Plasma decision panasonic vs pioneer?

When you compare the two sets at the store which do you like best? You have to live with it

You will find no final answer here. The only opinion that really counts is yours. Take a long, hard look at both displays. Consider the features, the looks of the set, and final price.

If you like both I'd go with the Panasonic. It is sounding like TV technology may take a significant increase in PQ the next few years and the $1k you save could be put towards an upgrade . Just my opinion anyway.

The choice is up to you..did a price check..on average the Pioneer will cost about 500 dollars more. I believe the Panny would serve you well.

iam in the same boat as you. i too wanted to go originally with panasonic but after seeing the pioneer i was torn between the two. I did find that the pioneer in my opinion had better picture and color settings. plus it looks way better too.
of course the price tag on pioneer makes me step back and go back to panasonic, but everything else always bring me back to pioneer.

I say if you think saving 600 is worth it just to settle for something less then i think you are wrong. I made my decision to go with pioneer. Yes i spend more now, but when you factor in your enjoyment level from watching tv you really want ... there is no price tag on that.

you know u want the pioneer. Go For It! you can always save a few bucks by staying in and watching some movies.

I dont think the warranty is worth it. Chances of something happening are very slim. save yet another few bucks

i looked at both of these sets, and thought both had outstanding PQ, head and shoulders above the rest. i'd give the slight edge to the pioneer in image quality, but i ended up going with the panny. that small difference in PQ wasn't worth the extra 1K it would have taken to get the pio. that is the type of personal decision each of us ends up having to make, no matter what advice we get from others.

To answer your 1080P input question:

The display resolution of both screens (pioneer and Panny) is 1024x768 in the 42" models. If in the future you purchased a Blu-ray player that could display films in true 1080P resolution, you could feed this non-processed image directly into the Pioneer and the Pioneer would only have to process the picture once to get the 1024x768 resolution.

With the Panny, you'd have to set the Blu-ray player to process the image into 1080i format before sending it to the TV. The Panny would then have to process this 'already processed' signal to get to the 1024x768 resolution. It is always better to have the picture processed only once or not at all (with a pioneer ProFHD1).

In my local bb, the pioneers always look best. I don't think they do any adjustments, though so if you want the best otb performance, they may be the best bet, despite the cost difference. Then again, the pioneers 3:3 pull down is not something you should take lightly if a big movie fan. If it was my main display, and I planned on keeping it 3 years as my main display, it would be the pioneer.

Also, as far as the warranty goes, I just purchased the 50" pioneer and did not get the extended warranty even though it was offered to me at a very low price (less than $300 for four additional years). I did however use my Platinum Visa which has 'Purchase Guard' which doubles the manufacturer's warranty up to an additional year for free. Check your credit cards as many offer similar benefits.

Very good advice. I purchased a 50 inch Panny and it looks good to me, I don't care about Gary Merson's test, which to me is a "red herring". I plan to have it calibrated later on. Most people are not optimizing the displays and getting most out of them anyway. Keeping updated of the SED front helped me to make my decision. Go cheap now and save money that can go towards a true upgrade.

But I understand that the Panny's have better blacks, something you really shouldn't take lightly if you are a movie buff.

Yes I believe so, and I'm glad I got a panasonic myself, but I wish they did 72Hz.

Rentz, I agonized over the same choices for a long time. I've also seen your kind of question come up time and time again. As many had pointed out, both sets are very much similar in many features. It boils down to your PQ preference and how much you're willing to spend.

FTR, I pulled a plug on 4270 today. It'll be delivered next Saturday. Woo Hoo!

That depends. On/Off ratio....absolutely. ANSI...hell no.

You may want to contact one of the forum sponsors like Invision Displays

both are good sets, but Pioneers have the better overall picture (better color rendering, better glass, better scaler), while the panny's are said to have better blacks (i dont see that at all with the Elites whatsoever).

another thing to consider is, you will not be able to use the PIP functionality with the Panny if you are feeding your source via HDMI!! one of those wierd quorks Panny's have.

Panny's are cheaper though, and very good PQ, so if you wanna save a few $$ it would be the way to go, but my vote goes to Pioneer

Not correct. The Panasonic accepts 1080p input as well.

I was caught in the same dilemma not more than 45 days ago. But based on my research I thought panny was the clear choice and never even considered pioneer, but when viewing the panny it didn't overly impress especially with rapid/fast action where movement looked crude to put it nicely and also flesh tones somewhat artificial. Like others I was drawn to the pioneer due to the black bezel (can't stand silver) and processor/software that rendered superior fast-action. IMO, if you want great deep blacks and value the pannies are a good choice, but pioneers although pricier they to my eye provide a noticeably better picture quality. If I could fault the pioneer would be that greens are overly saturated tending to look artificial. The best advise anyone can give is let your eyes judge and after considering factors important to you make your decision.

if you want size and are not too interested in PQ, the SXRD is also good.....but its nowhere NEAR the Pioneer Elite PQ for example! Specially with no-to good HD sources and SD/NTSC.

Click on my sig and you will see what I've had (1 LCD rptv, 3 SXRDs, now the plasma Elite 1130.....) in the past 1.5 years. If you do a good burn-in for the first 200hours of your plasma, you wont have to worry about IR

good luck

I'm in the same boat right now . Can't decide between 600u/5070/9uk .

While I've accepted that picture looks better on Pioneers in store. I wish there were some pics of calibrated Panny next to Pio, because in stores those Vivid settings ruin
Panasonic picture.

Right now for me the most important factor is how susceptible these displays to the image retention. Iamb a movie buff so I prefer watching everything in the correct AR, that means black bars. And I watch a lot of vintage movies and that means black bars on the sides.
From what I read on this forum, it seems Pioneer threads have more reports of people who seems to be experiencing IR. Panasonic looks to be more robust in this area.

Is there any review/research that specifically tests for IR issues ?

At first I was looking to get one of the 9UK Pannys, but after doing some more research it looks like the Pio 5070 might be the way to go for me.....even though they are very expensive

[quote=KLee]At first I was looking to get one of the 9UK Pannys, but after doing some more research it looks like the Pio 5070 might be the way to go for me.....even though they are very expensive [/QUOTe


The Pioneer 5070 is only about $500 more than a Panny commercial unit, which you have to buy a stand for and, probably, a HDMI board.

If a person is comparing a commercial monitor like a Panny it is best, also, to compare it with a monitor such as the Pioneer 507cmx. In the end, they are both about same price.

I game all the time somdays 6+ hours. Late at night drinking beer when there's nothing to do. Play in game mode. It keeps settings @50% I gamed after 50hr just for a hour or so.BUt I play shooters like Halo2 live and Call of Duty . Screen always changes. Arcade or rpg games I would be careful. But @4mo later no ir no burning. Game mode keeps the power down also so it's not so bright. You would never beable to tell the pic is awesome. PPL get IR when tv isn't broken or settings are to high