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Panasonic Viera TX-32LZD81 32in Freesat HD LCD TV Review

Author	Riyad Emeran
Published	20th Oct 2008
Manufacturer	Panasonic
Supplier	Electrical Discount UK
Price	£643.47 (Exc VAT)
as reviewed	£739.99 (Inc VAT)
Latest Price	Click here

Design
Features
Image Quality
Sound Quality
Value
Overall

Panasonic Viera TX-32LZD81 32in Freesat HD LCD TV

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Setting the TX-32LZD81 up is an absolute breeze. When you power the set on for the first time, it will automatically tune all the internal tuners - Freesat HD, Freeview and analogue. Once all the channels have been found and stored, the TV will then ask you if you're at home or in a shop. This is a great feature, since many TVs leave the factory with settings that suit a shop floor, but look awful in the living room, so this simple selection means that consumers don't have to manually calibrate their TV, although a bit of manual tweaking will certainly still help.

Even though I'm a long term Sky HD user, I've got to say that there's something really nice about having a high definition tuner built into a TV, rather than having to use a set top box. Of course you're only getting a very limited amount of HD content, but the BBC HD service looks every bit as stunning as it does over Sky. Heroes for instance looks breathtakingly sharp and detailed, even though the programme itself hasn't really improved since the woefully bad second season. It's also worth remembering that Freesat HD is the only way to receive ITV HD, and if you're a football fan, you'll know just how important that is. With ITV showing some of the key Champions League and England matches, most viewers are subjected to God awful transmissions where it's hard to even make out which team has the ball. But if you have Freesat HD, you can watch all those matches in glorious high definition, and believe me, it makes all the difference.

On the whole the TX-32LZD81did a very good job of rendering the pristine high definition images that its Freesat HD tuner received. There's certainly no lack of detail on offer - even though many would argue that Full HD resolution isn't worthwhile on such a small screen, there's still no substitute for a 1,920 x 1,080 image mapped pixel for pixel. The result is a pin sharp picture, that's enhanced by the fact that the pixel pitch on a screen this size is considerably smaller than on a larger TV.

Of course, to make use of Freesat HD you're gong to need a satellite dish installed, which will cost around £70 if you don't already have one. But if you're already a Sky customer, you should just be able to run a cable from your existing dish - assuming you're not already using all four LNBs. Even if you're not a Sky customer, you may already have a dish installed at your house thanks to a previous tenant, which is exactly what I found when I bought my house. Then it's just a matter of connecting the cable that's already there.

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Mark said on 21st April 2009

Hopefully these comments may help someone considering purchasing this TV, I have had 4 months to play with this TV since treating myself at Christmas after reading many reviews, its worth travelling a few miles to ensure you get the 5yr warranty, the price I paid is still over £100 less than I can get locally without the 5yr warranty,
Now the TV, first bad points, well one I can think of, after it's done an overnight update it won't switch back on,just sits there with the led flashing, (this has happened 3 times in 4 months)no biggie, just turn off at the mains for a minute to reset itself,
Good points, the picture out of the box is good but not what I'd describe as excellent, but spend a little time setting it up & I'm sure it will be well worth it, I downloaded a test card & went through the TV's many settings until I was happy with them all, now I WOULD describe the picture as excellent, not even rushing to close the curtains in bright sunlight as with previous TV's,
Auto set up in freesat is great,inc BBC-HD (connected to the same quad LNB that I am using to recieve sky) but if you enter Other SAT (non freesat mode) and run a 45 minute scan for all satellites you will find many more signals than those available on freesat at the moment, in fact so many signals that it's not possible to store them all on the TV's 1000 presets, of course a lot of these are encrypted, but you should be able to pick up all "free to view channels" on astra 2A-2D & Eurobird 1, without moving the dish, I have over 500 sat channels stored including Luxe HD, enough to keep most people happy I think,
Very happy with the sound, it's possible to set up volume corrections on each mode, freesat, DVB, AV, HDMI etc so there is no more having to turn the sound up & down as you go from DVD to TV to freesat etc, my laptop linked to the TV provides an adequete picture and sound from the laptop is also available on the TV via an adapter,
One note re Carolines comments about not being able to send freesat to other TV's via the RF lead is true, but if you go into the link settings it's possible to set AV1/AV2 to TV out and then I think you should be able to scart out the channel being watched on the TV to a video sender if you wished, although I use this facility to viera link to my panasonic DVD recorder which works great on Direct TV record & Timer programming on both freesat & freeview
IN CONCLUSION, although I have probably spent a total of several days setting it up over the last 4 months, in my opinion it's the best TV we have ever owned & perfect for our family's requirements and with the ethernet socket hopefully about as future proof as is possible for any TV to be, it will be interesting to see if any new services will be provided via ethernet in the future, I have not tried the common interface up to now but I understand reading comments in various forums that it is possible to recieve pay to view, setanta etc, if I can help with any questions about this TV please contact me at at94@btinternet.com

Hopefully these comments may help someone considering purchasing this TV, I have had 4 months to play with this TV since treating myself at Christmas after reading many reviews, it... more

JLO said on 4th July 2009

Further to Marks comments about hooking up a video sender to AV1 or AV2 - yes this works OK but only if you have the TV switched on at the same time as the TV receiving the signal ... more

Mark said on 18th July 2009

Hi JLO, I don't know if this will help or not, with the LZD81 connected to a Panasonic DVD recorder, I am able to start recording SKY News in non freesat mode, then turn the T... more

pmalone66 said on 6th August 2009

I have just bought this TV for £639 (including a 5 year warranty) from Discount Electrical UK, the price advertised here of £569 does not include a 5 year warranty (whi... more

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