Pioneer PDP5050HD First Impressions

[Glashub]

I want to qualify this by saying that I am no ones idea of a videophile, that I have not calibrated the TV yet (just turned contrast down and adjusted color and tint by eye), and that my previous TV was the glorious but small and bulky Sony 34XBR910 (great picture quality). Frankly I am dissapointed with the Pioneer. The picture looks noisy and the blacks are okay but not great. I watched Assault on Station 14 yesterday and it was just about unwatchable, IMO. (It's all dark scenes). My wife thought the picture quality was good which is always a warning sign. The media box is great with plenty of inputs and the TV has high WAF factor. Anyways, I will withhold judgement until I tweek it alot more. Do any of you Pioneer owners have suggestions?

[DanP]

If you want some helpful info it would be useful to post what media you were watching.....SD, HD, DVD, etc. And other info that might be useful rather than just saying I watched program X, it looked bad, therefore the Pioneer is a disappointment.

[jcpzero]

Get DVE or AVIA and calibrate the set, then watch some DVDs and comment on the picture quality.

JCPZero

[Ross in Toronto]

If you're feeding your cable feed straight into the Pio, then it isn't suprising that you're getting poor performance. The cable tuner in my Pio (1110HD) is terrible. In other words, avoid the Ant A / B inputs at all costs!

Best PQ is realized when feeding your Pio television via a cable or satellite STB via component, DVI or HDMI. HD in particular is spectacular. It should be stunning.

For DVD, I strongly recommend HDMI, but component or S-video will work well too.

Even without calibration, high def and DVD beats the socks off cable straight into the Pio's Ant A / B inputs.

If you're not putting the cable straight in, then I'm not sure why your picture is so disappointing.

[Woodrow]

Originally posted by Glashub
The picture looks noisy and the blacks are okay but not great.

Don't forget to play with the MPEG noise reducer in the menu as well as DNR(digital noise reduction) option.

Be aware that using DNR can introduce artifacts of it's own(smearing of faces,skin in low lit scenes with motion).

Try and find the best combination of DNR and MPEG for reducing noisy images. A DVD like The Fifth Element should need very little of either setting(I set both to off for this movie as well as other fantastically mastered DVD's). A DVD like No Way Out might need a lot.

Can't help you with the pio blacks...;) Going from a sony CRT hurts as far as blacks are concerned. I went from the sony 40XBR to the pio and had to adjust.

EDIT>>changed the word dynamic to digital..

[Woodrow]

Oh...one way to mess with the black levels is through your DVD player(perhaps)...

Mine has a light setting(non blacker than black) and a dark setting(blacker than black signal) I've found that the lighter setting is by far the best for use with the pio plasma. Also, it has contrast and brightness settings. Maybe your does as well? Maybe not?

Also, in the Pio menu, in the same grouping as DNR and MPEG, there is the DRE option(dynamic range expander). This is used, per pio manual: " to adjust dark and bright portions on images so that the contrast between brightness and darkness becomes clearer". I've found this be very helpful when dealing with bad black levels.

The long and short of it is this...REALLY go in to that menu and start playing. Had I had to live with the PQ that I got BEFORE doing so, I'd have returned the pio. Now, you couldn't pry it from my hands.

Extensive menu tweaking is a MUST. And there is nothing in there so complicated that a little time and patience can't overcome. If you have ANY questions while tweaking, post them and we'll try and help.:)

EDIT>>spelling, clarity..

[Glashub]

Hey Guys, I have a Denon 5900 feeding DVD through HDMI. Assault on Precinct 13 is a movie. That's what looked really bad. I have Comcast cable with maybe 12 HD stations. Those station's look much better now that I switched from component to HDMI. All in all I think there are 4 things that I have become aware of since my first impressions -
1. everything is magnified on a 50" screen. 2. With a display like this "garbage in, garbage out." 3. Went to pick up cable and while doing that I looked at the displays of other manufacturers and they too seemed noisy. 4. Going from a small tube TV to plasma requires patience and understanding. Having said all of the that I can get used to the blacks. If anyone has seen "Assault" they'll know it is an uncommonly dark movie (literally and figuratively). I won't run into that type of movie too often. Also, after it's all said and done, I passed on the Panny because every display I saw (4 total has the green tint issue). I feel confident that when I get the time to start messing around in the menu I'll get the picture much better. Thanks Woodrow and Ross for helping to allay any fears on my part with your sage directions. This purchase was a big deal for me but I don't want to make too big of a deal out of it

