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kuro

How long will Panasonic keep making plasma TVs?

Panasonic confirmed this week that it's in discussions over whether it will jettison its plasma TV business. For me, it's deja vu as yet another Japanese manufacturer struggles to sell high-quality televisions.

In 2008, the Pioneer Elite Kuro PRO-111FD became one of the greatest TVs ever developed -- and it is still among CNET's reference TVs after five years. But producing the best TV didn't translate to profits, and Pioneer exited the TV market in 2009. The company is now best known for car and home audio.

Television is, pardon the pun, Panasonic's most visible … Read more

Will any 2011 TV best the 2008 Pioneer Kuro?

In my opinion, the most amazing thing about the TV industry is this: in more than two and a half years, no TV has delivered better picture quality than the Pioneer Kuro line of plasma TVs.

Think about that for a second in the context of consumer technology's typically meteoric better/faster/stronger advancement. In the second half of 2008, when the last generation of Kuros appeared in stores, the now-obsolete iPhone 3G was the biggest deal in the world and the first Android phone, the T-Mobile G1, was a chunky also-ran. Netflix unlimited streaming (January) and Hulu.com (… Read more

'Should I buy a Kuro before it's too late?': Ask the Editors

Q: "David - Do you recommend waiting for the new higher-end plasmas from Panasonic or pulling the trigger on one of Pioneer's Kuro plasmas? Money no object." -- Mark, via e-mail.

A: Having just finished reviewing one of those higher-end Panasonic plasmas, the G10 series, I'd recommend that deep-pocketed videophiles grab a Pioneer Kuro while they're still available.

As we'll remind everyone for what's sure to not be the last time, Pioneer will stop making plasmas. That's significant for shoppers looking to buy a high-end TV for one big reason: Pioneer makes what are still, in my and many other experts' opinions, the best HDTVs on the market. The company's Elite Kuro series earned the only "10" I've ever awarded in Performance for a flat-panel TV, while the superb non-Elite PDP-5020FD series were nearly as good, minus some adjustments and color accuracy (and plus about two grand).

Pioneer's factory in Pomona, Calif., will continue to manufacture these Kuro displays through April before it closes, according to the company, but after that I expect them to disappear quickly from store shelves. Of course, as long as the company itself is still around, I expect it to stand behind any Kuros it sells.

… Read more

Pioneer confirms that it's leaving the TV business

It's a rumor no more: Pioneer has confirmed that it's exiting the TV business.

The Japanese manufacturer announced that it will stop producing TVs by March 2010, and instead focus on its existing car electronics and home audio-video lines. The company expects to slash 10,000 jobs (6,000 full-time, 4,000 part-time) as a result.

To date, the company's Kuro line of HDTVs were widely regarded as the best-in-class plasma displays available--check out CNET's review of the Pioneer Elite Kuro PRO-111FD, for example.

The Pioneer announcement comes just hours after Vizio announced that it would … Read more

Sad news: Consumers don't pay up for quality

Erica Ogg's post "Report: Pioneer to exit TV business" made a point abundantly clear: TV buyers won't pay a premium price for a better display.

"The company is reportedly exiting the TV business rather than continuing to incur losses in that division," Ogg wrote. "This latest report comes a few months after Pioneer announced that it anticipated huge losses at the end of its fiscal year in March and plans to lay off 2,000 workers."

The market's demands for lower and lower prices eventually take high-quality manufacturers out of the … Read more

Mitsubishi LaserVue goes up against Kuro

Man, it sure would be nice if we could do this comparison here at CNET.

The first third-party side-by-side comparison we've seen between Mitsubishi's LaserVue rear-projection TV and Pioneer's Elite Kuro plasma appeared at TheTechlounge Friday, and according to its authors, the LaserVue more than held its own against what's widely regarded as the best TV on the market.

Author Cameron Baker and editor Kurtis Kronk sat down before a 60-inch Kuro and a 65-inch LaserVue at a San Antonio, Texas, HDTV retailer and watched a pair of Blu-ray movies: Ice Age: The Meltdown and Iron Man, along with Pioneer's Kuro test disc. They were unable to get their hands on a distribution amplifier for true side-by-side comparisons, apparently, so they based their observations on watching "the scenes back-to-back on each display a few times, juggling HDMI connections," and on still photos.… Read more

Hands-on testing: Pioneer's new 'Kuro' doles out streaming media

Pioneer has followed the current trend of TV media streaming, introducing an Ethernet jack on the back of its latest line of Kuro televisions, the PDP-6020FD and PDP-5020FD; the latter of which we gave high marks. The set is one of a few HDTVs on the market that are certified as DLNA clients, delivering an interoperability framework that promises to allow you to painlessly stream movies, music, and photos over your home network to your attached television, using Windows Media Player 11, TVersity, or some other media streaming software. If you're not interested in using your computer as a media-hub, it might be worthwhile to check out some of these products, which offer similar streaming functionality without the clunky PC tower.… Read more

Sneak peek of 9G Kuro coming to Asia

We've received a heads-up from our Pioneer source on a recent Japanese launch of its videophile-grade 9G Kuro. This delivers five times better dynamic contrast than the U.S.-centric PDP-6010FD, promising even richer blacks than any existing Kuro plasma TVs on the market.

Furthermore, the KRP-600M's 100,000:1 rating puts it in the class of the recently announced Panasonic Viera TH-65PY850M. That said, the former is strictly a full-HD monitor, shipped without an onboard TV tuner and loudspeakers.

It also features multiple remote LEDs for enhanced infrared control in dark home theaters, as well as a … Read more