From: dwjz@bnr.ca (Doug Zolmer)
Subject: Re:  Sony trinitron vs panasonic GAO ??	
Reply-To: dwjz@bnr.ca (Doug Zolmer)
Organization: Bell-Northern Research Ltd.
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 19:01:24 GMT

In article <1992Oct9.173336.17545@bcrka451.bnr.ca>, jimdean@bnr.ca (Jim Dean) writes:
|> Yet another BNR person you'll find in rec.video, Doug (william?)
|> Zolmer, bought a GAOO. He has posted before about some of his
|> experiences.  I got the impression from his posts that he would not
|> buy GAOO if he had it to do over again.  I took that into
|> consideration when I bought my Sony.
|> 

You're right!  If I was going to do it all over again, I'd probably buy
a Sony XBR.  There are a number of things that are annoying about the 
Panasonic GAOO (SuperFlat for our American friends); they are:

1) Blooming.  When a bright image is shown, the picture "grows" in size.  If
   you get a picture which strobes quickly from bright to dark, the size
   change in the picture is very annoying.  This is especially annoying when
   watching a letterboxed movie.  It's a design flaw and can't be
   fixed; it happens in all the GAOO models.
2) Adjusting the colour properly increases video noise.  I compromised
   by reducing the colour level but it's lower than it should be.
3) My set suffers from pincushion distortion along the bottom.  The pincushion
   adjustment reduces the amount of distortion but can't get rid of it.
4) The factory colour settings are _way_ off!
5) No service mode like the Sony's.  You have to take the back of the set off
   to make keystone/pincushion/etc. adjustments.
6) There are two sets of audio outputs - one set has volume and tone controlled
   by the TV, other is fixed and is not affected by the tone controls.  The
   picture-in-picture audio swap works on the variable outputs but not on
   the fixed outputs.  Since I have a Pro-Logic receiver attached to the
   fixed outputs, this problem is a pain.

Things I like about the GAOO:

1) It looks great
2) Very nice menu system - very user friendly
3) Lots of features 
4) Great sound (although I don't use the internal speakers any more)
5) Decent picture when adjusted properly (exceptions above - used LD-101 
   "A Video Standard" for adjustments)
6) It's a lot cheaper than a Sony XBR (and I got a free stand)


|> Well, I ended up with the Sony KV-32TS35. Upon reflection and two
|> weeks worth of use, I probably should've gone with the EXR (You're
|> right, the XBR's are too pricey here).  Two things I dislike about the
|> TS:
|> 
|> 1. No video out line.
|> 

The GAOO has a video output, but I don't know why I'd ever need one.

|> 2. Only one RCA-type video in.
|> 

The GAOO has three RCA video inputs, two of which can be overridden by
S-inputs (video 1 and video 3).

|> 3a. The audio out is variable and volume is controlled by the TV. I don't
|>     like this because I feed it back into my pro-logic receiver, where
|>     I can also control the volume.
|> 
|>  b. The audio out is only active when you explicitly turn the TV
|>     speakers off. To turn the speakers off, you have to go through two
|>     levels of menus. Makes switching from normal TV to TV+ProLogic a pain,
|>     and too complicated for my wife to deal with.
|> 
|> What I like:
|> 
|> 1. Great picture.
|> 
|> 2. Picture-in-picture.
|> 
|> 3. Separate S-Video input.
|> 
|> Hope this helps.
|> 

Hope my experiences help too.

|> -- 
|> Jim Dean (Internet: jimdean@bnr.ca) +-----+    National Capital Baseball League
|> mild-mannered computer scientist -->|Phone|--> President. Pitcher. My knuckler?
|> Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa,Ont. |Booth|    Not too legit to hit!  6-0, 1.99
|> Phone: (613) 763-2135 Fax: 763-7241 +-----+    Phone: (613) 723-1580

-- 
dwjz@bnr.ca  Voice: +1 613 763 8217  Disclaimer: my opinions only  
                or  +1 800 739 7528
"mild-mannered geek" (at least according to my f(r)iends)
Newsgroups: rec.video