[ Music ]
^M00:00:03
>> Hello, I'm David Katzmaier, Senior Editor with cnet.com and this is the Pioneer PRO-111FD the elite model in their
Kuro line of plasma TV's. All that means is this is one of the most expensive private TV's on the market. It's also pretty much the
best TV we've reviewed ever, in terms of picture quality. Get to that in a second, but first off, as you can see, the styling of this
TV is a little different form the norm. The speakers are mounted to the side which lends it a relatively wide stance, so if you have --
ya know -- a piece of furniture that doesn't really accommodate this width you can remove the speakers. Of course, if you don't like the
looks you can take them off as well. The stand is also removable so you can just have that nice all picture look. Feature wise as you'd
expect, this TV comes fully loaded. Around back you'll find 3 HDMI inputs, 1 component video input, and a PC input as well as a land port.
This TV can go out to your home network and stream videos, photos, and music if you would like to hook it up, Pioneer calls that the
Home Media option. Other features that differentiate this TV from the non-elite models are the oodles of picture controls. If you go
into the Pro Adjust menu you can find things like color temperature control, a full color management system, gamma, intelligence sensor,
an optimum mode that changes the picture according to room lighting. There's even a room lighting sensor that Pioneer includes with the
elite down there on the left hand corner, you can actually use that to, again, adjust the picture dynamically. As I mentioned, the top
this TV does produce the best picture we've ever seen, in fact we gave it a 10 in performance, that's the highest score we've ever given
to a flat-panel TV. It starts with the black levels on this set, extremely deep, the best on the market, you can really notice that when
you turn down the lights and watch a dark scene, it really does stay nice and [inaudible] it has excellent shadow detail as well. The
other ingredient on this TV is excellent color accuracy in terms of the HD color standard, it came as close as any TV we've ever tested.
The post-coloration color temperature was almost perfect, and, of course, with all those color controls you can actually dial that in
very nicely. Of course, with a pure mode, you kind of don't need to it comes out of the box extremely close, so we really like that as
well. It also offers a 24 frame video processing mode that Pioneer calls Advanced. Again, that performed extremely well on our tests
and it's really hard to find anything to complain about in this TV. And oh yeah, it has a great anti-reflective screen so if you have
a lot of room lighting it actually does better than any other plasma we've seen at reducing that glare. That's a quick look at the
Pioneer PRO-111FD and I'm David Katzmaier.
^E00:02:34
