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Date: 2008-07-28 Great TV Let me start by letting you know that buying from Amazon really is the best experience. My experience goes beyond just the tv. My first tv arrived and when the delivery guys did the set up and turned on the power there was no picture. I simply refused the delivery, contacted Amazon, and a week later got a new tv delivered that works great. There was no questions, no extra charges, just great service. As for the tv its self, it is the best I've ever seen. The blacks are as dark as you can imagine. When a movie fades to black in between scenes and you normally can still see the black bars on the top of the bottom, it doesn't happen with this tv. Everything goes completely black and you don't see a difference. In fact in dark scenes the black melds so well with the black bars you can't tell where the movie part begins and ends. As for the rest of the picture quality it is just as outstanding. I tried out a Harry Potter movie on blu ray and it was incredible. I could see stuff that I hadn't even noticed in the details at the movie theater. The ease of setting up this tv was incredible. It essentially worked from the moment I hooked up and looked great. I haven't had time to made adjustments but really haven't felt that I needed to. If your looking for the best at a good price this is it. Date: 2008-07-26 My first HDTV, no regrets After 4+ months, TV still rocks. Though I'm somewhat hampered by Time Warner HD, with an abysmal selection of channels, I'm still very happy with my purchase. The only thing I've had any second thoughts about is whether I should have sprung for the Elite, at about a grand more. Pioneer kind of screws the consumer this year with the base line Kuro (6020 and 5020) as they remove all of the second level of picture adjustments). But still the TVs performance is terrific. I have, however, had the gray scale professionally calibrated. It cost me a few hundred bucks and you need to make sure the person who is doing it has the appropriate software and has done a few of these before. And while the results are subtle, I can notice them. There is an improvement. Can only be done in movie mode, but improves the gray-scale and colors to some extent too. It just creates a more natural tone to the picture and removes a bit of the "haze" or "reddish/yellow tint" as I like to call it. Well worth it if u can find a good technician ************************************************************************** I have been researching HDTVs for what seems like forever, until this month when I finally pulled the trigger. You cannot go wrong with this TV. This is my first HDTV, but I consider myself fairly tech savvy and somewhat of an audiophile. That said I don't have any history with HDTVs so can't compare this TV with anything I've owned in the past, but rather friends' TVs or in store comparisons. The negatives on this TV are as some may have already discovered; an inability to more finely calibrate this TV yourself, unlike the 5080 of last year or the Elites. That was kind of a downer given how much you pay for it. On the flip side, if you have it calibrated, I believe the professional can adjust these settings. Not 100% sure yet, but I may give that a shot at some point. Why would you want to adjust these settings at all from the way they come out of the box? Well, according to a few reviews, as well as the CNET review, Reds and Greens are not 100% accurate. This may be difficult to determine through the naked eye of most viewers. But I can say that Reds appear a little heavy to me. Greens look fairly accurate to me, but again according to CNET they were off a bit too. We are not talking about anything that is a deal breaker here by any stretch. Ask someone with an untrained eye and they'd probably wonder what the heck you're talking about. Anyway these are about the only negatives about this TV that I can find, if you consider them "negatives." Assuming you have it calibrated, then there are NO negatives to this TV. Positives are many. Outstanding picture quality, and probably the best SD picture you can find or have ever found from an HDTV. Far better than what I've seen on any LCD thats for sure. DVDs scaled to fit this picture look almost HD. HDTV content is outstanding. You cannot find better black levels. The Panasonics have really improved their sets, but still the Pioneers are better, you can see the difference even if it is subtle. Another thing to note, when I first got this TV, for the first week or so, I was worried that the picture was just a little dark. Plasma is definitely darker than LCD, and I thought hey, you can't have the best blacks and brightness all in one TV right? True, sort of. What you need to do after a break-in period (I have no idea whether break-in is even necesary on plasmas anymore, but some do) is set the TV to Movie Mode, then calibrate from there. Movie mode produces a brighter picture. I think most people are so accustomed to a super-bright set (read: LCDs) that produce very inaccurate pictures and tones that Movie mode might look dull to them at first. Your eyes will adjust, trust me. And you will slowly realize that once calibrated, the Pioneer produces a picture that is about as close to a movie theater screen as you can get. Once in movie mode, use the following settings: Contrast: 38 Brightness: -1 Color: -5 Tint: 0 Sharpness: -15 Pure Cinema Film Mode: Advance Text Optimization: Off Power Save Mode: Off Orbiter: Mode 1 (All screen size modes except Dot-by-Dot) Mode 2 (Dot-by-Dot screen size mode ONLY) Feel free to tweak from there as you feel necessary. But that is the so-called reference setting; I assume what a technician would set to produce the most accurate picture. Once you're set in this, again, give it some time for your eyes to adjust to it, and you will see a truly outstanding real to life image. Film content is about as close to a move screen as you will get in my opinion. Other cool features are 1)An optical output for audio 2.)Home networking feature to display Videos and Pictures from your PC right on your plasma. This works very well and is pretty intuitive. 