Panasonic TC-L47DT50
Good HDTVs aren’t always good-looking. You can have a bright and colorful screen capable of reaching inky blacks while not being visually stunning in its design. As more features become available in less expensive HDTVs, it’s design flourishes that become part of the justification for premium prices. The Panasonic TC-L47DT50 is an ideal example of this premise. At $1,899.99 (direct), this 47-inch, LED-edgelit LCD HDTV is more expensive than our budget Editors’ Choice, the 55-inch Vizio M3D550KD ($1,429.99, 4 stars), but offers a similar feature set. What you get for the extra $500: active-shutter 3D, a better-than-average sound system, and one of the prettiest bezels we’ve seen on an HDTV yet.
Design
Simply stated: The L47DT50 is gorgeous. Its bezel is constructed of metal with a glass overhang on the bottom edge that houses a glowing Panasonic logo in the middle its transparent surface. The design is clean and a refreshing change from the usual black bezel on most HDTVs. Behind the bezel, the right edge holds the standard power, input, channel up/down, and volume up/down buttons, and four HDMI inputs and two USB ports are lined up behind the left edge. The composite, component, cable, Ethernet, and optical audio ports face down on bottom edge, and all are easily accessible even if the HDTV is mounted on a wall.
The 9-inch remote is large and fairly simple, with big, rectangular buttons and a large, easy-to-find direction pad. It illuminates with the touch of a button, and has playback controls that even work with online services. It also has dedicated 3D, Internet Service, and SD/USB storage buttons for accessing useful features like 3D conversion, the Viera Connect menu, and media on an SD card or USB drive.
You can connect to online services and apps through Panasonic’s Viera Connect service, which accesses the Internet through the HDTV’s built-in Wi-Fi or Ethernet port. It supports Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube, and several other streaming video and music services. You can download apps and set up additional services through the Viera Connect store. It even includes a Web browser that supports HTML5, and you can make video calls with Skype if you purchase the optional $130 TY-CC20W Webcam. The browser loaded PCMag.com almost perfectly, though the font looks slightly different than it typically does on computers.
Performance
We test HDTVs with the Konica-Minolta CS-200 chromameter and DisplayMate test patterns, and we analyze color accuracy with Spectracal’s CalMAN software. We perform basic brightness, contrast, and color temperature adjustments pretest, but don’t otherwise calibrate the screen. Based on our tests, the L47DT50 reached a satisfying but not record-breaking peak white level of 275.58 cd/m2?and a black level of 0.03 cd/m2, for a contrast ratio of 9,186:1. The Vizio M3D550KD , on the other hand, reached respective levels of 364.75 cd/m2?and 0.02 cd/m2, for a nearly double contrast ratio of 18,237:1. Color levels were very accurate, with red and blue spot-on and green edging just slightly toward blue as seen in the chart below. The color squares are the ideal red, green, and blue values, and the colored circles are the screen’s measured red, green, and blue values.?
I watched the?Piranha?Blu-ray on the L47DT50, and was suitably impressed by the color balance and contrast. While the dark colors of the deep don’t get quite as inky and black as the high-end Editors’ Choice Sharp Elite Pro-60X5FD ($5,999.99, 4 stars), it gets satisfyingly dark. The edge lighting resulted in some slight bloom on the left edge of the screen, but not significantly more than similar edge-lit LCD HDTVs.
While the L47DT50 supports 3D, it doesn’t come with any glasses. You need to get a pair of active shutter glasses from Panasonic for $80 each, adding to the cost of the HDTV if you want to use it as a 3D TV. I watched a demonstration video of Gran Turismo 5 for the PlayStation 3 in 3D, and the HDTV showed noticeable depth and little crosstalk, but the picture didn’t quite pop off the screen like the Pro-60X5FD .
We don’t usually consider HDTVs for their sound, because generally even very good HDTV speakers pale in comparison to add-on speakers or even an inexpensive soundbar. However, the L47DT50 is notable for its “8-Train” speaker system, a row of eight dome speakers and a subwoofer mounted on the back of the screen. It can’t replace a high-end soundbar and it doesn’t offer surround sound, but it’s markedly louder and clearer than most other HDTV speakers, with the exception of the Bose VideoWave ($5,349, 4 stars), which is known for its audio prowess.
The L47DT50 consumes an average of 96 watts with no energy saving features enabled and an average of 83 watts with energy saving set to “Standard,” which slightly dims the screen but is otherwise very watchable. This is a solid showing, but it doesn’t quite hit the 66- and 48-watt levels of the 46-inch Sony KDL-46EX620 ($809.99, 3.5 stars) or the 55-inch LG 55LM6700 ($2,299.99, 4 stars), both LED-backlit LCD HDTVs like the Panasonic.?
