We tested the TX-50CX700 in two different environments while it was here with us. For the first part of our testing it was placed in a normal living room with two large windows and lots of light in the room. The last part of testing was done in our light controlled cinema room. We tested the CX700 with normal broadcast DVB, scaled SD content from DVD, 1080/24 Blu-ray discs and Netflix 4K plus native 4K material shot by us.Panasonic are taking feedback from end users and the UK market in general seriously and as a result all their LED LCD TVs in 2015 are using VA panels for their strong black levels, but also using their own engineering to make the panel structure more transparent for efficient light driving married to the intelligent local dimming tech on board. As such, off axis is certainly not as bad as other VA panels we have seen recently from Samsung which points to the panel provider as someone else. We think it is probably a Taiwanese sourced panel although Panasonic haven’t confirmed that. But they have in the past said they will source panels that fit with what they want to achieve and then they will add their own picture processing and engineering to them, so panel source in their opinion is not important as it’s their own electronics driving the image quality.Looking at black levels we measured a 0IRE raster at 0.02 cd/m2 and that remained the case with a chequerboard pattern. 100% white easily hit our 120 cd/m2 review point and in dynamic picture mode it is incredibly bright at 453.4 cd/m2 and even in a bright room that is just too high. Anyone running this TV in anything other than True Cinema/Cinema will start to highlight the downside of LCD tech and especially poor quality source material on screen. Set correctly the backlight uniformity is very good with just a little bit of light pooling seen on the bottom left and right of our TV when there was a black field or image on screen. During all other viewing in best out of the box and calibrated settings we didn’t find the backlight uniformity that big an issue at all on 99% of material viewed. With Football and other content with large areas of one colour on screen we also didn’t see any issues with banding or dirty screen effect.The local dimming was evident in use and when switching inputs such as Netflix main menus to actual content watching with visible dimming between the mode switches. However during actual content we didn’t feel that it got in the way or distracted at any point. Our only other real comment about the backlight is when you have an all-white screen (some adverts have such things) the very far edges of the screen appear darker than the centre of the screen. Again, this is only visible with an all-white source. During end titles (back background with white text) of films or TV shows you could also spot that whites were dimmed and it was possible to make out the backlight zone as there was a slight halo. However, once again this was only visible if you looked for it and with specific scenes or instances that make up very little of your overall viewing material. These comments are again made in best settings and calibrated picture modes and in rooms with ambient lighting. Watching in pitch black conditions and haloing and other issues were slightly more visible. Use dynamic or natural with brighter backlight settings and issues like these, or downsides of LCD tech, in particular, will be made even more obvious by over-driving the image.In terms of viewing angles we found that the CX700 certainly held up better than the recently reviewed Samsung UE40JU6400 . Image integrity held well up to around 30 degrees before wash-out and navy blacks started to set in. For a VA panel that is quite good. Of course watching on-axis offers perfect viewing conditions, so always make sure that the main viewing position is dead on with the TV.Testing motion and the figures with Intelligent Frame Creation(IFC) switched off (as it should be in most cases) hit the expected 350-ish lines in our tests. With actual content we didn’t really notice any issues with Blu-ray 24p and 4K material in terms of blurring, even in fast moving action scenes. It is there but with normal viewing it doesn’t stand out unless you are specifically looking for it. There were no major problems that stood out during testing or just normal viewing with the CX700. Adding in IFC as you would expect shows up 1080 lines of resolution. IFC and other picture processing, like motion issues, are a personal thing and down to the end user in how they decide to set things up. Just be aware that using any high settings will add in artefacts and make movies look very strange. We can confirm the Panasonic performs as expected in all the set up options we tried and tested.As this is a 4K TV the video processing on board is very important as 90%+ of viewing will still be a mix of HD upscaled and SD. Let’s start with Standard Definition from the DVB tuner and how only a few channels are really watchable without major issues due to poor sources. No amount of processing can fix most of the lower end channels and unlike a 1080p plasma screen where images could be