Pioneer 4270HD vs. Sammy HP-S4253

..that is a tough call..They are very comparable in features and design now. Pioneer has the removeable speaker on the bottom is one little difference. They now both have dual HDMI's. Pioneer removed their MR..otherwise alot of people go that direction. Pioneer has a memory card slot on their new model, but no DCR. Sammy also removed the DCR in the HPSxx53 series, but the 73 series will have it on there..

Not true. The 4270/4271 does not have a removable speaker: only the 5070/5071. The older 4360/4361 and 5060/5061 also have removable speakers.

I didnt realize the 42" didnt. I saw the PDF on the 50" and must have assumed the 42" also offered that option. Thanks for clarifying Platypus.

Unless Samsung recently got a lot better or the new Pioneers got a lot worse, I'd say there is no contest.

Pioneer

They are both really good sets. The Pioneer is considerably more money though, so you need to ask yourself if the diff (assuming it favors the Pioneer) is worth a grand or so more that the Pioneer costs.

I would advise bringing in your own source (DVD) that you know and watch it on both and see which you prefer. Or have the sales person get the sets on a station that you watch a lot, say Discovery HD for example, as oposed to some junk feed that the store pipes to all the sets.

Locate the remotes and make sure as best you can that they are adjusted at least semi-correctly. You may have to seek out a smaller non-chain store to do this in, but it's worth it.

That's what I did, and ended up with the Samsung HP-S5053. No regrets about that call, either. Sammy seems to have a brighter picture, the Pioneer has somewhat more intense color. Which looks more natural to you?

Pioneer has a cablecard slot still, and instead of a memory card slot, it has a usb jack on the side for camera, card reader, or flash memory to look at pictures. No memory card slot. Pio is also set to receive 1080p24. Samsung is nice, but the color isn't quite there compared to the Pioneer imho.

Also, BB can't feed their tv's discovery HD, they have a HD loop running all day from a computer controlled by corporate.

It's terrible that stores like BB manipulate the input source to sell TVs.

how they manipulate input source, most of the displays nowadayz have built in tuner? or do you mean the demo they run all day?

"Also, BB can't feed their tv's discovery HD, they have a HD loop running all day from a computer controlled by corporate."

One of my points was that it may be best to NOT buy at BB, CC, etc. because their feeds are often soooo low quality it's really hard to judge a set's potential. nasahn has the right idea, hooking up a dvd player to the sets you are interested in will give you a better basis by which to judge performance.

Nonsense. Ever seen the two side by side..?

Today I saw both side by side. Somehow the samsung looks sharper than the Pio 4071 with cox feed on both ( HD Channel). But the pixel structure is more obvious on the sammy.

The sales guy said the pio should be better and tried to tweak the settings to make it sharper but the pic still looks soft on pioneer with its build in tuner.

Anyone else noticed this before? Would the feed contribute to this?

did not get chance to see SD on both sets.

Paul71,
To be fair I haven't seen the 2 side by side. I bought a 5060 last November and love it, so I am biased. However, when I was shopping last year, one of the main reasons why I got the Pioneer was that SD looked relatively good on the Pioneer compared to any other set I looked at, and significantly better than Samsung. I only asked a salesman to feed a Samsung an SD feed once, and after seeing it, never considered Samsung. Perhaps is was just a bad feed, but it really turned me off Samsung.

When comparing Pioneer and Samsung with a good HD feed, the difference is much less, and comes down to what looks good to you. However since I still watch a lot of SD content (as many people still do) I spent the extra money on Pioneer. Has the SD PQ improved on Samsung?

Well I have seen and tested both side by side... I'm talking of european versions of Samsung and Pioneer 50" sets called PS-50P5H and PDP-506FDE both 2005 models.

With HD feeds of good quality the Samsung is slightly better, since the Pioneer seem to have probs with clean deinterlacing of 1080i material. Never compared 720p feeds since sources in this format are not availabe here...

With SD feeds (576i/p) of good quality they are both good, but both with specific weak points. You can make the picture of the Samsung "Pioneer-like" by switching DNIe off and turning down sharpness but you cannot make the Pioneer look that "vivid" as Samsung. This is a large disadvantage of the Sammy..: much more difficult to calibrate even impossible with DNIe on.

I observed false-contour effects on both sets but in different situations: On Pioneers more frequent but hardly visible, on Samsung very rare (actually only in scenes which require large contrast range - dark and bright colour gradients at once) but when they occur then they are easy to recognize...This applies to HD signals too.

The Pioneer deals better with feeds of bad quality, like bad analogue UHF signal, for example. They apply a lot of filtering and smoothing to the picture while Samsung does not. This does not make the bad signals look good, but watchable.

Taking this into consideration (and the huge price difference between the two, I had to pay almost 2k more for the pioneer) I ended up with the Sammy, which now I had for 4 months...

Ciao

I want to keep this topic alive because I'm still torn between the two. I was all but ready to buy the 4270hd today but I keep hearing that the Samsungs are sharper.

Has anyone that owns one of these worked out the sharpness issue? I really can't live without a razor sharp picture.. esp going into the hd-dvd world. If the Samsungs are obviously sharper (without distorting picture) then I'm going to have to re-think the Pio.

