Pioneer Kuro dead. What next?
- Thread starter Columbo
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Just to correct what I said above as it has changed .
Quote :
"Things you need to know about Panasonic TVs in 2014
1. There really is no plasma
When Panasonic announced it was pulling out of plasma last year, it meant it. There are definitely no plasma models in its 2014 series – not even at the lower end.
http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinions/panasonic-tvs-in-2014-everything-you-need-to-know
Quote :
"Things you need to know about Panasonic TVs in 2014
1. There really is no plasma
When Panasonic announced it was pulling out of plasma last year, it meant it. There are definitely no plasma models in its 2014 series – not even at the lower end.
http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinions/panasonic-tvs-in-2014-everything-you-need-to-know
Caporegime
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the VT50 stood out a mile beside the GT50?
the only difference is 2500 FFD instead of 2000 FFD and a better filter (better blacks with high amounts of ambient light).
did you test both in a dark room or with low amounts of ambient light or daylight with high amounts of ambient light?
the VT50 would fair better in only 1 circumstance when there was high amounts of light in the room other than that it's practically the same as a GT50.
could you some it up?
afaik the ZT65B is the best plasma tv you can buy for use in daylight and high ambient light situations. the kuro does better at night or in low light conditions for black levels.
but then the kuro uses a lot more electricity, runs hotter, doesn't have any warranty, no 3D, no smart or camera integration, can no longer be bought, etc, etc.
how does the kuro fair for gaming?
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1089121/what-is-this-thing-called-input-lag-on-the-kuro
well it's not as good as recent panels and has noticeable lag from what i have read.
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1166196/the-official-plasma-input-lag-thread
basically the ZT65B ticks a lot of boxes and the Kuro's tick one.
I have a GT50 and i picked it because of how good the PQ is, the size and how cheap it was.
I mean 50" Reference Panel for £799 brand new with 5 year warranty and 2 sets of 3D glasses.
If the VT50 was £899 I would have bought it, but it was like £500 more expensive, £500 imo for a slightly better filter imo is not worth it, when the same tv with a slightly inferior filter was £500 cheaper.
This is another reason why the VT65B is what most people are buying instead of a ZT65B the only main difference between them is that the panel is much closer to the glass pane, there is practically zero gap, etc.
People don't think that 1 difference is worth an extra £2000 so they opt for the VT65B, yes the ZT65B is better but not £2000 better, if the ZT65B was only an extra £500 then maybe it would be worth it, but paying an extra £2000 to have less of a gap is madness imo.
How much did a 50" Kuro cost out of interest brand new? Then compare how much I paid for a 50" GT50.
I game on my TV as much as I watch TV and movies, so lag is important to me.
It's not so easy to say tv X is the best, because most of the time tv X is horrible in terms of value for money. The ZT65B is one of those tv's yes it's great but it's terrible when you compare it's price to a VT65B for the difference you get in PQ.
Would I be butthurt someone bought a ZT65B for £4K+, nope, I'm perfectly happy with my tv and I know I got it for a great price. To me it's got an amazing picture, brilliant size, lots of features, low input lag, great warranty, brand new, etc for less than 1/5th of the cost of a ZT65B.
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No one was attacking the GT50, so not sure of the point of your post if I'm honest with you....
I can only speak to my experience and what I saw in front of me, taking everything into consideration on reviews/reliable forums then viewing - add in price points/performance/quality then the VT50 was an easy outcome for me.
Did I spend months testing every possible setting? no - but a good few hours looking a number side by side, skipped through some blu-rays, a few games of fifa - testing in light/testing in dark (within the limits of the shops shutters) and came to my conclusion.
If I could have gotten another kuro at a sensible price, I would have, but am I happy with my choice? absolutely.
The only 1 I did think about for a while was saving myself some cash and getting the old VT30 - total lack of features and the smart element is unusable - but for what I wanted, the panel, it was amazing....
