Panasonic Claims Engineering Triumph Over Black Level Rise

If you recall, in the past two years, Panasonic has had an issue with their plasma panels where the “black level” (aka minimum luminance level) has risen over time as the panels aged resulting in reduced contrast. CNET is now reporting that Panasonic has revealed that they’ve licked the problem for good with all of their 2011 panels which is great news for videophiles. So now that that problem is behind us, who’s buying a VT30?

“The engineers made significant changes to the internal panel materials…to improve the luminous efficiency of the panels,” said Bill Schindler, technical consultant to Panasonic. “In so doing they had a byproduct effect, which allows them to not adjust the black levels over the panel aging time.”

CNET