Panasonic demos new pdp at kuro elite black levels?

Oh yay, did you also hear the news about Nintendo changing their mascot from Mario to Chuck Norris and that Sony has realized how wrong they were to have supported BluRay, and are now embracing HD-DVD

After these past few years, it's really hard to believe anything any rep from any company tells you. They all fill us full of crap about this type of thing all the time to try and spur interest or push sales. Don't pay any attention to anything like this until they actually put the product on the market for actual consumers and reviewers to tell you the truth.

John,

Thanks for posting.

Was anything said about the tech also doing 3D?

If I were a Vulcan, I would most likely say something similar to the following: "...It is my observation that hope is a human emotion, one that drives your race to believe the impossible is always probable, no matter how unlikely the chance."

Jesus they've been saying this for 2 years. I'll believe it when I see it.

It was the VX300, coming November 2011.

I doubt Panasonic will announce the VX300 before CES 2012.

Everything I've heard is that it's coming out end of this year. Also, remember CES is the consumer electronics show. Do they even show their pro panels there? Never been so I don't know.

That said, as with all "kuro returning" rumors, you're much safer calling bs until there's something official and demonstrated in the wild with hard numbers to back it up. I remember everyone got giddy over the 2010 Panasonics when a guy covering CES posted a video where he noted how dark their sets look, asked if it was using kuro tech (or something to that effect), and the rep gave a kind of vague response suggesting it was. Time will tell.

Eh, no offense but assuming a) your boss told you the truth and wasn't just trying to make a joke or else stimulate sales and b) accurately represented what he saw, c) Panasonic has mislead people about this in the past.

Their explanation of rising blacks was that the sets would "continue to have excellent picture quality" even for those god awful 2009 sets that had a higher MML than a cheap LCD. I've also never heard of manufacturers publishing black level data so it seems unlikely that they would suddenly change positions. Further, it still hasn't been confirmed that 2011/12 sets don't have rising MLL yet so we don't know if it would stay at .001 if that's even accurate and it's a real prototype.

Finally, I wouldn't put it past a disreputable employee to take a 9G kuro, toss on a different bezel, and say "look at this set we're working on". Only way to find out is to wait and see.

I'm not quite ready to accuse anyone of phony results, but as far as I'm concerned no one has beaten the Kuro's MLL until D-Nice says they have.

And in any event the 500M gets down to .0005, so even if Panny eventually gets to .001 they'll still have some work to do to take the title.

There is a few evidence that this may be true. If the VX300 is indeed the improved successor of the VX200 then those black levels may indeed equal to a 9G Kuro.

"However it was the black levels that really impressed and for the first time I saw blacks that matched my Kuro at home. These deep blacks really added to the already excellent picture and created images that were stunning in their clarity, accuracy and dynamism." - Steve Withers AVForums.com

Now he didn't say what the actual MLL was nor was it a side-by-side comparison, but given he has a Kuro at home which he watches daily, I'd probably give him the benefit of the doubt he could make that kind of call. The only other person on the internet who has made public claim to seeing/owning a VX200 is Loves2Watch at HDJ who owns a 103VX200. He also makes claim that the black levels subjectively match a 9G Kuro. Next take Robert at VE who has personally seen a VX300 side by side with VX200's so we know it does exist. I guess there is always the possibility that the plasma the OP boss saw was the BT300ER series which is for the broadcast sector and is supposed to be reference. I certainly hope that the VX300 does truly match/beat 9G Kuros, but the problem then will it be whether its affordable.

2 years ago I told everyone that Kuro would be bested by Panasonic in 2012 in time for the Summer Olympics.

Panasonic might match the KURO's black levels by ~2012, but at this rate I think it'll take them until 2014 to actually be the new kid on the block.

That.

VX300 should be one interesting pc of hardware, but pricey too. Not really a consumer model.