24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
Worth the Money
The 5010FD is an elegant television with spectacular HD output and outstanding SD upscaling. I had purchased a top of the line Sony about two years ago, but I was highly disappointed by the atrocious quality of SD signals, which dominated most viewing material at the time. I returned the set and have been waiting for the right combination of technology and programming...
DO NOT BUY THIS TV
The Pioneer plasma TV engine is the best in the industry. But they stopped making TVs (they license the technology) over a year ago. Prices actually went up as the last units were sold. I was looking for the last model year 5020, and when I searched Amazon this 5010 came up mixed in with 5020s. I did not notice the difference, and bought this prior-year model instead...
This review is from: Pioneer PDP-5010FD 50-Inch 1080p Plasma HDTV (Electronics)
The 5010FD is an elegant television with spectacular HD output and outstanding SD upscaling. I had purchased a top of the line Sony about two years ago, but I was highly disappointed by the atrocious quality of SD signals, which dominated most viewing material at the time. I returned the set and have been waiting for the right combination of technology and programming to purchase another HD TV. I have had the 5010FD for about two months, and I am never disappointed by the picture quality.
I did a great deal of research before deciding on this set: all reviews unequivocally touted the KURO line (both standard and Elite) as the best televisions ever made. Though I am not qualified to corroborate or refute those professional reviews, I can say that I am regularly amazed at the beautiful picture quality and stunning contrast this set can produce. I cannot say if the Elite version is worth the extra money, but I can say that I well pleased with the standard model.
I only have two beefs:
1) The lack of independent RGB adjustment controls (this is available on the Elite version). Though I have adjusted the settings to the best of my ability, reds occasionally appear distractingly brilliant. With much less frequency greens sometimes appear over bright. This is a very minor issue though, and I notice the over saturation vary rarely. IMHO, the pros of this set overwhelmingly outweigh this small con. On this note, do not judge the picture quality of this set if set on Dynmaic mode (the default setting). You should use either Movie mode or the User preset adjusted properly. As with most sets,`torch' mode produces a sickeningly `unreal' picture.
2) The fact that the volume control only controls the set's detachable speakers. It will not control the gain of external RCA outputs, and if I am reading the manual correctly, of the digital out. On that note, I decided to use the TV's speakers for aesthetic reasons (temporarily at least), and I am pretty impressed by their audio quality. It isn't as good as my old surround system, but it does the trick. I will eventually replace them with a new soundbar or surround system, but the built-ins are working very well in the meanwhile.
Two final notes:
1) I was wary to order such an expensive purchase online, but my experience was smooth as silk, and I saved a fortune over purchasing the set locally. The set arrived amazingly fast (2 days after shipping), and it was delivered in excellent shape.
2) My wife was furiously opposed to purchasing a 50" given the smallish nature of our viewing room (we sit about 7-8 feet from the set), but by the end of the week she apologized for treating me ire because I insisted on the 50". She has remarked that the TV is the perfect size for viewing at that distance on several occasions.
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This review is from: Pioneer PDP-5010FD 50-Inch 1080p Plasma HDTV (Electronics)
After the contrast went out for the second time on our rear projection 53 inch, it was time to "bite the bullet." After looking at LCD's and plasmas, I decided on the plasma, since I primarily watch sports and the hesitation with the LCD wouldn't work. A friend of mine said that the Pioneer Kuro was the way to go and after all the reviews of the different plasmas, I decided to spend the extra bucks and order the Kuro. It was well worth it. The picture is great and will be even better after I unload Time Warner and get satellite. The price was a bit high but withour tax and shipping, it all worked out. I ordered the TV on November 8th and hoped to have it by Thaksgiving. Amazon said it would be delivered on the 20th. It arrived on the 13th. Darn! I was really impressed by the fact that the delivery driver was supposed to wait until the set produced sound and picture. I released him early and called him later when the set was up and running. I had to install the speakers and download the cable information. I would definitely buy a large electronic purchase from Amazon again and am really impressed with the picture quality and especially the contrast..
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This review is from: Pioneer PDP-5010FD 50-Inch 1080p Plasma HDTV (Electronics)
I've been waiting for the right set to come along before replacing my direct view 40" Sony. Picture quality was my highest priority. When I got a chance to view a demo of the new Pioneer Kuro plasmas, I was impressed.
After discussion, test report reviews and a viewing of the set with my wife, we decided to get the 50" non-Elite model. We liked that the speaker bar was located on the bottom of the panel and not the sides and the set came with a table top stand. We have no need for the Home Gallery option or the advanced tweaking that the Elite model offered.
