New Pioneer Elite Models

[jayhawk75]

pioneer web site has the new kuros models listed a 42" & 50". Does anyone know if they are coming out with 60"?

[RebelMan]

pioneer web site has the new kuros models listed a 42" & 50". Does anyone know if they are coming out with 60"?

Yes they are. Pioneer Launches New Flat Panel Televisions

[gostan]

I viewed a new Pioneer 50" 720P located right above the new 1080P Panny 700Z 58er. They both had excellent pictures, but the blacks on the Pioneer were much deeper and blacker than the Panny. However, I do wonder if the average viewer would notice or miss the deeper blacks for every day viewing.

[RebelMan]

However, I do wonder if the average viewer would notice or miss the deeper blacks for every day viewing.

Chances are unless it was pointed out to them probably not very likely. Yes the blacks are an improvement with the 720p models but the 1080p's due in September are rumored to be even better.

The contrast ratio is 16K:1 for the former and supposedly 20K:1 for the later so these newest displays improvements maybe more obvious to common folk. What struck me with the current 8G displays was the noticeble step up in image detail. I was expecting to see some improvements in black levels and contrast which there are but the sharper images was a plesant surprise.

[Gump]

Pioneer 6010FD

Just hung my new Pio 60" Kuro on the wall last night. I'd like to tell you about the picture, but words that are worthy of description escape me right now. HD is stunningly beautiful. It's 108 degrees outside but it feels like Christmas in here baby!!

[aud19]

Congrats!! :P (Jealous!!)

[Drewbert]

My only concern with a 1080 Pioneer plasma is what I have seen with all the other brands 1080s (Panasonic and Samsung). The problem is brightness, they are all dim. Its almost twice the pixels on the panel and thats A LOT of power that is needed. The 58 panny says it uses ~738 watts.... So to get it brighter you need more power... 8O
So unless Pioneer have something figured out that Panny and Samsung havent figured out yet, I cannot see how the contrast could be that much higher....
And Rebel I thought those were rumored contrast ratios? I talked to the Pioneer rep, and he said they are trying to get away from bullcrap numbers because you cannot measure true black and clarity

So Gump how does the contrast compare between the 1080 and the 720s?

[RebelMan]

My only concern with a 1080 Pioneer plasma is what I have seen with all the other brands 1080s (Panasonic and Samsung). The problem is brightness, they are all dim. Its almost twice the pixels on the panel and thats A LOT of power that is needed. The 58 panny says it uses ~738 watts.... So to get it brighter you need more power... 8O
So unless Pioneer have something figured out that Panny and Samsung havent figured out yet, I cannot see how the contrast could be that much higher....
And Rebel I thought those were rumored contrast ratios? I talked to the Pioneer rep, and he said they are trying to get away from bullcrap numbers because you cannot measure true black and clarity

I am working on a full report that will compare the previous PDP-6070 that I owned with the PDP-6010 which I replaced it with and have recently broken in. The contrast ratios come from Pioneer press releases and they are accurately reported. Whether they are accurately measured is another question entirely.

I can assure you brightness is NOT an issue with the new crop of 1080p's. Don't fall victim to the power versus output trap. It is rumored that Pioneer's next generation of plasma displays are going to address the power consumption rate. By the way, Pioneer has figured something out that the competition hasn't and you can see it for yourself.

[RebelMan]

PDP-6010FD vs PDP-6070HD

As a previous PDP-6070HD owner I have had the opportunity to not only compare it with the newer PDP-6010FD that I replaced it with but I have been able to do so under relatively ideal environmental conditions.

It’s been about a week since the 6010 reached the full break-in period. Throughout this process the display was put through its paces during the evaluation of SD as well as HD content from various feeds and sources. My impressions are highlighted below.

Noise

I’ve touched on this subject as it pertains to plasma buzz briefly before and my position remains unchanged in that the 6010 makes substantial improvements on reducing this annoying trait that was blatantly apparent with the 6070. However, the noise, albeit much less noticeable, is still present and depending on how you are positioned relative to the screen will either exacerbate or alleviate the issue.

