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Well after a couple of weeks of waiting our wedding present from my mum & dad finally arrived yesterday morning and i've now got it all set up and working as i want it.

It is.........................................


A Panasonic TH-42PZ80B 42" full HD plasma. Also joining it are a new glass stand for all our AV to live in and a new Mordaunt Short Alumni5 centre speaker to replace my old Wharfdale Valdus centre that was just too big to fit anywhere on the stand.

I was relieved when i powered the plasma up as after ordering it i found out about some "known" issues with this model.... (A bit like owning a skoda this Panasonic plasma milarky!!! )... One was a buzzing noise made by the TV.... Thankfully ours doesn't suffer from this as if you stand right next to ours with no sound on you can just here a normal plasma buzz and a slight whirring from the four fans on the back. The other was an issue with the firmware which Panasonic are refusing to acknowledge at present. Most of these sets are running FW 1102 which seems to have a problem with the picture quality in SD. Some people seem to have sets with firmware version 1105 and very recently version 1106 and these seem to have better SD picture quality. Thankfully ours has version 1106.

The new MS centre sound sgreat already and it obviously hasn't even bedded in yet.... Just a pity you can't see it more as it matches the TV with it's gloss black casing.



So everything moved onto the new stand except the 360 which has had to go alongside. Now just got to arrange getting a feed run down from our aerial so as to fire up the built in freeview and am thinking about some LED lighting fitted behind the screen in either white or blue and that's it.


Anyway some pics.........













Cheers

Dave.

Boys & their toys..

Nice set up

Looks cool mate. Worth getting married just for the tele

Nice! You got a hi-def source to go into it yet? I love getting new stuff, but its depressing seeing that tv you bought a few months ago drop down in price by £300

s-l-i-x wrote:Nice! You got a hi-def source to go into it yet? I love getting new stuff, but its depressing seeing that tv you bought a few months ago drop down in price by £300

Cheers mate.....

At the minute i have the 360 connected via component so running at 720p as it's one of the older none HDMI equiped ones. I also have the DVD connected via HDMI and that is upscaling to 1080i also..... It's only a £45 Bush but it's a divx player and it upscales so till we get a blu-ray player around Christmas it'll do. We think we'll go for one of the Panasonic blu-ray players as they are also Divx players so will still only need the one player for everything.

Gonna wait till the new Sky HD receivers are available..... be they Pace, Samsung, whoever this months rumour is..... before going for Sky HD as seeing as we have the newer firmware on the TV the SD picture quality is fine.

We were originally going for the model below this, the PX80 which wasn't full HD. That was originally £899 but is currently £649 and this set was originally around £1200 but is currently £799. Hence us having to wait as they are going like hotcakes. My folks had a "37 PX80 delivered last week and you could see the factory quality control sticker inside the back of the TV...... It was dated the 3rd July and there was i setting it up on the 18th!!!!!


Must add as well that the Mordaunt Short centre is absolutely superb!!!!! It's nowhere near bedded in but sounds so much better than the Wharfdale Valdus it replaced..... And that sounded good!!!!!

Been looking at the LED light kits for round the back too...... Only £30-ish on ebay so might go for a set of them too.




Cheers

Dave.

Got the LED lighting sorted out earlier this evening and must say i'm happy with it. Went for the one's from Ikea as they have multi-colour option rather than a single colour.

I think my personal favourites are the blue, cyan & white. Have the option of one colour on steady or gently changing through all seven colours. Also the red is the same brightness as the others in reality.

Got to make a good job of installing the wiring over the next day or two but am pretty happy with the results.




















Cheers

Dave.

Pretty colours

waveydavey wrote:our wedding present

Is that really what your wife wanted? I can't imagine mine saying I want an HD tv and MS centre speaker lol.

Glad your pleased with it anyhow.

mk4 glx 1.6 wrote:

waveydavey wrote:our wedding present

Is that really what your wife wanted? I can't imagine mine saying I want an HD tv and MS centre speaker lol.

Glad your pleased with it anyhow.

I'd been saying i wanted one but we never had the money so when my folks said they would buy it she was ok with it as it meant we didn't have to find the money. She's been a bit shall we, shan't we while we've been ordering it but now it's arrived she thinks it's the best thing since sliced bread..




Cheers

Dave.

The LEDs look really good.
Bet they look strange from outside, like aliens have landed or something

Biddle wrote:The LEDs look really good.
Bet they look strange from outside, like aliens have landed or something

You can see them slightly through the curtains but not too bad..... I'm gonna keep them on a steady colour i think rather than them cycling through the different colours so shouldn't be too bad.

The LED's are from Ikea and cost £45 for 4 strips of about 10 LEDs.... I've fitted one to each side and two along the top of the plasma.




Cheers

Dave.

My mate has the Philips tv that has the fancy lighting that changes with the screen, it's ace