My Pioneer 5070 mini review

[RobertR1]

After being made an offer on my Maxent MX-50X3, a great value that I purchased well over a year ago, I was ready to get something proper. Having spent many hours at stores playing with the Sony 1080 XBR series LCD's, Hitachi Director series plasma's, and the Panasonic lineup, I finally ended up with what I consider the best display for "me" The Pioneer PDP-5070HD.

First and foremost, it blows the year old Maxent away in every aspect. It's a murder not a competition. Then compared to my Mits 62725 DLP, the Mits can't hold a candle. The colors on this display are downright perfect. Everything is natural looking with just the right amount of vibrance. The black levels are great esp. since I watch in a low light room. Ofcourse, it has the "looking through a window" effect that all top end plasmas should on HD material. It's not 1080P but then again, the 1080P hype doesn't do much for me. At the end of the day, resolution is just one aspect. Scaling, processing and other internals are much more critical once you get past the 720P hump.

The return on investment to 1080P is minial compared better black levels, no motion lag, better processing and so on. Would all that well done plus 1080P be a bad thing? NO! but it'd be really bad on my wallet. Let's move onto actual display output!

HD viewing: since the TV is still being broken in, it spends most of it's time on Discovery HD, which is arguably the best looking HD channel out there. I use discovery HD due to the lack of a fixed logo that could lead to burn since the first 100-200 hours of a plasma are most vulnerable to possible burn in. The HD picture is perfect. As perfect broadcast can be but there is a fix for that also

SD viewing: feed the set a 480i signal from the STB and watch it perform it's magic and give you the best SD picture I've seen on a HD set. Where as the DLP's generally shine at SD viewing, I can firmly state that this plasma's can go toe to toe with the best of them when it comes to SD viewing.

HD DVD/Blu Ray viewing: The holy grail of HD and the perfect fit material for this set. Any regrets I have had in the past about jumping into the war too early generally get washed away when I'm watching a movie in either format. Now double that WOW! effect and this is what HD should be like. I mean really, makes any broadcast HD look downright lame.

Sound: n/a. receiver handling the 5.1 setup.
Remote: n/a. Harmony 880 took over immediately.
Manual: sucks. read up on AVS and keep the manual closed for the most part.

Fit and finish: with a glossy black bezel and no buttons present (except power) on the face, you get a very clean, ideal look. Just a pretty panel that looks as good off as it does on. The only downside is that the bezel seems very easy to scratch so be careful moving it around and cleaning it.

Summary:

Pros:
Color reproduction
Black levels
"looking out the window" effect on good HD material
lots of tweaking options to get the picture that looks best to YOU
great SD viewing
good asthetics

Cons:
Horrible manual
Bezel easy to scratch
Plasma "buzzing"

Considering that you can get this set for $2600 delivered to your door from an authorized Pioneer dealer, I honestly can't recommend anyone to "hold off." Ofcourse there will be better sets down the road and then better ones after that but once in a rare while you come across a gem. This display is just that.

I'll update this thread as I dig deeper into the display after the break in period. What does that mean? Xbox 360 and PS3 gaming reviews

 

[Capeta]

Is this an Elite model?

 

[Rys]

So you pressed pretty much all my buttons there: big screen, great blacks, great with SD, great colours, glossy black bezel. But it's not for sale in the UK, nor is it ever likely to be

 

[Gubbi]

So you pressed pretty much all my buttons there: big screen, great blacks, great with SD, great colours, glossy black bezel. But it's not for sale in the UK, nor is it ever likely to be

In Europe Pioneer's 7th gen. models are called 507XA or 507XD, XA being with a standard analog TV tuner, XD with a digital.

The 507Xs are produced in Great Britain (at least that's what it said on the box when I got mine ) so you should be able to get one.

And yes, it's a pretty fantastic telly.

Edit: But if I was in the market for a new TV right now, I'd wait for 8th gen. Minimum light emission is said to be lowered to 20% for a 5x improvement in black levels and contrast (20.000:1)

Cheers

 

[Gerry]

So you pressed pretty much all my buttons there: big screen, great blacks, great with SD, great colours, glossy black bezel. But it's not for sale in the UK, nor is it ever likely to be

They certainly are. I have a 42" model and it's bloody good.


Gubbi: Trouble with the new black technology that Pioneer was talking about was that they thought it could be pretty expensive. I think we'll have to wait and see how much they retail for.

 

[Gubbi]

Gubbi: Trouble with the new black technology that Pioneer was talking about was that they thought it could be pretty expensive. I think we'll have to wait and see how much they retail for.

Do you have more information? All I've been able to find are articles about the patent co-signed with Panasonic, which just state the 5x better contrast, and nothing about schedule, cost etc.

Cheers

 

[Gerry]

Do you have more information? All I've been able to find are articles about the patent co-signed with Panasonic, which just state the 5x better contrast, and nothing about schedule, cost etc.