The center of my screen is at eye level. When sitting directly on axis the noise projects like a point source beacon and is clearly audible while off-axis viewing is far more removed. With the 6070, it didn’t matter where you sat as the noise permeated the air with equal ferocity and was disturbingly audible during most scenes especially when the scenes were brightly lit. The 6010 goes a long way to suppress this irritant and by a substantial margin. Now the buzzing is only observable under relatively quiet scenes and reticent room conditions.

Video noise has seen a reduction with the 6010 also most notably mosquito noise. The 6070 was ripe with mosquito noise from DSCHD’s cinematography landscape sequences, and on some occasion’s with content from the late night talk shows. The 6010 is virtually void of this.

Macroblockling, pixilation and other digital artifacts are much harder to detect too but hints are visible under strained bandwidth feeds on some satellite carried networks. The 6070 was slightly more revealing in this case which has been largely influenced by the quality of the source. But whether the improvements has more to do with the higher resolution of the 6010 or its new cell structure and/or its graphics processing is beside the point. The 6010 has it while the 6070 doesn’t.

Brightness

With calibrated settings the white levels of the 6010 appeared somewhat cooler than the 6070 that I had before. I considered the advances made to the new cell structure culprit at first but having lived with the display for nearly three weeks and opportunities to tinker with the settings my conclusions have changed.

Neither calibrated settings nor the new cell structure appear to have any impact on brightness but the anti-reflective filter coating does tend to temper output. Whites are uniform with very little if any irregularities across the screen. And the increase in black levels helps maintain contrast ratios while simultaneously avoiding the need to artificially inflate brightness to fatiguing levels incurred with prolonged viewing. But given the tempered effects the 6010 loses any advantage it would have over the 6070 in terms of overall brightness and/or white levels. However, the 6010 noticeably cuts down day time reflections originating from the other room which stood out on the 6070. It’s a compromise to be sure but an acceptable one.

Black Levels

Obviously the new KURO’s are all about the black levels and deep, rich blacks can either make or break a display. With respect to the 6010 the results are mixed. Blacks are deeper and richer on the 6010 than they were on the 6070 but they come at a price. The reproduction of black levels on the 6010 is heavily dependent on the source material whereas the 6070 was more forgiving and less impacted. The 6010 doesn’t crush blacks but shadow detail can suffer considerably with poor material. This was never a problem on the 6070. On the other hand, the 6070 looked washed out. The 6010 can be adjusted to compensate for the lack of shadow detail in some circumstances but doing so defeats the purpose and intent of KURO.

For instance, during HDNet’s presentation of Crocodile Dundee an early scene has Mic Dundee and the female reporter camping in the darkness of night in the Outback. Behind them was a forest of evenly spaced out thicket of trees. No details of any kind could be seen in the lower footing and base of the trees. It looked like a poorly rendered version of a child’s finger paint.

Later the reporter was seen wearing a black velvet head piece with folds that moved clearly exposing the contours and texture of the garment. This was a clear indication that shadow detail on the 6010 is highly dependent on the quality of the source.

Another example are the scenes in Rocky Balboa. It is loaded with dark moments like the bar scene where Rocky and the bartender were dressed in black attire conversing in an environment cloaked in darken imagery that would have proven a challenge for any display to render properly. But all of the shadow detail came through the Blu-ray encoded version of the title.

The disparity of black levels between different formats and content was repeated time and again. Shows like re-broacasts of Star Trek Voyager on Spike continued to suffer while Blu-ray versions of space epics, like AVP, generally shined but not in every case. There was a point when a Predator jumped into a hole on his way to finish off an Alien. The spooky skull laden environment was difficult to make out on the 6010 but was no problem for the 6070.

Furthermore, as good as the black levels are, the 6010 still does not possess the best that I have seen or that is even possible. There is plenty of room for improvement here. Ambient lighting ameliorates the need for blacker blacks to some degree but not sufficiently enough to not be noticed for my preferred genre. A pitch dark room isn’t necessary to reveal the inadequacies either. Any Sci-Fi title will make this point and issue very clear.

Overall the improved black levels benefit the 6010 because of its effect on color reproduction and contrast. So unless you pipe the very highest quality fees into the display it will miss the mark to fully impress.

