Pioneer Kuro - What a disapointment

[admin_exported]

Recently took delivery of a Pioneer PDP-4280XD. I was immediately struck by the build quality, and after performing the initial set-up, made some adjustments here and there, and sat back to be impressed. Watching movies from Sky HD it was immediately obvious that the black levels were awesome. It was quite simply the best picture I have ever seen. Everything that has been said about Pioneer screens is fully justified, it is magnificent, a picture to die for. However, when watching the off air broadcasts from the inbuilt analogue and digital tuners, it was not such a happy experience. The picture was simply to soft. No amount of adjustment to the sharpness level or the switching between 75Hz or 100Hz settings improved things. Tried numerous tuning tweeks as described in the manual but nothing seemed to improve things. Normal Sky broadcasts (576p) were poor as well. Even DVD via HMDI was a disappointment. I tried watching some of the world cup rugby, and it was just unwatchable. It can best be described as akin to watching a badly tuned rear projection set down the local pub. Quite simply, the picture quality was appalling, so I phoned the store and they came round and collected it and took it away. In a nut shell, as a display for HD it is probably the best screen around, but for general TV viewing, it was a major let down.

 

[Anonymous]

......and this from a TV that's supposed to be the best for all round sources? You see with this TVyou quite simply have to feed it HD....period. That's SKYHD and Blu Ray (which will upscale normal DVD's anyway).

Problem is there is also the purchase of the SKYHD box and also the fact that SKYs HD subscription is likley to be another £50 a month for just the SKY Sports Package, even more if you include everything HD from them.

You can see how the costs slowly but surely rise.

That''s why I get so annoyed when reading all these reviews online and in the Mags, because they only seem to dwell on the HD side of things when in fact they should realise that the majority of us mortals don't have money to burn and are likley to continue watching SD TV for a very long time. So please, why can't they review 4 performance areas: HDTV, SDTV, BLU RAY and Upscaling DVD. What normal joe bloogs want's to know is how good will these TV's perform when feeding them with SD FREEVIEW And SKY..the chances are if they do such a sterling job with either of these 2 sources, the fact that they also HD ready they should perform even better with HD sources. You buy the Mag and 90% of the reviews are geared towards how wonderful or not these sets are at reproducing HD...Fine....but also tell how wonderful or not they are with SD Soources.

 

[Clare Newsome]

I've made the points below and i'll make them again.....

1) We always test with Freeview, standard DVD, HD TV and HD sources - a set will only get a good review if it is excellent with all. This ALWAYS gets mentioned in our reviews.

All the Pioneer Kuros we've had in have worked well both using their own tuner, Sky and a decent DVD player (we're not talking high-end kit here, but neither would be we hope anyone uses a supermarket-special player with a set of the Pioneer's size and price).

2) Too much SD content - and ITV is one of the biggest offenders - is of too low a quality to look good on large, HD resolution flatscreens. Last Friday's England rugby game was so low-def I can't imagine it looked good on much above a 20in set. Roll on HD-over-Freeview - if it ever happens.

And finally, I don't think the majority of people will only be watching SD for a very long time: by Christmas we'll see the first @£200 HD players, and expect huge price falls - including of hybrid players - during 2008. With all these players offering both native HD playback and upscaling of standard DVDs, I expect a lot of people - especially those who've invested a lot of money into a flatscreen TV - will soon be tempted by bargain HD sources.

 

[Anonymous]

Perhaps you had a duff set because I've watched that very screen produce a lovely image from standard def DVD and Freeview. Really surprised. Have you considered trying a new one in replacement, in case you were simply unlucky and landed a lemon?

 

[Anonymous]

Disagree absolutely with the first post here.

It's not perfect, but it's miles better than other big screen sets with SD which will always be hard to reproduce on sets this big. What are you comparing it to anyway?

What TV did you have before the Pioneer? Was it a large screen set?

ITV is crap and the rugby, was admittedly, not good looking