Panasonic 42G20 and the internet

[caiss4]

Treated myself to a 42inch G20 Panasonic last week with the expectation of hooking up to the internet and accessing the likes of BBC i-player, Lovefilm etc.

According to the sales guy these were all available.

Connect up the wired LAN to the TV yesterday and, hey presto, we have the WWW at our fingertips.....or do we?

Seems all you can do is connect to Viera Cast which has a pretty poxy selection of sources - mainly German TV. Unfortunately it has YouTube so I can't keep the kids off of it - 42" plasma for watching crap YouTube videos

Anyway thought I'd put up a post to see if any of you guys have any thoughts of how I can access something more useful.

[Stu R]

Apple TV, or an Xbox, or a PS3, or a media PC.

Or a NAS with a bunch of your own stuff stuck on.

Any of these, or a combination works just fine. If you have an xbox 360 and a decent network speed streaming via windows media centre is pretty useful - thought the media centre itself is a bit sluggish with something like transcode 360 installed on the host PC you can watch pretty much any format.

Apple TV is good, the old one is very 'customisable' with 3rd party stuff. I just recieved my new one and it works well.

Edited by Stu R on Sunday 10th October 17:25

[caiss4]

Stu R said:

Apple TV, or an Xbox, or a PS3, or a media PC.

Or a NAS with a bunch of your own stuff stuck on.

Any of these, or a combination works just fine. If you have an xbox 360 and a decent network speed streaming via windows media centre is pretty useful - thought the media centre itself is a bit sluggish with something like transcode 360 installed on the host PC you can watch pretty much any format.

Apple TV is good, the old one is very 'customisable' with 3rd party stuff. I just recieved my new one and it works well.

Edited by Stu R on Sunday 10th October 17:25

Had a feeling this would be the answer.

Don't have any of those toys and as I just discovered today that the S4 has sprung a leak in the aux. rad I'm not in the market to buy any either

Oh well, guess I just better get on and enjoy the new screen as it is!

[Stu R]

Keep an eye on ebay or something, they can be had cheap enough. Given Apple TV is £99 it's not all doom and gloom!

[Road2Ruin]

You can access iplayer from the Panasonic, it's on the red button service on any BBC channel. And also allegedly new services will be added as panasonic deems worthy.

[caiss4]

Road2Ruin said:

You can access iplayer from the Panasonic, it's on the red button service on any BBC channel. And also allegedly new services will be added as panasonic deems worthy.

Funny you should point that out. My 15 year old showed me tonight. Now I really know I'm getting old

Thanks all the same

[bobthemonkey]

Only when using Freesat.

[456lbft]

caiss4 said:

Treated myself to a 42inch G20 Panasonic last week with the expectation of hooking up to the internet and accessing the likes of BBC i-player, Lovefilm etc.

According to the sales guy these were all available.

Connect up the wired LAN to the TV yesterday and, hey presto, we have the WWW at our fingertips.....or do we?

Seems all you can do is connect to Viera Cast which has a pretty poxy selection of sources - mainly German TV. Unfortunately it has YouTube so I can't keep the kids off of it - 42" plasma for watching crap YouTube videos

Anyway thought I'd put up a post to see if any of you guys have any thoughts of how I can access something more useful.

Would you care to share what you paid and from where did you buy? I am looking at getting one of these, as I am fed up with poor digi signal in my area, and would like to go freesat. Thanks.

[kazste]

Hope you don't mind me choking in with prices, amazon have them for £707 with delivery did have an offer for an extra £40 off but believe it finished last night. Got mine from sevenoaks who charge £749 but included a Panasonic 65 blueray player.
Pixmania are just under the £700 mark but often find with them that its not UK equipment.
As said I fancied a blueray player so could justify the extra including a further £20 for delivery.

hope this helps and sorry I didn't reply last night for the amazon deal.

[maturin23]

Just plug your laptop into the TV via HDMI or VGA lead.

Mine has an HDMI out, and it works brilliantly.

[k22wes]

getting mine from sevenoaks next week. they have a deal for £749 with a panasonic blueray player and a 5 year warantee with panasonic.

[kazste]

Same deal I got forgot about the warranty. Just been told though that the blueray players are on back order at sevenoaks distribution centre so the shop I've bought it from have ordered the player direct from Panasonic to speed things up for me. Might be worth checking.

[caiss4]

I actually paid similar money (£760 I think including delivery) that included a Panny Blu-ray player too although not the 5 year warranty.

