Pioneer Electronics offering a 2 for 1 deal on their 50-inch plasmas.

It’s times like this that I wish I were rich or well off or just in nice stable high-paying job. Pioneer is either really desperate to sell HD TV sets or they’ve gone nuts:

For a limited time only, purchase a Pioneer® Elite® Model PRO-FHD1 from a participating authorized Elite Dealer in the 50 United States and receive a 50” High Definition Plasma from that same dealer, model Pioneer PDP-5016HD, for FREE.  This is for consumer purchases only.

Both models must be delivered to Consumer by Dealer from Dealer’s inventory.

Not all Pioneer authorized Elite Dealers may be participating in this promotion.  Pioneer will not be fulfilling any free PDP-5016HD units directly to the Consumer.

Of course if you can afford a Pioneer® Elite® Model PRO-FHD1 TV to begin with — they’re a mere $8,000 — then you could probably afford to pick up two without any special offers, but rich people didn’t get to be rich by throwing away money so I’m sure they’ll appreciate Pioneer’s generosity. There’s also the small catch (you might have noticed in the press release) that the second TV isn’t the same model, but a slightly different one with less of the gee-whiz features than the first as reported by the folks at Digital Trends:

The Pioneer PRO-FHD1 is an $8,000 plasma display, supporting 1080p content and offering two HDMI inputs along with DV-D, component, composite, S-Video, and even RS-232C input, plus all the signal and image-enhancing bells and whistles one might expect from an $8,000 television set. The “free” 50-inch plasma is something of a different beast: the PDP-5016HD, offering WXGA resolution (that’ll do 720p, but not 1080p), but, at a street price around $2,500, still packs a number of features, including HDMI, component, composite, and antenna inputs, plus integrated NTSC, ATSC, and QAM tuners.

Still free is free, right? I’m sure the lesser-quality 50” still makes for a ridiculously nice computer monitor…

9 thoughts on “Pioneer Electronics offering a 2 for 1 deal on their 50-inch plasmas.

  1. Not so sure Pioneer is being generous – they may be unloading inventory in a hurry.  Sounds like some incredible replacement for large plasma screens is right around the corner.

    The plasmas I’ve seen wouldn’t make a very good computer monitor.  But we have some big LCD screens around the college that would be GREAT – we’re using them in a hallway information system.

  2. 50inch plamas are pretty crappy as far as resolution goes, and not worth anywhere near $8000. 

    I suspect DOF is right on.  Which if this is the case, may mean that Organic LEDs are right around the corner.  Which has me jumpin up and down for joy!!

  3. I know you can get a 42” for around £1000ish, but the jump to 50 may be bigger. Here the demand for 42” seems to be bigger, it’s not often we stock 50” so they may be harder to find.

    Important: With plasmas never tilt them more than 5degrees in the front-back directions, otherwise they can develop black spots so don’t lay them down, the company might get you to sign a paper to put the resposibility onto you which may make it more difficult to return if this happens. However these TV’s can and are tilted a good 45degrees in the side-side direction because electrical comanies that keep them upstairs have to send them up/down a conveyer this way and they have to be tilted to be put on/off the conveyor if there is only one warehouseperson at the time, also it’s near-impossible not to offload one from the delvery van without tilting in this direction as you pick it up. If it’s taken to your car on a sackbarrow, check the direction of tilt.

    That said LCD’s don’t have this tilt restriction and small ones are often stored flat. If you’re thinking of having anyhing delivered from a local store, be aware that often they are sent many miles to the local distribution warehouse and then all the way back again, there is a lot more potential for damage in transit having 2 journeys than simply having one delivered straight from the main warehouse, which is how they come in anyway. Also I recommend always make sure your vehicle is big enough for the item and is a reasonable distance for the store-staff taking it to your car

  4. I recommend not spending the money on plasmas at all, and either save up for the hope that OLEDs arrive soon.  Or spend the money on a much better technology like LCD.

  5. Actually from what I’ve been reading LCDs are not necessarily all that better than plasma and aren’t without their own issues such as stuck pixels.

    The consensus seems to be that for sizes up to 42” LCD is preferable, but for anything bigger than than the choice should be plasma. Things are changing all the time, though, several companies have unveiled LCDs of up to 100” that seem to perform pretty well.

  6. If I understand this correctly, DLP is just a piece of technology that can be used with multiple types of displays.  I think it can be used with LCD and projectors.  So DLP itself is not a type of screen, but an addition to current screen technology.

    And from what I have seen and heard I believe it is a good piece of technology.  It certainly has kept projection TVs from dieing off.

    I believe the TV you referenced is a projection TV, which isn’t necessarily bad, but there are some things that are a turnoff to projection TV.  Such as bulb replacement and being limited to the size of the screen built into the TV.

    Personally I think it is more advantageous to buy DLP projector.  This way you can have a screen as big as the wall in your entertainment room.  And DLP projectors have good functionality in adverse lighting situations.


    No, Webs, it’s a separate technology.

    DLP (“Digital Light Processing”) is a proprietary technology developed by Texas Instruments. It works quite differently than LCD. Instead of having glass panels through which light is passed, the DLP chip is a reflective surface made up of thousands of tiny mirrors. Each mirror represents a single pixel.

    In a DLP projector, light from the projector’s lamp is directed onto the surface of the DLP chip. The mirrors wobble back and forth, directing light either into the lens path to turn the pixel on, or away from the lens path to turn it off.

    In very expensive DLP projectors, there are three separate DLP chips, one each for the red, green, and blue channels. However, in DLP projectors under $20,000, there is only one chip. In order to define color, there is a color wheel that consists of red, green, blue, and sometimes white (clear) filters. This wheel spins between the lamp and the DLP chip and alternates the color of the light hitting the chip from red to green to blue. The mirrors tilt away from or into the lens path based upon how much of each color is required for each pixel at any given moment in time. This activity modulates the light and produces the image that is projected onto the screen.


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