Secaucus, N.J. — Panasonic officially announced suggested retails for its Viera ZT60 FullHD 1080p plasma TV series with advanced smart-TV capability.
Panasonic said the Viera ZT60-series plasma models, which include 65- and 60-inch screen sizes, will be available through approximately 400 Magnolia locations inside Best Buy stores beginning on May 20 through July 31.
The ZT60 models include the 65-inch TC-P65ZT60 ($4,100) and the 60-inch TC-P60ZT60 ($3,500).
Panasonic’s smart Viera ZT60 plasma series features a “Beyond the Reference” Studio Master Panel that produces deep black levels for stunning picture quality, the company said.
An Ultimate Black Filter delivers improved external light shading, clarity and light transmittance to reduce reflections from ambient light, sharpen pictures and provide higher contrast in bright environments.
Panasonic said the ultimate black levels, contrast and picture clarity quality are achieved using a newly developed panel driving method and panel structure featuring its Air Gapless technology.
The front glass is attached directly to the plasma panel itself by Panasonic’s proprietary crafting methods. As a result of the improvement, dim and double images are averted by eliminating the air gap layer between the front glass and plasma panel.
“We are excited to bring to market Panasonic’s best-ever plasma HDTV with the debut of our smart Viera ZT60 series introduced exclusively at Magnolia inside Best Buy,” said Henry Hauser, Panasonic consumer marketing merchandising group VP. “Panasonic’s ZT-series plasma HDTV represents a new frontier in high-definition picture quality and reaffirms Panasonic’s leadership in plasma TV development.”
“This is a prime example of how we deliver our customer promise to offer the latest and greatest technologies available,” said Amy College, Best Buy home theater merchandising VP. “Our customers can maximize their home network and enjoy sports, movies and other entertainment in a new way with this extraordinary viewing experience from Panasonic.”
The smart Viera features in the sets include My Home Screen, which offers advanced personalization capabilities for quickly calling up apps and content by user preference.
Swipe & Share 2.0 connectivity creates a media hub for streaming and sharing photo and video content seamlessly with smartphones and tablets, while voice-recognition guidance executes spoken commands and provides voice guidance using text to speech functions to verbalize text content as it appears the TV screen.
Panasonic also packages a Smart Viera touchpad controller and provides apps for smartphones to input searches.
Also included is Viera Connect Cloud-based IPTV functionality that delivers access to a wide range of Internet-based video-on-demand content and applications; an enhanced dual-core Hexa processing engine; a web browser; DLNA connectivity; and built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
An electronic touch pen enables handwriting or drawing electronically across the screen, to leave memos on photos on screen and transfer them back to smart devices. The pen (TY-TP10U) is an optional accessory.
The ZT60’s 3000 Focused-field Drive produces image resolution of 1080 lines for 2D images, delivering a wider color gamut (98 percent DCI color space) through a newly reformulated pure red phosphor.
The ZT60 features THX certification in both 2D and 3D modes as well as ISFccc Calibration Mode with Advanced Calibration.
Calibrators adjust the detailed picture setting with calibration software (CALMAN) provided by SpectraCal.
