Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kieland 
Ok, I
have a hard time deciding between the panny 65" PZ and the 60" Elite.
My living room is 18x18, given 2' tv from wall and 3' couch from other end, gives ~13 feet viewing distance, is 60" ok????
These images are very so tempting... tempting! tempting!
I am considering pulling the trigger and moving the sofa closer.
I have been in the same position - as I have wanted a larger screen. Following are my observations on both displays as I was fortunate enough to view these locally adjacent to each other. (BB - Magnolia room - Glendale, AZ 101 & Bell) - the Sammy 63 was also adjacent - but that is a different discussion
Please note these are my opinion (coming from a calibrated 1140) and YMMV. The light conditions in the Magnolia room are darker than the main floor, but not home viewing lighting, as least they were much brighter than my typical home environment. While darker, there was still significant light spill from the main BB showroom and both sets were near the entrance to the Magnolia area. I measured 8ft back from each display and used that for my viewing position.
Initially I played with the settings with both displays and set the pro 150 to D Nice settings in this thread and the Panny to the settings found in the PZ thread. (I later played a bit with a scene from the Fifth element)
The sources were as follows:
Direct TV HD receiver (each display had their own) set to native
Sony BluRay Player
Casino Royale (SD version)
Planet Earth(BR version - jungle episode)
Fifth Element - Super Bit
Dinosaurs (Blu Ray)
Invincible's(Blu Ray)
Pirates of the Car - Dean Mans Chest(Blu Ray)
I tuned both displays to ESPNHD - where the mon nite pregame show was on. Both handled this admirably and as the backdrop of this show is colorful, both displays looked great. A common theme started here and the Panny looked a bit - I do mean a small bit - more muted in the colors as compared to the Pioneer. I did not play any further with the color settings on the Panny - so it may be that proper calibration can make them more intense. This observation holds throughout all the material I viewed on the Panny - the color rendition appeared to be deeper and better on the Pioneer. I would liken the Panny colors to that of the 6070 - with the pro 150 being more vibrant and true. I am not sure if I was viewing these independently I would be able to see this as clearly..
There was some minor mosquito noise in the long shots of the sports panel - noticeable around the head of the middle speaker. This was prevalent on both displays - however the Pioneer handled this slightly better than the Panny. Size also plays a factor here as at an equivalent seating distance it was more noticeable on the larger display(panny). The camera work Monday nite was very good and by a small margin I preferred the Panny for viewing this game - mostly due to size. Given this was a football game - black levels and even the more muted colors did not make up for the feel of the 5 inches - which made the display seem much larger than the Pioneer.
There was also a NASCAR show on and again - preferred the Panny. Both displays and processing appeared equal being fed the signal.
Moving on to SD - 480i - using a local newscast and something from HG. I viewed both sets. The Panny was a mess. Although in the past I have been fond of the justmode for SD on the Panny - nothing seemed to help the inability of the Panny to scale SD correctly. It was simply unwatchable. Keeping in mind this is crap-o-vision - the Pioneer - while not great by any standards - was tolerable. I watch so little anymore in SD (Torchwood on the BBC being my lone SD show) that this factor was not make or break for me. But the Pioneer was better by a LARGE margin here. For me - this large investment in an HD set would not be made by SD criteria.YMMV
Moving on to some HD material - popped in Dinosaurs (two copies) and viewed for about 15 minutes on both sets. Putting the more muted colors of the Panny aside - very clean and as most HD sets do with animation - just a joy to watch. (Even if the content is not
) Again I preferred the Panny due to the size and the better immersion resulting from that.
Planet Earth provided a similar feeluntil we got to the infamous froggy scenes.the depth of color and realism provided by the Pioneer overshadowed the larger screen size. Shadow detail and color of the branches, the frogs silhouetted aginst these and a more 3-D effect was rendered marginally better on the Pioneer. For the first time in my viewing - the better contrast and black levels of the Pioneer emerged - even in the poor showroom conditions. There also is some grain in the evening/night shots that in part due to the larger size of the Panny and perhaps not as good NR features was much more prevalent on the Panny than the Pioneer.
