Pioneer Kuro 50” PDP-5080 HD

The 50" Pioneer Kuro PDP-5080 is a 1080p model that can compete against some of the best. It was built to support any mode (HD, DVD, standard, etc) with a native resolution of 1,366x768 pixels. Usually we focus on coloring, black levels, and of course all of the other important features that can be found on your standard HD television. But there is something about the PDP-5080 that truly separates it from other televisions and we can't help but focus on it - if only for a little while.

Those of you who want cable but hate having to deal with the annoying cable box that comes with it will be happy to know that Panasonic has equipped it with CableCard - something that is rare to find in an HDTV. All you need to do is to purchase a special card from your local cable company and install it directly into the 5080HD slot on your television. Once the card is installed the television will receive both high definition channels (provided by the cable company) and digital cable.

Pioneer has definitely given this television enough inputs to work with. On the back of the panel on the television you will find a PC input (which has a max resolution of 1,366x768), component-video input, AV input, RF inputs for any antenna or cable, digital optical audio input, and much more. Trust us when we say that it has more inputs than the average HDTV. Did we also mention the side panel full of inputs? Also another great feature that it has is PIP (picture in picture) - which is something that is always great to have. It looks like Pioneer has outdone itself in the feature department.

Now that we have touched on the features it's time to take a look at the performance of the television. You may have to do a bit of tweaking when it comes to perfecting the color accuracy. Don't get us wrong, the television does a great job of bringing out the colors - almost too good of a job - but due to the imperfection of the color temperature the colors are often too saturated and look almost unreal at times.

The anti-reflective screen - which was built as a non-matte instead - did an excellent job of keeping out the annoying glares that can ruin your favorite movie or TV show. It may not be the best on the market - but it does a good enough job and can easily beat out most other televisions that are built with the non-matte screen. Unfortunately it can't top the effectiveness that a matte screen provides.

Now that we know how well we can watch in a lit room we were eager to see how well it did with the lights off - which of course is the most effective way of watching a great movie and getting that perfect theater effect at home. In order to effectively achieve this we had to put the television in Movie mode. The television is preset to lower the light output to around 40 foot lambert - which was effective. It also warmed up the color temperature to a good level - though because of the color accuracy (previously mentioned) it still had a hard time with some of the lighter colors.

The PDP-5080 does have deep black levels - but we were happy to see that this did not affect the images on the screen during any dark scenes. Nothing is more aggravating than when you are trying to watch a movie that has a very ethereal and dark look to it (horror) and you can't see anything that is going on because of the deep black levels of the screen. Pioneer has seen to it that we can make out everything no matter how dark the scene is.

The price range of Pioneer's Kuro PDP-5080 HDTV is $2,000 - $3,500. This is actually a reasonable price compared to other HD televisions of this size on the market. The quality of the picture is great - besides the mediocre color accuracy. Plus the fact that you have all of the best features and can hook any music device and camera to see and hear things up close is always a plus.