Panasonic Viera TX-L32DT30B review

Intelligent Frame Creation is Panasonic’s technology designed to create extra frames to make on-screen action look smoother, particularly with jerky 24p footage. It’s not for everyone’s tastes, but Panasonic’s technology is very good, creating a natural-looking image, without any of the cartoony action we’ve seen from some other sets. It even coped well with troublesome scenes, such as looking movement seen through a wire fence.

There’s a lot to like if you just want a decent TV, as the TX-DT30B has both Freeview HD and Freesat HD built in. Quality from the set is very good. HD channels look fantastic, as you’d expect, but SD channels are upscaled preserving image quality. The image isn’t quite as sharp as on Philips TVs, but it’s close. Our one annoyance is that the TV guide is still doesn’t have a preview window, instead delivering adverts.

Panasonic has updated its online portal to Viera Connect, although the remote control still has it labelled as Viera Cast. The main difference between the two, is that Viera Connect is upgradeable through the app store. At the time of writing, there weren’t many apps available, although it’s good to see that BBC iPlayer is included as standard. It will play both the SD and HD streams and both look better than SD Freeview on this TV. There’s also access to YouTube, Picasa and Skype (you’ll need the optional webcam).

If you want to record the TV you’re watching, there’s a dedicated USB port for an external hard disk. Just plug it in and format it using the on-screen messages, and you can pause the channel you’re watching or even set a recording for later using the EPG. It doesn’t mean that this TV replaces the need for a PVR, but it’s nice to have the option to perform features most of us are used to when watching ‘normal’ TV.

There are two other USB ports, too, so you can connect a wireless adaptor (wired Ethernet is built-in) or USB stick to play media from. Alternatively, you can use the SD card slot or stream content from a media server. The TV had no trouble picking up our Windows 7 PC, although we turned off video previews to make the basic interface faster to browse. All of our test videos, including a HD MKV file and DivX videos all played flawlessly.

In terms of pure technology and image quality, the Viera TX-L32DT30B is a stunning set. The new IPS-Alpha panel is an incredible bit of engineering, producing amazing 2D and, in particular, 3D images. However, it’s incredibly expensive for a 32in set, especially one that doesn’t come with any 3D glasses. Given that we’re not convinced that a 32in set is particularly well suited to 3D, it’s either worth spending an extra £200 (plus the glasses) on the 37in TX-L37DT30B or ditching 3D altogether and buying the TX-L32E30B.