Pioneer KRP500A Reviews: Kuro, 50" Screen Plasma Full HD 1080p TV

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Product Features

Screen Size in Inches	50
Screen size is measured diagonally from corner to corner.
Type of Screen	Plasma
Most small flatscreen TVs have LCD screens. Some larger TVs have plasma screens. Some very new TVs have LED screens. Traditional TVs are called Standard or CRT.
HD TV	Full HD 1080p
‘HD Ready’ is a Europe-wide standard designed to made HD technology less confusing. HD Ready TVs must have • Minimum vertical resolution of 750 pixels (in widescreen format) • Ability to display 720p and 1080i formats • An HDMI or Digital Video Interface (DVI interface) Full HD is a higher standard. Full HD TVs have screen resolutions of 1080p and can output at least 24 frames per second. Full HD is becoming common, but you won’t see Full HD on normal TV channels for a long time, so it remains optional for many people.
Freeview or Freesat Tuner	Freeview and Freesat
Freeview is free digital terrestrial TV. FreeSat is a free digital satellite TV service, which gives you HD programming from people like the BBC without having to pay for a subscription to a service like Sky. You need a dish to receive Freesat but not Freeview. For more information see the Freeview site or the Freesat site.
Built-in Disc Player	No
Some products come with built-in DVD players or Blu Ray players.
HDMI Interface	4
Like a scart interface but capable of carrying HD signals from or to other devices. You’ll need these to link your Playstation 3 or your Blu-ray player to your HD-ready TV.
Number of Scart Interfaces	3
Scart sockets are places where you can connect other devices to your TV. If you already have a DVD player, a VCR and a Playstation you might want to make sure your new TV has enough Scart interfaces so you don’t have to keep crawling round the back of the TV.
Frequency (Hz)	50
A TV’s frequency is how often the picture is updated per second, and is measured in Hertz (Hz). A higher frequency, such as 100 Hz, means that a TV is more likely to show fast-moving images with high detail.
Contrast Ratio (X:1)	16000
This figure is designed to tell you how much difference there is between dark and light colours on the TV. It is quoted as a ratio, between the brightest white and the darkest black. 500:1 means the brightest white is 500 times more bright than the darkest black. Plasma screens have historically boasted better contrast ratios than LCD screens.
Screen Format	16:9
This is a ratio of the horizontal to the vertical size of the screen. 16:9 is standard widescreen format for TVs, replacing the older 4:3 format.
PC Interface	Yes
If you’d like to use your TV as a PC monitor you’ll need to make sure it has a port to allow you to connect it. This is usually a VGA port, but some TVs include a newer DVI port. Adaptors are availible to allow VGA to DVI and vice versa.
USB Port	Yes
Socket for connecting devices such as a computers and other components
Screen Resolution (pixels)	1080p
The number of pixels the screen has. The more you have, the more detail the screen can display, given a high quality source. A breakdown of resolutions can be found on Wikipedia here
Electronic Program Guide (EPG)	Yes
TVs with this feature have an on-screen guide to all the programmes that are currently showing or coming up, so you can find your way around all the extra digital channels easily.
Picture in Picture (PIP)	Yes
TVs with this feature are able to display a preview of another channel while you are watching your current channel.
Energy Savings Trust Feature	No
A Yes means this this product has been rated as being energy-efficient by the Energy Savings Trust. Good for the environment and good for your electricity bill!
Weight (kg)	31.4
Height in mm	723
Width in mm	1233
Depth in mm	64
Sound System	SRS WOW HD
Colour	Multi
The main colour of the product.
Release Date	31 Oct 2008
The date the product was originally made available for purchase.
Freeview	Yes
Freeview is free digital terrestrial TV. Many newer TVs have Freeview built in. For other TVs you will need a separate Freeview set-top box.

Also known as: Pioneer Kuro, PIONEER KRP500ABG, Pioneer KRP-500, Pioneer KRP-500A

50-inch ‘HD Ready 1080p’ KURO with Digital Terrestrial and Satellite Tuner (Separate Media Receiver)

Intense sight and sound, perfectly tuned.

Take your home entertainment experience into a new dimension. Delivering uncompromised quality, optimised performance and intelligent design, the KRP-500A will transform your living environment into a perfectly tuned space.

KURO means black in Japanese and black is at the very heart of the KURO concept. Blacker than ever, a KURO flat screen TV creates black tones of such depth and purity that every detail, every colour, every shade becomes brilliantly alive.

Just 64mm thin and with a separate media receiver, the KRP-500A is clean and contemporary in design; a centrepiece complementing almost any interior.

Wherever you install your KURO or whatever you plan to watch, you can be sure of perfect picture quality. The KRP-500A gives a wide selection of picture customisation options, so you can fine-tune the picture to exactly match your taste.

With its Enhanced Optimum Mode, the KRP-500A actively senses the light conditions and analyses the viewing content, ensuring that the picture you see is as perfect as it can be. In addition, the audio can be harmonised with the programme being watched. The KRP-500A comes with an extra colour sensor that measures the colour characteristics of ambient light to provide the picture optimum to your eye’s sensation.

The KRP-500A delivers flicker-free images in razor-sharp 1080p resolution. View films coming from Blu-ray in the original 24 frames per second – precisely the same rate at which they were originally filmed and mastered. What you see (and hear) is true to the original.

Equipped with an integrated analogue tuner, DVB-T tuner for digital terrestrial TV reception and a DVB-S/DVB-S2 tuner for receiving satellite signals, the KRP-500A is compliant with the EICTA ‘HDTV 1080p Minimum Requirements’ and supports MPEG-4 high definition decoding.

The KRP-500A has 4 HDMI inputs that enable a quick and convenient connection to a broad range of source devices. Equipped for easy integration into your home network, the KRP-500A features a DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) certified Home Media Gallery, enabling you to enjoy compressed audio files, photos and even high definition content from one or more connected media servers.

With KURO LINK and an intuitive Graphical User Interface (GUI) easy operation is virtually guaranteed. KURO LINK allows you to access the main functions of all your compatible Pioneer equipment with a single remote control.

• More info at Pioneer's website
• User manual

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