BUYER’S GUIDE PLUS:
SURVEY
FLAT PANELS 32–42 inches
Pioneer PDP-4270HD 42" Plasma
Movies Done Right
P
ioneer has long been
at the forefront of
the plasma-display
market and with
good reason: its panels have been
consistently rated among the best
you can get. With a pixel resolu-
tion of 1024x768, the PDP-4270HD
is the company’s latest 42-inch
model, and it’s got a lot going for it.
Features
The input complement is more
generous than with many displays,
having two HDMI and three compo-
nent inputs (one on the side for easy
access). Some of the connections
72 October 2006 The Perfect Vision
on the back face downward, while
others face backward, making it
more difficult to route those cables
if the panel is mounted on the wall.
One nice touch is a USB port on
the side panel that lets you display
photos from a USB storage device.
In addition to two tuners (ATSC
and NTSC) and a CableCARD
slot, the 4270HD also provides TV
Guide On Screen, a free elec-
tronic program guide (EPG). This
is a great feature if you use a
CableCARD, which can’t accom-
modate the cable provider’s EPG.
Perhaps the 4270HD’s most impor-
tant feature is what Pioneer calls
Advanced Pure Cinema. Part of
Pioneer’s Pure Drive II video pro-
cessing, Advanced Pure Cinema
accepts an interlaced signal at 60
fields per second (which, in the
case of movies on DVD, HD DVD,
or Blu-ray, includes duplicate fields
as part of the 3:2 pulldown process),
extracts just the fields that make up
the movie’s original 24 frames per
second, and displays each frame
three times, refreshing the screen 72
times per second. This only works
with interlaced signals, not progres-
sive. It avoids all the artifacts of 3:2
pulldown and creates a smoother
sense of motion in the image.
 Pioneer | (800) 746-6337 | www.pioneerelectronics.com

Also available is Standard Pure
Cinema mode, which processes film-
sourced interlaced fields in the con-
ventional manner. In both cases, the
Pure Drive II video processor uses 10-
bit resolution, which results in finer
gradations than 8-bit processors can
deliver. Other processing functions
include digital and MPEG noise re-
duction and a digital color decoder.
Unlike just about any other
consumer video display currently
available, the 4270HD’s two HDMI
inputs can accept 1080p/24 (that is,
1080p at 24 frames per second), and
it displays each frame three times,
which also avoids any 3:2 problems.
However, the only non-computer
1080p/24 source at the moment is
Pioneer’s BDP-HD1 Blu-ray player,
which should be available by the
time you read this. This capability
is a big step in the right direction
for both sources and displays, and I
encourage other manufacturers to
follow Pioneer’s lead in this regard.
other devices with pre-programmed
codes. The device selector and most
of the buttons for those other devices
are located under a flip-down door
at the bottom of the remote.
The button layout is reasonably
good, with dedicated input-selec-
tion buttons that are numbered
rather than labeled (with the
exception of the HDMI inputs,
which are labeled on the remote
body and thus do not glow). Other
buttons are multi-functional, some
with labels on the button itself and
on the remote body in different
colors, which can be confusing.
Also confusing are the two
menu buttons: Home Menu dis-
plays the set’s menu under most
circumstances, while Menu calls it
up while TV Guide On Screen is
displayed. Why can’t the same but-
ton do both? On the plus side, the
dedicated Day Up/Down and Page
Up/Down buttons make navigating
TV Guide On Screen a breeze.
SURVEY
The Last Word
• Derives 24fps progressive from
interlaced film-based sources
• Excellent detail (inc. shadow detail)
• Mostly very good video processing
• TV Guide On Screen
• Black level not great
• Green primary way off
• Expensive
Specifications
• Technology: Plasma
• Screen Size: 42"
• Pixel Resolution: 1024 x 768
• Contrast Ratio: N/A
• Max. Light Output: N/A
• Video Inputs: 2 HDMI (1.1), 3 compo-
nent, 2 S-video, 4 composite, 1 VGA, 2
RF (antenna, cable)
• Other Connections: CableCARD, USB
• Dimensions: 40.9" x 26.75" x 4.5" (w/o
stand); 41" x 28.3" x 10.75" (w/stand)
• Weight: 69.5 lbs.
• Warranty: 1 year parts and labor
• Price: $3499
Technical Ratings
Resolution
Black Level