Sure, there are more impressive HDTVs than the $1,900?Panasonic TC-L47DT50 . The?LG 55LM6700 , for one, offers up glasses-included passive 3D and a cool motion-controlled remote, or there’s the Sharp Elite Pro-60X5FD with its best-in-class picture, but they’re both more expensive. You’ll need to add to the L47DT50′s?price if you want 3D glasses, and it doesn’t get quite as bright or dark as the larger, less expensive passive-3D Vizio M3D550KD. Still, if you value design and high-quality build, but don’t want to spend more than $2,000, the L47DT50 is definitely worth considering. But if your main concern is getting more screen for less money, the Vizio stands as the best low-cost, big-screen option we’ve tested.
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All Models This Photoshopped Should Come With a Toolbar [Image Cache]
Suave’s lesson in ‘soft skills’
The secret of success may be to act more like this Dominican street dog.
A Dog watches a Palm Sunday procession in the Dominican Republic.
Eduardo Munoz/Reuters/File
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The welcome was mixed when my daughter Brennan came home from serving in the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic. We were thrilled to see our daughter, but what she brought with her carried an odor so toxic we could barely breathe.
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My husband was furious when he saw the source ? a street dog named Suave (SWA-vey), a dirty little puppy full of fleas and ticks that Brennan had found. She’d wrapped him in a newspaper and brought him home to live with us.
Once we got Suave shampooed, we looked around and asked, “What’s next?” I was just retiring from the judiciary and beginning a new career as a lawyer, and my husband worked, too.
What did happen next was unexpected. Suave wasn’t a little Yorkie waiting to be pampered and welcomed onto your lap. He was a tough survivor. And because of that, Suave soon underscored for me some important lessons about what it takes to be successful.
In the islands, Suave is known as a “potcake,” a name that comes from what locals call the combination of beans and rice that is scraped from the bottom of cooking pots and often fed to strays. In the Caribbean, potcakes are very friendly. They have to be, in order to survive.
Whatever you feed potcakes ? from leftover shrimp to leftover oatmeal ? they accept with gusto. I’ve seen Suave devour both Science Diet dog food and white rice mixed with bacon grease. Either way, he was just a happy puppy.
Suave is the epitome of the truth that you can catch more flies with honey. I know this from observing him with his biggest challenge: my husband, who campaigned for more than a month to get rid of him.
The two were sequestered together most days at home, where my husband’s office is. Haskell often called me at work to tell me to “come and get your dog,” because he had no time to tend to him. He also texted me pictures of “the pooch’s poop,” as he called it, on my white carpet. And many days my husband e-mailed both me and the children long lists of duties that must be done by a family with a dog ? as if we didn’t already know.
For weeks, I walked on eggshells. I was already in love with Suave, and I did not want to lose him. And Suave never reacted badly to my husband’s suspicion or hostility. He seemed to just be thankful for those hours spent sleeping next to the heating grate.
But then one evening I came home late and overheard my husband saying softly, “Come on, Suave, get in your crate. Good night, little fella.” Two days later, Haskell took Suave to an expensive pet boutique for a “shopping spree.” He also enrolled Suave in “doggie day care” so that he could “make friends.”
Suave had turned my husband into jelly.
Suave is Spanish for “soft.” With brown spots on his back and middle; almond-shaped eyes; and a soft, silky undercoat; he is a handsome dog. When I pet him, I always whisper to him how much I admire how he rebounded so quickly from all the shocks in his life. He’s come a long way ? from the poverty of the streets of the Dominican Republic to our spacious home in Atlanta ? all because of his capacity for unselfish friendship and love, and his positive attitude.
I can’t say the same for me in my early career. As an African-American woman in the early 1980s trying to break into a profession famously dominated by white men, I felt fearful, insecure, alone. At times, those emotions sometimes manifested themselves in a sharp tongue and negative criticism of those who annoyed me. Looking back, while my reactions were certainly understandable, they were ineffective.
Sometime in my 30s, I stepped back and took stock of what I was doing and what was and wasn’t working for me. Like Suave, I found reserves of resilience, passion, fearlessness, and strength, qualities that moved me forward. Being dismissive of people who didn’t see things the way I did had to change. The ability to serve and deal with people effectively are skills that are just as important, if not more so, than technical skills.
