The Short Form

$6,500 ($10,000 LIST) / 48.25 x 28.25 x 3.5 IN / 70 LBS / pioneerelectronics.com / 800-421-1404

Plus

•Very crisp pictures from HDTV and DVD. •Deep blacks and fine shadow detail. •Extra-sensitive built-in tuner. •Great looks and feature package.

Minus

•Expensive.

Key Features

•1,280 x 768-resolution plasma display •Built-in HDTV tuner •Digital cable-ready with TV Guide On Screen •inputs CableCARD slot; PC Card slot; 2 i.Link; 2 HDMI; VGA, 3 component-video, and 3 A/V with composite- and S-video, all with analog stereo audio; 2 RF cable/antenna •outputs optical digital audio; composite video with analog stereo audio; minijack headphone •PRICE $6,500 ($10,000 list)

Test Bench

The Pioneer's Mid-Low color-temperature mode measured close to the 6,500-K standard, but the set displayed a mild shift toward green at both ends of its grayscale, which I was able to correct using the high and low red, green, and blue adjustments in the Manual color-temperature submenu - no service menus needed. Color-decoder error was minimal, and picture uniformity was excellent. The set also cleanly resolved 720p-format multiburst test patterns at full resolution via its HDMI and component-video inputs. Click here for full lab results

SETUP The TV's excellent built-in tuner effortlessly grabbed all the digital broadcasts in my area - I didn't even have to use the onscreen signal-strength meter to futz with antenna placement. Loading TV Guide On Screen also went off without a hitch. I plugged the Time Warner cable line directly into the media receiver and shut it off - the next morning the program grid was packed with data. I had to re-order the channels to follow Time Warner's usual lineup, but that was no different than with any other TV Guide-equipped set I've tested.

The Pioneer's extensive picture adjustments let me really dive in and tweak the picture. It has a total of six picture presets, all of which can be adjusted and stored in memory with your changes. One preset, Pure, eliminates virtually all picture processing so you can watch the incoming program "as is." You can also modify the User preset separately for each video input, tweaking the picture for each source you've connected.

Among the other highlights are a suite of six color-temperature modes along with a manual mode where you can independently tweak red, green, and blue levels; a Color Management menu that also lets you adjust secondary colors like yellow, magenta, and cyan; gamma and black-level adjustments; and a Pure Cinema menu featuring the Advanced Pure Cinema display mode described earlier. And I'm just scratching the surface here. Even before you look at the picture, the 1130HD is a videophile's dream.

PICTURE QUALITY To give the Pioneer a workout, I pulled out the new DVD of Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In the early scenes that take place in Charlie's dark, ramshackle home, the Pioneer's solid blacks and impressive shadow detail let me easily detect fine textures and hues in the grandparents' dark earth-toned clothing as they lazed about in bed. Picture highlights also showed very good detail, with a variety of creamy white tones coming through in a close-up of Charlie's toothpaste-cap model of the Wonka factory.

The Pioneer's color, too, was exceptionally clean and rich. For example, in a scene where the Golden Ticket winners are exposed to a pyrotechnical puppet show, the bright hues of the puppets and the spinning contraptions surrounding them looked just as vivid as they did in the theater. The skin tones of the kids and their parents also looked perfectly natural in this sunlit scene.

Turning next to an episode of ABC's Alias in 720p-format HDTV, I found that the Pioneer did a great job of displaying the high-contrast environment inside a command center. The dark suits worn by the agents retained detail as they moved through the bright, open space with its floor-to-ceiling windows. Overall, the picture was extremely sharp: as an agent peered at a long row of monitors displaying data, I could both see the creases around his eyes and read fine text flowing across the screens. ABC shoots Alias on film, and the Pioneer cleanly rendered the medium's grainy image texture. Some flat-panel sets, in comparison, overemphasize film grain, giving the picture a noisy or coarse quality, but the Pioneer's picture in this case was at once crisp and smooth.

BOTTOM LINE Plasma TV price wars ultimately benefit consumers. But if you have the luxury to look beyond the cheapest models, I strongly urge you to check out Pioneer's Elite PRO-1130HD. Not only does this set's image quality blow away most other flat TVs I've tested by a large margin, but its picture adjustments, connectivity, and all-around feature package are virtually unparalleled in the plasma TV world. And I can guarantee that it will look very cool on your wall or TV stand.