Excellent Factory Presets:
The Pioneer plasma TV engineers have always placed particular emphasis on comprehensive and professional picture adjustment settings for exact playback scaling of the picture. The factory presets are so good that the average owner need never tweak them; however technology freaks could discover their true potential. Because the TV is equipped with the "isf-c3" calibration option, the more exacting customer can engage an authorized dealer to match the television to his array of playback devices for maximum viewing enjoyment.

Reasonable extras for a television of this price category:
The tuner converts analog television and DVB-T. A light-sensor measures the ambient light surrounding the TV and adjusts the brightness, contrast, contrast/gamma-expander settings in the picture preset "Optimal" to attain good picture visibility for daylight viewing.

This is a very useful feature to have since the maximum brightness for full-screen pictures is about a sixth of that of a typical LCD flat-panel television. The light in Plasma displays is from a phosphor-like luminescent material whereas the LCD is equipped with a backlight manufactured from fluorescent tubes or LEDs. An integrated USB port for photo playback concludes the feature list.

The operation of the set for television reception in normal, everyday use is good, but not perfect. The finely structured menus and delay-free toggling of the analog television rate highly. Only a few televisions available on the market today can zap or channel-surf this quickly.

The remote control sits perfectly in the hand - just a shame that neither a button for a list of channels nor program switching exists. Even the allocation of the numerous inputs is more complex than necessary. If, for example, the analog RGB Scart input is to be used, then the "HDMI Input 1" entry has to be deleted.

Even the gray sidebars in 4:3 mode do not please everyone - technically they are required to prevent a darkening (burn-in) of the picture centre when the TV is used frequently to display non 4:3-formats.

TV Picture Quality:
In spite of its voluminous 50" screen, the often mediocre pictures from analog television or DVB-T transmissions are displayed quite presentably. A particularly clean and crisp result is gained from material where a great deal of detail, modest color contrast and motion are superimposed - such as in facial presentation and lawn shots. By comparison, the majority of LCD flat-panel TVs generally tend to blur exactly this kind of image.

With analog reception, the picture is lightly soiled through noise which is principally latent in the signal. The noise filter will smooth it out at the cost of displaying a slightly untrue picture representation.

The TV's brightness will prove more than sufficient if the room is kept dark by closing the curtains, for example, and the result will be well worth it, as an intensive picture materializes. The screen absorbs incident light through its dark tint, an outstanding quality by Plasma TV standards. Compared to the first generation plasma sets, incident sunlight striking the screen no longer excessively lightens the picture.

The Pioneer's luminosity drops considerably in scenes such as downhill skiing where large amounts of white coverage are present. Under these conditions, LCD TVs can score better through their superior brilliance.

Considering the functionality and screen size, the power consumption is perfectly legitimate. Our Wattmeter showed a peak value of 400 Watts (pure white picture), however with the preferred presetting of "Film", the average consumption was a respectable 230 Watts. Commendable however, is the standby consumption of just 0.1 Watt.

DVD Picture Quality:
When playing DVD content, the Japanese TV lives up to its nickname "Kuro" - Japanese for "black" as the Pioneer emerges as one of the highest contrast televisions of all times. If one were to take the peak brightness in the form of a small white spot and divided it by the light emitted by a black picture, the result will be a contrast ratio of more than 6,000:1.

Films radiate vibrancy because both the darkest and brightest of details are rendered vividly. The practically black scenes shot in "The Lord of the Rings" adventure film, where Gandalf and his partner screw up in the Mines of Moria, come across particularly deep and saturated - and from all viewing angles.

The Pioneer is in its element when it comes to reproducing HDTV material from Blu-ray equipment: HD test pictures prove that each individual pixel is reproduced faithfully - and so satisfies the most important prerequisite for displaying detail. Even the tiniest pixel-sized star in the outer-space drama film "Apollo 13" is reproduced brilliantly and in perfect form from HD-DVD.

Digital picture errors are really not a problem for the Pioneer: In true film playback, there aren't any noticeable contour artifacts, in test images in the form of rapidly moving marquees however, slight color displacement can be seen on the font edges. Even digital picture noise is not bothersome, and regardless, it is indistinguishable from a viewing distance of 2 meters, which, in practice is the minimum distance one should sit from the set.

What did leave a lasting impression was the realistic and faithful color interpretation, which, without further ado, was factory pre-configured in the "Film" preset. Black and white reproductions appear clean and neutral without color casting and the chrominance of the various light gray graduations is exactly where it should be - on the D-65 point. Even the base and compound colors react well together. The rich greens, yellows and cyan hues typical of the African and Australasian settings in the "Casino Royale" Blu-ray edition appeared saturated, but not to excess.

Impressive 24p Representation:
An outstanding feature of the Pioneer is its impressive 24p representation. Picture panning is smooth and seamless even with an older generation 1080i/60 format HD player attached. Picture material in 60Hz format is smoothly converted from the standard 24Hz cinema frequency via the "Reverse Pulldown" function, which is activated when in PureCinema "Advanced" mode. Film playback on conventional HD televisions is subjected to light motion juddering from 60Hz transmissions as a direct result of the 24Hz conversion.

Weak Point USB Port:
One weakness of the Pioneer television is the USB port for digital camera or memory stick interfacing. The colors and contrast of the pictures are impressive, but the picture details are disappointing - only DVD quality is available and not HDTV.

AV: Film

Contrast: 40

Brightness: +1

Color Saturation: +12

Tint: 0

Sharpness: -5

PureCinema: Advanced

Intelligent Mode: On

DRE-Picture: Off

Black Level: Off

ACL: Off

Enhance Mode: Off

Gamma: 1

CTI: Off

Color Space: 1 or 2

Color Temperature: Low

Activation Mode: 2

Noise Filter (Field, Block, 3D, Mosquito): All set to 0

* applied to realistic playback from HD-DVD/Blu-ray material through the HDMI interface in a darkened environment. Manufacturing and HDMI playback device deviations may necessitate slight adjustment. The centimeter (cm) setting refers to the length of the bar that appears in the menu.  

Elegant appearance: The casing comes across rather slim without the side-mounted loudspeakers. The manufacturing quality and surface finish are superb.

All in place: Three HDMI interfaces are present for audio and digital picture connectivity.

Good: The remote controller sits well in the hand; the print could have been a little larger though.

Very good: The diagram illustrates well the Pioneer's excellent color reproduction.

Good: The blue gamma curve deviates slightly in the central portion from the target value, which is visibly to its benefit.