I eased up on myself and others, and made some compromises and some friends. It didn’t happen overnight, but I stopped feeling that I always had to prove myself. Instead, I started to try to improve the lives of others.
Being friendlier was easier ? and more effective ? than I thought. Bringing in doughnuts or stopping to chat goes a long way to connecting with people. In school, you don’t necessarily develop the “soft skills” you will need to succeed.
I was inspired to write this after a comment from my grown son. Addison is not a dog person. But after watching Suave win over my husband, he was impressed. “If we all could be more like that dog, we would all be more successful,” he said.
Every day, Suave wakes up excited to be alive and excited to see others. He has succeeded by spreading friendliness, goodwill, and cheer wherever he goes. His attitude has attracted many who eventually became his staunch supporters. He is a “pawsitive” thinker ? something we should all be.
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Video: Facebook Barely Holds IPO Price
Reacting to Facebook’s first day of trading and forecasting its performance next week, with Russ Koesterich, BlackRock’s iShares and the “Closing Bell” crew.
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Increase and Diversify Online Revenue Streams by Implementing …
?
<!– <!– –> An online business which has a multiplicity of revenue channels is less susceptible to a downturn in business than a website business which is less diversified; deploying webcam chat software offers more revenue channels, as well as a method of putting the consumer in the driver?s seat. Deploying webcam chat software and/or other streaming video software allows your consumers to pick and choose what they want to see, when they want to see it, and how they interact with it.
Placing the power into the hands of the consumer/ end user is proven to generate more income pro rata, thereby increasing revenue streams and profits for the business. Video streaming software has evolved rapidly over the past fifteen years or so, coinciding in no small part with the rapid commercialization of the Internet as well as increased volume rollout of fast Internet connections in the local loop.
Prior to the middle ?90s, when fast Internet connections began to multiply rapidly, video streaming and the software over which it was distributed were mainly restricted to big-business interests and academic campuses. The main reason prior to this time for the slow take-up and lack of research into streaming video software was the hideously slow network speeds at the consumer end. Mainly restricted to paid dial-up connections, they caused bottlenecks at the consumer end; the bandwidth capability was insufficient to deliver the high-volume content to home and business computers. Even in the early days as fast Internet connections began to proliferate, there was many issues involved with the protocols in use at the time; however, many if not all of the early protocol issues have now been eliminated.
Telecoms networks are now able to deliver higher definition and depth of field with virtually no interference, almost zero transmission interruption, and almost faultless sound and image synchronization. Better algorithm and packet data checking and retires without loss of continuity now mean video streaming via the Internet is virtually as good as HD TV. Indeed, depending on the transmission and receiving equipment, streaming data is better than HD TV transmissions.
The future potential of interactive streaming services ? especially for online businesses which operate in the ?adult? sector ? continues to trend up well, and while there are many companies which offer streaming video transmission and interactive solutions, few if any deliver like ModenaCam.
Effective live webcam chat software like that available from ModenaCam, offers peer-to-peer direct streaming with inherent controls and parameters, thus helping to add value to websites and online businesses where end-user interaction is a predominant element of the service. For more information, log on to the website of ModenaCam today.
Author account: Tim Bridges
Submitted 2012-05-17 11:33:53
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Should kindergarteners be allowed to evaluate teachers?
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RECORD CROWD FOR UNCA BASEBALL: UNC routs Bulldogs in Fox’s homecoming
UNC routs Bulldogs in Fox’s homecoming
It might have been the largest crowd ever to watch a UNC Asheville home baseball game, but the Bulldogs didn?t exactly enjoy home-field advantage Tuesday evening.
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You are what you eat: Why do male consumers avoid vegetarian options?
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Public release date: 16-May-2012
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Contact: Mary-Ann Twist
JCR@bus.wisc.edu
608-255-5582
University of Chicago Press Journals
Why are men generally more reluctant to try vegetarian products? According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, consumers are influenced by a strong association of meat with masculinity.
“We examined whether people in Western cultures have a metaphoric link between meat and men,” write authors Paul Rozin (University of Pennsylvania), Julia M. Hormes (Louisiana State University), Myles S. Faith (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), and Brian Wansink (Cornell University). The answer, they found, was a strong connection between eating meatespecially muscle meat, like steakand masculinity.
In a number of experiments that looked at metaphors and certain foods, like meat and milk, the authors found that people rated meat as more masculine than vegetables. They also found that meat generated more masculine words when people discussed it, and that people viewed male meat eaters as being more masculine than non-meat eaters.
