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5.0 stars
"Get one while you still can."
Pros: Reference level display of high-quality 1080p source material - ie. Blu-ray Disc - in a consumer display. Unequalled black levels and astounding dynamic contrast provide superior image depth and realism, enhancing the willing suspension of disbelief.
Cons: Uninformative documentation written in marketing-speak.
Summary: This is simply the best television available today, no other direct-view television comes close now, or is likely to in the near future. We recently upgraded our Kuro to the 60" PRO 151FD from the 50" PRO 111FD. The screen is a lot bigger - the math says its 44% larger in fact. Here is my take on the 151 and some comparisons to it's smaller sibling.
Very heavy, be careful choosing furniture/mounting.
Hungrily slurps down electricity when turned on. Much more energy efficient when in standby.
* Brightness is sufficient for a room with considerable ambient light.
* Refresh speed and motion resolution are excellent - none of the motion blur artifacts common to LCD screens.
* To my untrained eye, color accuracy, greyscale and gamma are good out of the box in accurate "Pure" mode and promise to be excellent with professional calibration.
* De-interlacing and scaling is good but not excellent. Noise reduction is very good. Just like on the 50", 720p looks soft, implicating the internal scaling, not just the large screen size.
* Displays 24fps at the native frame rate. Though not an advertised, accepts both 50Hz PAL and 60Hz NTSC to display at native frame-rate.
* "Pure Cinema" has been a source of considerable confusion. This setting is not properly explained in the manual, which uses obscure marketing speak that tells you absolutely nothing. This is what the settings have been confirmed to do:
o"Standard": The "source direct" mode. For 1080p24fps materials, it displays at 72Hz using 3:3 pulldown. For interlaced signals (480i and 1080i), traditional 3:2 pulldown detection is applied to display at 60Hz. Leaves (480p, 720p and 1080p) at 60Hz untouched.
o"Smooth": Uses motion interpolation to build intermediate frames. Not active on 1080p60 sources.
o"Advanced": Like "Standard" mode, Displays 1080p24fps materials at 72Hz using 3:3 pulldown. Performs Inverse Telecine (recreates original 24 frames) when film-based video cadence detected to display 72Hz using 3:3 pulldown. Results vary depending on the quality of the source. Not active on 1080p60 sources.
o"Off": 24fps material is displayed at 60Hz using 3:2 pulldown. Film cadence detection is disabled.
* Standard definition processing yields acceptable results through HDMI depending on the quality of the source. Noise reduction options are effective with minimal loss of detail. Highly compressed standard definition sources (e.g. cable) don't make good viewing at this screen size.
* Internal scaling of non-native resolution sources isn't as good as external solutions. Compressed 720 (ABC, ESPN, output at the native resolution) can be pretty soft. Compared to 720p, a Denon 2930 delivers a similar level of detail from PAL DVD upscaled to 1080p. While the Oppo BDP-83's ABT solution is not as strong as the Denon's Reon-based scaling, both are easily better at deinterlacing/scaling DVD test patterns and reference materials than the internal processor.
* Zoom modes are fairly useful. Non-linear stretch mode has a very high level of overscan, making SD materials look even worse.
* Image retention is simply not an issue with sensible viewing. We've not done any sort of "break-in" procedure as suggested in some corners of the internet but we have kept the contrast lower than normal - around 35. Yes, we occassionally pause a BD/DVD and leave the room. We've watched lot's of material in the original aspect ratio with black letterboxes in the first 100 hours. No issues.
* Design: The Bezel of the 151 is slightly larger than the 111 and the stand is of a more robust construction to support the weight - over 100 lbs. The 111, if you can still find one, definitely has sleeker lines but both are elegant when off.
* Built-in Home Media Gallery (DNLA) will display photos, play MP3s from a computer or media server over your network. File support is limited - AAC/FLAC/Apple Lossless files will not play. Great for photos - probably not the most usable solution for Music/Video.
* Our PRO 151 is used as a monitor only so the included speakers are not attached. I can't comment on the sound quality.
Review rig consists of: Oppo BDP-83, Denon 2930, SA 8300HD (Comcast), HDMI pass-through Denon 2308.
I would say that this television actually has a better picture than it's younger sibling but that may be idiosyncatic - each plasma displays some individuality, if you'll pardon the pun. Our PRO 151 shows better brightness uniformity, better color and seems less noisy than the PRO 111 it replaced. We got our 151 at cost well below the lowest advertised on cnet. If you live in the DC area, the folks at Myer-Emco come with my strongest recommendation for buying AV gear - these guys offer great deals, unparalleled customer service and after-purchase care.
Where to buy
Pioneer Elite Kuro PRO-151FD:
$5,859.00
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Amazon.com Marketplace
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$5,859.00 | Yes |
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