I needed someting to replace my existing 29" Sony which has served me well for about 5 years now and still rocking on. I just felt that the 29" no longer cut it with the ES9000ES & Elektra power amp and Krix speakers with the sound overwhelming the image. All of my viewing is from DVDs and this is all widescreen versions of the movie so the preference for the Sony 29" replacement would be towards a widescreen one. Also the size of my current home theatre would only permit a large TV or a mid-size RPTV. Front projector could just fit in there.
The review list included the larger Sony WEGAs (>29") and some european WS TVs: Grundig and Loewe Xelos. Last on my list were the RPTVs which I felt at the time was probably the least afforable.

The Sony Wega, Grundig and Loewe were very nice units but again, in image size it was only marginally bigger than my 29" but pricing, especially with the Grundig, it was nearing the RPTV territory.

The Toshiba 43" RPTV was very good except I did not like the glare from the front screen, imaging was very bright but this is a 4:3 unit. The only Toshiba that was widescreen was double the price of the Toshiba 43" unit.

The Sony was very competively priced wise but the image was darker than the Toshiba. Also they did not have the widescreen unit at the time.

Originally I did not have the Pioneer WS on my list as I saw very, very few widescreen RPTVs around the places until the second last place I visited: Sound & Vision, Prahran. They had the Sonys, Pansonics RPTVs and the Pioneer 50" WS RPTV unit on the floor which I could run my test DVDs on: "The 5th Element" and "What Dreams May Come", both were R1 anamorphic disks which had superb images.

I had already reviewed the Sony and Panasonic but the Pioneer was one that I did not even know about until now.

Input device was a Pioneer DV-717 using s-video into the RPTV.

The first impression of the Pioneer was fantastic: the image bright (even with ambient lighting predominantly coming from the left side), the detail and clarity superb with no color bleed on light and dark images. Also, the screen was matt and not glary like the Toshiba.

The WDMC DVD has many scenes ranging from the blackness of hell to the pure primary colours used by the director for the heaven scenes, pure white screens between scenes, all of which was superbly reproduced on the Pioneer. White was white, blues were blue and red was red.

The testing was done with all the settings set to zero for contrast, brightness, color, hue and sharpness. Under this condition, the flesh tones
exhibited some redness but not glaringly and could be re-adjusted.

The sheer size of the 50" widescreen was awesome: visual impact unbelievable with so much more detail visible on the screen that I had not noticed with the smaller screen. Since 90% of my viewing is from WS DVDs, this was superb !

Foot print - the Pioneer is no deeper than my Sony 29. Sure it's hell of a lot wider and it JUST fits in the home theatre with the equipment rack and the large Krixs. The viewing distance is just adequate at 2.5 metres.

I have since calibrated the Pioneer with AVIA, and the images appear to be even better than my first review. What a difference a bit of tuning can do !

Bang-for-bucks, this was the better of all the RPTVs reviewed that suited my requirements. It's a pity that, at least in Australia, the manufacturers are still avoiding the WS RPTVs infavour of the 4:3 RPTVs. Well done Pioneer !

Detailed picture, widescreen, good cabinet design, bigger 16:9 picture (w44"xh25") than widescreen format on a 50" 4x3 projection tv (w40"xh23"), utilize all the resolution of anarmorphic DVDs (when you watch widescreen format DVDs on a 4x3 tv, certain "lines" will be throw off to make the picture looks normal), can be watched under normal lighting condition, non-glare screen, good picture depth, close to film quality, many screen formats to choose from, video noise reduction circuit, digital convergence

no component inputs (only s-video & composite), slightly bigger in depth (615mm vs 530mm for a 50" 4x3 projection tv), old model, not 100hz

I purchased this unit during a clearance sale; a display unit in tip-top condition!!! I bought this because of the steep discount which I cannot resist; a huge 43% reduction than normal price. As I also know that the television technology is going to change in the next few years (digital broadcasting, progressive scanning, widescreen format, plasma display, etc), there's no point to spend the extra money for the "more" expensive 4x3 models that I considered above. Sony DRC's lack 3D, and the 48" is a bit too small for viewing whereas the 53" is a little too big for my apartment. Toshiba, on the other hand, has 100hz digital frame scan, and good brightness. But it has less "detail" than both Sony and JVC, and more noise (if you turn on the noise reduction feature, details are gone!). Panasonic doesn't have clear, detailed picture also. And it is more expensive. This left only JVC. It has the best picture!!! Very impressive 3D picture with lots of details!!! The shades on the beach and the details of the blue sky can be "easily" seen with no problem at all. The color is bright and well saturated. If not for the attractive price and the widesceen format of the pioneer SD-T50W1, JVC is my prefered 4x3 choice.

Similar Products Used:

Sony 53"(4x3)Digital reality creation, Toshiba 50"(4x3)100hz digital frame scan, JVC 50"(4x3) av pro, Panasonic 51" 100hz

Very good and detailed picture with DVD or Digital Satellite. No reflex from screen. Very pure and clean colors. No problem viewing in lighted room or daylight. Has exelent modes for viewing 4:3 material on 16:9 screen.

No 100Hz option (dont realy miss it). Buzz from spike supression transformer (can be removed). Some degree of picture convergence problems but not worse than expected. Color convergence must be adjusted (user adjustment 9 point) at least once a month to keep picture sharp.

I like it. The price was OK and the viewing experience is awesome.

Similar Products Used:

No, so I have nothing to compare with other than my old 29 inch Sony.

Picture, sound, conectivity & set up options

none

To complete my home cinema set up I needed a large screen TV or projection system giving a picture size of about 50"-60".

My particular set up required a system that could be viewed well off angle and at a minimum distance of 2 meters, while giving good excelent picture quality in the central seating position. These criteria instantly excuded the Toshiba models as they need a min distance of 4-5 meters.

Also I did not want to have to view films in total black-out conditions. This excluded most projectors eg Sanyo & Seleco. Most projectors were excluded from the point of view that I could not live with the cooling fan noise. (I did consider knocking a hole in the back wall and putting the projector in the next room, as in full size cinemas, to overcome this). Projection TVs from Philips were excluded because of thier inability to give a good picture in a lighted room.

This left projection TVs from Pioneer, Sony & Panasonic. The Sony lost out here as being a LCD system, all pictures have an over white soft hue and cannot manage true black. The fact that it has 2 tuners and you can split the picture between the signal from the two tuners did make it tempting but did not make up for the lack of picture quality.

This left Pioneer & Panasonic. Of these the Pioneer had better picture, especialy off axis, a bigger picture and was cheaper.

So I bought the Pioneer and have never looker back. It will accept any type of RF video signal you can think of and has 4 av inputs covering RGB, S-Video & composite.

As with all big TVs the further away you get from them, the better the picture gets (within reason!). From my max possible distance in my av room of about 5m the picture is great (same as a Toshiba). Also as with all TVs the quality of the signal in is very important. To get a decent picture you must have a high quality source, and this ultimately means digital.

It seems strange to give 5 Stars value for such an expensive peice of kit, as I feel it is the best of it's type, this is what I have done.

Similar Products Used:

Sony, Philips, Panasonic & Toshia widescreen projection TVs & Video projectors