Most of the studies took place in the United States and Britain, but the authors also analyzed 23 languages that use gendered pronouns. They discovered that across most languages, meat was related to the male gender.
“To the strong, traditional, macho, bicep-flexing, All-American male, red meat is a strong, traditional, macho, bicep-flexing, All-American food,” the authors write. “Soy is not. To eat it, they would have to give up a food they saw as strong and powerful like themselves for a food they saw as weak and wimpy.”
If marketers or health advocates want to counteract such powerful associations, they need to address the metaphors that shape consumer attitudes, the authors explain. For example, an education campaign that urges people to eat more soy or vegetables would be a tough sell, but reshaping soy burgers to make them resemble beef or giving them grill marks might help cautious men make the transition.
“In marketing, understanding the metaphor a consumer might have for a brand could move the art of positioning toward more of a science,” the authors conclude.
###
Paul Rozin, Julia M. Hormes, Myles S. Faith, and Brian Wansink. “Is Meat Male? A Quantitative Multi-Method Framework to Establish Metaphoric Relationships.” Journal of Consumer Research: October 2012. For more information, contact Paul Rozin (rozin@psych.upenn.edu) or visit http://ejcr.org/.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 16-May-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Mary-Ann Twist
JCR@bus.wisc.edu
608-255-5582
University of Chicago Press Journals
Why are men generally more reluctant to try vegetarian products? According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, consumers are influenced by a strong association of meat with masculinity.
“We examined whether people in Western cultures have a metaphoric link between meat and men,” write authors Paul Rozin (University of Pennsylvania), Julia M. Hormes (Louisiana State University), Myles S. Faith (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), and Brian Wansink (Cornell University). The answer, they found, was a strong connection between eating meatespecially muscle meat, like steakand masculinity.
In a number of experiments that looked at metaphors and certain foods, like meat and milk, the authors found that people rated meat as more masculine than vegetables. They also found that meat generated more masculine words when people discussed it, and that people viewed male meat eaters as being more masculine than non-meat eaters.
Most of the studies took place in the United States and Britain, but the authors also analyzed 23 languages that use gendered pronouns. They discovered that across most languages, meat was related to the male gender.
“To the strong, traditional, macho, bicep-flexing, All-American male, red meat is a strong, traditional, macho, bicep-flexing, All-American food,” the authors write. “Soy is not. To eat it, they would have to give up a food they saw as strong and powerful like themselves for a food they saw as weak and wimpy.”
If marketers or health advocates want to counteract such powerful associations, they need to address the metaphors that shape consumer attitudes, the authors explain. For example, an education campaign that urges people to eat more soy or vegetables would be a tough sell, but reshaping soy burgers to make them resemble beef or giving them grill marks might help cautious men make the transition.
“In marketing, understanding the metaphor a consumer might have for a brand could move the art of positioning toward more of a science,” the authors conclude.
###
Paul Rozin, Julia M. Hormes, Myles S. Faith, and Brian Wansink. “Is Meat Male? A Quantitative Multi-Method Framework to Establish Metaphoric Relationships.” Journal of Consumer Research: October 2012. For more information, contact Paul Rozin (rozin@psych.upenn.edu) or visit http://ejcr.org/.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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Global mobile phone sales now in decline
Despite some vendors?seeing?record smartphone sales, worldwide sales of mobile phones declined 2% year-over-year to 419.1 million units in the first quarter of 2012, according to research firm Gartner. The decline represents the first of its kind since the second quarter of 2009. ?Global sales of mobile devices declined more than expected due to a slowdown in demand from the Asia/Pacific region,? said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner. ?The first quarter, traditionally the strongest quarter for Asia ? which is driven by Chinese New Year, saw a lack of new product launches from leading manufacturers, and users delayed upgrades in the hope of better smartphone deals arriving later in the year.?
In the smartphone market, Android accounted for more than half of all smartphone sales, with a 56.1% market share in the first quarter of 2012. Apple?s iOS captured second place with an increase from 16.9% in 2011 to 22.9%. ?Samsung?s Android-based smartphone sales in the first quarter of 2012 represented more than 40 percent of Android-based smartphone sales worldwide,? the firm highlighted. ?No other vendors achieved more than a 10 percent share of the market.? Gartner?s press release follows below.
