Budget RPT....Pioneer (1 Viewer)

[Jed]

We are looking to purchase a RPT for our family room - on a budget, of course - and would appreciate your input.

I currently have an XBR250, which we have enjoyed quite a bit. It is just too small in letterbox mode for our room - 18x24. We sit 13-16' from the tv.

I am not sold on low-end plasma, DLP, or LCD, and would rather wait a bit for the technology to improve and come down on price.

We are thinking about the Pioneer sets. I would like an Elite set, but they are too much. We wish to spend around $2k.

Don't laugh, but the local Costco has a Pioneer SD 643HD5 for $1999. The TV lists for over $5k?! I am not sure I can pass that up...

If there are any Pioneer owners out there, please chime in. I noticed Hitachi had some nice sets, too.

THANKS!

 

[Glenn]

Hi Jed,

I have the Pioneer SD533 which is the smaller brother to the model that you are looking at. I am very happy with the picture quality and so far no problems with it.

I think that Costco deal is great but I couldn't quite fit that size so I went with the smaller model. At that time the Costco price was $2400 I think on the 643.

Glenn

 

[greg_t]

The 643's are great sets. It's an awesome set for the Costco price. Only issues are no DVI and it will not accept a 720p signal. Other than that, great line doubler, stretch modes, and comb filter. You'll love it.

 

[Jed]

Received my TV yesterday and - holy cow it is huge.

It looked large at Costco, but once in our house it grew an order of magnitude...

We sit 12-15' away, so it is perfect size, actually. I love the picture quality when set to film and fed a progressive signal from my DVD player. All this happiness and it isn't even dialed in. I have reduced all the contrast settings, which were maxed out at 30.

I just need to resolve my speaker issues and get my Rotel 1055 properly fired up and I will have a nice little home theater setup.

Should I get a protective screen with my 2 year-old running around?? ANyone know what those run?

 

[greg_t]

Congrats on the new set. You'll love it. You might check Pioneer parts for a protective screen. It's probably a good idea with a small child around. The link is below. As for size, RPTV's tend to get smaller over time, what looks huge to you now will tend to get smaller as you get used to it.

As for picture, it's recommended to set the TV to Reference Theater Mode. This turns off video enchancments such as SVM, sets contrast correctly in the service menu, and generally gets you closer to a more film like image. You should use a calibration disk such as avia or video essentials to tweak from there. One of the great things about the Pioneer is it's great deinterlacer. Depending on what kind of progressive scan dvd player you have, you might try using it in interlaced mode and let the pioneer do the interlaced/progressive conversion. When you do this, make sure you have Pure cinema effects set to ON. Try it both ways and see which you prefer.

http://parts.pioneerelectronics.com/

 

[Tim K]

I'm pretty sure that all Pioneer sets have a protective screen built-in. Many people have them removed when they get the set professionally calibrated. The protective screen is very "glossy" and reflective. I've got the Pioneer 533 and I am keeping the screens as-is b/c we have a dog and a cat.