You have all seen large Plasma TVs before, you may even think you own one. Fifty inches? Hah! Sixty-Five Inches? Nice try, but you may as well be squinting. A new product from Panasonic makes all other Plasma TVs look like discount items from the last century!
The monster is Panasonic TH-103PF9UK and it has a diagonal of 103" (261 cm). At this size it is the largest plasma TV in the world. It's one and a half times larger than what you would consider a big plasma for your home, but of course it's not really supposed to be used in the average person's home theater system. Most likely you will see it at presentations and similar events, because it was made primarily for professional applications.
The super-size plasma provides a widescreen progressive display featuring a full high-definition pixel resolution of 1920x1080, a contrast ratio of 4000:1, and an effective display area of 89" wide by 50" high (that's four 50" plasma TV put togheter).
Let's see some of the features (from Panasonic website):
- Full HD pixel resolution of 1,920 horizontal x 1,080 vertical
- Industry's leading 16-bit processing to produces 4,096 steps of gradation
- Contrast ratio of up to 4,000:1 to reproduce exceptionally deep, rich blacks
- Effective display area is approximately 89" wide by 50" high
- Supports 1080/60p/50p, 1080/60i/50i/24p/24sF/25p/30p, 1080/50i, 720/60p/50p, 480/60i/p, and 575/50i/p video signals
- Advanced Dual Picture mode to overlay a video image onto a full-screen PC image
- Expanded configurations for multi-screen displays and the ability to enlarge an image up to 4X vertically and horizontally
- Three interchangeable slots and comes standard with the TY-FB9DD DVI board (compatible with UXGA input), TY-42TM6A analog component board, an integrated D-sub15 PC input, and an integrated D-sub9 RS-232C interface
Ok so it's big and it's hot, but how much does it cost? As you may expect from a new product that also happens to be advertised as 'THE LARGEST IN THE WORLD' it's pretty expensive. The list price in US is $69,995. I bet that's over your new TV budget, but in case I'm wrong and you want to know from where you can buy it, check out on Panasonic website. At least for now, if you're interested in buying the TH-103PF9UK you have to contact Panasonic here.
The first thing that came into my mind when thinking about it's size was the display of USS Enterprise from StarTreck. It's not that big, but I bet we won't have to wait much until the TH-103PF9UK will loose it's 'largest plasma TV in the world' status or until we will see a display the size of a wall.