Once it was set up, we were even more impressed with the set. There's plenty of inputs, adequate picture control and as expected, the picture quality is outstanding. The black level is incredible and really makes the colors 'pop' and the contrast is quite good. We have a light controlled room, so we were able to reduce the default light output level from the 'torch' mode to more reasonable levels.
We get our hi-def signals from a rooftop antenna and they look great. I love to fire up my receiver and listen in 5.1 sound when it's available. (Journeyman, The Unit, CSI and Moonlight all have great sound production.)
The digital tuner works well, the remote has 4 direct inputs for favorite channels and the set looks good even when it's off! It's reasonably quick to display a picture when started from the typical standby mode.
My only nits to pick: I don't care for the PIP function, it's awkward to use and not terribly useful, a far cry from the previous Sony set. The channel changes are a bit slow and the display info that accompanies each change lingers too long. The set does run warm in use, but, that's not unusual for a plasma.
Overall, both my wife and I love this set. It's the perfect size for our application. The picture quality is outstanding and is the main reason we bought this set. Though not 'cheap', it's highly recommended.
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This review is from: Pioneer PDP-5010FD 50-Inch 1080p Plasma HDTV (Electronics)
The Pioneer PDP-5010 1080P plasma HDTV is awesome. The picture is crystal clear. I read all of the reviews for plasma televisions and Pioneer was rated the best. The reviews are absolutely true. The deep black colors are amazing. Since the blacks are so deep, all of the other colors stand out. This costs more than other plasmas, but it is worth it. The set includes more HDMI and Component inputs than you will probably ever use. Also has a PC input which is great. All of the input slots are in the back or on the side of the television. I like this a lot. This makes the front of the plasma very sleek and pleasing to the eye. This is the best looking plasma that I've seen. My brother has the Panasonic TH-50PZ700U and the looks of the Pioneer are just hands down better. The picture is also a step above the highly rated Panasonic. Picture adjustment of the Pioneer is simple; the on-screen menu is easy to use. I was able to hook the Pioneer remote up to my DVD player and my Time Warner cable box so that I can use just one remote. The television comes attached to the stand, which makes it even easier to start using. The bottom speaker comes detached, but is easy to assemble. If you want the best plasma, I highly recommend the Pioneer PDP 5010.
I am fully satisfied with my purchase from Amazon.com. I ordered the Pioneer on Nov 24th (day after Thanksgiving) and it was delivered on Wednesday Dec. 4th. Its estimated delivery date was Dec 3rd, but the shippers called on the 2nd and told me that it would be delivered on the 4th and gave me a time window for delivery and they came as expected.
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This review is from: Pioneer PDP-5010FD 50-Inch 1080p Plasma HDTV (Electronics)
I have been searching for a replacement for my 5-yr old Sony 34" CRT HDTV for years. The search is finally over. My ISF calibrated Sony HDTV has been a great performer. Until recently, it had consistently beaten both LCDs and Plasmas with its excellent black level, outstanding details, accurate color (after ISF calibration fixed its "red push") and lacking of motion blur. But due to the weight of the tube, anything bigger than 34" would be a huge burden.
After months of research and comparison, I finally found it. This Pioneer not only matches all the performance areas that my 34" Sony CRT HDTV has excelled but also adds the "WOW" factor thanks to its considerable bigger screen size. Now I feel I finally step into the picture instead of watching from outside.
The only major downside of this plasma is that the sound quality of TV speakers is nowhere near the quality of picture it delivers. As matter of the fact, it sounds much worse than my 34" Sony CRT TV. So a separate quality sound system is more than a necessity to get full enjoyment from this TV.
Now I only wish that I have more time to watch all my favorite movies on this Big TV again...
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This review is from: Pioneer PDP-5010FD 50-Inch 1080p Plasma HDTV (Electronics)
This plasma TV is amazing. The colors are vibrant, the picture is bright and the darks are really dark, the contrast is superb. This is vastly superior to any LCD TV, and among the best plasma TVs. It has plenty of inputs, is easy to setup, and looks stylish. Watching 1080p movies on this screen is the best TV experience you can get.
I have one small gripe: there is no digital sound output. My old Philips plasma had one and it was great. Since I have 3 digital sources, having to switch both TV and amplifier when switching input was annoying. I bought an Onkyo receiver with HDMI switching, and routed all my sources through the amplifier, with a single HDMI cable to the TV: this simplifies a lot my cabling, I use a single remote (the receiver's), and the sound is great.