It was from that 'celestial' retailer that adorns most towns of the UK; don't have much choice round these parts.

[G20RG B]

i-player only available from Freesat on the Pana models you need to connect to the internet and select a HD channel (BBC HD) then select text and it will apear at the bottom of the list that displays on the TV. Viera Cast on Panasonic does not have i.player but as mentioned has You tube and ACE trax (video on demand) which is pretty good and Skype and twitter and some others.

[caiss4]

G20RG B said:

i-player only available from Freesat on the Pana models you need to connect to the internet and select a HD channel (BBC HD) then select text and it will apear at the bottom of the list that displays on the TV. Viera Cast on Panasonic does not have i.player but as mentioned has You tube and ACE trax (video on demand) which is pretty good and Skype and twitter and some others.

Thanks for that. As I've got 2 LAN connections I'm going to have one on the TV and one on the Humax Freesat PVR so I can access whatever is available either via Freesat (not using the Panny Freesat tuner) or Viera Cast.

Edited by caiss4 on Friday 15th October 21:06

[Muppet32]

I've got a Panasonic G20, which generally I'm very pleased with. It seems a very high quality bit of kit in terms of visual quality.

Unfortuately though, in terms of firmware, it's horrible: When used as a 'daily telly', the GuidePlus freeview guide is hideous: It looks ugly, doesn't allow you to view a channel whilst surfing the guide and has massive adverts down one side. On a premium TV? I don't think so Viera Cast is also very weak, with IPlayer only just (apparently) supported and no Lovefilm etc stuff that the Sony Bravia system can deal with.

It's a great TV when used with external sources, but the in built stuff stinks

[caiss4]

Muppet32 said:

I've got a Panasonic G20, which generally I'm very pleased with. It seems a very high quality bit of kit in terms of visual quality.

Unfortuately though, in terms of firmware, it's horrible: When used as a 'daily telly', the GuidePlus freeview guide is hideous: It looks ugly, doesn't allow you to view a channel whilst surfing the guide and has massive adverts down one side. On a premium TV? I don't think so Viera Cast is also very weak, with IPlayer only just (apparently) supported and no Lovefilm etc stuff that the Sony Bravia system can deal with.

It's a great TV when used with external sources, but the in built stuff stinks

I'd agree to most of that. All I really needed was a 'monitor' but of course that was not an option if you were looking for the enhanced picture performance so I got the Freesat tuner and internet capability even though I didn't need them. I haven't even tried the EPG or Freesat.

Nonetheless, the picture is great and now I have both the Humax and TV on line I do have more choices.

[TEKNOPUG]

Muppet32 said:

I've got a Panasonic G20, which generally I'm very pleased with. It seems a very high quality bit of kit in terms of visual quality.

Unfortuately though, in terms of firmware, it's horrible: When used as a 'daily telly', the GuidePlus freeview guide is hideous: It looks ugly, doesn't allow you to view a channel whilst surfing the guide and has massive adverts down one side. On a premium TV? I don't think so Viera Cast is also very weak, with IPlayer only just (apparently) supported and no Lovefilm etc stuff that the Sony Bravia system can deal with.

It's a great TV when used with external sources, but the in built stuff stinks

You can turn the adverts off. There will be more and more media release for the Panny range in the future, such as 4OD (which is far superior to the i-player). Unfortunately you can only access i-player through Freesat (so no good if you have SKY). You can get HD quality if you plug the telly into the internet.

I have my PC connected to my TV directly as I don't have room for a seperate big monitor, so access the web through my TV anyway. Plus the missus has a laptop, smart phone etc. So I'm not too fussed that the TV doesn't have all the web ability that it was billed to. Only "Love Films" I could see myslef being interested in but I have all the SKY film channels and can record them.

The only time I have ever accessed VieraCast was when I first got the TV and to check the weather forecast a couple of times.

[maturin23]

Hi Technopug

How do you switch the bloody adverts off? I've done a few searches and can only find one guy who just unplugs it every night to prevent the ad software updating itself.

[TEKNOPUG]

maturin23 said:

Hi Technopug

How do you switch the bloody adverts off? I've done a few searches and can only find one guy who just unplugs it every night to prevent the ad software updating itself.

One involves watching via FreeSat.......the other involves resetting your TV to factory default and then NOT entering your postcode when during set up.

You can't turn them on/off at a press of a button I'm afraid.