And yes, for the NEW high-end Panasonic plasma TVs, this is a new feature. Most TVs don’t have this feature, it’s a new kind of feature, appeared for the first time 2 years ago or so. For Plasmas, only Pioneer had a similar feature for about 2 years. Panasonic is still playing catch up, and they didn’t even go 72Hz, they went 48Hz which is flickering. Which is why we went with Pioneer.

I am glad to see that Panasonic works on improvements. Thanks for the link, the thread has a picture that shows how 2:2 display conversion works, definitely not as smooth as 3:3 process of your new Pioneer.

Congrats with your new TV!

“For LCDs, their 120 Hz is called 5:5, Pioneer’s is called 3:3, Panasonic’s is 2:2.” — If the TV improperly detects input signal, the output would look weird. I’d read about Pioneer’s 3:3 mode before I bought my Panasonic TV, and the verdict was that it works sometime, but sometimes it doesn’t. This is why older Pioneer TVs (I don’t know about new ones) have a separate setting about forcing or disabling 3:3 72Hz mode, just in case if you know better what format the movie is.

Don’t forget that the cadence is not always constant, you can have movie cadence, then you may have video edits or ad break. Even if you watch a DVD, you can have breaks of cadence. what do you suggest, the TV has to change refresh rate instanteneouly? This would look jarring, therefore no one does it, therefore 120Hz refresh rate is being adopted, not because it is a nice large number and the larger number the better (this is what consumers think), it is because this rate is acceptable for all frame rates used in American TV: 24p, 30p and 60i, so there is no need to switch refresh rates. When was the last time you changed refresh rate of your computer monitor? How much time did it take? Was it unnoticeable?

“all evidence shows, and many people claim online too, that Panasonic’s TVs are 48Hz during their “film mode”. … Truth is, Panasonic is 2:2, and this just means 24×2=48. And it’s not the first time that a Plasma TV is 48Hz during film mode. All evidence points to this.” — As I said, I would appreciate reliable links on that. From what I’ve read on the topic, “normal” TVs simply display movie-sourced video with the same 2:3 cadence, but here 2:3 is not fields anymore, they are frames, because the panels themselves are 60p.

The above is not to say that the TV you chose is not good, it is gorgeous, but if this was the reason why you chose it, then your judgment was wrong.