I'm looking to get my first hdtv and I always seem to see better black detail in the XBR4 than even the pio elites. Is it just my eyes or is this the case in LCD vs. plasma. I know the blacks are so much better in plasma, but for my eyes it looks like detail in black or dark areas of the screen are sacrificed in plasmas and look clearer in LCD's.

Also I know that the XBR4 has a 10-bit color panel and was wondering what the Pioneer 5080 & 5010, Panasonic 800, and Samsung 5084 plasmas have, as they are the other options I'm looking at. I think I heard somewhere on this forum the sammy has a 14-bit color panel, but don't know the other sets or even if the sammy information is right.

Side note:
I kinda wish I never found this forum and just made an ill advised purchase rather than researching all of the sets and the advantages for each: 24fps, black levels, 1080p, etc. There always seems to be something better just around the corner (ex: 9g Pioneers).

Blacks are better on Pioneers for sure. You just have to make sure they are adjusted but even then they should still look better than LCD

Blacks are better on Pioneers for sure. You just have to make sure they are adjusted but even then they should still look better than LCD

I agree. The XBRs are excellent televisions, dont get me wrong....but black-levels is where plasma still kills LCD. In your case, seeing good detail in blacks is a good thing but NOT at the expense of deep, inky blacks. My Pio 5080 is capable of great shadow detail AND dark blacks.... hence it has a great Real-world contrast ratio.

This may help you or it may not.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=13164157#post13164157

This is a post I did regarding gaming on a Pioneer 110fd vs a 40xbr4. The first picture is of the xbr4 the second of the 110fd. Notice how much more details you see in the tunnel on the 110fd compared to the 40xbr4. Its a great illustration of the better black levels. The 110fd is on d-nice reference settings and the 40xbr4 is on lrstevens newest settings(both the most popular for each model on these forums). The camera I used isn't the best but it was set to manual mode with the same settings for each shot in a pitch black room.

Thanks for the replies. I think the store had the tv's set up to show off the extreme black of the elite compared to xbr4, because at another Best Buy I've gone to the Sony's contrast ratio looked much better than I remembered before, but the Pioneer's detail in blacks looked much better. The store had the sony's backlight all the way on and settings way out of whack. The picture also had alot of motion problems on the Sony, even in slow moving scenes in Law & Order on TNT, but on the Pioneer it was perfectly smooth.

I used to work at Best Buy in the home theater and I know more now than I ever knew when I worked home theater simply because I'm actually looking to buy a set now. But I still could sell home theater as good as Magnolia pro's simply because I would be honest with people and when I didn't know the answer to something I would tell them I didn't know, but would try to find out.

Also at Best Buy the tv's I saw get hooked up, rather in the Magnolia room or on the normal floor, were never calibrated. Should I go to an actual home theater store to try to see sets calibrated or do most stores follow the plug-n-play style.