[MathewM]

If anyone has seen "Assault" they'll know it is an uncommonly dark movie (literally and figuratively). I won't run into that type of movie too often. Also, after it's all said and done [/B]

Actually it seems that just about every film or tv show nowadays is shot low key. Well maybe not sitcoms. But who buys an HDTV to watch Joey? I remember having to tweak my mom's crt set just so she could see what was going on in Star Trek Enterprise.

I personally like low key films however they are a real b*tch for a display to render. I was never a fan of plasmas until I saw Panasonics latest models which to my eye come very close to CRT contrast.

It really sounds like you're after a display that can render excellent contrast and I hate to say this but the Panasonics are the only ones that I have seen so far that can do it.

[D-Nice]

Originally posted by Glashub
Hey Guys, I have a Denon 5900 feeding DVD through HDMI. Assault on Precinct 13 is a movie. That's what looked really bad. I have Comcast cable with maybe 12 HD stations. Those station's look much better now that I switched from component to HDMI. All in all I think there are 4 things that I have become aware of since my first impressions -
1. everything is magnified on a 50" screen. 2. With a display like this "garbage in, garbage out." 3. Went to pick up cable and while doing that I looked at the displays of other manufacturers and they too seemed noisy. 4. Going from a small tube TV to plasma requires patience and understanding. Having said all of the that I can get used to the blacks. If anyone has seen "Assault" they'll know it is an uncommonly dark movie (literally and figuratively). I won't run into that type of movie too often. Also, after it's all said and done, I passed on the Panny because every display I saw (4 total has the green tint issue). I feel confident that when I get the time to start messing around in the menu I'll get the picture much better. Thanks Woodrow and Ross for helping to allay any fears on my part with your sage directions. This purchase was a big deal for me but I don't want to make too big of a deal out of it

I'll assume that you have a Denon 5910 and not a 5900 as the 5900 does not have a HDMI output. Unfortunately Assault on Precinct 13 was a piss poor transfer but here are some settings that should help you over all with your setup:

Denon 5910:
Contrast -2
Detail enhancer 1,
NR filter 1
IRE 7.5
HDMI/DVI Black Level Normal
HDMI Output Y Cb Cr
Format 1080i ( less than 1% overscan to the Pioneer)

Pioneer 5050:
AV Selection User
Contrast 32
Brightness -1 or 0
Color -5
Tint 1
Sharpness -1

(Pioneer Pro Adjust Menu)
Pure Cinema Standard
Color Temp Low
MPEG NR On
DNR Low
CTI Off
DRE On (a must)

[Glashub]

D-nice I have the 5900 and I'm using the DVI-HDMI cable and thank you so much for the suggestions. I have/had no idea what alot of the terminology means (even with explanations in the owners manual). Mathew M I think your right about the contrasts on the Panny. Again the Pioneer blacks aren't horrible just not at Panny or CRT level. The Pio offers other benefits for me. I pleased to admit that I over-reacted at first. With some tweaking last night the picture is much better. It's has been really hard for me to make this purchase because I had to rely on "store experiences". Input on the forum offsets alot of the risk but one never really knows until the display is sitting in the house for a few hours.

[Rabushka]

Glashub,

Hang on for a bit. I got a Mitsubishi 61 inch and for the first two weeks I was really disappointed. Then the set suddenly came to life and now the picture is great. Plasmas require about a 200 hour breaking in period before they come up to specs.

[kin@tvauthority]

Glashub,
I think you pegged it. The larger the image is blown up, the larger the imperfections get. I would give it a little while. The adjustment from a smaller screen to a 50" plasma can take a little while. Once you get it dialed in and get used to the size difference, I think you will be very happy.

[kklier]

so how far are you sitting from the screen?

[housecor]

Originally posted by Rabushka
Plasmas require about a 200 hour breaking in period before they come up to specs.

PQ doesn't change after break-in, just burn-in sensitivity.

