I have a customer who is deciding between the new pioneer 4340hd and the hitachi - directors series 42' plasma. I have sold and installed the pioneer and like it a lot, but i have on installed nor sold the Hitachi and he is asking me for my feedback between the two...
What do you guys think??

Thanks again,
Lonny

Lonny,

I would not compare the two...

the Pioneer (as with ALL of their video products) is SOFT, FUZZY, and WARM!

The Hitachi (as with all theirs and Fujitsu's product) is SHARP, COOL, and PRECISE...

In MY opinion, and CERTAINLY based upon MY abilited to calibrate...the Hitachi/Fujitsu's smoke the Pioneers...

MY BIGGEST issue with Pioneer for neraly 15 years now, across their lines ( CAR AUDIO, CONSUMER AUDIO< and VIDEO) has been their end reliability and service factor. I think they look fine, but they take 3X the work to KEEP em looking that way!

avdude

Avdude,
Thanks for your input it looks like i'll be calling hitachi to see how they go about distirbution of there plasmas.

Lonny

I agree with avdude...

I've installed both.. the Hitachi is better, and has a higher profit margin

What about the discrete issue? We use mainly Pioneer and Fujitsu displays for our installs. My boss's main reason is the discretes and simplicity of automation (Prontos). There are a couple of Hitachis in the house I am working in right now (except for this small break:) ) and I am not having luck with the discretes I have dug up.

I am not sure of the model #s of these models, but they are coming down next week to clean up the wiring.

I have not done an A/B comparison on them so I would not argue with the above suggestions.

Roddy

Avdude, I have been at my company for a few months so I do not have any long term issues or experience with Pioneer. What problems have you ran into?
So far I have installed about a dozen Pro 1000s in 5 months.

It must be an Altitude thing. Cause the 4340s and 5040s iv done (even one in a side by side to Fujitsu) did not look fuzy at all! Pumping 1080i through the 5040 looked WAY better on the Pinoeer.

Brijaws, that’s what I say also, I totally agree with you. I have installed many plasma's and I think for the price and the look the 4340hd is great! It also has the shinny face to it like the "elite" series.

Lonny

True Lonny. Pioneer and Panasonic (as well as sony) are making the peices looking like they belongs in someones living room, Unlike Hitacgi and Fuji. Besides, the Pioneer also comes with the AV switcher which has the built in IR repeator from the Plasma to the gear(which is great!)and has an HD tunner and some cool features like 3:3 pulldown that most other box do not have.!

Ill do a full side by side comparason soon on www.integrationpros.com

I have to say pioneers, I sell the hitachis and the fujitsu's as well and when i go back to sites i will often pop a test disc in to see if any pixels are out. Of the 100+ pioneers i have put in i have never had anyone complain about pixels being out, and of all that i have retested (some up to three years after install) i have only found three pixels out TOTAL! Compare that to my Fujitsu demo i had for six months which loast 24 pixels in that time, and numerous calls from clients with fujis about pixel failure. Fuji has yet to help me on any panel warranty issues even with the demo i had, it was always within 'acceptable failure rates'.

my two cents

Again Brijaws, I do agree with you except the only problem with the pioneer is that if you need a longer trump cable 1. It can get expensive 2. They don't make them long enough and 3. You loose a little bit of clarity (have been told).
Also, we don't have to worry about running a plasma proof IR emitter, which can get expensive.

Lonny

Descrete codes for hitachi cmp 5000 are the Pioneer pdp 503 (they are the same panel)

Pioneer CMX series...commercial version...in my opinion is the best plasma on the market. We have used the CMX series on 95% of our installs. I would shy away from consumer versions if you intend to do a custom installation. These look great out of the box and require very little tweaking.


Maybe the case with the comsumer models...not the commercial models.

Bonus with the commercial models...you can use scaler cards and a variety of other cards to customize the inputs that you want.

Hitachi's also have an annoying feature where they go on standby when there is no signal, making installation time consuming sometimes.