Prices and availability are still not known at this point. I have been told we will be given them once they are available, might be later next week.
Secondly we have some video footage that will get posted tomorrow night going over the Plasma models in a little more detail.
Thirdly, both Steve and I have been very impressed with our initial hands on look at the Plasma screens and the LED LCD screens are also very impressive design and form factor wise. In terms of picture quality I don't want to make any definitive comments at this stage, but they do look promising and the GT30 and VT30 were displaying some serious black levels. It was impossible to check for the 50HZ issue and the material being shown on the screens was not the type to highlight any floating black issues.
Thoes types of issues will be explored in more detail when we get production samples to review. But what we have seen so far is encouraging and we have been impressed.
The last thing to mention is the calibration controls which take a serious step up in terms of what is offered. The first is a full 3D Colour management system which is long overdue. Second is the fact that the menus are correctly placed now for calibration, i.e. they don't cover the measurement area of the screen. But the big final improvement is that fact that using CalMAN 4 and an ethernet connection we have full one press calibration control with 10 point Greyscale and gamma correction. The 10 point and Gamma are only available in this mode. Dealers are being trained and sold the kit to do these calibrations by Panasonic who really are taking the whole calibration thing very seriously! Well done and we will be fully road testing these features when we get the review sets.