3.) Great sound right out of the factory speaker. 4.)A very nice stand that is already attached. I was recently in a Best Buy and looked at the new Panasonics, which are very good, side by side with the Pioneers. But I still think the Pioneer produces a better picture overall. I haven't seen a calibrated Panny, so not a perfectly fair assessment. Hope this helps, good luck! Date: 2008-07-25 Believe The Kuro Hype! The 5020 Is Amazing! I just recently purchased the Pioneer Kuro PDP-5020 from Amazon and I couldn't have been happier. I ordered the TV on a Monday evening and I had the TV in my house on the Thursday of the same week. It was less than 72 hours from clicking the mouse to clicking the remote on the TV, which I find amazing. The TV was delivered by Eagle/CEVA and the delivery guys were very helpful in getting the TV into my 2nd floor bedroom. I chose the 5020 Kuro after an exhaustive search of what TV would be the best for my room. I read many websites and AV forums and found the only thing people could agree on is that the Pioneer Kuro's have the best black levels out there period. Sure the Kuro is a little more expensive than sets from Panasonic or Samsung but over the life span of the TV the difference in price is minimal. So I say go with the best and don't look back. Date: 2008-07-22 Pioneer....The Undisputed King of Plasma HDTV!!! Here is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.....according to my observations and general tests. I ordered this Pioneer plasma tv from Amazon on July 16th and promplty received it via CEVA trucking on July 18th. As soon as the delivery guys opened up the packaging and, to my immediate delight, I noticed that this plasma set comes with the stand pre-installed. At this time, I do not have any intentions of putting this plasma set on the wall; for those of you who want to install it on the wall please keep this in mind as you will now have to take the plasma stand off - screws and all. The manual states that all PDP-5020 sets have the stand pre-installed. *This plasma set is replacing a Samsung 56 inch DLP** Let the fun times begin: After turning on this set, it was apparent that this Pioneer PDP-5020 is the real deal. The black level is so deep and dark that I was left speechless for quite a few minutes. I tuned in to Cinemax HD and watched The Heartbreak Kid for 10 minutes.....WOW,WOW,WOW! The colors (popped) and the deep contrast made for a spectacular viewing of this movie. Ben Stiller's black shirt was really pitch black and the views of the ocean looked so realistic I was beside myself. I switched between other HD satellite stations and was very pleased with the results. Next, I hooked up the PDP-5020 to my trusty Panasonic blu-ray BDMP-30 to check out some of my blu-ray movies. Since I was so impressed with the Satellite HD broadcasts, you can now imagine my excitement as I turned my attention to Blu-ray. I wanted to test out a few of the worst looking blu-rays I had: Tomb Raider (read the Amazon reviews), Stargate (the dark scenes), Black Hawk Down ( alot of film grain ), and Big Fish ( alot of film grain). Believe it or not, the Tomb Raider Blu ray looked fantastic on this plasma. There was hardly any film grain visible on this plasma set at all, as I only sit 8 feet away. I could not believe how good it looked - a solid 8 out of 10 for the blu-ray. The dark scenes in the movie Stargate were also excellent and it was easy to make out small details that were not present before (on my 56 DLP) - again hardly any film grain. My final tests were done on the Black Hawk Down BD, Big Fish BD and the dark, night scene on Rambo BD (2008)..... Would you believe me if I told you that all 3 discs looked fantastic? Black Hawk and Big Fish showed no signs of film grain and the night scene in Rambo was so visible I could not believe my eyes. This is a true testament of how great Pioneer plasma screens are. I now have a hard time believing any negative blu ray reviews from the pros since most of them are not using Pioneer plasmas for their reviews. Xbox 360 and PS3 games all looked great on this screen. The deep colors and the deep black really make the games a pleasure to look at. In case you are wondering, I didn't do any type of calibration to this set. I truly believe that no adjustments need to be made to it. It looks that great out of the box. Again, the deep black contrast is the major selling point. The color of grass looks the way it does in your back yard, not the fluorescent green you see on other plasma tv's. Should you buy a Pioneer plasma set? Absolutely!!! I can guarantee that you will be 100% satisfied with its performance and aesthetic appearance. Don't be fooled by all the other competitor's displays at the brick and mortar stores.....this plasma set is well worth every penny you spend on it. You will thank me for it! **UPDATE 7/23/08** I contacted Pioneer Electronics today to ask about a future calibration and was informed that these non-Elite models are already calibrated by Pioneer techs prior to shipment from their facilities. So, there is no need to spend an additional $300+ on calibration services. Date: 2008-07-21 Frustrated and disappointed with Pioneer... Not happy with Pioneer. Got my 5020FD from Amazon last Monday and the box came with no screws or wires to attach speaker to display! I don't blame Amazon they've done there part well. Called Pioneer customer service and was told that screws and wires are backordered and would be available after July 31st! From my conversation with Pioneer's rep I realized that they know about this problem but don't really care and ship anyway. This is unacceptable. Stay away at least till August.
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