Summary: The PT-61DX80 is definately a great TV. The picture is great even from cable television. This TV has the ability to select whether or not the user wants the progressive scanning feature (Line doubler) to work or not. This is extremely important if you are using inferior sources such as Cable TV or broadcast TV (it cleans the picture up dramatically). If you are using a DVD player with this TV I strongly recommend using the component video inputs. If your DVD player does not have them, put it in the kids room and buy one that does (Toshiba has one that I've seen for as low as $249).
My only complaint with this TV is that under certain circumstances there is a slight white line projecting across the screen from where ever a light colored (or white) image is to the right edge of the screen. This was particulary bothersome (to me) during Tarzan (Walt Disney) when the big gorrila was telling the female that she could not keep the baby (Tarzan). During this seen they show him really close up and there is really faint white lines going from his eyes and teeth across his brown body to the right edge of the screen. The salesman at the place I bought the TV said it was probably due to something that the progressive scan was doing since it scans from left to right. It has not been a problem on movies that I can tell except for one instance in the Mummy. Another issue I have with this TV is the narrow sweet spot it has in the horizontal plane. I like to lay in the floor and watch TV, you can't with this TV or the picture dims somewhat. As long as you sit on the couch or in a chair at a reasonable distance this is not a problem. If not for these two (somewhat minor) items I would have easily given the overall rating a 5 instead of a 4.
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Summary: Honestly, I was quiet disappoint about the TV. I felt the place I bought it from was bit misleading me. They have 3 different model of Panasonic projection TV for comparison. one is regular RPTV PT-51SX60, another is PT-51DX80 and last,PT-56WXF95. The 3 machine all hook up to the HDTV receiver to demonstrate the picture quality of each set. It's apparent that 56WXF95 by far has the best picture. To me, HDTV is not quiet practical and price is out of my budget. It came down to where to buy regular RPTV or digital RPTV. Obviously, progressive scan PT-51DX80 has much better resolution than SX model and I want to get PT-61DX80 because of the larger screen. Circuit City does not have showroom model for demonstration and the salesman insist the 61" model is exact the same except much bigger screen. I took delivery of PT-61DX80 the next day, but when I hook everything up (DVD, DDS, VCR, Karaoke player), the picture looks very fuzzy. The progressive scan makes the background extremely unclear. The remote will not able to control both LD player and DVD player simultaneously. When using the remote control the VCR, it won't let you adjust the TV volume... I'm seriously think about return the unit to exchange with Hitachi 53SDX89B. Panasonic is cheaper, but you really get what you pay for.
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4 of 5
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