Gartner Says Worldwide Sales of Mobile Phones Declined 2 Percent in First Quarter of 2012; Previous Year-over-Year Decline Occurred in Second Quarter of 2009
Samsung?s Android-Based Smartphone Sales in First Quarter of 2012 Represented More Than 40 Percent of Android-Based Smartphone Sales Globally; No Other Vendors Achieved More Than a 10 Percent Market Share
Egham, UK, May 16, 2012? Worldwide sales of mobile phones to end users reached 419.1 million units in the first quarter of 2012, a 2 per cent decline from the first quarter of 2011, according to Gartner, Inc. This is the first time since the second quarter of 2009 that the market exhibited a decline.
?Global sales of mobile devices declined more than expected due to a slowdown in demand from the Asia/Pacific region,? said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner. ?The first quarter, traditionally the strongest quarter for Asia ? which is driven by Chinese New Year, saw a lack of new product launches from leading manufacturers, and users delayed upgrades in the hope of better smartphone deals arriving later in the year.?
All vendors were impacted at different levels; however, white-box vendors seem to have suffered the most. While tier one players such as Nokia were negatively impacted on sell-in numbers (sold into retail), white-box vendors were unable to adjust production and were left with a build-up in inventory by the end of the quarter. Gartner expects some of this volume to be sold during the next couple of quarters, because the channel is likely to lower the prices to dispose of the stock.
?The lower results in the first quarter of 2012 have led us to be cautious about sales for the remainder of the year,? said Annette Zimmermann, principal research analyst at Gartner. ?The continued roll-out of third generation (3G)-based smartphones by local and regional manufacturers such as Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo, Yulong and TCL Communication should help spur demand in China. In addition, the arrival of new products in mature markets based on new versions of the Android and Windows Phone operating systems (OSs), and the launch of the Apple iPhone 5 will help drive a stronger second half in Western Europe and North America. However, as we are starting to update our market forecast we feel a downward adjustment to our 2012 figures, in the range of 20 million units, is unavoidable.?
Samsung became the world?s top mobile handset vendor during the quarter, displacing Nokia which had held the No. 1 spot since 1998. Samsung?s mobile phone sales reached 86.6 million units (see Table 1), a 25.9 percent increase from last year. Samsung took back the world?s No. 1 smartphone position from Apple, selling 38 million smartphones worldwide. In addition, Samsung?s Android-based smartphone sales in the first quarter of 2012 represented more than 40 percent of Android-based smartphone sales worldwide; no other vendors achieved more than a 10 percent share of the market.
Sales of smartphones continued to drive mobile device market growth, reaching 144.4 million units in the first quarter of 2012, up 44.7 percent year-over-year. This quarter also saw the top two smartphone vendors, Apple and Samsung, raising their combined share to 49.3 percent, up from 29.3 percent in the first quarter of 2011, and widening their lead over Nokia ? which saw its smartphone market share drop to 9.2 percent.
Nokia?s mobile handset sales reached 83.2 million units, a 22.7 percent decrease from the first quarter of 2011. ?Smartphone sales are becoming of paramount importance at a worldwide level. For example, smartphone volumes contributed to approximately 43.9 per cent of overall sales for Samsung as opposed to 16 per cent for Nokia,? Mr. Gupta said.
Driven by the continued success of the iPhone 4S, Apple?s sales grew 96.2 percent in the first quarter of 2012 as the new model expanded into new markets and carriers. Sales in China were particularly strong this quarter. With more than 5 million units, China became the second-largest market for Apple after the U.S. On top of the sales through official carriers? channels, there was an increase in transshipments from Hong Kong where volume has been growing over the past few quarters to reach a sell-in of more than 3 million units.
RIM sold 9.9 million mobile handsets in the first quarter of 2012, with its global share declining to 2.4 percent as competition increased in its international market strongholds. ?RIM desperately needs to deliver winning BB10 products to retain users and stay competitive. This will be very challenging, because BB10 lacks strong developer support, and a new BB10 device will only be available in the fourth quarter of 2012,? said Mr. Gupta.
In the smartphone OS market, Android accounted for more than half of all smartphone sales (56.1 percent) in the first quarter of 2012 (see Table 2). Gartner analysts said the smartphone market has become highly commoditized and differentiation is becoming a challenge for manufacturers.
?This is particularly true for smartphones based on the Android OS, where a strong commoditization trend is at work and most players are finding it hard to break the mould,? Mr. Gupta said. ?At the high end, hardware features coupled with applications and services are helping differentiation, but this is restricted to major players with intellectual property assets. However, in the mid to low-end segment, price is increasingly becoming the sole differentiator. This will only worsen with the entry of new players and the dominance of Chinese manufacturers, leading to increased competition, low profitability and scattered market share.?
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