I highly recommend investing in a home theater receiver and a HD player to get the best out of this TV.
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This review is from: Pioneer PDP-5010FD 50-Inch 1080p Plasma HDTV (Electronics)
After considerable time and effort over the last few months researching what "type" of HDTV to get, plasma won over LCD. With this choice behind me, the KURO pretty much dominated the competition. I spent countless hours looking at screens in stores. The Panasonic and Samsung plasmas are good but not anywhere near as good as this KURO. This is unfortunate, because there is a considerable price premium to be paid for the KURO. It IS worth it! So let me start with a warning for the videophiles out there: The default setings on this TV (which is what you are likely to "see" when you preview this at the Best Buys of the world) are set for watching cartoons! In this mode, the colors are oversaturated to the extreme, so when looking at skin tones they all look sunburnt! Trees look like they have been painted green, a room in a Victorian home will look like it has been painted with bright reds and or royal purples! It really is a very odd choice...So, spend the half hour or so to read through the manual on how to bring your TV back to normal.
Now the details: For off-the-air content, with my old $20 Magnavox amplified loop for antenna input, the HD programs from ABC/CBS/NBC/PBS are jaw dropping! I have never seen anything like this. Moreover, the automatic TV tuner setup routine has picked up channels I never knew existed! Even TV-Guide channel listing info... By comparison, analog programs (Matlock and Law and Order re-runs for example) looked just "ok". Unfortunatelly, compared to the HD quality, ANY analog program will look just "ok" on this display. The biggest "probem" with this TV is that the display quality is SO good, that if you give it a sub-par input (whatever the source may be) you will really be able to SEE sub-par quality. KURO's electronics will compensate, quite well mind you, but there is only so much magic that can be performed here with analog programs, in terms of noise reduction and up-conversion. I wonder how things will change when I get a "real antenna" (CM 4228 comes to mind here) up and running. Then again, all the analog broadcasts will end in a few months, so the entire issue of sub-par quality of-the-air programs will be of academic interset to TV historians...but I digress.
For playback, I hooked up my $80 Sony NS72 (upconverting) DVD player -this is just a little older than the current NS75-. I used the HDMI connection, so that I could send 1080p upconverted signals to the KURO. Man, oh man was I stunned! Everything I threw at it came out with such gorgeous detail! Watching any of the space scenes in the Starwars movies, there was no way to tell where the top and bottom black bars started on the screen, except by looking for the point where the background stars "disappear". Watching Mary Poppins, I could see Julie's makeup on her face! I ran the HQV Silicon Optix test DVD revealing, quite clearly I am afraid, all the shortcomings of my cheap DVD player. In matters of image detail, color fidelity and contrast and cadence the KURO -and the DVD- passed with flying colors...I could not find jaggies in the flag test. The flower, boat ride, freeway and sunset scenes were stunning. The race car zooming past the stands showed moire, but this is Sony's fault! Looking at of-the-air HD car races with cars and cameras zooming/panning past stands and the like, these are rock solid images...The cadence tests reveal what happens when you display 1080p/24fps, or any number of very esoteric cadences. There is no 3:2 frame-rate nonsense with the KURO. You'll be really hard pressed to find "jaggies" in anything except perhaps a couple of cartoon or anime cadences. I am not sure how this "failure" will ever be seen in a live program. I wonder if anyone out there is feeding home-video to thisTV directly from a video-camera that has some weird recording cadence. That might replicate such effects... but again, I digress.
As a second battery of what I like to call graduate student checks, I connected the DVD player to the TV with the composite video cables. The DVD here does no "upconverting" to 1080p. It merely puts out the 480p progressive scan it was designed for. The KURO on the other hand has some wonderful magic here. The same movies (Starwars and Mary Poppins) were perfectly viewable, only marginally below the quality of the ones through the HDMI. So, do not feel compelled to throw away your "older" DVD player just because it is "merely" a 480p progressive scan type. For ultimate performance this TV, unfortunatelly, pretty much requires a Blu-Ray player. But I am not in any hurry yet.
