in April, and the set was delivered on May 13th. Immediately I was blown away by the picture quality of this set, but also noticed a "flicker" effect, almost like the picture was fluttering on the high contrast scenes. For about the first month of owning the set I can't tell you how much reading and research I did to see if there was a way to fix this flicker problem, and although there is a lot of info on the web about this set, it seems like nobody was addressing the flicker issue. So I thought it must just be me, but then I found an article that talked about the greyscale of PDP technology, and that it can cause flicker which only some people see. I know that my vision is good, but could this be a problem with Plasma? Is it just me? Is it the settings of the set? Well, it couldn't be the latter, because I had tried just about every settings combination possible, and nothing had worked. When the contrast was turned down low it did reduce the flicker effect, but never went away and made the picture too dim to really enjoy. The picture quality on this was so good that I was heartbroken to think that it would go back because of this issue, after all, for this kind of money I expect near perfect results as I don't make this kind of purchase every day. So before returning the set I bit the bullet, and forked out the money to have a professional calibrator come out and adjust the settings in the TV's Service Menu. This is a menu that you can access with the proper codes, and is intended only for professionals to tweak the color, greyscale, light output, etc. on the set. Turns out that the set needed the calibration badly. I have never had a professional calibration on a TV before this, and although I figured that it would be a good idea, I never realized just how much difference it could make! The picture quality was already the best I had ever seen, but after professional calibration it is absolutely mind blowingly good! The flicker is gone, the picture is bright, but subtle, and tons of detail in the shadows. Black areas of a scene are pitch black, and colors are incredibly accurate. I almost want to miss work just to stay home and watch TV now. I have Comcast HD, and although it is pretty good in my neighborhood, you just can't beat a Blu-Ray on this thing. In fact, the calibrator that dialed in my TV has a Pioneer Kuro, and has calibrated up to an 11 Million dollar home theater, and his opinion is that there are a lot of great sets to choose from with Panasonic, Samsung, LG, etc, but he agrees that the VT30 is the best you can get right now. If you can afford it, I highly suggest that you take a good look at this TV before you make the leap. By the way, the Samsung LED that I referenced above is now in a bright room, and looks phenomenal. The Samsung D8000 is a pretty awesome set for 2011, and until the calibration I thought I was going to end up that direction, but it also has the flicker effect, and I have had bad luck with two Samsung TV's, and two of their Blu-Ray players in the past. Not sure how reliable they are this year, but I'm pretty sure that the Panasonic was the right choice.
Update: The fluctuating brightness issue on these sets that some people are talking about was on a small number of the initial units released. It has been addressed, and fixed. You will not have a problem with fluctuating brightness from this point forward. Also, I saw the new Elite sets from Sharp and the VT30 is still definitely the king of the mountain. Go see for yourself and I'm sure you'll agree.
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