Audio Video News

Plasma increased its black-level edge over LCD this week as Pioneer showed off the latest generation of Kuro products. Also announced at the New York press event were Pioneer's first front-projector, two new Blu-ray players, and four new receivers.

Pioneer said the new Kuros have five times the black level of the previous ones but otherwise didn't go into detail about the technical specifics. Instead reporters were treated to a dramatic juxtaposition. Set up in a demo room were six screens: the new Kuro, the old Kuro, other plasmas by Samsung and Panasonic, and LCDs by Samsung and Sony. No doubt the other manufacturers, if asked, might have some pertinent questions about the way their competitor calibrated the sets. But the new Kuro clearly showed the deepest black, followed by the old Kuro, the other plasmas, and the LCDs. Color fidelity and resolution were great though I wouldn't say the other entrants were slouches in those departments. I took some screen shots but my digital camera didn't distinguish between numerous shades of grey-black as well as my eyes, so the pics will have to stay imprisoned on the SD card.

These 3.7-inch-thick models will presumably be the last generation of Pioneer Kuro plasmas to use Pioneer-made panels. In the future Panasonic will provide panels which Pioneer will assemble with its own circuitry and other proprietary technologies. One of the latter is a new method of upsampling color information from a Blu-ray disc. Panasonic showed something similar yesterday, but each version is unique to the manufacturer. An IP link will allow installers to troubleshoot sets remotely.

Elite models include two tuner-equipped HDTVs and two tuner-less monitors. The HDTVs are the 60-inch PRO-151FD ($6500, June) and 50-inch PRO-111FD ($5000, June). The monitors are the 60-inch PRO-141FD (price n/a, August) and the 50-inch PRO-101FD (price n/a, October). Non-Elite models include the 60-inch PDP-6020FD ($5500) and 50-inch PDP-5020FD ($4000), both shipping in June. All are 1080p.

With a tip of the hat to the custom-install industry, Pioneer introduced its first projector. The press release describes it as LCoS-based. When asked, the Pioneer people said it uses a D-ILA chip. The Elite Kuro projector will ship in June for $9000.

Pioneer's new Blu-ray players are the Elite BDP-05FD and non-Elite BDP-51FD. Thanks to a new chipset partner, loading time has been reduced to as little as 10 seconds depending on the title. The interactivity profile is 1.1, not 2.0, so these new players are not BD Live capable, though a BD Live model will follow in the fall. The Elite model includes gold-plated jacks and an aluminum front panel with "capacitance touch key buttons." It also has a "precision quartz lock system" that reduces CD-playback jitter and helps sync audio data from Blu-ray when used with the Elite SC-05 or SC-07 receivers. Prices are $799 for the BDP-05FD and $599 for the BDP-51FD, shipping in summer.

Two of four new Elite surround receivers use the same ICEpower digital amps that animate the top-line SC-09. And all will handle Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD, and other new surround codecs via HDMI 1.3. The SC-07 will sell for $2200 and the SC-05 for $1800, with both available in August. The more conventional VSX-03THX and VSX-01THX will be available in June for $1000 and $750.