After much research (thanks Joe) I decided to take the plunge and purchase the Pioneer 433MXE plasma. To those not in the know, the 433MXE is similar to the 433HDE but without the tuner. There are other differences but I wont go into that now.
Arrival
The box turned up on Wed 30th October 2002 at 08:00 along with the PDA-5002 video card more on that later. It weighed about 40kg and so wasnt too difficult to get into the house and simply cutting off the nylon straps allowed the top of the box to be lifted off.
Contents
The plasma came with a simple remote control, some cable ties, a couple of manuals, batteries (for the remote) and the PDA-5002 graphics card.
Graphics Card
The 5002 card allows extra inputs and slots in easily to the bottom of the plasma. To do this I had to place the plasma screen down on a table (covered with a blanket) and remove 2 small screws.
Feet
The plasma also came with 2 feet to allow it to be mounted on a table. The manual advises you not to use these feet free-standing but to bolt them to the surface. I found that this was not necessary as it seemed quite stable. I plan to purchase a wall mount in the future but until then the screen sits nicely on an Optimum AV300 glass stand.
Connections
One thing the box didnt include was a power cable and so I used a spare pc monitor cable although I needed to swap the fuse to a 15Amp one. I have all my video sources going through my Denon 3802 and this outputs S-Video which I connected directly to the 5002 card which has an S-Video input.
First Impressions
After switching the beast on the screen came on to BBC1 widescreen via my Panasonic Sky Digibox RGB out through a JS-Tech RGB-Svideo converter. The picture was set to Wide which trimmed the top and the bottom off and so setting to Full corrected this. First impressions were very good; the picture was very bright, with high contrast levels and vivid colours. I needed to adjust the colour and brightness slightly to get the best picture and Im sure Ill be tinkering for weeks yet.
CRT Comparison
The plasma is to replace a Sony 36FS70 TV. This was the second Sony 36 inch monster Ive had in as many years and the picture was excellent although the geometry was a bit suspect and I had a green tinge in the top left corner. This Sony set was the first to introduce DRC technology similar to the Philips Pixel-Plus gadgetry. Being a good 7 inches bigger (actually more as the Sony didnt display 36 inches) I expected the plasma to really show off those digital artefacts and on the lower bit-rate channels they were definitely more evident than on the Sony. On the higher bit rate channels such as the BBC, News, Sport and Movie channels the picture was extremely solid and much, much better than I had expected. I had not had the fortune of demoing this set with sky digital and the recent what hifi group test on plasmas got me a bit worried.
DVD
My Sony NS900 was up next connected as the others via S-Video. It may sound like S-Video is a compromise as RGB is generally thought of as superior but it reduces my connection headache as I can switch everything through the Denon. First up was a Region One copy of Monsters Inc. Im not exaggerating when I say that I was completely blown away by the picture. I played the chapter near the end with the chase sequence in the door factory. Movement and colour (after tweaking) were realistic and vibrant. It really felt like a cinema experience and it required me to actually look round the screen following the action. Next up was a Region One copy of Sleep Hollow. Reading lots of reports comparing the Pioneer and the Panasonic plasmas, the Panasonics often been preferred for their very deep blacks, I thought that this film may seem a bit washed out, but the blacks were very black and still able to show much of the detail thanks to the higher resolution of the Pioneer over the Panasonic.
DVD component
After I quick trip to Northwood Audio to get some BNC/RCA converters I connected the DVD player directly to the plasma via three components leads. The manuals were a bit unclear as to how many leads I should use and because I couldnt find my Sony DVD player manual I guessed at three. I needed to change the DVD to output component and also change input 2 on the plasma to accept component instead of RGB (set to RGB produced a green picture). The picture was better, but not a whole lot. The Sony DVD doesnt output a progressive scan picture and so the plasma was left to do the de-interlacing. The component connections were going directly into the plasma and not through the 5002 card and so I guess the card did a lot of magic to the s-video signal to make it look at good. Saying that, I was using crappy phono leads to connect the component signal (the type you get free with your pc) and so this probably made a difference. Pushing info of the plasma remote showed the signal coming in and on component it correctly identified 525i and via s-video it was NTSC, whereas a Region Two disc of Gladiator showed 620i
X-BOX
Switching to my s-video NTSC xbox again produced an excellent picture and playing Halo really immersed you into the game. Ive ordered a high-definition pack and will then be able to drive the plasma with a progressive scan image.
Options
The Menu system is easy to use and shows a number of tabbed-pane menus for each of the 5 inputs. The options on the input depend on the type of the input and the signal going through it.
Lip-Sync
Through s-video there is a slight lip sync delay presumably due to the 5002 processing. This was corrected by simply adjusting the speaker distances on my Denon. There is also a setting on Region One DVDs going through component called PureCinema. This has settings of HQ, Standard and Off. When set to off Standard progressive conversion is used and when set to HQ, the system uses some fancy 24 frame-per-second pressive scan optimization (is this 3:2 pulldown?). The manual says that this may cause lip-sync problems but I could notice any.
Conclusion
This is probably to best Home Cinema purchase Ive made. I havent a single bad word to say about this plasma apart from 2 dead pixels (I might get my supplier to replace but Im not sure they will and you cant see them anyway). I would recommend anyone thinking about purchasing this plasma to definitely buy it. I also plan connect my PC to compare the DVD through a PC to that of my Sony. Connecting with a DVI cable appently gives an amazing picture, if it does prove a lot better I may build a small home cinema PC to permanently connect to the plasma.
My equipment
Pioneer 433MXE Plasma + PDA-5002 graphics Card
Sony DVP-NS900 DVD Player
Denon 3802 AV Amp
Panasonic Sky Digibox
2 x Mission 773e Floor-Standers
Mission 77C1 Centre Speaker
4 x Mission 77DS Rear Speakers
REL Q150E Sub
