Panasonic TX-P50GT60 problem…

[NiceCupOfTea]

Hi all,

Our trusty Panasonic plasma packed up today - it had been on a couple of minutes and it just died completely - no lights, no nothing.

I’ve tried unplugging it, checked the fuse, a few button pushes from youtube videos but nothing.

My hope is that it’s a cap in the power supply or something although I suppose it could easily be the main board.

I’m going to contact a repairer and cross my fingers - I know it’s 10 years old but I really like it - great picture and still a good feature set. Used my dad’s LG and found it very confusing and I thought their WebOS is supposed to be good.

What are my chances?

And failing that, what should I be looking at as a modern equivalent (Freesat & Freeview, decent EPG, lashings of HDMI inputs, ability to use HDD for PVR stuff, 50-60” screen. Don’t have any 4K sources so don’t think I need that. Would rather not spend over a grand (which this plasma cost back in 2012!

At the moment I am watching TV on the Marks & Sparks 19” kitchen TV

[Stan the Bat]

Have a look on youtube, they often have all sorts of fixes for a lot of TV's.

[Lucid_AV]

NiceCupOfTea said:

And failing that, what should I be looking at as a modern equivalent (Freesat & Freeview, decent EPG, lashings of HDMI inputs, ability to use HDD for PVR stuff, 50-60” screen. Don’t have any 4K sources so don’t think I need that. Would rather not spend over a grand (which this plasma cost back in 2012!

At the moment I am watching TV on the Marks & Sparks 19” kitchen TV

If the GT60 is a gonner, or just uneconomical to repair, then I'd start looking at OLED as a replacement.

Re: your points...

"Freesat" - LGs have Freesat tuners. So do a few other OLED TVs. Both the Freesat and Freeview tuners will be HD. That's something I think you might have missed out on with the GT60. You'll like the difference.

"Decent EPG" - You'll have to judge that for yourself. What you will notice though is that catch-up TV will be integrated in to the Freeview EPG. That means the time bar goes back in time as well as forward. It displays the shows available to you on catch-up without having to leave the EPG to start each channels catch-up app. You'll need to check if Freesat's EPG does the same thing on the specific model of set you're looking at.

"Lashings of HDMI inputs" - Four is pretty common on the OLED TVs. The LG sets all have the latest spec 4K HDMI inputs too, so if you decide to hook up a 4K source then there should be no restrictions on watching HDR/Dolby Vision content.

"ability to use HDD for PVR stuff" - pretty standard now. Mechanical drives should have their own PU for best results.

"50-60” screen" - 55" is the sweet spot for price-vs-features-vs-performance

"Don’t have any 4K sources so don’t think I need that." - you ain't going to find any hi-spec 1080p TVs any more. That ship has sailed. Then it sank. Then it rusted to nothing. The market is now almost entirely 4K, even the cheap big tellies in the supermarkets and in the middle aisles in Aldi and Lidl. The only 1080p stuff still available is bottom-of-the-barrel stuff below 43" at under £300 and stuff made for people who just don't care as long as there's a moving picture. You didn't look at that kind of gear when you bought the GT60, and it's not the right place for your to look now.

Other reasons to look at OLED...

• wide viewing angles without colours desaturating - just like plasma. LED TVs with VA panels struggle with this
• excellent blacks - just like plasma. LED TVs with IPS panels struggle with this
• no backlight bleed or faint glow - in this respect OLED is better than all past technologies, even the mighty ZT plasmas
• less colour banding - OLED screens use 10-bit colour as opposed to 8-bit on 1080p TVs and 8+2FRC on the majority of LED sets
• native 100/120Hz refresh rate panel - there are a surprising number of £1,000 LED sets with 50/60Hz panels

OLED is a different tech to plasma, and so whilst some things are comparable others such as motion processing are more difficult to compare directly. It's also true that the TV can only display what it is given, so if you're watching highly compressed Freesat/Freeview then you're still going to see the lack of bit depth in the dark areas of the screen. Overall though I'd still go with OLED as a first choice TV tech, and especially so when coming from a decent plasma.

[Spanglepants]

Do you have any flashing lights on the front?
I have a 2009 Panasonic PZ800 50" plasma - superb still. Years ago it lost power, looked up on the net where i found a trouble shooting guide. It had a sequence of green and red lights flashing which was something to do with power ( supply? ).
Local Panasonic repairers picked it up. Less than 2 hours later it was done and ready for collection. Never had a single issue other than that and the picture and sound is beautiful.

[NiceCupOfTea]

Thanks all, especially Lucid_AV with all that comprehensive info. The Panasonic did (does) have HD Freesat/Freeview tuners. Only thing that bugged me about the GT was that you couldn’t view one tuner while recording another. The VT had it IIRC.

Anyway, it’s by-the-by - I ordered a replacement board that I suspected, but then I was away on tour for a week. Replaced it when I got back, but realised it wasn’t the integrated board I thought it was. Pulled out the power board and sent it to a chap on ebay. Then had Covid for a week , fitted the replacement board, and my old GT60 works perfectly again! Even with ordering the wrong board initially it cost me less than £100 so I am happy enough.

I guess I need to look at OLEDs in the future though…