Pioneer Elite KURO PRO 111FD - Manual (Page 2)

FEBRUARY 2009 www.hometheatermag.com
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raditions are front and
center this time of year:
The tinsel and lights will
have been put away by
the time you read this,
and the new year will have rung
in. Nevertheless, Super Bowl
Sunday and March Madness are
fast approaching. As is the
February 2009 transition to
digital-only broadcasting. Even in
these dicey economic times,
many of you will want to update
your cranky old CRT set or even
your three-year-old rear-projec-
tion model, hoping that the
change will bring you to video
nirvana. This brings us to another
grand tradition: Home Theater’s
annual HDTV Face Off.
We held our bake-off in early
November. As the pastry chef, it
was my job to mix the test ingred-
ients in a way that was as fair and
revealing as possible. This was my
first crack at setting up a HDTV
Face Off for Home Theater, but it
wasn’t my first attempt at
organizing such an event. Back in
the 1990s, I ran a number of
loudspeaker panel tests as the
tech editor of Stereophile
magazine. So I was well aware of
the issues and pitfalls involved in
running a blind comparison with
multiple products and multiple
judges.
the Candidates
This year, we restricted the test to
four high-end designs, which
made this more of a “best of the
best” than a typical Face Off. This
approach was inspired by
previous individual reviews. We
found these particular plasmas
and local-dimming LCDs to be
too superior in performance to
other flat-panel sets currently on
the market for a fair compar-
ison. Also, while “Twelve Sets
Compared” sounds splashy on a
magazine cover, when fewer sets
are involved, we can give more
attention to each one in the
process.
The candidates included two
50-inch plasmas and two 55-inch
LCDs. Three of the four entrants
are very pricey compared with
most other sets on the market,
but they promise the most
up-to-date technology that their
manufacturers offer. This includes
standard-setting black levels on
the Pioneer, LED local-dimming
backlighting on the Samsung and
Sony, and THX certification on
the Panasonic (the most afford-
able set in the group, which
makes it a test case for how a less
expensive set might stack up in
the company of credit card
busters).
the Panel
The panel consisted of Shane
Buettner, editor of Home Theater;
Claire Lloyd, Home Theater’s
executive editor; Home Theater
contributors Michael J. Nelson
and Barb Gonzalez; and Scott
Wilkinson, editor of our online
sister publication, Ultimate AV.
This created a nice balance of
perspective between video tweaks
like Scott and Shane and more
casual viewers like Mike and
Claire. Barb, as our resident
self-styled “Simple Tech Guru,”
fits comfortably in between. A
longstanding distinction of the
Face Off has been giving a voice
to the less techie among us. And
the tradition holds here, perhaps
casting a different light on the sets
featured here that have already
been reviewed.
As the test’s show runner and
disc jockey, I had extensive know-
ledge of each set (two of which I
have already reviewed separately)
and also knew which display was
which, so I did not act as a judge.
the Venue and setup
I arranged the four sets in a row,
with the 55-inch sets in the mid-
dle and the 50-inch sets on the
outside (angled in very slightly). I
positioned the viewing seats at a
distance of about four screen
heights from the sets. All of the
seats were in the same row, which
put them a little further from the
angled 50-inch models, but the
angling of the latter helped com-
pensate for the difference.
I encouraged the judges to
swap seats frequently, to judge
both on-axis and off-axis per-
formance, and all did so. They
also had the opportunity to sit
closer or further away. No one
chose to sit closer, but most of the
judges checked out the sets from
further away several times during
the test.
All of the sets were driven via
HDMI during the panel testing.
The technical measurements
presented here are generally
limited to HDMI as well, except
for the 480i-to-1080p processing
(over component video) and
otherwise as noted.
I used two Panasonic Blu-ray
players for the tests, a DMP-BD35
and a DMP-BD55 (reviewed in
the December 2008 issue). Both
of these players offer identical
video performance. They only
differ in the DMP-BD55’s
multichannel analog outputs. The
sources ran through a four-in/
eight-out HDMI switcher-splitter
from Accell. All of the HDMI
cables were from UltraLink, with
2-meter runs from the source to
the switcher-splitter and an
additional 5-meter length from
the switcher-splitter to each set.
One of the sets (the Pioneer)
showed some subtle HDMI
artifacts (white flecks) when I
attempted to pass 1080p/60
through this chain. The Panason-
ic’s picture also flickered badly
when only it and the Sony were
turned on (the Sony did not
flicker). This flicker disappeared
when I disconnected the HDMI
lead from the Sony or turned on
all the sets. But the setup worked
flawlessly with all the sets on in all
the resolutions I used in the test,
including 1080p/24.
The tests took place over a
single day in early November. The
venue was completely finished
(walls, ceilings, and floor) in a
deep, neutral gray. For the
morning tests, the judges
evaluated the sets in total
darkness. For the afternoon
session, we used four identical
D6500 Ideal-Lume Standard
fluorescent backlights from
CinemaQuest.
While all of the sets performed
reasonably well out of the box in
their Movie/Cinema/Pure modes
in their warmest color tempera-
ture settings, I calibrated all of
them prior to judging. I also set
them up for roughly similar peak
brightness levels, ranging from 35
to 40 foot-lamberts. The two LCD
sets can be driven to significantly
higher output. This might be
useful in some high-ambient-
light viewing situations, but it was
unsuitable for this test—and in
my opinion for most home
The LED local dimming feature is a
revolutionary development. All LCD
flat panels require a light source that’s
separate from the LCD panel itself (in
contrast to a plasma, in which the
light comes from excited phosphors
embedded in the panel). Until now, LCD
backlights have largely consisted of cold
cathode fluorescents (CCFLs) driven at
a constant brightness. In such a display,
the LCD panel itself does all the work
in reproducing the black levels that the
source requires. It does this by reorienting
the LCDs as needed to pass or block the
illumination from the fixed backlight.
But LCDs alone cannot completely
block the unchanging output of the CCFL
backlight. The result, in dark scenes, is
a black level that never drops below a
medium gray, rather than a true- or
near-black. While the adjustable back-
light setting that most LCDs offer can help,
it’s no cure.
However, LEDs can be turned on
and off almost instantaneously. You
can substitute dozens of clusters of red,
green, and blue LEDs (colored LEDs or
white LEDs with colored filters) for the
old, fixed-output CCFL and drive each
of these clusters separately in response
to the brightness the source requires in
that area of the screen. To a degree, this
can compensate for the light-blocking
limitations of the LCD panel. Of course,
the panel is still largely responsible for
the brightness gradations in the image.
It operates directly from the source on
the level of nearly 2,000,000 separate
pixels in a 1080p display, several orders of
magnitude more than the number of LED
clusters (dozens, or at best, hundreds).
But the dynamic, zone-addressed LED
backlights can nevertheless produce a
dramatic improvement in an LCD’s black
level—and shadow detail—with minimal
side effects.
LED LocaL Dimming