Panasonic TX-P50VT20B Viera 50-inch Widescreen 3D Full HD Plasma TV with Free...

This TV is amazing, it has the most stunning picture I've seen of any TV that I've viewed.
When researching getting a new TV for a home cinema setup I must have viewed dozens of TVs in and around this size and price range.
I've only had this TV for a day or so, but I feel I must add to the 5 star reviews because this TV deserves them.
Watching Up on Bluray colours are vibrant and detailed, edging is perfect, motion is smooth.
Blacks are very inky which is important for giving fantastic colour depth which this TV has in abundance.
Whites and all lighter images are very bright when necessary.
All blurays I've played on the free panasonic dmp bdt100eg player I got with the TV have looked stunning and I've only fiddled around using the standard TV settings, professional 1 looks the best to me and makes images look very natural.
Blade Runner's opening scenes are gorgeous, the fireballs coming up from the city below look like I'm looking through a window of a helicopter or plane.
Star Trek 11's dark scenes are handled with stability and clarity, showing the films detail well.

Watching the Matrix upscaled on DVD there is of course a level of softness to the picture, but there is bound to be a drop in image quality when compared with bluray and it's not as much as you may expect to get from a none HD film.
Colours aren't quite so vibrant, but they're punchy enough, overall I'm very impressed with DVD upscaled material.

Freeview is good, but you can't sit as close as you can with bluray material, it's a similar story with DVDs that are upscaled, but you should always expect that with such a large picture on any TV.
I've found if I sit about 8 to 10 feet from the screen that's fine.
Haven't tried any 3d films on my set yet, but viewing Avatar 3d in a Panasonic shop in croydon and some 3d films of what I believe was italy and some white water rapids in the Currys Megastore I bought the TV from, well they looked very convincing.

The only area I'm not too happy about is the speakers, they aren't great, sound is more wide than direct and sounds hollow, but since I have a Sony STR DH810 reciever and Q Acoustics speaker package and you can use the TVs Audio Return HDMI 2 channel with a HDMI 1.4 cable(I brought one 2metre and 4 1 metre Cable Mountain ones from Amazon for around £30) it's not really an issue, tbh I would expect anyone able to spend around 2 grand on such a set would ugrade to at least a basic sub sat package which would solve the problem.

The TV is very heavy, but get two people and you can both lift it onto it's bracket or to wall mount.
I work in a Pet Shop and can lift 20 kgs regularly, my mother helped me lift it onto the stand and she is not very strong, but the two of us managed it.

Anyone considering getting a new TV and thinking Plasmas have too many problems should bare in mind that alot of the older issues with the technology have been solved, images aren't dull, but natural, motion is handled much better than any LCD or LED TV I've seen, colours are more vivid, film generally seems much better than either of those picture technologies and I've seen the Sony KDL-46HX903 which is what hifi's current award winner, whilst that TV is good, it was too lifeless when compared this set, lacked the naturalness of the VT20 and it costs more.
There was a small amount of noise (a quiet buzzing sound) to the panel when I first turned it on, but after a few hours it's gone away, it doesn't seem very hot, my 3 year old 32 inch HD Ready LCD Panasonic was much hotter and it's smaller, plus that set made noises and creaked a bit.
I believe the life of this set is documented as being around 100,000 hours, which I think if you watched this TV for 8 hours a day would mean it'll last you around 34 years.

Overall I'm extatic with this TV, it has only one major shortcoming in my opinion.
I will update this review further as and when anything new occurs, I understand there is a burn-in period for plasmas or any audio visual product.
My views on the set atm are of it out of the box, with a few tweaks using standard settings.
It's great!!

I bought this TV after owning a Samsung UEB7000 after being thoroughly disappointed with the picture quality, especially in close facial detail, blurring when the head moved etc, all I have to say that this wipes the floor with it.

You get what you pay for.

Sadly not tried the speakers as have a full 5.1 B&W set up so cant comment. Nor on the 3D as the movies are pretty poor at the moment. But 2D, whether its Wimbledon or your favourite dark fast moving film, it is staggering. My best purchase of the year!

Absolutely wonderful. It produces the cleanest motion and the deepest, richest blacks out of any flat-screen HDTV currently on the market.

THX Certification, 3D and perfect blacks make this a steal