While most TV manufacturers have struggled through the years to deliver acceptable black levels in their flat-panel TVs, Pioneer cruised over that speed bump with its plasmas a few generations back. But that was apparently just the start. The company's new Kuro models, including the 50-inch, 1080p PDP-5010FD reviewed here ($5,000 list price, about $4,000 street), use a revamped panel design that aims to display the darkest shadows ever seen on a flat-panel set. We're talking black holes here — the complete and utter absence of light.

The 5010FD is well endowed input-wise, with four HDMI and two component-video connections. You also get a VGA port for PCs and a CableCARD slot, while the set's USB input lets you plug in a flash drive or a digital camera and view slideshows via the HomeGallery feature.

Pioneer's remote control has a clean layout and a glow-in-the-dark keypad. A full set of direct input keys is located at the remote's top; you can't rename inputs with onscreen tags such as DVD or Cable, however. Located below the input keys are buttons to toggle through picture presets and display (aspect ratio) modes. The choices include a Dot-by-Dot setting that displays 1080i/p signals with no scaling or overscan, along with various stretch and zoom modes.

Setup
As you'd expect from an upscale TV, there's no shortage of custom video settings. Basic settings can be adjusted for the Dynamic, Standard, Movie, and Game picture presets, and the Pioneer stores your changes. A User memory can also be fully and independently customized for each of the set's inputs. I was surprised to find no dedicated red, green, and blue adjustments for fine-tuning color temperature — that's something reserved for Pioneer's Elite models (one of which we'll be looking at soon). As it turned out, I didn't need them: After only basic adjustments in the User mode, the TV's grayscale was damn near perfect (see Test Bench).

I found some of the Pioneer's advanced picture adjustments useful. Turning on the Black Level setting actually helped improve the set's already very deep shadow rendition. And the three-step Gamma control's mid setting delivered the most linear-looking ramp of black-to-white grayscale steps. Selecting the 72-Hz Advanced PureCinema mode also resulted in very clear, solid-looking pictures when viewing movies on Blu-ray Disc with my player's 1080p/24 output active.

The TV's two noise-reduction modes also proved useful. Even at its highest setting, the 3D mode removed background noise without eliminating detail. And at its Low setting the Field mode was effective in cleaning up noisy cable TV programs without blurring details.

Performance
The problem with even the best LCD TVs I've tested is that the picture flattens out in really dark movie scenes. This is where a plasma like the 5010FD earns its keep. As I watched The Lives of Others on Blu-ray Disc, shadows looked wonderfully deep yet detailed in a scene where the Stasi agent Wiesler, in an attic monitoring facility, listens to conversations between the writer Dreyman and his girlfriend. The rough walls, the knobs and switches on recording equipment, the texture of Wiesler's strange, circa-1980s East German jacket — all of these elements cut through the dimness to give the scene a satisfying sense of depth. And in a subsequent shot of the writer on his couch, the TV's sharp 1080p picture detail brought out both the grooves in his corduroy pants and the fine floral pattern of the upholstery.

The Short Form

Price $5,000 (list) / pioneerelectronics.com / 800-421-1404

Snapshot

Pioneer's next-gen Kuro plasma gets the blacks and virtually everything else right.

Plus

•Superb black depth and shadow detail •Accurate out-of-box color temperature •Very clean upconversion of standard-def

Minus

•Color looks somewhat pumped-up •No onscreen input-labeling option

Key Features

•1080p resolution •72-Hz display mode •CableCARD-ready •HDMI CE-Link control •Inputs: 4 HDMI (ver. 1.3), 2 component- and 3 composite-video; S-video; VGA; USB; CableCARD; 2 RF antenna/cable •48.5 x 32 x 4.8 in; 97 lb (w/stand)

Test Bench

After basic adjustments in the User mode with Low color-temp selected, grayscale tracked within 82 K of the 6,500-K standard from 30 to 100 IRE. Such stellar out-of-box performance is rare: I can count on one hand the number of TVs I've tested that came near. The set's Movie preset was also pretty accurate, tracking within 200 K of the 6,500-K standard from 20 to 100 IRE. Color-decoder tests revealed a mild —5% red error on HDMI and component-video inputs. Against the SMPTE spec, red and green color points were moderately oversaturated. Overscan measured 0% for 1080i/p signals in Dot-by-Dot mode and 3% in Full mode. The set displayed 1080i/p and 720p test patterns with full resolution via HDMI, though the component-video input showed a loss of contrast on the most detailed portion of a 1080i burst pattern. Screen uniformity and off-axis viewing were excellent. Reflectivity could be an issue, though, with some glare showing up onscreen during daytime viewing. Full Lab Results

The Pioneer may offer a surprisingly accurate out-of-box color-temperature mode, but its colors still looked somewhat over-rich after I made picture adjustments on test patterns. This was clear when watching programs packed with bright greens and reds, but skin tones also appeared overly warm and undifferentiated. For example, when I watched another scene where a junior agent has the unfortunate luck of cracking jokes about Party General Secretary Honeker within earshot of a Stasi Lieutenant, the faces of the two men and their nearby comrades had a similar orange-red hue as the scene cut between them. After knocking back the set's color control a few steps, however, I could more easily make out differences in their alternating yellowish, pasty white, and pinkish complexions. And bright colors in movies with more lively palettes also retained most of their richness after I made this adjustment.

Along with having effective noise reduction, the Pioneer boasted impressively clean upconversion of standard-def material. Dark, grainy images on a torture-test DVD like Master and Commander came out looking smooth and free of false contours. And the set's excellent screen uniformity also meant that the picture looked equally clean and punchy over a wide viewing angle. One additional thing that requires mention, however, is a faint but audible buzz that the TV emitted — an annoying issue that some buyers have complained about in online forums. The buzz seemed to increase in brighter scenes, although in most cases it was all but drowned out by the soundtrack.

Bottom Line
Waiting on the newest generation of Pioneer plasma TVs has become an annual ritual that I look forward to. As in past years, Pioneer's latest and greatest 50-inch doesn't disappoint. Quite the opposite, really: The Pioneer Kuro PDP-5010HD 50-inch plasma HDTV's crisp high-def picture, clean upconversion of standard-def programs, cutting-edge video processing, and impressively deep, detailed shadows make it a serious pleasure for watching movies. If you're the kind of person who values quality and performance as much as anything else, the 5010FD's $4,000 street price — a small premium over LCDs of the same size — makes it the best flat-panel TV deal going.

Full Lab Results
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