May 08, 2007
Pioneer 4270-HD Plasma TV
Well, I’ve taken the plunge and ventured into the world of flat panel televisions.
My trusty old 20″ Magnavox TV finally died. Bought with money we received from our wedding, this standby piece has been relegated to the bedroom since 2003′s purchase of a 65″ Mitsubishi widescreen projection TV. As such, it was pretty much on light-duty – only getting any amount of use when I was traveling and Heather needed some noise in the room to get to sleep. It just couldn’t compare to the big screen on the first floor. Since my new job doesn’t require as much travel, the TV has been nearly unused for several months. But, a recent week-long stint in Las Vegas for the National Association of Broadcasters Show, simply brought the old TV to its knees. It died a sad death of high-shrieked static noise. Sleep well, old friend…
Now, what to do? I just couldn’t see spending any money on something that wouldn’t last a while and the placement of the old TV in the bedroom was really awkward. Really, the room screamed out for a flat panel, mounted to the wall, directly across from the bed. Oh great muse of decoration, twist my arm again, please! 
So, I did some research and began shopping online and in stores and settled on a Panasonic 42″ Flat-Panel Plasma HDTV Model: TH-42PX75U. I loved it! It was the right price ($1500 at Best Buy and 10% off) and it was also the clear winner in picture quality in that price range. An excellent buy. So, I bought one.
It sucked.
The first unit that I brought home whined louder than an ill-mannered child in a never ending art museum. I think it might have actually been louder than the old Magnavox I was trying to replace. Well, clearly that wasn’t going to work.
The second unit that I brought home had severe menu burn-in all along the left hand side of the screen. It was so bad that I could easily read the words “Setup Menu” during a dark scene during a movie. Aw, crap…
The very nice folks at BestBuy offered to order me another one or to have one brought in from a neighboring store. While their customer service was very good, I wasn’t about to take a chance on what seemed to be a bad product. No, thank you, I don’t think so. The units that I had were manufactured in March of 2007 – a big aluminum sticker said so right on the back. Being a new model for Panasonic, these units were hot off the presses and clearly they are having a few issues with production quality in the early units – at least in the 42″ model. A neighbor of mine has a 50″ that looks and works beautifully.
So, what to do, what to do… Do I return it and not get a TV right now, or get something smaller, larger, what?
Being the cheapo that I am, I ended up negotiating with them on the Pioneer 42″ 4270-HD Plasma instead. They didn’t want a $1500 return, and by the time I finished the negotiations and returned the power cleaner they talked me into buying to stop the “humming” of the first unit, this beauty only cost me $150 more than the Panasonic. Not bad for the model that I would have picked originally if it wasn’t for the cost.
The Pioneer has amazing, very life-like color. A bit richer than the Panasonic, and certainly more realistic than LCD. It makes no noise whatsoever and looks absolutely phenomenal. As all plasma’s do, during the day it can suffer from some glare, because it has a glass front, as compared to the plastic front of LCD’s. That’s OK with me though, as this unit was for the bedroom and doesn’t get used during the day.
As I mentioned, my intention was to put it on the wall – and after testing it out for a few days to make sure it worked, etc. I started the process of hanging the beast. The $99 medium tilt bracket (also includes a slim profile bracket) that they sell at Costco did the trick in no time – and it was $100 less expensive than the BestBuy equivalent. The hardest part was running the wires through the wall, as I ran the power cord through as well, so it would have a completely “cordless” look to it. A decent sized HDMI cable running to a sweet Motorola HD-DVR, a set of component video and TOSLINK to my slightly older DVD player and things were right as rain.
See… Everything works out for the best. Now I have a GOOD reason to buy the Logitech Harmony 1000! 
I swear, you are more inconsistent at posting than I am
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Sorry to hear about your travails with the flat-screens… I am still moping around in the vacuum-tube era, though after moving my wife’s tube, and soon to be moving my tube, my next boob-tube will not be so… tube-y.
Yeah…
Oh, I know, its terrible isn’t it? I’m a has been before I ever was an “IS”.
hahaha!
hello,
hoping you might be able to answer some questions regarding the pioneer pdp 4271 HD…my husband and Ijust bought it on Sunday and cannot get the thing to work. I am about to throw it at the window and am very tempted to just return it to Bestbuy and never go back. We can’t seem to get our cable box channels, a picture and the few air channels we got had not sound…great picture but no sound! Any suggestions?
No sound!? Hmm… What kind of connections are you using? I’m using an HDMI cable from my cable box to the Plasma. For my DVD player, I’m using component video cables and digital toslink for sound.
It all seems to work fine…
I couldn’t tell from your comment – do you get sound from SOME channels, but not all or you don’t get any sound at all?
If you provide as much info as you can on your setup, I may be able to provide some assistance…
Thanks for stopping by!
Cheers,
Andy
I also bought a pioneer 4270 hdtv and I cannot get the sound to work. I have HDMI cables but my current high def dvr box doesnt have anywhere to plug the cables. therefore im using green/blue/red cables for the video and red and white for the sound. I cannot get any sound but I get a great picture.
I bought a 4270 two months ago. Extremely happy until last night. I have only two channels that I can not get sound on. All the TVs in my home are on cable but this is the only HDTV. The sound is fine on all the TVs in my home except on the 4270 where as I said two channels do not have sound. No the weird part. One of the channels has sound on the cable connection, but I also have a anntena conncection to bring in my local channel better and the sound will not play when I am on AntB but will on AntA. Any help would be appreciated.
Hi Don,
Welcome to my blog! Thanks for posting…
A couple of quick questions: How is the sound connected to the TV from both the cable box and the antenna?
And, just to make sure I understand you – ALL channels, except for 2, have sound?
Cheers,
A
I hooked up the satellite equipment, hooked up my stereo, plugged it in, and WHOA! I just sit there for hours staring at it. I can just imagine how it will look when I turn it on! JK! I couldn’t have asked for more. It is so beautiful. The picture is as clear as I could ask for. Sometimes it’s almost 3D. Honestly, I was dozing off and there was a show on about space exploration and for a second when I woke up I thought I was in the cockpit of the spaceship soaring through space. It took me a few seconds to get back to the reality that I was looking at the TV, lol. Blu-ray really shines on this TV! This is by far one of the most amazing things I’ve every owned.
I bought this when my 37″ Olevia LCD went out on me after 2 years. Thought I would go with a name brand TV this time. I too was looking for LCD’s but noticed how much better the picture was on the Panasonic Plasma’s. The price wasn’t much different either. I settled on the TC-P42S1 and absolutely love it. It was an easy setup and it has many features you can tweak to make the picture perfect for your room.
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