With the In-Plane Switching (IPS) technology, you're assured an excellent view even when sitting off to the side of the set. Typically, when an LCD display is viewed at an angle, the brightness, contrast and color distorts. With an IPS screen, the liquid crystal molecules undergo a switching mode that keeps the molecules within the viewable plane. This results in a more consistent brightness, contrast, and color even at wider viewing angles. This set features a top-of-class 178-degree viewing angle.

Panasonic's advanced LCD AI technology incorporates two new technologies--Active Light Control System and Active Contrast/Gamma Control System--that adjust backlight brightness and contrast so that each scene has fantastic contrast and detail. Increased steps of gradation in white areas articulate minute differences for a realistic picture. Likewise, increased steps of gradation in dark areas enhance the sharpness and crispness in blacks.

The TC-23LX60 has a 1366 x 768-pixel resolution, a 450 cd/m2 (candela per square meter) brightness rating, and up to an amazing 3000:1 contrast ratio. (The higher the contrast ratio, the greater a TV's ability to display subtle color details and not get washed out by ambient room light.) Fast pixel response time is essential to accurate image reproduction on LCD displays, and this set has features a quick 9ms (millisecond) response speed, helping to ensure excellent detail and smooth motion during high-speed scene transitions such as when watching sports.

The 3D Y/C comb filter separates brightness and color signals better in 3D domain to eliminate cross-color, cross-luminance and dot-crawl distortion. It performs field-by-field comparisons of the television image to accurately separate the color from the black-and-white information and remove both horizontally and vertically hanging dots, as well as dot crawl, resulting in a razor sharp image. Other features include aspect ratio control, video input labeling, closed caption decoder, V-Chip parental controls, sleep timer, and tri-lingual on-screen menus (English, French, and Spanish). It also offers a low power consumption of 92 watts, giving it an Energy Star rating.

You'll enjoy fantastic sound from all your video programming, thanks to the integrated, bottom-mounted speakers that produce 16 watts of power (8 watts per channel) and virtual surround sound. This set includes one HDMI input, a single cable that carries both digital video and audio at the same time, replacing a multitude of different A/V cables. The HDAVI Control function allows you to connect multiple components--such as a Panasonic DVD recorder and home theater receiver in addition to this LCD TV--and control them all with the touch of a single button on the included remote. Here's the full line-up of audio and video connections:

• Composite audio/video: 3 inputs, 1 output
• S-Video: 2 inputs
• Component video: 2 input
• HDMI: 1 input
• Headphone: 1

Tech Talk
HDMI is a lossless, uncompressed, all-digital audio/video interface to link any audio/video source (such as a set-top box, DVD player, or AV receiver) with your TV--all over a single cable. HDMI supports standard, enhanced or high definition video, plus multi-channel digital audio on a single cable. It supports all ATSC formats--standard (SDTV), enhanced (EDTV), and high (HDTV).

Component video (also called Y/Pb/Pr) features a three-jack video input, which provides separate connections for luminance (Y), blue color difference (PB) and red color difference (PR). This results in increased bandwidth for color information, resulting in a more accurate picture with clearer color reproduction and less bleeding than you would get with S-Video or composite (RCA yellow video plug) connections. You will need a separate RCA left/right audio cable for sound.

High Definition Formats: The most common high-def (HD) video format is 720p, which displays video at 720 vertical by 1280 horizontal pixels. The "p" denotes that it is progressive scan, meaning that all video lines are filled at the same time. The 1080i format displays video at 1080 vertical by 1920 horizontal pixels, and the "i" means that it is interlaced (the old-school way of presenting video where the screen scans the odd-numbered video lines first, then the even-numbered lines). The 1080p format has the same pixel resolution as 1080i, but it is a progressive scan format and thus has a constant vertical resolution of 1080 lines.