The Perfect Vision
Pioneer PRO-1150HD Additional Notes and Technical Ratings
Under the Hood | Adjustment Notes | Test Discs | Technical Ratings
Under the Hood
A number of technological improvements, such as a new cell structure and filter, combine to produce blacks that far exceed any plasma that has come before. A new video processor provides improved scaling and deinterlacing as well as several dynamic modes that adjust the picture according to room light and picture content. As usual, I left these off, preferring a more natural picture.
new cell structure and filter, combine to produce blacks that far exceed any plasma that has come before. A new video processor provides improved scaling and deinterlacing as well as several dynamic modes that adjust the picture according to room light and picture content. As usual, I left these off, preferring a more natural picture.
A new Smooth film mode interpolates frames between the original 24 frames per second from a film-based source, resulting in smoother motion. Even better, like many Pioneer Elite plasmas, the PRO-1150HD can accept a 1080p/24 signal and display it at 72Hz, repeating each frame three times, which completely eliminates any jerkiness associated with 3:2 pulldown.
The new Elite plasmas provide ISFccc Day and Night modes, which allow a professional technician to calibrate the set using software from Pioneer and others, making the process much easier than tweaking the manual controls. These modes can then be locked so no unintentional changes can be made. (Just in case you’re wondering, ISF stands for Imaging Science Foundation and ccc means Certified Calibration Configuration.)
Adjustment Notes
There are six preset Picture modes and one User mode. All modes can be adjusted, but the picture settings are tied to the modes, not the inputs. The only exception is the User mode, which can be set independently for each input. The Pure mode comes closest to correct, though I set up the user mode.
Like many displays I've tested recently, the color control didn’t seem to do much above a certain value, in this case +10 or so. With Enhancer mode at 1, ringing could not be completely eliminated, even with the sharpness control at minimum. On the other hand, with Enhancer mode at 3, fine detail was severely softened, so a setting of 2 is best.
The Low color-temp preset came closest to correct, but it was somewhat toward red, and the next highest preset was quite blue. Because this set is relatively high end, it's likely that many buyers will hire a professional to calibrate it, so that's what I did using the complete grayscale-calibration available in the Manual color-temp mode. “Scott’s Settings” specify the Low color-temp preset because it's the best you can do without a full calibration.
Test Discs
Starting with the HQV Benchmark DVD at 480i, the detail tests were not quite as sharp as other displays I’ve seen recently, but this could be due to the fact that the PRO-1150HD is not 1920x1080. Jaggies were nearly non-existent, with just a hint in the waving flag. Four types of noise reduction are provided; 3DNR and Mosquito NR were effective without noticeably softening the picture. All three film-mode settings took much longer than most TVs to lock onto 3:2 pulldown, and then they lost it near the end of the clip. Also, all three failed the mixed film/video test; only turning film mode off caused the scrolling video text to look clean.
On the HQV Benchmark HD DVD at 1080i, there was no flickering in the video and film resolution loss tests at any active film-mode setting; turning it off caused severe flickering in the film test. Jaggies were completely invisible.
Microsoft engineer Stacey Spears’ test disc revealed that the overscanning is a bit asymmetrical, with more than 30 pixels cropped from the left, 19 from the right, 10 from the top, and 23 from the bottom. The high-frequency horizontal and vertical bursts were completely rolled off. All three film modes picked up 3:2 pulldown at 1080i very quickly.
Technical Ratings
\Customer Service
Advertisement