Last, but by no means least, I should mention the audio performance of the KURO, which is in fact closer to that of a good sound bar. When running the THX audio setup from the Starwars DVD, the speaker bar generated a clearly discernible directional sound for the L, R and C channels when the L,R and C were triggered. When the surround-L and surround-R speakers were triggered the speakerbar produced "back-firing" sounds, (from the left and right side respectively) that reflected off the wall behind the TV! This was quite astounding. The surround sound effect is quite nicely done with what is essentially a very effective phased-array approach! Congrats to the Pioneer sound engineers. This is top notch work! Triggering the "sub" produces no responce from the speakerbar. The KURO has an independent sub output, so if anyone wants to "improve" the speakerbar, a sub can be direclty linked to the TV and will provide all the low-end oomph you might desire. Clearly, having a high quality audio system generate a high quality soundstage will be a wonderful complement to the visual perfection from this TV. That being said, the current speakerbar is good enough for anyone who does not plan to do this right away.
Before I sign off, I should point out that with 4-HDMI inputs, a digital audio out, and a subwoofer out, this TV in many ways eliminates the need to have an A/V receiver with more than two HDMI inputs. There are a lot of very good middle-of-the-road receivers that only have two HDMI inputs and the everyone seems to be complaining about how inadequate this is. With this KURO -and HDMI control- the TV can become the switch-board rather than the receiver. Inter-Brand and HDMI incompatibilities aside, having spent all this money on the Kuro I see no reason not to take advantage of its capabilities...
This TV will spoil you... (:-
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This review is from: Pioneer PDP-5010FD 50-Inch 1080p Plasma HDTV (Electronics)
The Kuro PDP 5010 has been here for 3 hours now.
Out of the box picture is good. A few quick adjustments and it's better.
More in the area of personal preference adjustments up to this point.
Quite stunning images with not much tweaking at all.
No audible buzz whatsoever from the chassis at this point.
..and black levels like I've not seen since watching my old Sony 37" CRT.
Update Feb 11.
I could not be happier with the Kuro. I have not found "fatal flaw" like I generally do with electronics devices.
The Grammy awards last evening looked spectacular. Dark picture areas maintin their detail and do not get that solarized look as many other LCD and Plasma displays do.
I'm trying to find something to complain about, I can't come up with anything.
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This review is from: Pioneer PDP-5010FD 50-Inch 1080p Plasma HDTV (Electronics)
I would love to add my 5 star comments to everyone else who has ever reviewed this product. Much like them, I SCOURED over different TV models/specifications to determine which was the best. This was a gift to myself, and I was ready to buy the top of the line. All roads led me to Pioneer Plasmas. When starting off with a demand to provide me the best overall quality picture, I initially narrowed my search to plasma and this was far and away the best product out there. I have had this TV for over 5 months now, and I love it as much now as I did when I first bought it. My desire was to have it professionally calibrated after ~100 hours of viewing, but out of the box, the quality is just so amazing, I'm having a hard time justifying the expense. The black levels (which really is the most important quality of a television, NOT resolution as people in the stores would want you to believe) are incredible - and this TV outperforms every other one on the market by a significant amount. The picture, in my opinion, produces more vibrant colors even better than my parents' Sony 61" SXRD LCoS projection. There has been no issue with burn-in on images, even with extended hours of watching ESPN with its logo sitting in the corner the entire time. The reflection off the screen is unnoticeable when the TV is on. Other reviews have commented on the "audible buzzing" when the TV is on. While you can hear it if you put your ear up to the TV, it has never been an issue or interfered with my viewing experience. The quality of the sound from the speakers is commendable as well. I look forward to many years of happy viewing with this Pioneer and recommend it as highly as I can recommend a product. Spend the money, and you won't be sorry.
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This review is from: Pioneer PDP-5010FD 50-Inch 1080p Plasma HDTV (Electronics)
After reading all the stellar reviews in top video/audio magazines covering this Pioneer plasma television and it's big brother, the Elite, I was not sure the differances between it and it's rivals would be that noticable and worth all the hype. A trip to my local Best Buy proved that, indeed the price is worth it. The picture quality and the black levels of this plasma are amazing. With text on the screen, the lines around each letter or number are smooth and without smear or pixel blocking compared to just about any other set within the store. The blacks were just that...BLACK. Clear and clean, not gray or any other shade. The complaints I've heard about a buzzing or humming coming from the screen also proved completely false. Without a doubt, Pioneer has the best looking picture, hands down. Always worried that what you see in the store will not look as good when you get it home, I have now had this Plasma in my home for over a month, connected to HD cable and I must say that I am very impressed. I have never reviewed anything purchased on Amazon but with this Plasma, I just had to spread the word. I was worried about ordering something this expensive and fragile off the net, but it arrived on time and without a problem. I'm glad I took the time and did my homework. If you consider yourself a "videophile" and love a beautiful picture, do yourself a favor and check this Pioneer out for yourself. My friends and family are all amazed, you will be too.
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