I know this topic has been discussed many times, but I have never seen it asked this way, so here goes...

I was in Best Buy last night, and they had a Pioneer 4280 above a Panasonic 42pz700u.

I could see that the Pio was "blacker" than the Panasonic, which seemed a little gray in comparison...BUT...the Panasonic had more detail in the picture. For instance, they were showing a feed of a lighthouse at night, with the light moving back and forth. You could see the stream of light on the Panasonic, but COULD NOT see the stream of light on the Pio because it was so black.

My question - if I were to increase the brightness on the Pio, would I be able to see the details of the picture better? By increasing the brightness on the Pio, would the black then become more gray like the Panasonic?

Thanks for the help?

This is an interesting question. I can say that I've been considering this myself lately. I have a friend who owns a 44" DLP and he consistently mocks my 5080 for its lack of detail.

We didn't do any side by side comparisons but I did go to his place a few times and testing the exact same material I tend to notice his screen is sharper and reveals detail better.

Since I don't have a lot of experience comparing different sized tv's, I've been wondering whether the Pio is just less detailed, or whether the larger size causes this perception.

Note that we were comparing HD material such as Planet Earth, Miami Vice, 300, and Transformers. So we were watching 720p material at 8-9' distance.

Since we use different components I'm still tinkering to see whether its a settings issue or my source.

Btw when I did side by side comparisons of the 4280 and 5080 at a local retailer (unfortunately I was only testing SD stuff at the time) I felt the 4280 was sharper than the 5080. In this instance it was definitely a size issue since SD material naturally looks softer on a larger screen.

The new Pioneer displays are second to none when it comes to shadow detail. Did you play with the settings of the both the PZ700U and the 4280? Most B&M stores keep the Pioneer in the "Dynamic" picture mode. This simply ruins the picture quality. At the very least, you need to get the remote and put the Pioneer in "Movie" mode for example. You need to make similar corrections to the Panasonic's picture as well. A properly setup Pioneer display should excel when displaying shadow detail. If detail is crushed, you need to change the settings.

My question - if I were to increase the brightness on the Pio, would I be able to see the details of the picture better? By increasing the brightness on the Pio, would the black then become more gray like the Panasonic?

Thanks for the help?

No. If you increase the brightness on any set that is not set correctly it will reveal the lost details hidden in the shadows without causing the black level to increase at all. Now the problem could have been the gamma setting also, if that was the case then you need to change the picture mode to get a better gamma curve. In any case, the Pioneer excels at shadow detail and low black level at the same time when properly set up, without proper set up any display can look like crap.

The new Pioneer displays are second to none when it comes to shadow detail. Did you play with the settings of the both the PZ700U and the 4280? Most B&M stores keep the Pioneer in the "Dynamic" picture mode. This simply ruins the picture quality. At the very least, you need to get the remote and put the Pioneer in "Movie" mode for example. You need to make similar corrections to the Panasonic's picture as well. A properly setup Pioneer display should excel when displaying shadow detail. If detail is crushed, you need to change the settings.

I can confirm this from personal experience. I have yet to see one Pio in a store like Best Buy that was not set to dynamic mode on every input. Ask the sales person if you can change the input or setting. You will probably
get the same result.

it probably was more clear, i mean how close were you to the tv? Up close the pioneer doesnt look as good, you can see the pixel separation....