The panel itself embodies several
technologies, including a first-surface
color filter that is said to enhance
contrast and color while reducing
ambient light reflections and elimi-
nating the need for a second glass
Speaking of the set’s menu,
it’s well-organized and easy to
navigate—no complaints there.
Performance
When Dave Abrams, TPV’s video
Grayscale Tracking
Color Accuracy
Video Processing Quality
Overall Picture Quality (HD)
Overall Picture Quality (SD)

panel on top of the plasma panel it- specialist, contacted Pioneer to find 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Poor Good Excellent
self. Also of interest are improved red out how to access the service menu
and blue phosphors, though I wish for calibration, he was advised not Notes: Color decoding accurate, but
green primary way off.
Pioneer would improve the green to do so because it could easily do
phosphor, as we shall see shortly. more harm than good. I guess they
didn’t know who they were talking
User Interface to; Dave has extensive experi- Practical Ratings
Recommends
The remote is a large silver affair ence calibrating all sorts of video Features
with buttons that glow in the dark displays. Still, we decided that dis-
Connectivity
with an intensity depending on cretion was the better part of valor
User Interface
the amount of light to which they and didn’t calibrate the 4270HD.
are exposed. When I brought In measuring the set’s perfor- Viewing Angle

the remote in from a sunny day, mance, Dave discovered that the Tolerance of Ambient Light
the buttons glowed brightly for a green primary was way off (too Value
while, but in normal room light, saturated, typical of plasmas); Cool Factor
they didn’t become very bright unfortunately, the primaries cannot
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
and they faded quickly. Other- be adjusted. The picture-mode Poor Good Excellent
wise, there is no illumination. and color-temperature settings that Notes: Great feature set, generous con-
In addition to the display itself, yielded the best grayscale (Movie, nections, expensive.
the remote can control up to four Low) tended toward red and ma-

www.theperfectvision.com October 2006 73

 BUYER’S GUIDE PLUS:
SURVEY
FLAT PANELS 32–42 inches
genta as you might expect, especial- On a variety of 480i and 1080i
Color Accuracy ly in the low end. I suspect that Dave film-based material, the Advanced
0.9
KEY
could have gotten it closer if he had mode resulted in much smoother
0.8 D65 done a full calibration, but even motion than the Standard mode.
ATSC-specified
0.7
primaries without it, the grayscale was not all This was very evident in the open-
Measured
primaries that far off the mark. Color decod- ing pan across the village rooftops
0.6
ing was spot on, which is great, in Star Trek: Insurrection, which
0.5 since it can’t be adjusted, either. exhibited much less judder thanks
0.4 Black level was okay—certainly to the removal of 3:2 pulldown.
0.3
D65 much better than with most LCD Digital noise reduction worked
flat panels—but not as low as other very well. On the noise-reduc-
0.2
plasmas we’ve reviewed recently. tion clips from HQV Bench-
0.1 In fact, this was the 4270HD’s mark, the High setting greatly
0 weakest point in my opinion. The reduced noise without softening
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8
black of space and the black bars the picture significantly.
Notes: : Red slightly oversaturated, above and below 2.35:1 movies The 4270HD also passed most
green very oversaturated. looked a bit washed out, not quite of the other HQV Benchmark tests

[ ]
Grayscale Tracking Overall, the PDP-4270HD is a fine plasma set,
0.387 with excellent detail (including shadow detail),
0.375
0.362
accurate color decoding, and very good video
0.350 processing.
0.337

0.325 inky. On the other hand, shadow
0.312
detail was surprisingly good; the
0.300 opening walk below decks of
0.287
the HMS Surprise in Master and
0.275 0.300 0.325 0.350
0.262 0.287 0.312 0.337 0.362
Commander revealed lots of detail
that is often lost in dark blobs. The
KEY
D65 Pre-Calibration Post-Calibration
same was true of The Chronicles of
(N/A) Riddick, though the black level was
Notes: Pioneer advised against enter- not as low as I would have liked.
ing service menu; pre-cal grayscale In fact, detail was generally
tends slightly toward red/magenta, esp.
at low end. excellent, especially with HD DVD
from a Toshiba HD-A1 set to output
1080i. Blazing Saddles, Apollo 13,
Measurements and Phantom of the Opera all
looked sharp and clean. Color was
Peak white level
Full screen 21.43fL generally good, though greens
100 IRE window 53.39fL
sometimes appeared overhyped—
Black level 0.049fL for example, the grass in golf and
Contrast ratio
baseball broadcasts. I saw a bit of
Peak 1090:1 posterization (false contouring) in
ANSI (checkerboard) 232:1
certain scenes of The Chronicles
Horizontal bandwidth of Riddick (ultraviolet sunlight
HDMI/DVI 18.5MHz
Component 18.5MHz reflecting off the landscape in the
opening chase scene), but overall,
Notes: Black level better than most LCDs, this artifact was mostly absent.
not as good as some plasmas.
I was eager to try Advanced Pure
Cinema, and I was not disappointed.
quite well, eliminating jaggies
and picking up the 3:2 cadence
quickly and reliably. However, it
did not pick up some of the more
exotic cadences. It also failed the
horizontal text-crawl test, causing
severe breakup in the scrolling text.
Conclusion
Overall, the PDP-4270HD is a
fine plasma set, with excellent
detail (including shadow detail),
accurate color decoding, and
very good video processing. I
was particularly impressed with
Advanced Pure Cinema, which
eliminates all 3:2 headaches. On
the downside, the black level isn’t
as good as other plasmas I’ve
seen recently, the green primary
is way off, and it’s a bit pricey
for a 42-inch model. Still, there
are no others that display 24fps
movies as they should be seen,
so perhaps the premium price is
justified, especially if your TV fare
consists mainly of movies. TPV

74 October 2006 The Perfect Vision