For most HDTV buyers, the LCD market is easily the more attractive than plasma. Sony, Sharp and Samsung have ramped up mass production and large volume means low prices on a range of LCD TVs of all sizes. But if you still want the best large screen that money can buy, plasma is still king. For colour range, contrast levels and response time, LCD cannot yet match plasma, but quality comes at a price.

Pioneer have invested their TV future 100% into plasma and will be in trouble if the plasma market dies. Unlike Panasonic, LG, Philips and Sony, they do not have a range of LCD Tvs to fall back on. In the last year they have faced losses, but recent company reports put them back in the black. "Back to black" is also the theme of their new range of plasmas. To keep ahead they have given up the low to middle range market to their LCD competitors and will concentrate now on the high end of quality with a new range of plasmas hyped as "The World's best flat screen TV".

Called "project KURO" meaning black in Japanese, Pioneer's new initiative was to produce the best picture picture possible. The result is contrast ratios of 16,000:1 and even 20,000:1 on the top models. That represents black levels 80% deeper than previously possible according to Pionner. LCD can only approach these values with inferior dynamic contrast control and with nothing like the colour range that plasma can display.

Another feature that will be strong selling points for the new line-up includes 1080/24p support. Cinemagraphic film has always been recorded at 24 frames per second but traditional TVs display at 50 Hz in Europe. The frame rate can be doubled up to 48 Hz but that still means that films are shown at 4% faster than they should. Blu-ray players can now playback film at the original 24 fame per second progressive standard of the recording, if the TV can support it through HDMI. New ranges such as these TVs from Pioneer will. watching a film from a Blu-ray player on one of Pioneers new large Full HD screens will be the closest to a cinema experience ever achieved in the home.

Of course, these are not quite available yet. The first of these 8th generation panels will be in the shops from July, and those will be just the WVGA models with 16000:1 contrast ratio. Will these really be significantly better than the 50PC55 from LG, the 50PFP5532 from Philips or the PS50Q97HD from Samsung? All of them are plasmas boasting 15000:1 contrast ratio and in the shops now. Panasonic and Hitachi are known to be sharing development of "Advanced PDP" technology with Pioneer. With healthier balance sheets they may just not feel so pressured to hype products so far in advance. The larger Full HD PDP screens will not be seen until September at the earliest. With the fast pace of development in HDTV we will have to wait to see how well Pioneer square up to what other manufacturers have to offer by then.

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Posted by ZettaVolt on 16 May 2007 19:32:00 BST #