Panasonic TX-P50V10 Plasma TV Optical Woe 25th October 2009

I bought one of these a while ago. It kicks ass. Like totally. One thing I have run into which is really annoying is that if you have a HDMI input source like an XBox 360. If you then use the optical audio output to connect the TV to an amp it will only ever be in stereo, you’ll receive no DTS or Dolby Digital. It seems the TV has something built in that means it only outputs a stereo signal baring two exceptions . The two exceptions are (a) watching its FreeSat channels or (b) watching something using its built in Media Server channel. Note that it also only outputs stereo for the standard Digital Aerial based channels. I’ve tested this out firsthand. No menu option to control any of this. I tried looking through the “hidden” service menu. Quite disappointing for what I thought was a highend TV. The annoying thing is that you know it “could” do it but they’ve actually set it not to.

It’s got a youtube viewer built in so naturally the first thing I saw playing on my new TV is a 50″ Star Wars Kid vid 😄