an old HD-ready used plasma in 2020?

[Hitcher]

Weight complete screen/lifter/flightcase approximately 1700KG.

Need to reinforce the floors as well!

[spoRv]

Weight complete screen/lifter/flightcase approximately 1700KG.

Need to reinforce the floors as well!

Eventually, it will be placed on ground floor...

Still, door is at angle, so it will not fit!

[spoRv]

So, the remote control arrived today; got few time to tinker with it, but I managed to have a "pixel perfect" screen:



problem is, to get it, I should switch to "PC" when using HDMI, hence losing a lot of fine settings in the video, including orbiter!

The resolution is incredible, thinking that is "only" HD-ready (WXGA, 1365x768):



About black, I just lowered a bit the brightness, and when I put a complete black screen on the media player, when I switch off the TV I can't see the difference - I must admit it was in the late afternoon but in a quite sunny day, so maybe it could be different in a dark enviroment.

I'm very, very satisfied with this Pioneer Kuro 8th generation HD-ready plasma TV; I can't think how good could be a 9th gen full-HD one, or even better a 9.5th gen, or a late gen Panasonic like the VT or ZT!

Sure, OLED is 4K and black would be absolute (read: zero nits), still motion is better on plasma, and you can get an used one for a fraction of a new OLED, so, unless one needs 4K and can live with a "dumb" TV, my hint is: GET AN USED PLASMA if you want the best display to watch movies in a dark enviroment. Period.

PS: forgot to mention the hours: 15752H 39M, switched on 5065 times; not that bad for a 13 years old TV!

[spoRv]

Had some time more with the Pioneer, so I can post more thoughts.

Black: as I watched some movies in a dark enviroment, I can say a totally black screen is far from deep, perfect pitch black of a FALD LED (that I personally know, but it's the same as OLED); still, during normal vision, black is more than good; black bars on letterbox movies are dark enough to be not noticed; details in very dark moments are still visible. Still VERY curious to watch a Kuro 9g or latest Panasonic, though!

PC: absolutely NOT adviced to use it as monitor, even if many vouch on its resiliance to burn it, it WILL definitely burn in with fixed PC (and videogames) items as toolbars, scores etc. - think that the old 32" LCD TV I'm using since few months as monitor has burn in, too...

Movies: absolutely great! Of course, as it's not a native full-HD panel, some very minute details are not resolved perfectly, but this does not mean it lacks details, at the contrary; I watched two full movies, and not for a single second I noticed lack of resolution. It has that "analogness" that gives something special to any movie vision... difficult to explain... it is a pleasure to watch any kind of video on it, be it a movie or a demo.

Audio: as it is only a screen (albeit with all needed connections at the contrary of older models that need a separate box for them), it has not loudspeakers; I'm using temporarily two small ones borrowed from an old Philips midi low-fi system, and quality is quite nice; what is incredible is the volume: with its few watts it can "fullfil" a quite huge attic at a very loud volume - and when I say very loud, I mean it!

Other notes: the remote is uselessly tall, with the lower one third empty; it is easy to use and responsive, sadly without backlight, but frankly I do not use almost at all. Menus are comprehensive, but to have most of the video options available, the HDMI input should be set on video; it means that, in this mode, the overscan is on and about 2.5% image on each side is lost. My GPU could manage it, zooming in the HDMI out hence overriding the overscan, still a little portion of image is lost on both side, and, apart orbiter, the other settings could be replicated in the computer, so I decided to feed the TV with full-hd 1920x1080 in PC mode, so no overscan, and let the TV scale it to its native resolution.

[spoRv]

I continued to watch several movies on the Pioneer, and - I don't want to sound like a broken record, but - it's amazing! Before that, I did not even thought about buying an HD-ready display, but this one forced me to change my mind: it's one of the best display to watch movies in HD (and even UHD, for what it worth).

It has only a huge fault: once you decide to take a look at any movie ("just watch that particular shot...") you find yourself to watch the closing credits without realizing you actually watched the rest of the movie until the end!

Must give a try at the poor Panasonic, though: abandoned in another room, it deserves more attention, even if its quality is lower than Pioneer, at least it's quite huge!