Pioneer Elite PRO-510HD 53 in. TV

Prior to the 1999 Christmas season I became aware of the potential for viewing DVDs on a screen of the 16:9 aspect. Since all of the main movies were of this aspect, which means the way they were shot, I investigated how a view them at home and not lose parts of the screen - or be made to watch on a hugely reduced size with black bars along the top and bottom.

A chance observation of the (then) new Elite series of rear projects changed my mind about how good a rear project could be, and that a 16:9 screen might be a good thing given our enjoying watching movies in our home. Previously all RPs were faint, crummy looking things in bars or in lodges at ski resorts. This unit blew me away since it looked like a movie and did not suffer from the poor color and overall lack of color fidelity of previous units, at least to my experience.

It took forever to arrive as they were in hot demand last Christmas season. Once it arrived, our viewing habits have never been the same.

What strikes people, in their first viewing, is the utter clarity and color saturation, edge to edge. It really is a great TV even fed poor cable. When progressively better source is fed, from a good DSS feed thru a progressively scanned DVD, the image just gets better and better.

I connected an RCA DCT100 receiver to it. The RCA is capable of cable, off the air, Direct TV and HDTV either off the air or via Direct TV. We watched the Super Bowl last year, as well as a season of Monday Night Football in HDTV off the air and it just blew us away. Sadly, ABC dropped MNF in HD format this season - which just boggles the mind since sports are one of the most impressive venues for HDTV - but with any luck it'll get picked up again in the upcoming seasons.

The product is exceptional at displaying ordinary TV and as I indicated above, just gets better as the input source gets better. Right now, due to logistics, we only receive HDTV via DirectTV and HBO, and it makes normal NTSC or even some DVDs look shabby by comparison. DVDs are at least 50% better than normal NTSC, and in the case of the *better* HDTV transfers (rare as they are) HDTV is itself 30-50% better than DVD. In that sense it's neat to have a TV capable of this material and not hitting any sort of ceiling insofar as performance. Feed it great source and it shows it.

The set has a great built-in line doubler so scan lines are mostly removed. This can cause poor feeds, like some cable, to appear worse than they actually do on an analog set. But the doubler can also make good feeds look better so the trade-off is OK.

I added a progressive scan DVD player and can perceive the difference compared to the sets built-in line doubler. It is not a dramatic difference, but enough to be noticed by even casual viewers. It just looks like film and that alone makes the upgrade worth the investment.

On the down side, I wish the set had a wider viewing angle. This is not a problem unique to this set, but rather to all RPs. I also wish Pioneer would allow for the placement of a center channel speaker behind the grill. The two built-in speakers are OK, but certainly not high grade and thus useless for serious 5:1 uses. There is much space down there and simply having a shelf would allow folks to place their chosen center channels behind the grill for a cleaner appearance. As it is, there is no option to having a speaker sitting on top of the great piano-like finish.

The remote is OK, better than some but still a far cry from anything resembling human-engineered. Multiple buttons all of the same size, crammed together, tiny lettering. They provide a transient backlight but so what? All they do is backlight words too small to read and even after almost one year of use I cannot intuitively use it. This means the remote flunks my test of usability.

The unit lacks a visible clock from the remote, which is a feature I use and enjoy on one other set in the house. It's handy at times and lacking on the Pioneer.

This set is targeted at people who wish to view the limited HDTV material to some degree...but I would argue this unit really makes DVDs into something special and unforgettable. It is not the largest of the three set series but at 53" diagonal it certainly isn't small. Doing the calculations, this means compared to a 32" 4:3 set, the Elite 510 viewing area is 34.6 in(w) x 26.0 in(h)and the 32" set is 25.6 in(w) x 19.2 in(h) when viewing normal, 4:3 material. In 16:9 (2.35:1) Letterbox mode, the Elite provides 910.14 sq in. and a normal 4:3 provides 279.04 sq. in. Obviously, for viewing letterboxed DVDs this is the only way to go.

regards,

patrick