Las Vegas, United States, 2019-01-07 – Panasonic today announced the launch of the GZ2000, featuring a custom-made Professional Edition 4K OLED panel which incorporates custom hardware improvements by Panasonic. Optimised by a leading Hollywood colourist, the new panel highlights unparalleled colour accuracy and significantly better average brightness levels.
The GZ2000 is the world’s first* OLED TV to support both HDR10+ and Dolby Vision HDR as well as HLG Photo, the new still image format which brings still photography into the HDR world.
Furthermore, the GZ2000 is the world’s first TV with built-in Upward-firing speakers capable of delivering Dolby Atmos® immersive audio with total ease and convenience. The total audio system has also been tuned by Technics engineers.
With support for voice assistants, the GZ2000 can integrate seamlessly with a Smart Home setup.
Yasushi Murayama, head of Panasonic’s European TV business, says: “Thanks to our customized Professional Edition OLED panel and our most powerful processor ever, together with the uncompromising sound combination of Tuned by Technics and Dolby Atmos, the GZ2000 is the most complete television we have ever made.”
Leading colourist works with Panasonic to guarantee the filmmaker’s intent
Available in 65-inch and 55-inch screen sizes, the new GZ2000 OLED represents the combination of Panasonic’s technological accuracy with the colour-tuning skills of Stefan Sonnenfeld. Stefan Sonnenfeld, Founder and CEO of Company 3, is a trusted collaborator of some of the world’s best filmmakers. Sonnenfeld is among a handful of leading artists who has championed the power of color grading to tell stories and communicate emotion. Described by NPR as a “da Vinci of the movies,” Sonnenfeld has applied his skills as a colorist to many of the most acclaimed and popular features of the past decade: A Star is Born, Wonder Woman, Man of Steel, Beauty and the Beast, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Jurassic World, 300 and many more. Like many other leading colourists, he uses Panasonic OLED screens as large-format client reference monitors in his daily workflow.
No ordinary OLED panel, the bespoke Professional Edition 4K OLED panel has been exclusively customised by Panasonic R&D engineers. This has resulted in even greater control of the parameters that affect picture quality. In particular, the average brightness level has been boosted significantly and contrast handling improved, resulting in increased dynamic range. HDR content now looks even more impactful, with the GZ2000 effortlessly able to reproduce tricky scenes of variable brightness and contrast – often found in live sports broadcasts and in action movies. As a result of this level of customisation, combined with the exceptional colour-optimising skills of Sonnenfeld, Panasonic has created some of the most accurate, cinematic images ever seen on a TV.
In response to requests from Hollywood’s professional users, Panasonic has extended the range and reduced the interval between calibration steps at the darkest end of the RGB and gamma scales. The GZ2000 is also one of the first TVs to support CalMAN PatternGen test patterns from Portrait Display’s® CalMAN® software along with AutoCal functionality. Imaging Science Foundation (isf) calibration settings are also supported.
The GZ2000 uniquely covers all the popular dynamic HDR bases
The GZ2000’s HDR OLED panel is powered by Panasonic’s most advanced processor ever, which rapidly analyses the colour, contrast and clarity of 4K video content, optimising them and giving more control over the screen’s all-new Panasonic-customised OLED panel. Featuring an even faster Dynamic LUT, the GZ2000 is Panasonic’s most advanced TV ever at selecting and displaying the correct colour for every single brightness level. Even when brightness levels and contrast vary rapidly within a scene the GZ2000 unfailingly delivers the most accurate colours, resulting in a more satisfying image than ever before.
The HCX PRO Intelligent is also compatible with multiple formats of dynamic HDR metadata and ensures that viewers experience the best possible TV pictures available regardless of their source. The GZ2000 is the world’s first model capable of displaying both HDR10+ and Dolby Vision® formats*. And with Multi HDR support, the GZ2000 is also compatible with HLG (Hybrid Log-Gamma), which is an HDR format expected to be widely adopted by TV broadcasters. HLG Photo, a new still image format is also supported. The screen also supports regular HDR10, as found on most UHD Blu-ray discs and many streaming services.
The GZ2000 boasts cinematic audio with support for Dolby Atmos
The GZ2000 is the world’s first* TV with built-in upward-firing speakers capable of delivering Dolby Atmos. It uses multiple speaker units to produce an immersive spherical soundstage with Dolby Atmos content.
Dolby Atmos transports you from an ordinary moment into an extraordinary experience with moving audio — sound that fills your room and flows around you with breathtaking realism to create a powerfully moving entertainment experience. You’ll feel like you’re inside the action as the sounds of people, places, things, and music come alive with breathtaking realism and move throughout the space. And because Dolby Atmos is built into the GZ2000, it’s never been easier to experience immersive audio in your home.
Despite its impressively thin profile, the GZ2000 delivers a powerful and dynamic output complemented by a powerful bass. The total sound system has been tuned by engineers from Panasonic’s acclaimed audio brand, Technics, and also feature Technics’ proprietary JENO Engine for accurate, refined sound.
“Together, Dolby and Panasonic are bringing best in class audio and imaging technology to Panasonic’s TVs,” said John Couling, Senior Vice President, Commercial Partnerships. “Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos perfectly complement the GZ2000’s advanced display, transforming it into an entertainment powerhouse.”
The GZ2000 features Panasonic’s new My Home Screen 4.0 allows the viewer to tailor the TV user interface to their own preference with more freedom and flexibility. The layout of the home screen can be reconfigured to allow customosed layouts. Access to VOD and broadcast content is also easier thanks to a redesigned GUI that includes icons for decks that provide shortcuts to live TV, connected devices and apps such as Netflix, Amazon and YouTube. Users can even add frequently watched TV stations to the home screen.
The GZ2000 also works with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, allowing users to operate some key TV functions, just using their voice.
*as of 7 January 2019 and according to Panasonic data.