made watchable with a degree of softness to hide the nastiness that is not the case here. Using a Sky or PVR box outputting a scaled 1080 image works slightly better than the DVB tuner alone, but lower end SD will always look bad on a set like the CX700. With DVD, HD channels, Blu-ray and 4K it is a different matter altogether. The 50CX700 passed all our video processing tests as we would expect and apart from the obvious with poor SD material, everything else looked very good with no obvious issues.HDTV faired far better on the CX700 with some nature documentaries looking especially good with accurate images, good black levels, and shadow detail and colour reproduction. With some broadcast HD there were some issues with compression artefacts, like the BBC show Shark. With deep blue oceans and light spilling through the water, you get gradations of the colours and with poor compression you get obvious steps in those gradations. A TV like the CX700 really shows up the faults with the source material and while watching the documentary I kept wishing I had the 4K Blu-ray version! And, moving to normal Blu-ray was another pleasing experience with the Panasonic. Detail levels were excellent, motion was good with no induced judder and there were no instances of any sharpening or backdoor processing going on. A screen like the CX700 has to manage with HDTV and Blu-ray until 4K becomes more mainstream and it does so without any problems. Any issues seen are in the vast majority of cases down to poor source material and not something the TV is adding.When we finally get around to 4K content it does look very good from streaming services like Netflix (Amazon Prime has been delayed but is coming for the CX700). As with any streaming service, your internet speed is a factor when it comes to 4K and if you are going to to get it. Thankfully our internet here is fast enough to cope and watching sequences and clips from shows like House of Cards and Breaking Bad highlights the possible future for streaming. Detail is good and image quality is better in some instances than a Blu-ray, which is high praise for a compressed streaming service. We didn’t have any issues streaming with the CX700 and with the copy settings ability it was easy to get image accuracy spot on.Finally, we moved on to footage I had shot in Canada last year with the Panasonic GH4 camera. I had edited the footage and colour corrected it especially to use as test material for 4K screens while we wait for more readily available content. The reproduction on the CX700 of this footage actually surprised me more than when I saw it on the Samsung recently. That is probably down the screen size, but I also felt that there was more depth, when sat dead on to the CX700 and colour looked sublime. As you would expect the detail levels from normal viewing distances were superb with native content and highlights one of the plus points of UHD. This panel is not HDR ready, however, but it does have a wider gamut. However, as all material we are viewing at this time is still Rec.709 for colour (including 4K sources at this point) we had calibrated for that. Plus, out of the box settings also follow Rec.709 when in the normal gamut mode.With a lack of uniformity issues when set up correctly for the room, along with few instances of any other known LCD technical drawbacks, like motion resolution, we really struggled to find issues with the CX700 that would put us off in living room use when sat directly in front of the screen and with ambient light. There is a limited viewing angle with the VA panel but it is not as bad as the recent Samsung JU6400. Black levels are very good and as long as you switch off the various contrast enhancement features etc. the local dimming works well without making itself stand out. There were no examples of brightness pumping from the backlight, but depending on some material there are instances of dark edges on white screens (like a very subtle vignette effect) and with bright white against black, some instances of haloing which get more visible if watching in pitch black surroundings. But as we have set the TV to match our environment and viewing material, we are not over-driving brightness or other settings and as such any technology drawbacks don’t appear very often. Use natural or higher viewing modes and you will likely start to find some issues. It is possible to set up any LCD to look like a dog’s dinner. Remember in Dynamic mode the panel brightness is very bright and that is never a good thing when it comes to critical viewing.Panasonic didn't supply any active 3D glasses with the CX700 but we used a set of JVC glasses to test the image quality. As the backlight can go bright there wasn't any issue about brightness, but when pumped up like that colour accuracy is non-existent. It is possible to get more accurate looking images at the cost of image brightness and this is more appealing as it also prevents uniformity issues and haloing becoming very obvious at the higher brightness levels. Overall once set up correctly the CX700 presented a compelling 3D image with only a few instances of crosstalk and blurring.