Pioneer Plasma Question

[pezdude]

I'm interested in purchasing a Pioneer Plasma Display and was wondering...

The professional displays seem to be a bit less expensive online than the consumer grade displays you can get at a Best Buy.

The PDP-434CMX is one you can get for around $2700, but I'm wondering what the real difference is between the professional grade and the consumer grade?

I would be using this display to watch movies and TV on mostly, and in the specs it mentions nothing about pulldowns or pureCinema or anything. Just wondering if the Pro versions come with the same features.

Thanks!

 

[RJG]

Me Too! Here's what Pioneer says:

I have been looking at the exact same thing, and called Pioneer's engineering dept. in CA yesterday to aske them what the differences were - the local A/V shops here told me that the models were "vastly different" and weren't compatible.

Turns out "vastly different" means not enough room for markup and huge profits

The actual panel is the same in the pro and consumer grades, the difference is in the connectivity and the bells + whistles. The pro model is a display only, and is configured to accept a computer input, whereas the consumer grade accepts the HT type inputs such as component, s-vid, etc. If you buy the pro model you'll probably need to spend $300 on a card to get the right inputs, but it's still cheaper than the consumer grade.

Also, there is no tuner in the pro grade but with many people using the dist or cable, that's not such an issue - I'm still trying to get an answer on the processing, not sure if 3:2 pulldown is included with the pro model or whether you have to buy an expansion card (about $500 or so) to get this feature.

I plan on going for the pro grade this month.

Jeff

 

[pezdude]

thanks!

Thanks Jeff.

I found this page about the different models.
http://www.plasmatvbuyingguide.com/productreviews/pioneerplasmamodels.html

It helped a bit, and pretty much stated what you did. The only thing I'm concerned about is the lack of PureCinema information.

If you find anything on the subject please let me know!

Thanks!

Gonna probably go with the 43CMX myself! Found the PDP-05 card for $175 on eBay.

 

[juke17]

Maybe I can help

I work for a company that sells and installs many of the Pro models. The Pro models are typically black while I've noticed a few of the consumer models are going to a silver chasis. Most of the pro models don't have tuners either. Some of the factory settings are probably different also. The pro models will come set to look better for computer presentations while the consumer models will naturally come set for home theater. With the proper calibration however they should look identical. Other than that the plasma glass is the same in both the consumer and pro models. I am also pretty sure some of their is a lot of component sharing that goes on between companies. For instance I'm 90% sure both the Runco and Marantz plasma's are OEM'd from NEC. Both the Runco and Marantz are considerably more expensive than the NEC models but should look the same, go figure. I think Sony used to get theirs from Fujistsu.

FWIW the best looking Plasma's I've seen are from Panasonic, they also claim to have solved the burn in issue that is a big time problem with plasma's but the jury is out on that.