Pioneer Elite PureVision Plasma Displays

Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc. launched two new high definition Elite PureVision plasma monitors at CEDIA. The PRO-810HD (43") and PRO-1010HD (50") enable a professional installer to utilize Pioneer's high quality, PureVision plasma displays with the high definition set-top tuner of their choice. Each display features two HDMI inputs for a pure digital connection to external sources. The displays are compatible and easily integrated with control systems utilizing the IR and RS-232 ports.

The new Pioneer Elite PureVision displays offer ISF C ³ calibration mode , a color calibration procedure designed by and licensed from the Imaging Science Foundation (ISF). This capability allows advanced color calibration to be integrated into a high definition display with never before achieved simplicity and reliability.

Pioneer's adherance to ISF standards is nothing short of refreshing, making calibration, and their default product feature-sets, a welcome change from the typically cumbersome alternatives of some other companies.

Components and features of Pioneer's PureVision technology:

Pure Drive
Anyone who ever played the "telephone" game knows that the more you pass information back and forth, the more that information will be distorted. Pure Drive keeps the signal as pure as possible by eliminating unnecessary conversions between the analog and digital realm. Any analog signal (analog cable, VCR, etc.) is converted once to digital and then remains in the digital domain. A digital signal (digital cable, DVD, etc.) has no conversion at all. This maintains the purity of the signal going into the plasma display for the best possible image quality on screen.

Deep Encased Cell Structure
Early in its development of plasma displays, Pioneer recognized that the size and shape of each individual cell in the plasma could significantly impact the brightness of the entire display. The company developed a Deep Encased Cell Structure, making each cell deeper to increase the phosphor area for a brighter picture. At the same time, each cell was cased with horizontal ribs to prevent light leakage from neighboring cells to improve color accuracy and eliminate the kinds of problems that are generally associated with other technologies.

Advanced PureCinema
Movie lovers will appreciate Pioneer's Advanced PureCinema, which makes the viewing experience feel more like a movie theater. Pioneer was the first to introduce advanced film playback using 3:3 film-to-video-conversion by increasing the refresh rate to 72Hz in a plasma display. Previously televisions only offered 3:2 film-to-video-conversion at 60Hz resulting in on screen artifacts known as "judder".

Advanced Continuous Emission II (ACE II)
Close-ups of faces and smooth transitions from dark portions to light parts of a scene are made possible with advanced continuous emission display technology II . Grayscale is improved with ACE II, which distinguishes 1024 grayscale steps for each of the pixel colors to help keep the blacks truly black and provide finer gradations within the dark areas. Compared to 256 grayscale steps found in many other displays, Pioneer offers a tremendous advantage in making dimly lit scenes sharp and clear.

The PRO-1010HD and PRO-810HD will be available in November with a manufacturer's suggested retail price of $12,000 and $9,000 respectively.