$8ffTV Review
$7ff|1-Panasonic TXW28R3



|1-Widescreen Nicam TV




$fdf                          Reviewed by Dr.Dick
$fff
Spec : 28in Quintrix Widescreen with Nicam/Fasttext
Price: MRRP £749.99, PAID £699.99

Last  issue I made mention of the Samsung TV that I had, and I think one
of  the lines about it was "will be upgraded one day".  That day arrived
last  Monday  (6th  March)  when  I  strolled  into  a  local electrical
retailers and ordered a seven hundred quid's worth of telly.

The TXW28R3 is the same height as your usual 21in TV, but the additional
inches  to the left and right of your normal viewing area make it a very
imposing  piece  of  kit.  Considering this is the base model from those
guys at Panasonic, it's absolutely HUGE.  It's at least as deep as it is
high  as  well,  forcing  me  to  use  the supplied stand because, quite
simply, mine wasn't deep enough to take this monstrosity.

This  TV  uses  Panasonic's  new  Hexacone  Dome  sound  system  in it's
speakers, and while I have little experience of Nicam (Video and Lamaman
have  them at home), the set produces a fantastic range.  It is so clear
that,  as  Kev  remarked upon, I can actually watch TV without subtitles
and  still follow what's going on - tinnitus and all.  It is so good, in
fact,  that  piping the audio through my stereo doesn't actually improve
the output that much.  It *is* good for films, but for normal TV there's
very little point, the TXW28R3 is absolutely amazing.

The  setup area of this unit is all done via an extremely clever pop-up-
menu-style  interface.   There are options for just about everything you
can  think  of, including bass and treble, of course, but also something
called  AI,  which  scans  every  frame of every picture and adjusts the
brightness  and contrast for the best results, essentially ensuring that
you have a perfect picture in every frame.

There  are several screen modes that let you display any picture in just
about  any way you'd like.  You can take your 4:3 picture and display it
in  Zoom mode - which will lose the top and bottom of the picture and so
is  perfect  for  the  European  16:9 standard - there's also Wide which
stretches  the entire picture to fit the entire screen, and Justified, a
sort  of  halfway house between the two.  In addition you can adjust the
vertical  size  and position on any of the zoom modes, so you can adjust
it for just about anything.  With these functions, it's more like having
a  large,  widescreen  monitor  than a TV.  The 4:3 mode will even flick
straight into widescreen as soon as a decent signal is broadcast.

Gadget  freaks are not left out in the cold either, there is a wealth of
connectors on the unit, ready to accept signals from all over the place,
including 3 (yes, three!) Scart socket, two of which are RGB, a S-VHS in
socket and the usual CVBS inputs.  Truly there is something for everyone
on this monster.

Oh, and a headphone socket, with it's own volume setting, of course.

The  crunch  test came the day after I ordered it.  The TV was delivered
on  Tuesday  morning  and that night Video and Aladdin Sane turned up to
watch  "Leon"  in  widescreen  format on video.  Thanks to the skillfull
stretch  modes  and  the  picture's Digital Management System, the image
from  the  tape was absolutely brilliant, and of course the sound, which
in  this  case we had piped through the stereo, was superb, full of bass
and with excellent speech reproduction.

If  I have a gripe about it, it's with the fasttext system.  If you want
to  mix the display - ie have subtitles on a TV program - then you can't
do so without having the picture height reduced a little.  Obviously, in
normal  4:3  mode  this  doesn't apply, but in Zoom mode it is very much
noticable  as  your characters on screen have become short and fat.  Why
this  is  so is a bit of a mystery, since the unit can obviously genlock
two  different  horizontal scan rates (witness widescreen subtitles on a
4:3  display  -  text that overlaps the edge of the picture).  Obviously
the same trick with vertical scan rates is not possible.

All  in  all  though,  this  is an excellent system, and with Widescreen
destined  to  become the future of television, the price of this unit is
affordable  enough to get Panasonic a massive foothold in the Widescreen
market.  It's an excellent TV and well worth the money.

Picture  : 10/10 - Quintrix tube with zoom/stretch widescreen.
Sound    : 10/10 - Nicam with massive bass and excellent range.
Features : 10/10 - Everything but the tea.
Build    : 10/10 - Looks damned sexy, very polished build.

Overall  : 10/10 - What can you say?  The only thing you could
                   improve on is the size.

Dick



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