back to topic - so the ut30 has 24p and none for the x30. does that mean x30 will have juddering?
I'm sure the X30 has the 24p option because it's been available on the lowest-end Panny plasmas since maybe 2009.
X30 specs have it:
http://www.panasonic.com.sg/wps/portal/home/products/digitalav/tv/vieraplasmatv/xseries/VIERATHP42X30"24p Smooth Film/Playback --- 24p Playback" (click the "specifications" tab)
Set it to 24p for 23.976p-encoded BD or downloaded HD file and you'll get film-like motion cadence. Yes, it will still have juddering, but it will have the good judder that looks like the natural cadence of 24fps film.
What eliminates judder is not the 24p spec, but the motion interpolation tech found on higher-end LCD & LED TVs. However, it's not such a good thing because the motion becomes unnatural. Forums call it the "SOE" (Soap Opera Effect). You'll also get occasional artifacts such as tearing. Here's a good article about motion interpolation:
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6449_7-6792632-1.html can you also explain the 900 moving lines vs static lines? what will it mean to me as a non-techie?
You already know what resolution means. The resolution spec refers to a static image, not a moving image.
When the image on the screen is in motion, the resolution normally decreases. What you get is a sharp picture for still images and slow-moving images, but a slightly blurry picture for fast-moving images.
That's why in-store LCD/LED demos usually show static images or slow-moving images, because they want to hide the artifact during the demo.
If you have a TV with a high motion resolution spec (higher than 600 lines without interpolation), the picture will be sharp whether it's a static image or a fast-moving image.
Demo the X30 with a fast-moving image, and I think it's going to be just fine. It's likely that any motion blur you see will be mostly caused by fast-motion blur that's already present on the video source itself, rather than by any obvious artifacting from the TV.
I'm not sure about the specs of the UT30, but I think it has 1080 lines of motion resolution. What I'm sure about is that the U30 has 900 lines, and the X30 has 720 lines of motion resolution. 720 lines is pretty excellent for the X30, since it only has 768 native lines of resolution anyway.
To put things in perspective, the LCD/LED TVs usually have 300 lines of motion resolution, and they increase frequency to 120Hz to add a motion interpolation tech. They say they're doing it to eliminate judder, but I think they're really doing it to artificially double the motion resolution.
Here's a related article:
http://hdguru.com/a-solution-to-the-dreaded-soap-opera-effect/2119/