The 4270hd fits into my budget just as easy as any Samsung.. but I won't buy one if I am unable to see the sweat pores on the faces while watching soccer. <---funny, i know

It's just silly to believe that Best Buy or other similar stores manipulate their feed to sabotage one set to sell another. Allegations like that are without merit and simply serve to add to the piles of rumor-filled garbage that some like to spew on the forum.

Best Buy is guilty of plenty, but this is a little farfetched!

I was at BB today, ands saw them side by side. The big difference seemed to be that the Pio had a warmer, or greenish cast to it while the Samsung HP-S4253 was more natural in color, also noticed a slight softness to Pio 4271.
However Pio colors were slightly more intense, and it is a beautiful set, no doubt about that.
But it also cost a full $1,000USD more. Cannot say that anything that I saw would cause me to want to spend another $1,000 for no real adavntage. Especially when that Samsung really is so good. I would rather invest that extra cash into a new HD-DVD or BD player.

I'm thinking the same thing. Hd-dvd alongside the Sammy should make for big entertainment.

Now how about the s5053? I've heard different opinions about the razor sharpness of a 50" pdp. One guy says that 42" will always show a clearer image and the 50" has to blow up the pixels. Another guy tells me that the 50" panels have more resolution so it should still be tight. I don't care for SD content anymore.. the only time I'll turn on my set is when I either have a hd movie or 360/PS3 ready.

So can I expect the same performance from the s5053 as in the s4243? This should hopefully be my last question before pulling the trigger. I'm going for one or the other at this point.

Thanks

I have the S5053, and it has a very crisp picture especially in HD. Very clean PQ. Its performance will track that of tyhe 4253, except that the 4253 may have an ever-so-slight edge in absolute sharpness.
I think it's so slight as to not be meaningful. But that's me. I would advise that you compare them and see if you think the dif is that big a deal. I didn't, and got the 50" and could not be happier.
But then I also sit back from my set about 10 feet. If you're in there at 8 feet or less, the 42" may be the better bet. It all depends on your comfort level.

We have a bad quality Comcast signal coming into our house. Part of the blame also lies with the builder who installed crappy RG-59 cable in some of the rooms. Most of these signal problems have been fixed when I installed a Radio Shack cable amplifier. Picture now looks very good on our old tube CRT sets. Does anyone know if an amplifier has any effect on the plasmas ability to filter and scale the SD picture? I think I would have to spend the extra bucks for the Pioneer to ensure a "wife acceptable" SD picture.

nasahn,

While I will be the first to admit that I have seen Pioneer sets look a bit soft in some stores, I happened yesterday to be in a store where a Samsung and Pioneer Elite were next to each other in a well light controled setting. At first glance, the Samsung looked better balanced since the Pioneer had the normal, for stores, oversaturated colors. They may "pop" but are just not natural. No grass is THAT green!!

Upon further examination, I noticed a characteristic on the Samsung that is different than your observation, a lack of detail in terms of surface texture. The scene, in D*TV hidef was a closeup of a man's finger. It was night and day difference, not at all subtle. The pores and skin wrinkles that provide realistic texture were all present on the Pioneer but many were absent on the Samsung. While some of this could be calibration, I attribute this primarily to differences in the video processing or perhaps drive electronics, not necessarily the glass, component of the respective sets.

To be fair, it was the Elite version of the Pioneer. The regular line was not present. Otherwise, I thought the PQ of the Samsung quite good. I certainly appreciate Samsung's styling and think their prices are outstanding, however, I suspect they still have some catching up to do in the quality department. But they seem to be catching up fast.

You definitely won't be disapointed with either tv. The pioneer definitly has brighter, more intense, and less natural colors than the samsung or any other plasma. I have noticed that the samsung has a little bit more dot crawl than the pioneer. The only thing about the pioneer that I don't like, is that it burns in MUCH easier than any other plasma. Be careful watching espn especially. As for the person who suggested that best buy is manipulating the feed to make certain tv's look better, that is ridiculous and dead wrong. It would take way too much work to send certain feeds to certain tv's, especially as often as the tv's are moved around to different spots. While the hd feed at best buy may not be the best, it is identical to every tv. If the picture looks better on one tv than it does on another, chances are you will have the same result when using a better or worse hd feed. Also, every tv with a built in hd-tuner should be connected to the roof top antenna, so you could change the channel to view OTA broadcasts if you want to see a different hd feed.

I've seen the same tv's moved to different places in best buy and with the moves the picture quality changes dramatically. I'm not sure why but I've noticed this many times. I don't think Best Buy intentionally manipulates the signal to specific televisions. I do not think every television in the store gets the same exact signal strength. The location in one way or another makes a difference.

The best bet may be to go to a smaller store where you can bring your own material (DVD's) and see which one is the better. It really is a good way to go. Then there is no such question about bad store feeds, etc. If you cannot do thta, then stick with a store with a generous return policy...just in case.

As a Best Buy Home Theatre employee I can tell you w/ all confidence that the statement about us manipulating feeds is false. I own the Sammy S4253 because I prefered the color tones, and it's much better bang-for-the-buck.

It's because our equipment is really crappy, and inconsistent.