I'm going to ask Pioneer and my dealer about this, so I don't want this
thread to get out of hand.

My new Pioneer plasma now has around 20 hours on it. Two things strike me as
odd.

Though a Kuro, the display is faintly gray when turned on. I was expecting
something closer to absolute black.

The faint gray is not uniform. There is a broad lateral "splotch" across the
center of the screen -- sort of like an irregular galaxy -- that is
significantly darker. This area is not noticeable in program material
(except once in a while in star fields), and seems to be getting larger.

Is this a normal part of the breaking-in process? (These sets are supposed
"pre-aged" at the factory.) Will the splotch grow to cover the entire screen
(which would be a good thing, of course).

Anyone know anything about this? The set is under warranty, so I'm not too
worried, but...

PS: I watched the Blu-ray of "2001" last night. It is a major revelation.
The film never looked even remotely that good in the theater -- and by the
theater, I mean 70mm Cinerama (Super Panavision) projection. This is a
Blu-ray demo disk.

William Sommerwerck wrote:

PS: I watched the Blu-ray of "2001" last night. It is a major revelation.
The film never looked even remotely that good in the theater -- and by the
theater, I mean 70mm Cinerama (Super Panavision) projection. This is a
Blu-ray demo disk.

Try the Blu-ray of "Planet Earth." Prepare to have your jaw drop.

PS: I watched the Blu-ray of "2001" last night. It is a major revelation.
The film never looked even remotely that good in the theater -- and by
the theater, I mean 70mm Cinerama (Super Panavision) projection.
This is a Blu-ray demo disk.

Try the Blu-ray of "Planet Earth". Prepare to have your jaw drop.

My jaw already dropped with "Amadeus". I'll wait until the "Planet Earth"
price drops a bit.

William Sommerwerck wrote:

PS: I watched the Blu-ray of "2001" last night. It is a major revelation.
The film never looked even remotely that good in the theater -- and by
the theater, I mean 70mm Cinerama (Super Panavision) projection.
This is a Blu-ray demo disk.

Try the Blu-ray of "Planet Earth". Prepare to have your jaw drop.

My jaw already dropped with "Amadeus". I'll wait until the "Planet Earth"
price drops a bit.

Dunno. $55 for 4 discs (530 minutes) is pretty cheap, IMO. Hell, the regular
DVD is $48.

"William Sommerwerck" wrote in message
...
I'm going to ask Pioneer and my dealer about this, so I don't want this
thread to get out of hand.

My new Pioneer plasma now has around 20 hours on it. Two things strike me
as
odd.

Though a Kuro, the display is faintly gray when turned on. I was expecting
something closer to absolute black.

The faint gray is not uniform. There is a broad lateral "splotch" across
the
center of the screen -- sort of like an irregular galaxy -- that is
significantly darker. This area is not noticeable in program material
(except once in a while in star fields), and seems to be getting larger.

Is this a normal part of the breaking-in process? (These sets are supposed
"pre-aged" at the factory.) Will the splotch grow to cover the entire
screen
(which would be a good thing, of course).

Anyone know anything about this? The set is under warranty, so I'm not too
worried, but...

PS: I watched the Blu-ray of "2001" last night. It is a major revelation.
The film never looked even remotely that good in the theater -- and by the
theater, I mean 70mm Cinerama (Super Panavision) projection. This is a
Blu-ray demo disk.



Friend of mine is a Pioneer dealer, and over here, they had a program to
train engineers from their dealers, to do a 'Super Setup' on their plasmas,
for which the customer was charged. As far as I could make out, it was the
standard setting up procedure that would be carried out at the factory
within production time constraints, but with those constraints removed ie
the job took around 2 hours I think he told me. Apparently, the results
rendered the picture even better than 'just out of the factory',which for
Pioneers, is pretty good anyway, as you have discovered with your new
purchase.

Arfa

I spoke to a (seemingly) intelligent guy at Pioneer today, and was told that
the "black splotch" I saw /was/ normal-- it had appeared on their office
unit -- and it would gradually disappear after 100 to 150 hours.