Best Plasma sony,pioneer.Panasonic ?

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.).

Botrytis wrote: "The Fujitsu's are actually a Hitachi/Fujitsu glass - they make there own. I don'tlike 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)."

This is not entirely true. Some of the Fujitsu's use that ALIS technology glass but others, like the 1366x768 P50 I have and the P63, use Panasonic glass, thus combining its excellent black rendition and high contrast with their AVM processing.

T_bone wrote: "the Pioneer always comes out on top for color
but the Panasonic may have the edge in blacks in a light room."

The superiority of the Panasonic blacks is seen in a darkened room, not a light one.

Kal

I will concede to Kal that I am speculating on HD-DVDO/Panny performance vs. the Fujitsu.

Yes, you have another box, albeit only 1 cable to the panel, so I think it depends on the installation which way is easiest.

I have debated getting an HD-DVDO to try out...but audio has my focus right now :) I don't think the scaling is bad on the Panny for what its worth--certainly better than my former JVC SX21 projector. I watch mostly HD, so that has been my hiccup on scalars. Only the better Faroudjas/Runcos/KDs etc right now scale HD. My eye is definitely on the new Lumagen that said...

Kal, you are, of course, right. While I have seen two generations of both the Panasonic and Pioneer in darkened rooms and enjoyed both, I have never directly compared the two in those conditions. I have only directly compared them in the lighter and cramped conditions of electronics retailers in Tokyo so felt I had to make my comment on blacks conditional. Perhaps I should have also made my comment on color differences conditional but I have noticed that even without directly comparing them side by side. In any case, I could live with either one.