The new TV’s are as good as the plasma TV’s that the Company built their TV reputation on claims executives.
They have also shown a new 200Hz AX800 and 900 Series TV that has a 3 degree tilt with the TV secured by a rear c counterweight eliminating the need for a “heavy metal forward base”. Panasonic executives claim that the 3 degree tilt and the counterweight has allowed the Company to deliver a new generation of stylish TV’s.
At a launch today in Sydney Panasonic said that they will expand its 4K Ultra-HD LED LCD TV range in 2014 with four new Life+ Screen models across two series.
The newly-released AX800 series come with 65 and 58 inch display screens.
Their new flagship VIERA Life+ Screen AX900 series “delivers deep, robust blacks and fast motion response “as good as plasma” said Panasonic executives.
The AX800 series has a quad-core processor and a range of picture enhancing technologies that will be announced closer to its release in late 2014.
Maetham Roomi, Product Marketing Manager, VIERA TV, Panasonic Australia claims that a new powerful processing engine combined with next-gen image processing and new picture rendering technology that maximises the image quality for both native 4K and lower-resolution content. The 2000Hz Back Light Scanning and 4K Intelligent Frame Creation engine guarantee sharpness and a smooth, clear image even when watching fast-paced action and sports scenes he said.
The high-end Local Dimming PRO offers a new class of dimming that boosts contrast performance, enabling dynamic images with the deepest blacks and ultra-whites.
This system provides additional details in both dark and bright areas, by analysing and optimising the individual image areas in real-time.
“This achieves outstanding contrast, underlining the TVs’ stunning picture quality. It is as good if not better than plasma” he said.
The new 4K Life+ Screens deliver colour that is very close to the original source using Studio Master Colour, which consists of a newly developed, high-colour-space LED backlight that covers 98% of the DCI colour space. This reproduces colours accurately even at low saturation and brightness levels, greatly enhancing the picture quality of dark scenes.
4K images are produced from virtually any source c using the 4K Fine Remaster Engine, which takes the original source and reproduces it in 3840 x 2160 pixels. This works hand-in-hand with the Dot Noise Reduction PRO feature, which uses unique detection and correction technologies to reduce low bit rate noise on everything from broadcasts and web pages to DVDs and online video.
The new 4K models have been certified by THX as faithfully rendering images as the movie director intended them. This provides viewers with a cinema-like viewing experience for both 4K and HD content. Additionally, ISF certification demonstrates that the TVs can be calibrated professionally.
In addition to the HDMI 2.0 port, the 4K Life+ Screens are equipped with a DisplayPort terminal which can transmit 4K signals at 50/60Hz without any reduction in colour or frame rate performance.
PC gaming enthusiasts can easily connect their PC via the 60p-capable DisplayPort and enjoy the latest games in incredible detail and with extremely high motion clarity.
4K Content Viewing
Users can watch native 4K content using a variety of built-in apps. The 4K Media Player works with the SD card slot to display photos at a crisp and clear 8-megapixel resolution. This can also play back 4K home movies that users have recorded themselves, and any 4K videos stored online or on a USB drive that are encoded in the new High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) format. This includes direct online streaming from Panasonic’s own 4K online video channel.
The 4K Web Browser produces sharp, easy-to-read text on web pages with full support for HTML5, and works well for sharing online content with friends and family where a lot of information is displayed at once.
Smart TV Functions
A new Panasonic Stream feature presents viewing recommendations that are aggregated from a variety of sources (such as YouTube, web site bookmarks and HDD content) as a single pool, effectively breaking different content types out of their silos. This eliminates the need to change TV channels repeatedly or browse the Internet to find content sources – the Life+ Screen does all of the searching itself. A proximity sensor coupled with face recognition via the built-in camera and voice print recognition works to instantly and automatically display each user’s home screen, personalised Info Bar and my Stream.
Life+ Screen learns the content preferences of individual users through their viewing history. Viewers can also tag content they’re interested in using the “my” button on the remote control, and there is a Voice Search feature to find specific content based on key words. For example, entering the keyword “soccer” would result in the TV displaying related content such as an online video of game highlights.
The Panasonic Swipe & Share and Display Mirroring features that are available via Android and iOS devices to share photos, videos, music and web links to the Life+ Screen from a tablet or smartphone, but also for saving content that another person has shared to the Life+ Screen to their own device. The new Display Mirroring feature takes this a step further by transferring the tablet or smartphone’s entire display in real-time to the Life+ Screen – perfect for viewing favourite apps, games and other interactive content on the larger display.
Viewers can also watch their favourite shows live when they’re not at home while using the new TV Anytime feature.
The Remote Recording feature (previously only available on Panasonic’s Blu-ray Recorders) lets user’s set-up timer recordings to watch programs back home at their own convenience. Thanks to the twin HD tuners, households can also record one channel while watching another.
Other smart features include a Remote Sharing function that enables family members to stay in touch by sending video memos and text messages to the Life+ Screen, a Voice Interaction Pro function that makes navigation almost as easy as having a conversation, and access to a large number of apps from providers such as Quickflix (unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows), Telstra BigPond Movies (a library of 4,000 titles on demand), SBS On Demand, ABC iView and Ovation.
The recommended retail price for the AX 800 is $4399.
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