Color and Contrast

Color reproduction and contrast is where the 6010 dominates the 6070. Colors are significantly more vibrant on the 6010 than they were on the 6070. Images appear to pop off the screen. The Blu-ray version of The Wild was magnificent, showcasing some of the best looking images I’ve seen from any readily available display to date.

Unfortunately, the 6070 was predominately plagued with green push and clay facing issues. While the 6010 doesn’t completely eliminate these characteristics it does push them into forgotten memory. Under the best of circumstances the 6070 often looked tired, faded and flat in comparison to the 6010. Simply put there is no contest between the two displays when it comes to color reproduction, the 6010 is it.

Detail

The most dramatic but least talked about improvements the 6010 has over the 6070 has less to do with back levels but more to do with picture details. It would be easy to assume that the higher native resolution of the 6010 would deserve all the credit. The reality is the bulk of improvements seems to be centered around the advanced graphics processing built into the 6010.

There has been much debate surrounding the merits of a 1080p vs 720p display and viewing distance. There is no question that resolution plays a lesser role as view distances increase. The question is where is the line drawn? According to the general rules of thumb and various seating charts floating around a 60” display should appear indifferent at a position 15 feet away from the viewer.

To some extent, the images I have seen displayed on the 6010 and 6070 support this theory. However, the theory says nothing about the threshold for text where shapes and edges are easily delineated. The 6010 smokes the 6070 in the department of text output. Gone are the halos and edge enhanced looking fuzzies that was in abundant supply with the 6070.

The 6010 is also virtually free of any false contouring with both SD and HD sources. Once in a while where color banding looks like it should or is about to rear its ugly head, it fails to materialize. The 6070 severely suffered in this arena. Vertical land to sky pans like those in Toy Story 2 and Frequency are blanketed with color banding issues on the 6070 but virtually escape the 6010.

Motion blur or image smearing was also an occasional problem on the 6070 most notably with the local HD PBS station. I concluded the poor feed at the time, which is still culpable on the 6010 but it has received some major cleaning up. The once unwatchable channel is now watchable.

The improvements in detail have been a welcomed surprise but paradise is not completely free from trouble. Again the 6010 performs its best when fed high quality signals. Like a high-end sound system that can reveal the limitations of the source recording, the 6010 will reveal the limitations of its sources too. Additionally, the picture settings, if not properly tuned, can make the image look soft. Under optimal room conditions and with the aid of professional calibration it is unlikely that detail will suffer in any capacity but the potential for failure is there and it should not be overlooked.

Conclusion

The conclusion can best be summarized by one question. Is the 6010 a worthy upgrade to the 6070?

A year ago I gave the 6070 an 8 out of 10. Considering the improvements made for all of the newest display types available today I would give the 6010 a 9+ and the 6070 a 7. But regardless of it shortcomings, the 6010 is the only display to come along capable of pacifying me for the foreseeable future. And if the improvements that I observed weren’t enough to make the upgrade then the anti-IR features were. The 6070 was very susceptible to IR and it was grossly lacking in features to combat it. This plus the buzzless nature of the 6010 make it a no brainer.

[aud19]

Good review :T

[Gump]

Nicely done James, thorough as usual.

Another good film to evaluate black levels is "Predator" with Arnold. Towards the end of the movie when it's nighttime and Arnold is covered in mud to conceal himself (there's a scene where he's hanging under a tree/log bridge to hide from the alien up above him in particular) it's a great challenge for the 6010 to maintain the detail. Check it out.

So far this TV has exceeded my already high expectations---very cool!!

[Pookie007]

I am in the market for adding a few plasmas to the house. I was looking at getting both a 42" and 50". Since I am below 60", I think it would be foolish to pay for 1080p. I know I would be more than satisfied with the 1080i or 720p. What I wasn't sure about was how much of an improvement I could expect from this years models compared to last years version. One advantage of last years 42" PDP-4270 is it has a removable speaker. The PCP-4280 has a fixed speaker. I can get a last year close out for a significant savings over the new model. What am I missing if I do this?