panasonic veira

NonGeographicalMan

loracan1 wrote: »

They've done it. (got a 6500) Slightly more limiting than the online version but eminently more user friendly than the itv app. Have to say the picture isn't as good as a panasonic but has way more functionality.

Then all the more reason to start ratcheting up the pressure on Panasonic over their continued lack of any useful video on demand services other than BBC Iplayer and Youtube.

If Panasonic have addressed this problem on the 2013 range about to appear in the shops then they can upgrade us to a 2013 model or otherwise they can offer a full refund so that we get the Panasonic ES8000 series instead.

It also isn't good enough that only Panasonic GT50 series owners with a perfect satellite dish connection can access ITV Player when clearly ITV Player should not be dependent in any way on a satellite connection when it is a web based catch up tv service.

Also when exactly did you get your 6500 series Samsung tv that they have also now managed to provide all the missing UK catch up tv services for?

almillar

NonGeographicalMan - your grievance with Panasonic Smart TVs would apply to most manufacturers. Smart TV is a term that can be abused a lot, and you should check before you buy (not go by promises of coming features) whether they suit your needs. I haven't seen evidence of ANY manufacturers adding really good stuff to older models, they just want you to buy the new stuff, which as far as I can see is still rubbish.
The same applies to connecting a hard drive. You seemed to expect a full on PVR experience from connecting a hard drive to a TV - you won't get that, they all have limitations. The good news is your TV has an excellent picture which no smart upgrade can change!
RE: energy usage - never mind what JL say - what do Panasonic say? You've researched your own usage - plasmas don't use a constant amount, so it's difficult to give 1 single number. Dark pictures will use less, a bright white screen will use most. Your power usage is about what I'd expect for a modern 50 inch plasma.

Cisco001

If you want more apps on TV. Spend £60 on android TV stick + keyboard. That will do the job.

NonGeographicalMan

almillar wrote: »

I haven't seen evidence of ANY manufacturers adding really good stuff to older models, they just want you to buy the new stuff, which as far as I can see is still rubbish.

loracan1 reports in post #21 above that Samsung have now just added a 4OD Catch Up Tv App. When buying the Panasonic Tv there was no way to know that Samsung would do this and Panasonic would not. Panasonic keeps adding new Apps to the Viera Connect platform but they are mainly complete junk like the latest "Couchy Play" which Panasonic wrongly alleged supported Nasa Tv in their app description but then did no such thing when I used it (an important visit to the International Space Station also having just taken off but all Couchy Play could show was some obscure Chinese tv content nothing to do with space exploration) . There was also no way to know Panasonic would suddenly delete their 3D World App without any being prepared to so far offer any explanation for their actions (however I hear on the grapevine that some kind of copyright dispute re the 3D content they were showing was involved).

Also my complaint is about Panasonic 2012 range tvs on sale in late 2012 and not about a 2009 Smart Tv. With the launch of YouView and Freesat MyTime I would say that by the end of 2012 that the customer expectation of a Smart Tv is to support all four Catch Up Tv services of the main UK broadcasters. In 2008 or 2009 it may perhaps not have been. It is also not acceptable for ITV Player to only be available on the Freesat side of the set and therefore only accessible for customers who can connect a satellite dish with a high quality signal (we have a satellite dish but it can't get the channels from the Eutelsat satellite such as France 24 or 902 - ITV Player) when it is a web based catch up tv service!!!

The same applies to connecting a hard drive. You seemed to expect a full on PVR experience from connecting a hard drive to a TV - you won't get that, they all have limitations. The good news is your TV has an excellent picture which no smart upgrade can change!

What is the point of providing the facility to add a hard drive on a high end model if it can't at least offer the very low tech thing of recording a scheduled item at the same time each day or once a week or only Monday to Friday or only Saturday and Sunday. Even a 1977 VHS VCR had such timer record facilities. Really if a hard drive can be attached then it is totally reasonable to expect that Freesat+ and/or Freeview+ will be supported just as it might be reasonable to hope that a television with a satellite and DTT tuner could set up a single Favourites list that combined channels from both tuner sources. This is after all a high end Panasonic smart tv and not a cheap Goodmans or Bush tv that we are talking about.

Don't get me started on the fact that apparently the morons who run Freesat won't let be put the four HD channels in positions 101 to 104 in my Freesat EPG in place of their SD counterparts. Thankfully I can do this on the Freeview side of the Panasonic set by both swapping channel numbers and using Favourites.

And as for picture quality well its nice to have but actually for me viewing what I went when I want is the important feature of a modern Smart television. I think I was conned by the various cinephile mags reviews of this set to buy the Panasonic P42GT50 model but personally I think any extra picture quality is a very poor trade off for the much higher energy consumption and much worse smart tv features than the equivalent Samsung television (ES8000 series). Also the Samsung would clearly perform better without having to shut the curtains when the sun shines as we have to do with the Pansasonic due to the reflections that ensure.

RE: energy usage - never mind what JL say - what do Panasonic say? You've researched your own usage - plasmas don't use a constant amount, so it's difficult to give 1 single number. Dark pictures will use less, a bright white screen will use most. Your power usage is about what I'd expect for a modern 50 inch plasma.

Actually this is the 42" model we have so I would say the energy consumption is jolly high and little different from a 42" Plasma of 10 years ago contrary to the claims of the sales reps that latest model Plasmas were also a lot more economical than their predecessors.