Cheers

The link below to the IGN article gave some impressions, including the concerns around cost. Sounds like this summer is when they're due for release.

http://uk.gear.ign.com/articles/753/753836p1.html

 

[RobertR1]

The next gen Pio plasma will likely come in at the curret Pro FHD-1 price range. 6k + street price. I'd be very surprised to see it in their mainstream sets. Around CES there were a few articles with Pioneer taking about getting away from the mainstream Plasma market since there was no profit to be had due to the price wars.

 

[RobertR1]

So you pressed pretty much all my buttons there: big screen, great blacks, great with SD, great colours, glossy black bezel. But it's not for sale in the UK, nor is it ever likely to be

I believe it's the 5072 across the pond

 

[RobertR1]

Is this an Elite model?

No, this is the base model. The elite, after much research, seems to have the same processing but just more in depth calibration esp. for those who want an ISF tech to come and make it perfect. To my untrained eyes, this is more than good enough.

 

[Rys]

I believe it's the 5072 across the pond

Looks like it's to be found as the 507XD over here, for around £1800, which when I was expecting somewhere around £2500 was a nice surprise. Bit out of my price range though, so it looks like I'm back to scoping out 40" (or excellent 32") sets again. I'm jealous!

 

[RobertR1]

There should also be a 42inch model also. Just trying to help you spend some money, that's all!

 

[Rys]

There should also be a 42inch model also. Just trying to help you spend some money, that's all!

£1250 or so currently. Looks like I'm saving up then, since a couple of hours research shows Pio's 7th gen plasmas to be the mutt's nuts and 50" is simply too big for my house in all honesty.

 

[RobertR1]

Blacks aren't bad This is with a bright light running in the room. I suck at using cameras so I had to have the light on to be able to take it.

 

[Mintmaster]

Well since the light is on and you have zero shadow detail in that photo, you could have 200:1 contrast and the image would still look like that.

I think a more useful picture would be with the lights off and a piece of dull newspaper lying flat in front of the TV on the stand. That'll be a decent reference point (illuminated only by the TV material, hopefully). Try to overexpose it if you know how, and don't worry about a horribly blurry picture. We're not judging the sharpness here.


After mucking around in photoshop I could get a little information from your photo. I can tell that it's not nearly as black as the frame, and about 30-50% as bright as the shadow on the wall. That could be from the light, though, because most plasmas I've seen don't absorb external light very well since they have a greyish surface behind the glass.

Is this true of your plasma also? I never liked this because I want the TV to look good in low and medium light. That's why front projection has always been a no-go for me.

 

[RobertR1]

Well since the light is on and you have zero shadow detail in that photo, you could have 200:1 contrast and the image would still look like that.

I think a more useful picture would be with the lights off and a piece of dull newspaper lying flat in front of the TV on the stand. That'll be a decent reference point (illuminated only by the TV material, hopefully). Try to overexpose it if you know how, and don't worry about a horribly blurry picture. We're not judging the sharpness here.


After mucking around in photoshop I could get a little information from your photo. I can tell that it's not nearly as black as the frame, and about 30-50% as bright as the shadow on the wall. That could be from the light, though, because most plasmas I've seen don't absorb external light very well since they have a greyish surface behind the glass.

Is this true of your plasma also? I never liked this because I want the TV to look good in low and medium light. That's why front projection has always been a no-go for me.

Yeah, this plasma like others doesn't like light and you can see a clear reflection of the light in the top of the pic, thus I warned about the light being on and my sucky camera skills.

I'll take a proper pic tonight and see if can get the camera figured out. Thanks for the tips!

In the meantime, here is a pic from someone who knows what they're doing (maybe):
http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/5972/projectorstuff080kz1.jpg

 

[RobertR1]

Mintmaster,

Here is the best I could do with my camera and my skills. Let me know if this is any better than the last pic:

This is off Disc HD, paused on the comcast DVR using component. No external light sources in the room.

 

[Mintmaster]

Well your picture is basically just saturated black, so either the camera has a contrasty tone map or the TV truly is black.

The problem is that there's no reference to compare how the camera's blacks are behaving. Imagine having a white sticker on the frame. Would it be visible to the naked eye? Probably. Would you see it in the camera photo? Probably not. That's why I made the newspaper suggestion because then I'd have a vague idea about how dark something can be before it registers as black in the photo.

Anyway, I don't think we can get anything else out a photograph. The TV looks pretty good. You sure that particular program is HD? The jaggies make it look like upscaled SD.

 

[Gubbi]

Sorry, no pictures.

The walls in my living room are coke grey (as opposed to coke-white) for low ambient light for watching movies (and because I hate pastel/white colours).

In very low level ambient light situations it's quite easy to see that minimum light emission is not at all black. It is still better than any TV I've seen.

Cheers

 

[rounin]

How loud is the buzzing sound?