PRODUCT REVIEW: MARCH 9, 2007
Pioneer Elite Pro-FHD1 Plasma Monitor
Pioneer’s PRO-FHD1 is concrete proof that, in the battle between plasma and LCD technology, plasma is just getting warmed up.
You can’t escape it. “1080p” dominates the discussion of HDTV technology these days, from Internet forums to big box store aisles. I’ve covered the topic several times in the past couple of years, cautioning readers not to rush out and buy a new HDTV simply because it says “1080p” on it – particularly those using LCD imaging technology.
Indeed, I have gotten a few letters from readers who purchased 1080p LCD HDTV sets, only to find out the performance of these sets left quite a bit lacking. In particular, SDTV image scaling ranged from bad to atrocious, color quality wasn’t as good as expected, and viewing angles still weren’t wide enough, nor were black levels dark enough.
A couple of months back, I reviewed Panasonic’s TH-50PF9UK 50-inch 1080p plasma monitor and was very happy with it. Plasma still does some things better than LCD, such as black levels, clean grayscales, and accurate color gamuts. So it was with a bit of anticipation that I awaited the arrival of Pioneer’s 50-inch 1080p PRO-FHD1 plasma monitor.
Turns out, the wait was well worth it! 1080p resolution is the big news for plasma manufacturers in 2007, with new 50-inch consumer models expected from Panasonic, LG, and Samsung. Will that tilt the tables in favor of plasma?
Figure 1. Pioneer’s Elite PRO-FHD1 is all about style.
OUT OF THE BOX
First off, let me stress that the PRO-FHD1 is strictly a monitor. There’s no built-in NTSC or ATSC tuner, although there is an internal stereo amplifier (minus speakers). You’ll need an external set-top box or DVD player to watch anything through the panel’s component video, dual HDMI, or DVI-D connectors.
That means the PRO-FHD1 is really targeted more as a home theater installation product than a stand-alone HDTV, although we’ll no doubt see one of those later in 2007. The finish is Pioneer’s usual “glamour puss” gloss black, around a thick bezel. The PRO-FHD1 would look good in any room, but will be the focal point of a home theater.
Pioneer continues to tinker with plasma technology to get better color, higher contrast, and more natural images, so it’s not surprising to see enhancements like their unique PRO First Surface Color Filter, a Crystal Emissive Layer, and yet another re-design of Pioneer’s waffle-like pixel structure incorporated into the PRO-FHD1.
The supplied remote control is thrifty in its use of buttons (something I love in a remote) and it’s pretty easy to navigate through inputs and functions. The only knock I have against Pioneer is that the inputs are numbered, not named like DVI or Component (why not?). That makes it a bit confusing at times to remember where you’ve hooked things up. (And get rid of that composite video connector – who needs it on a 1080p HDTV?)
MENUS
The menu structure is also intuitive, although you’ll need to go deep into some sub-menus to gain access to key settings like RGB contrast and gain, noise reduction, and pixel mapping. The good news is, you actually have access to those controls without going through the usual Pioneer “secret handshake” gyrations, special passwords, PINs, etc.
There are five image presets – Dynamic, Pure, Standard, Movie, and Game – plus a User mode in which you can pretty much fiddle with any parameter you wish. The Pure mode is of special interest as it pretty much removes all image processing enhancements and sets an optimum combination of grayscale and brightness. Needless to say, it’s the mode you’d probably want to use for viewing movies.
As usual, Pioneer has provided five color temperature presets. Additional tweaks include six aspect ratio settings and two digital noise reduction modes, the second of which handles MPEG (mosquito) noise. While I did make extensive use of the basic NR, I left the MPEG circuit switched off and aimed instead for delivering clean HD from outboard optical disc and hard drive sources to evaluate the display.
Additional settings include a six-primary color management system, a color transient improver, natural re-sizing, and a digital chroma decoder. The only thing that seems to be missing is additional whitening to make your clothes lighter, lemon scent to make them smell fresher, and – oh, never mind…
It really doesn’t matter how many of these PRO-FHD1 menu options you have access to. What does matter is that you can access them as an end-user, and not as a service technician who is standing on his head, cycling the power on and off while reciting the Declaration of Independence backwards and using his Cocoa Marsh secret decoder ring. (Yes, it really was that difficult to get into older Pioneer plasma service menus!)
ON THE TEST BENCH
The PRO-FHD1 originally showed up as one of my featured displays from February’s Super Bowl HDTV Party, so it got a critical performance evaluation before I actually calibrated it. (Not that it needed all that much help…) The PRO-FHD1 was placed at the back end of my basement theater, 20 feet away from the 82-inch Stewart matte screen that was showing 1080p images from Mitsubishi’s HC5000.
Tough call, as it turned out — both had excellent color quality, the Pioneer had somewhat better blacks, both showed remarkable image detail. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
My test sources included HD test patterns in 720p and 1080i modes from an AccuPel HDG2000, scaled 1080p video from OPPO’s DV-981H player, 720p and 1080i HD content from Motorola DCT6000 and LG LST-3410 set-top boxes, and high bit rate HD from Toshiba’s HD-A2 HD DVD player. (And no, the PRO-FHD1 did not explode when I plugged the Toshiba into it!)
