Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Buying a Panasonic 54v10

Hi

Im finaly making the plunge to HDTV I have a deal in place with Best Buy to purchase a Panisonic 54v10 plazma They talked me into getting the 4year warrantee for $329 Im not a big on paying for extended warrantee but I feel I should protect my investment. Is it worth the extra cash They also sold me on the calibration for $299 ( does this make a difference in the TV performance)

Thanks

Larry

What exactly does the calibration do?

I imagine it's an ISF calibration. Before you spend the $300, check out http://www.tweaktv.com.

If you like it, maybe you can think about spending the extra dime.

Larry, the stats show that both LCD and Plasma TVs(especially a brand as good as Panasonic)have been very reliable and that the purchase of an extended warranty is usually a losing proposition(except to the store, of course, where it's far more profitable than the TV itself). If you can cancel, do so.

Best buy generally doesn't do ISF calibrations from my experience. I honestly wouldn't trust them to tell the truth. Before I paid them to do the calibration I would look locally to try to find a real deal ISF calibrator, as that's usually what they charge for a full calibration. Make sure to put at least 100 hours on your set before you do that though, as the TV changes the most during those beginning hours.

After performing the adjustments via the Avia HT DVD with the color lenses to look through, I did notice a very noticeable adjustment in picture quality.

Color can be a bit subjective. However, one concrete thing it did for me is get rid of the fuzzies in large, light colored areas such as a sky scene. Until I did the calibration a couple of times and got it right, my sky scenes and such looked like fuzzy SD even in the best, most detailed HD content.