No one watches all white screen or all dark pictures. The only significant different is how light or dark your living room is in day light hours. From what I have seen this makes a consumption different of around 20W if you switch on the menu feature to add additional backlight compensation during daylight hours.

There is also a design fault with the Aspect function not working for programs delivered by the Smart Tv internet connection eg if you watch Dad's Army on the Iplayer you can't go to Zoom 2 on the Aspect button to get rid of the black bars. You can do this or use Zoom 2 to get rid of enforced top and bottom black bars by some broadcasters on movies with any live over the air DTT or satellite broadcasts.

NonGeographicalMan

Cisco001 wrote: »

If you want more apps on TV. Spend £60 on android TV stick + keyboard. That will do the job.

Will that provide 4OD, Demand 5 and ITV Player given that the tv itself is not based on the Android operating system. Or does this run standalone in the tv stick which then just needs and HDMI socket to send the picture to the television? Or does it connect via a USB socket on the television?

In my opinion if the manufacturers can't do Smart Tv properly then they really shouldn't bother at all. To claim something is a Smart Tv but then not offer the features customers actually want in a Smart Tv is simply dishonest.

Of courser I'm not sure the "Techie Stuff" forum section is the right place for these comments and may be the "Consumer Vent" section would have been a more appropriate place for this thread to be located.

Cisco001

Those android stick is like turning your tv to a tablet.
4OD and ITV player are both on google play store, I would expect they should run.

These are TV stick/ box I referring to.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Delectronics&field-keywords=android+tv+stick

Plug into HDMI port. And get power from USB port/ mains.

loracan1

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

Also when exactly did you get your 6500 series Samsung tv that they have also now managed to provide all the missing UK catch up tv services for?

I bought it late last year - channel 5 and 4 have been added in last month or so during updates. Another reason I prefer the samsung is that it will happily play all types of file on a usb - panasonic seems to be fussy, either not recognising one, not playing sound or pixellating.

Cisco001 wrote: »

Those android stick is like turning your tv to a tablet.
4OD and ITV player are both on google play store, I would expect they should run.

These are TV stick/ box I referring to.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Delectronics&field-keywords=android+tv+stick

Plug into HDMI port. And get power from USB port/ mains.

I've got one of those for the viera - never got the hang of it, wish I'd saved the money and put it towards a lenovo nettop or something.

NonGeographicalMan

loracan1 wrote: »

I bought it late last year - channel 5 and 4 have been added in last month or so during updates. Another reason I prefer the samsung is that it will happily play all types of file on a usb - panasonic seems to be fussy, either not recognising one, not playing sound or pixellating.

In other words its a 2012 Smart Tv model like the Panasonic GT50 series then? Panasonic's insistence on ITV Player only working for customers who have access to a satellite dish but not customers who only have an aerial to plug in is ridiculous (also if its anything like their rubbishy Freesat BBC Iplayer implementation then its graphical interface will be very low quality compared to building their own App) when its a web based tv service and their failure to do anything about 4OD and Demand 5 totally unacceptable.

Also the Panasonic 2013 high end LED and Plasma models will have a personal desktop for each user and four tuners (two satellite and two DTT) but something tells me that those personal desktops still won't support 4OD or Demand5 (or for that matter Lovefilm, NowTv or YouView) and that the recording facilities will still be a dumb one shot from the next 7 days of EPG affair vastly inferior to a 1975 VCR's timer let alone a Series 1 UK Tivo recorder from 13 years ago.:eek::mad:

So Panasonic if you are going to do high end Smart Tvs then do them properly with on demand video apps targeted at the tv of each territory you sell in to or just don't bother at all and give us decent but dumb LED or Plasma screens that we can plug our own video on demand hardware in to.

Ratboy

It seems to me to be technology for technologies sake. Lots of people seem to be complaining about it, the technology isn't stable - Plasma TV is only designed to run for 5 years, in which time, the internet has moved on a lot. So those buying these sets; multifunction, is there any point to integrate functions; or is it an obsolete function before even borne?

NonGeographicalMan

Ratboy wrote: »

So those buying these sets; multifunction, is there any point to integrate functions; or is it an obsolete function before even borne?

People clearly don't want to watch tv programs on an Ipad screen or a 15" laptop screen so there seems to be a market for large tv screens. However keeping the tvs current re the internet is difficult for exactly the reasons you suggest.

So probably the sets should be designed with a replaceable wifi board or with a socket for a small external wifi device (that could sit on or below the tv) that could be upgraded every 5 years or so (jumps in wifi speed happen less often than jumps in PC processing power). And the basic design of the set should be for a laptop, tablet etc to be be able to establish a wifi connection with it and push the picture processed on the wifi device in full screen to the television and not for the tv to have to process it in any way. It should just be a native 1080p picture that the television can then display Of course no tv can be designed today so that it can one day run the 4000 resolution standard as and when that comes along as that is inherent to the screen design.

However to start trying to make the tvs run web browsers that are based on a fixed ROM on a motherboard (or at best a firmware upgradeable BIOS) and that cannot have their versions of Flash and Java etc regularly upgraded as they do on a laptop (not to mention the ability to run the latest Digital Rights Management software that the anto piracy brigade are so obsessed with) does seems to be an approach doomed to failure from the outset.

Unfortunately most of the best higher end televisions now come with these third rate Smart Tv features that are then likely not to be maintained built in and that really does seem to be a match made in a hell that is unlikely to work out or keep anyone happy.:eek::(:mad: