Hands-on with Pioneer's extreme contrast concept plasma

Pioneer put on an evening pre-CES demo for Engadget, showing off two concepts focusing on advanced design (the 9mm-thick Kuro) and extreme contrast. Bringing everyone into a darkened room, Pioneer VP of Marketing and Product Planning Paul Meyhoefer reiterated Pioneer's target audience of the high-end home theater enthusiast, and what better place could there be to demo a home theater display than in a darkened room? Once the lights went down, we were treated to a short film on contrast, and the challenges of producing a wide range of values. As anyone who has watched a display in a dark room knows, you can see the edges of the display from the faint glow of the backlight that always seems to be present, even in the darkest of scenes.

That's when another image appeared literally out of the blackness, with a second plasma display turned on and showing a pitch-black background for the duration of the demo. Pioneer demoed their concept set directly next to the current 8th-generation PDP-5010FD 1080p plasma Kuro plasma, and utterly destroyed even its vaunted performance. The Kuro line dropped idle luminance by over 80% compared to the 7th gen plasmas, and this demo was intended to show just how far the technology can continue to go under Pioneer's guidance. Color us very impressed, and saddened by the realization that this concept could go a generation or more before it becomes fully integrated into the Pioneer plasma lineup.

Gallery: Hands-on with Pioneer's extreme contrast concept plasma

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[darcyv @ Jan 7th 2008 2:39AM]

My new 5010FD cries with jealousy

I can't wait to upgrade when these eventually arrive

[BarryBee @ Jan 7th 2008 2:47AM]

If your 5010FD is only jealous, than my lc42d64u just attempted suicide. Looks like i'll have to start saving my pennies. ...maybe.

[Chuckles McGee @ Jan 7th 2008 6:26AM]

Hey, it's due out in a product's "generation or more". Time to start saving now!

[boe @ Jan 7th 2008 10:46AM]

I've got an older 65" RPTV that still looks as good as just about any new TV but I'm more than happy to plop down a big wad o' cash if Pioneer or Panasonic will start making reasonably priced 80" - not much incentive to upgrade to a newer TV if it is only thinner and not much available 1080p that I'm willing to invest in. Don't get me wrong, I want 1080p but I want a much bigger high quality TV even more. Most of my friends who have 65" TVs are in the same boat - we are willing to upgrade but we all want bigger but don't want to go down the projection road at this point.

[Deputy Doffoos @ Jan 7th 2008 2:40AM]

So we are talking of year 2010 in shelves, right?

$3000-4000 ?


Just to know how much money I have to say.

[Deputy Doffoos @ Jan 7th 2008 2:41AM]

(ON shelves, excuse teh engrish spelling skillz)

[boe @ Jan 7th 2008 10:34AM]

Two questions -

1 When will the future version be available?
2 Will the future version be available in 80"?

[Sherman Lai @ Jan 7th 2008 10:39AM]

I do believe this technology is called High Dynamic Range (HDR) and it uses either LED's or plasmas behind each pixel, and turns them on off, or anything in between. This enables you to attain this dynamic range people are looking for. About 2 years ago, a 40"er could be bought for *ahem* $40,000 *ahem*. Not sure about right now.

[CosterMonger @ Jan 7th 2008 10:45AM]

get ready to spray-paint your windows
that contrast depth is sick

but I though we were all going to have 80-100 inch televisions in 2010
{jokingly, I hate consumerism but that makes me a hypocrite}

[Steve @ Jan 7th 2008 11:26AM]

Your PDP-5010FD should not be jealous - the one they have used here in the comparison is obviously not calibrated correctly.
I'm sure the new extreme contrast will be great, but I've never seen my PDP-5010FD look as awful as the one they're showing in some of these shots.

[Joe @ Jan 8th 2008 3:49PM]

Perhaps the camera that engadget used adjusted for the low light, raising the contrast for the entire picture. very hard to tell something like this unless you're standing there. Maybe Erik can elaborate on what the real-life comparison looked like.

That 3rd pic is just ridiculous. I don't think I've seen cheapo laptop LCDs look that bad.

[Sly @ Jan 7th 2008 12:00PM]

yeah there is no way that the 5010FD looks that bad

[Eric @ Jan 7th 2008 3:01PM]

I think my Bravia just killed itself.

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ Jan 7th 2008 7:47PM]

Pioneer Kuro now is what Trinitron used to be. Sucks to now be Sony.

[SJT @ Jan 10th 2008 7:06PM]

W - O - W.

[SJT @ Jan 7th 2008 2:35AM]

Amazing how they made the best product and then blew it completely out of the freaking water. LCD has nothing on this... but some of the other new techs might.

[Carlosd @ Jan 11th 2008 4:50PM]

Steve, you dont get it. The Extreme Contrast set had aboslute ZERO backlighting. And the room was completely darkened. I was there and it was amazing.

[Matthew @ Feb 20th 2008 10:20AM]

How can this system work? Any pixels that have a non-zero, finite brightness will appear bright next to the true black regions, so they will stand out, even if there is hardly and difference in them in terms of the rgb values. Most cameras don't record any regions as being truly black anyway, as this would imply that the image is underexposed. The fireworks must have been flood-filled with zero brightness to make the black regions truly black. Please comment if you know more about it.