While Pioneer’s factory has done an excellent job of setting up the various image presets
In the PRO-FHD1, I discovered you’re still better off setting up the grayscale on your own. That’s because this plasma monitor can really crank out the nits, but you’ll see clipping at the high end of the grayscale as a result.
Figure 2. The PRO-FHD1’s gamma curves, using factory settings and my calibration.
Notice the clipping at 135 nits in factory mode.
Figure 3. The PRO-FHD1 tracks white balance consistently at 20 IRE and above.
I measured over 165 nits (48.24 ft-L) in Dynamic mode, using a small area white test pattern and 74 nits (21.6 ft-L) with a full screen white pattern. Oddly enough, the 74-nit reading was not in Dynamic mode, but in User mode after calibration! Brightness levels varied by only 11% across the various image presets, using that same full white screen.
Contrast numbers were impressive, ranging from 701:1 ANSI (average) to 790:1 peak in User mode. The low black levels (.16 nits on average) had a lot to do with that. You can get even higher peak contrast readings in Dynamic (1577:1) and Pure (1368:1) modes.
However, grayscale tracking was not smooth in Standard mode, as the display began clipping the signal at about 135 nits. I set the peak brightness to 140 nits and created a much smoother grayscale with a Gamma of about 2.6, as seen in Figure 2. (2.6 is the gamma specification for digital cinema, by the way.)
Tracking a consistent color temperature across a grayscale has always been one of plasma’s strengths, and the PRO-FHD1 turns in a yeoman performance here. Figure 3 shows the measured color temperature while using the factory “Mid” color temperature setting and the resulting track after I went in and recalibrated the set.
The total shift in color temperature from 20 IRE to 100 IRE was just 445 Kelvin, which is outstanding performance for any display. Not only that, the total shift across a full white screen was even more impressive at just 375 Kelvin. (The steep plunge out of high color temperatures at 10 and 20 IRE is usually a result of errors in the measuring device at such low luminance levels.)
You won’t see any false contours or banding on the PRO-FHD1 with a 256-level luminance ramp. Only two plasma manufacturers have consistently cleared this hurdle (Panasonic is the other one) and it, along with tight grayscale color tracking, is key to replacing CRT technology.
Speaking of colors, I plotted the raw color gamut for the PRO-FHD1 and found that the green phosphor contains a bit too much cyan and not enough yellow to be able to precisely match the REC.709 HDTV color space. The result is a much brighter image overall, but color accuracy suffers somewhat. Figure 4a shows the raw gamut, while 4b displays the constrained gamut compared to the REC.709 color space.
Figure 4a-b. The choice of a green phosphor with more cyan in it results in overall brighter images, but makes it difficult to calibrate the PRO-FHD1 precisely to the REC.709 color space.
IMAGE QUALITY TESTS
If you haven’t been too thrilled with the quality of HDTV on any of the 1080p sets you’ve checked out at big box stores, go directly to your local Magnolia or Tweeter and have them cue up a blue laser DVD on the PRO-FHD1. The amount of image detail you’ll see is mind-boggling. (I like King Kong on HD-DVD for this test.)
With a clean 1080i feed, such as CBS-owned DTV stations send out, you’ll also be impressed with HD football, basketball, and golf. Discovery HD also showed exceptionally well on the PRO-FHD1, particularly anything shot on the latest HD cameras, not 16mm film transferred to HD.
With proper adjustment, you’ll see pictures that are among the most photorealistic possible from an electronic display of any kind. CBS’ 2007 Super Bowl coverage was a good example: Even though it rained for most of the game, the sideline and bench shots of players and coaches were like looking through a glass partition – as if you could reach out and touch them. Very impressive.
Although the PRO-FHD1’s signal bandwidth seems to roll off above 20 MHz, it had no trouble with the film and video resolution tests on the new Realta HQV HD DVD. I saw no objectionable flicker and proof-a-plenty that the two 1080i fields in each frame were properly interpolated and woven together for maximum detail with minimum flicker and jitter.
Guess what? SDTV ain’t too shabby through the PRO-FHD1, either. Although SD content is definitely soft compared to HD sources, it doesn’t have the extreme pixilated edges and false contours I’ve seen on LCD 1080p sets, such as Sharp’s LC-52D62U. Park yourself back about 8–10 feet, and you won’t really notice problems with SD video, either. (If you are fussy enough, pick up an outboard scaler and switch all of your less-than-1080 sources through it for the best viewing experience.)
CONCLUSIONS
In a word – wow. Pioneer has really outdone itself this time, raising the bar for all competing display technologies when it comes to 1080p imaging. (And it’s only going to get better with their next-gen plasmas this summer!) The only nit I could pick was the formulation of the green phosphor, which doesn’t have enough yellow in it to completely cover the REC.709 gamut. (And how about naming the inputs instead of numbering them, Pioneer?)
Power consumption notes: In an eight-hour power consumption test while displaying widescreen SDTV programs, the PRO-FHD1 averaged 399.4 watts while operating in User mode. A total of 2.847 KWH of power was consumed during the test.