I can only speak to my experience and what I saw in front of me, taking everything into consideration on reviews/reliable forums then viewing - add in price points/performance/quality then the VT50 was an easy outcome for me.
Did I spend months testing every possible setting? no - but a good few hours looking a number side by side, skipped through some blu-rays, a few games of fifa - testing in light/testing in dark (within the limits of the shops shutters) and came to my conclusion.
If I could have gotten another kuro at a sensible price, I would have, but am I happy with my choice? absolutely.
The only 1 I did think about for a while was saving myself some cash and getting the old VT30 - total lack of features and the smart element is unusable - but for what I wanted, the panel, it was amazing....
Caporegime
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It's weird that you didn't look at a GT50 but did look at a VT30 as a cheaper option.
I was just saying that the difference between a GT50 and a VT50 is minimal at best.
The same way the difference between a VT65 and a ZT65 is minimal at best.
That's why a lot of people tend to go for the GT50 over the VT50 and the VT65 over the ZT65 although they aren't as good, the price difference of the superior model is usually unjustifiable.
In fact a lot of people picked an ST50 when looking at the 50 range of panasonic plasmas because it offered similar PQ for a lot cheaper, in fact the ST50 had the lowest input lag out of all of them (something they fixed with the 60 range intentionally making the ST the slowest).
What good is a 5 year warranty when…
V F said:
MAX1210 said:
mysammy64 AVSForum said:
Thats not true. I've watched the VT50 with lights out and the only time the screen becomes somewhat grey is where there's nothing on the screen. Once credits starts scrolling the screen it becomes black. Yet I don't have Ideal Lume hooked up yet. You need to set 10% light with it's diffusor.
Even the scene with Bane in the dark before he grabs Batman is lovely and deep. "Oh the dark, I was born in it, moulded by it, I didn't see the light until I was a man."
Plus the panels don't come into their own until calibration.
Psycho Sonny said:
It's best to really watch it.
Psycho Sonny said:
Thats not what D-Nice said in the video. People on AVS Forum were buying this to watch with the lights out. As the ZT struggles to achieve 29/30ftL. Hardly good for a lit room if thats what you're after.
Starx said:
Fluxo said:I've been reading around and it seems that for film production in a dim environment 30-35 fL was recommended for CRT screens. 30 fL = 103 cd/m^2. Note that CRT screens were better able to maintain their whites when fed higher APL signals.
The ZT65 does sound like a fabulous TV, but the ANSI results are surprising. They suggest that, for a 50% size white window and above, the ZT65 has lower light output than the VT30s from 2011. In 2011 Steve Withers measured the ANSI checkerboard whites of the UK 65" VT30 at 73.10 cd/m^2 (in line with this year's 65" VT65 and significantly higher than for the ZT65). The VT30 was generally considered to be a fairly dim TV.
Here are the results for two TVs in a little graph I have made:
Fluxo said:
Psycho Sonny said:
The key feature the videophiles want.
Psycho Sonny said:
Something that videophiles do not care about. They care about image fidelity.
Psycho Sonny said:
The most important one. Black levels. Even the review site commented on this. The Kuro beat them all.
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So I took a Bluray (Prometheus) with me to Currys yesterday and tried out a few of the high end LED TV's. I also had a play around with the settings as well to ensure that everyone was setup pretty much the same.
The result.......well I'm definitely not buying an LED!
The result.......well I'm definitely not buying an LED!
Caporegime
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VT65B or ZT65B is the best bet for anything that comes close to Kuro Black levels.
Or GT60 or a Sammy F8500 if you don't want to spend crazy amounts of cash.
Stock levels of all of the above are very low and OOS in most places, so you have to act now and not wait about.
Or GT60 or a Sammy F8500 if you don't want to spend crazy amounts of cash.
Stock levels of all of the above are very low and OOS in most places, so you have to act now and not wait about.
Do not buy into the LED marketing con, LCD with a LED backlight instead of a tube.