I used the bar scenes and the evening football game scenes of Invincible's - again two copies - and viewed some more. This film has a significant amount of grain and the color cast is very reminiscent of the 80's. Both displays handled this well and both provided a clean picture (given the intentional grain). I marginally preferred the Panny here - mostly due to size. Color rendition looked spot on for both sets. Unable to discern any real differences in black/contrast - due to both material and the showroom lighting conditions.
Onto Pirates.really nice transfer too
.using the scenes where he is tied up about to burn and then escape and the rolling ball cage - viewed both sets. (two disks again) Occasionally I would get a fleeting feel that the Pioneer had better black levels - but given the showroom lighting - really hard to tell. The larger picture was more immersive and both displays showed this flick cleanly. Again - small margin here - preferred the Panny. (Colors were slightly more muted as already observed)
I used the superbit transfer (my own) of the Fith Element - due to the BR version just s**cking. This is a disk I probably know by heart and have used for many yearsthere were a couple of scenes I wanted to use to check out both sets. Primarily looking for color rendition, contrast, black levels and shadow detail. Only had the one disk - so had to go back and forth - not as good as viewing at the same time obviously. Early on in the movie as the professor brushes away at the hieroglyphics and the aliens enter - there is a scene where the aliens are silhouetted by three light circles above them. The aliens armour/skin should appear multiple shades of bronze with glints of highlights. Playing this scene on the Pioneer was a joy. Perfect light circles, clean and crisp and the rendition of the various shades of bronze - just beautiful. Very 3-D like. The shadows cast by the light upon the aliens and resulting glints were just perfect. The Panny on the other hand was much flatter in appearance. And in fact took on a more LCD like appearance as if the backlight was set too high. I them moved onto the scene where the spaceship is back dropped by earth with the engines firing. As you play with contrast and brightness controls on the set - you can almost make it appear as if the engines of the spaceship are firing on and off. Very helpful for setting contrast/brightness (ala steaming rat method). As you play with these settings - turning down contrast to the point at which the spaceship appears 3_D against the earth and then varying brightness to achieve a realistic flare from the engines (again not as if they are turning off and on) started showing the significant differences in these displays. While the Panny was bigger - the ability to render the spaceship in a very 3-D like way - as if it was coming out of the set was easily achievable on the Pioneer. Was never able to get the balance quite right on the Panny and it appeared much flatter. The back starfield was much grainier and cloudier on the Panny than on the Pioneer and the shadow detail of the ship was rendered cleaner on the Pioneer. Achieving the same level of shadow detail for the ship on the Panny caused an LCD like haze to appear due to brightness and contrast being set too high. I didn't play much with other scenes for color as the Pioneer already had shown (gieven the color setting I had for the Panny) to be better here. I much preferred the Pioneer on this film to the Panny and not by a small margin.
Last but not least.I then used scene 22 from the SD version of Casino Royale (they only had one) and flicked back and forth between the sets. I used this to look at upconverted SD material (as a fair bit of what I watch tends to be upconverted) They also would not let me use a number of my own material due to content not appropriate or copyright issues. (IE 300 etc - go figure - so I worked with what they would let me use)
This scene is very grainy, shot at night with weird lighting. (Torture/capture scenes). Similar to the experience I had with SD material - the Panny was a real mess displaying this. Blotchy blacks, significant grain and other artifacts blown up. I personally would consider this unwatchable for any length of time on the Panny. The Pioneer did a much better job. Did not ever make if HD like - but was more tolerable and watchable. Much cleaner.Note - both sets were using the same player outputting 1080i upconverted to the sets. So all processing to 1080i was handled by the identical players and then fed to the displays.
Sorry for the long read.but perhaps some of my observations might be something that you can replicate and see for yourself.
At the end of the day - as much as I would want the larger size and it factored in a number of area's - I still watch a fair amount of upconverted material and the Pioneer was much better here. As well - shadow detail and darker material were better on the Pioneer for the most part. I did not see night and day differences in black levels as the KURO's have been touted. But I attribute that to the material I had to view and the lighting conditions. This may very well be very discernable for me in my home viewing situation.
For me the choice between these two sets would be the Pioneer 150.
