Best Plasma sony,pioneer.Panasonic ?

I have a Panny 42 inch plasma and consider it tops for DVDs. in dimly lit environs. However, I also agree that the Fujitsu has noticebly better PQ when viewing HD sources, particularly at the 42 inch size. For me, the money wasnt worth the difference however.

If you do go with a Panny, I recommend waiting for the 7 series to come out, which should occur within the next 2 months or so.

What ever you buy check to see if it has the DVI-D input. I just brought home my new digital cable box and it had this feature, My plasma does not. I'm wondering if an upgrade to my plasma is possible?

Is an upgrade possible? What plasma do you have? Will it take additional blades?

Pioneers are decent, especially if buy the PDP-4330 (for a 43" plasma - it is a commercial model). This is because they have a card slot that you can add connections with. A few others have this, but Pioneer is great about that. The blacks could be a little blacker, but otherwise it has a phenominal picture.

The Fujitsu's are actually a Hitachi/Fujitsu glass - they make there own. I don't like the 1024 x 1024 resolution shtick because it is not exactly right - it should be 1024 x1024I (it draws 512 lines of resolution every other time). In actions shots, the picture can bleed.

I spent about 6-9 months researching plasma's before we bought one. We looked at a Runco, but it was so loud (because of all the fans in it) and they use NEC glass and chasis and modify them. I am not sure they are really worth the money.

We bought a Pioneer PDP-4330 and will never look back.

Dave

FWIW, here in Japan, the Fujitsus don't sell very well now because they are not price competitive and the picture does not seem noticably better for HD use. NEC just sold its PDP mfg. business to Pioneer so anything which comes out will not be NEC original. The two main contenders in Japan at the 42-50" sizes are the Panasonic and the Pioneer. Every time I have compared the two (and I have been comparing them for 3 generations now, waiting, waiting, waiting for the price to drop), the Pioneer always comes out on top for color but the Panasonic may have the edge in blacks in a light room. The new Pioneer runs quite a bit cooler than the Panasonic does (and uses less electricity) and is about 33-40% lighter (42" or 50" version, respectively).

Personally, I much prefer the colors of the newest Pioneer (505HDL) vs the newest Panasonic (50PX300). Both "new" versions noted above are only about a half-generation technological bump from the last model (they were brought out for pre-olympics sales campaigns). I would not expect a 'real' new generation screen for at least another 6mos (in Japan, perhaps longer for the U.S.).