Panasonic Viera TC-L42U30

Color Temperature (7.47)

The Panasonic TC-L42U30 earned a mediocre color temperature error score by displaying a noticeable cooling of whites as the signal intensity decreases. While it isn’t immediately noticeable, you may see darker areas on your screen gain a slight bluish hue. Still, the Panasonic TC-L42U30 didn’t perform too poorly in this test, and on the whole the color temperature error was fairly average for an LCD TV. More on how we test color temperature.

Read Reviews of Comparison Products
Panasonic Viera TC-L42U25	Sony Bravia KDL-40EX400	Sharp LC-42SB48UT

RGB Curves (6.56)

Disappointingly, the Panasonic TC-L42U30 performed poorly in the RGB color performance test. As you see below, not only are the lines a bit jagged, meaning there were some colors that the TV could simply not produce, but also the blue and red lines peak early. Because of this peak, on the color strips you will notice a distinct color banding, and no distinction between many bright reds and blues. More on how we test RGB curves.

Because this performance was so bad, we tried to recalibrate and re-test the TV set to make the RGB curves better, but the tradeoff in performance was just not worth it. When we lowered the contrast to accommodate the reds and blues, color temperature error skyrocketed, the color gamut suffered some, and the overall color performance plummeted. For whatever reason, contrast cannot be calibrated to accommodate red, green and blue in a way that will allow the viewer to maximize color performance without significant drawbacks. While the results of the RGB testing were disappointing, we do not recommend using an alternate calibration than the one discussed in the calibration section to fix the RGB curves.

The strips below are a linear representation of the RGB color curves, compared against the ideal color response strip, and those of the comparison models for the Panasonic TC-L42U30.

Red Response Comparison
Ideal Response
Panasonic Viera TC-L42U30
Panasonic Viera TC-L42U25
Sony Bravia KDL-40EX400
Sharp LC-42SB48UT

Green Response Comparisons
Ideal Response
Panasonic Viera TC-L42U30
Panasonic Viera TC-L42U25
Sony Bravia KDL-40EX400
Sharp LC-42SB48UT

Blue Response Comparisons
Ideal Response
Panasonic Viera TC-L42U30
Panasonic Viera TC-L42U25
Sony Bravia KDL-40EX400
Sharp LC-42SB48UT

Color Gamut (7.41)

The Panasonic TC-L42U30 did fairly well with displaying colors close to the rec. 709 standard, but did display some oversaturated blues and slightly inaccurate whites. Despite these minor shortcomings, the red and green points were very close to ideal. More on how we test peak color gamut.

The table below contains all the numeric details of the Panasonic Viera TC-L42U30’s color gamut performance, compared to the rec. 709 standards.

Rec. 709 versus Panasonic Viera TC-L42U30
	u' (rec.709/measured)	v' (rec.709/measured)	Error
Red	0.4507 / 0.452	0.5229 / 0.5235	0.001431782
Green	0.125 / 0.1273	0.5625 / 0.5624	0.002302173
Blue	0.1754 / 0.1713	0.1579 / 0.1542	0.005522681
D65 (White)	0.1978 / 0.2036	0.4683 / 0.4675	0.005854912

Other Models in the TC-LxxU30 Series
For more information on other models in this series, check our Series Comparison Page.
Panasonic Viera TC-L32U3 32 in.	Panasonic Viera TC-L37U3 37 in.