Even more so at night in a dark room with dark movie like say Pitch Black or Batman.
I have gave up trying to get a 2nd hand 60" Kuro or one of a few Panny's models from the Bay or Gum.
I started to look at projectors last night, not sure what to do.
Also my flyback is dying on Sony FW900 monitor so I am doomed.
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Soldato
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The nearest thing to a straight replacement. When Pioneer dropped out of the market the Kuro team went to work for Panasonic.
Caporegime
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No it's not the ZT would be.
Also everyone knows some of the pioneer engineers now work for panasonic don't know why you brought that up.
Caporegime
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If they sold them the tech then why have never been able to replicate them even though they have had 5 years to do so?
Some engineers simply went to work for them.
They made some progress but in no way is the tech inside the same that was in the kuro.
doesnt everyone know by now - P.S. knows best!!!
(despite not ever owning one or ever using one for any length of time, the Kuro was never worth the money to anyone lol)
Even the Vt/ZT's are showing their age but its impossible to get anything even similar in all round quality.
While the 4k tv's from the major manufacturer's are a huge step up from those who are used to LED's , in many respects they arent as good as the best plasma's in regards to blacks, or supreme image quality.
3d, cameras, smart abilities & streaming are gimmicks most of which can be added on if you want them, no need to choose a tv for these reasons unless you are convinced you want them (and even then I would urge you to really think about this first, put more money into a better quality but less featured tv and add these extras through an STB in the future)
(despite not ever owning one or ever using one for any length of time, the Kuro was never worth the money to anyone lol)
Even the Vt/ZT's are showing their age but its impossible to get anything even similar in all round quality.
While the 4k tv's from the major manufacturer's are a huge step up from those who are used to LED's , in many respects they arent as good as the best plasma's in regards to blacks, or supreme image quality.
3d, cameras, smart abilities & streaming are gimmicks most of which can be added on if you want them, no need to choose a tv for these reasons unless you are convinced you want them (and even then I would urge you to really think about this first, put more money into a better quality but less featured tv and add these extras through an STB in the future)
Quote :
"Kuro was the brand name that Pioneer Corporation used for its line of ... Pioneer has since sold many of the Kuro's patents to Panasonic, the only other ..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_Kuro
"Kuro was the brand name that Pioneer Corporation used for its line of ... Pioneer has since sold many of the Kuro's patents to Panasonic, the only other ..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_Kuro
Caporegime
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Patents aren't technology. It allowed Panasonic to use the same methods in those specific patents. Otherwise 5 years on you would hope they had made a TV with better blacks by now.
ZT65 is the best Panasonic have ever made so it's the closest to the kuros blacks that you can get.
VT65 is the slightly inferior version.
The person I asked bought a VT50 though which is even more inferior than the VT65. But it must have been the best available at the time.
A direct replacement for a kuro would be the ZT65.
Although IMO it's horribly overpriced much like the kuro was back in the day. But that's what happens when you buy a flagship product, you normally pay more than what it's worth compared to other top end models
ZT65 is the best Panasonic have ever made so it's the closest to the kuros blacks that you can get.
VT65 is the slightly inferior version.
The person I asked bought a VT50 though which is even more inferior than the VT65. But it must have been the best available at the time.
A direct replacement for a kuro would be the ZT65.
Although IMO it's horribly overpriced much like the kuro was back in the day. But that's what happens when you buy a flagship product, you normally pay more than what it's worth compared to other top end models
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I still cannot get over watching mavity Blu-Ray in the dark with 5.1 night mode. It's like looking into a black void plus the clarity of the earth and how fluid the picture was. It's like it was actually happening.
mavity really pulls you into the screen sitting 10ft away. Amazing experience. Plus the soundtrack. So rich clear and powerful.
How can it be inferior? AVForums couldn't get a black reading on their hardware except with ANSI.
Do you actually read reviews and forums? You make it sound like it's garbage, chuck it in the scrapper.
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