Also, if the gray blacks continue to annoy, don't rule out Panny. The green issue on the Panny sets is easily solved by simply turning off color management in the menu.

[Ross in Toronto]

I've had my Pio 1110HD since Feb '04 (I guess that makes me a plasma veteran by today's standards). Here's my observations on approx 1,000 hours of staring at the thing.

1. A good, well calibrated plasma can outperform most of the input material you feed it. In other words, as Glashub said, "garbage in, garbage out." Of course, a well configured set will compensate for a bad source image, but it can't do miracles. My point is if you do find some truly spectacular source HD material, the display will easily "step up" and made your jaw drop out from under your face. The more you watch HD, the more you'll realize that HD material itself runs the gamut from lousy to spectacular. Same goes for DVDs. High bitrate DVDs (e.g., 5th element superbit, the Star Wars box set, Lord of the Rings Extended Editions) are pretty much the best you're going to get before we see HD-DVD. There are lots of low bitrate DVDs out there which are truly horrific (e.g., Blade Runner, 2010 come to mind). Your display will be merciless on those.

2. There is a "burn in" period of 100 to 200 hours, but I'm not sure what is burning in, the display or you. In other words, the more time you spend watching the thing, the more you notice subtleties and nuances in colour, detail and shadow. You'll find yourself fiddling with the many different display settings, but as time goes on, the tweaks will become less frequent and much smaller. Hey, I think I bumped my contrast down one step a month or so ago...

3. If you have a 50" display, don't sit closer than 9 ft. I sit at 11ft with my 50" display. At 8 ft to 6 ft, you can start seeing a lot of digital imperfections. Inside 6 ft, you're not looking at the display in the manner its designers and engineers had in mind when they built the thing. They want you to sit back.

4. You can coax some better blacks out of the Pios (some have had some success with backlighting) but you'll drive yourself nuts trying to make a black-as-if-nothing-is-there black on a Pio. If absolute black is your most important parameter, a CRT would be a better buy (some would say "Panny", too).

5. I spent the first six months after buying my 1110HD worrying that I should have (a) waited for something better or (b) got a brand 'X' insead or (c) spent my money on something else like a two months of golf in Scottsdale (very nice courses every day). Sixteen months later, I have no residual regrets. The latest Pio displays are better, but not knock-your-socks-off better than my older beast. I have yet to see a display from another manufacturer that truly makes me wish I didn't get a Pio. And as for golf, I had a few (Canadian) dollars left over to hit the Scottsdale links for a just one week back in April.

Ross

[overtime]

If absolute black is your most important parameter, a CRT would be a better buy (some would say "Panny", too).
For some reason I think this point is lost on a lot of people. I had an NEC XR4 which was stolen and needed to be replaced and before making a purchase decision I was able to critically evaluate a calibrated Panny 50" (7UY) and I was SPECIFICALLY looking for how much better the blacks were. Were they better than the NEC? Yeah...a little better. How did the Panny (and thus other plasmas) compare to my old stand-in 32" Sony XBR CRT? Very, VERY poorly.

Black level evaluation for "blackest blacks":
CRT
----------HUGE GAP HERE------------
Panny
----------tiny gap-----------
Pio
----------smaller-than-tiny gap------------
NEC (however, I think the NEC showed a smidge better shadow detail than my 5050HD...about equal to the Panny).

IMO, once you've decided to buy a plasma you've already made the large compromise on black level. The compromises between different panels is relatively small.

ot

[Ross in Toronto]

Originally posted by overtime

IMO, once you've decided to buy a plasma you've already made the large compromise on black level. The compromises between different panels is relatively small.


No argument here. I purchased my Pio because of its colours, not because of its blacks. A plasma will blow the doors off most (all?) other display technologies if provided a top quality HD feed of a bright, outdoor scene. This is what sold me. Toss up a deep space sci-fi movie or a film noir (and here I mean lots of noir), and the plasma is at best, ordinary. Still enjoyable to watch, but not on the leading edge. But, I bought my display knowing this ahead of time.

[Glashub]

Thanks everyone for taking the time to post your thoughts. Ross and Overtime...what you guys wrote did alot to make me more comfortable with my decision. I hope you all have a great day.