HDTV Reviews

The Pioneer PDP-4270HD is an 42-inch plasma set. The PDP-4270HD features a 1024X768 resolution, 160° viewing angle and dual HDMI ports. BigPictureSound have reviewed the PDP-4270HD and say, the PDP-4270 is about as feature-packed as you’ll find in a television today. It offers 2 HDMI and 2 component video inputs, composite and s-video inputs as well as a VGA computer input. It also includes a USB port, to which you can connect a USB flash drive with pictures which can then be displayed directly on the plasma screen via its “home gallery” function.

To test the video processing, we subjected the set to a number of video torture tests including the HQV Benchmark DVD. The set performed extremely well in deinterlacing a 480i analog input from DVD, with virtually no “jaggies” on diagonal lines. 3:2 pulldown (detection of film-sourced material on DVD) also worked well though it was slightly slower than our reference HD-DVD player at identifying film-based content and adjusting its pulldown processing to compensate for it. The set did not perform as well reproducing “mixed” content (film sourced material with scrolling video titles superimposed on it). Fortunately this type of content does not turn up too often in the real world, except when you’re watching a movie of film-based television program and a news alert or election results scroll across the bottom of the screen.

Those who are shopping for an HDTV “by the numbers” may overlook the Pioneer PDP-4270HD, and that would be a shame. Its picture quality and feature set put it near the top of its class in the current crop of 42-inch HDTVs. At a list price of $2800, it’s certainly on the higher end of the price spectrum, but as they say… you get what you pay for.