I was reading a review of this Pioneer Plasma and the reviewer stated that he could not find anyway to make 4:3 standard definition channels fill the screen. This may have been only in OTA Digital reception but I was not sure.

Anyway has anyone who owns one of these Plasmas found away to stretch the image?

I am guessing you could switch the Plasma to 4:3 mode and than stretch it, but usually I have seen that this requires selecting submenus - at least on other devices I have used like my Samsung 451 receiver.

I would rather just be able to do it with one button press.

-Don B

i have a samsung ppm50 plasma and mine will auto stretch(fill) the screen when in standard video (cable/video1/s-video) modes....no button to push no menu to select....I believe most plasmas (at least the ones i have delt with do this)... have not played with your pioneer though...

Nimrod ,

If you are in HD 16:9 mode watching a show broadcast in 16:9 and than change channels to a station broadcasting in digital 4:3 which would than have a bar on either side. How difficult is it to switch from HD 16:9 mode to standard 4:3 mode in order to stretch it ?

Keep in mind that I am looking at this from the perspective of the better half using the Plasma.

-Don

Why do you want to watch oblong people anyway? I personnaly hate watching any 4:3 material stretched out. I would rather watch the pillar boxes. If it is an HD local channel or a local digital, the 4:3 content is broadcast with the pillar boxes so there is no stretch.

It may be wiser, at least the first few hundred hours, to NOT pillar/letterbox anything on CRT technology like plasmas. That and some people don't mind the stretching.

Spiky and rlustig,

The two reasons I wanted to stretch it were:
1. Burn in.
2. The better half who just does not understand why Digital is in 4:3 mode no matter how much explaining I do.

Also I have seen stretch algorithms that leave the center of the screen alone where typically the actors are located and stretch more of the sides of the image so it does not look as "Oblong". I was hoping the Pioneer could do this.

I did purchase the Pioneer over the weekend and I do not see any means of stretching the image. It kind of makes since as the Pioneer receiver was designed to work with the Pioneer Plasma via the two dedicated cables and as such does not even recognise a 4:3 tv like my Samsung 451 STB does.

Also rlustig I am watching Broadcast HD, have not yet talked the better half into Digital cable or SAT. One thing at a time as the Pioneer was a big step as is.

-Don B

I went to the Pioneeer site to see if there was anything on Stretch and do not find anything. But I see the brandnew version of this Plasma the PDP-4350HD does have stretch feature to eliminate side bars on the HD broadcast. It appears to not have a NTSC tuner however.

I wonder if its fan is quieter than the fan on my receiver. I feel it is too loud.

-Don B

don,

I always watch 4:3 in standard video (so it auto stretches...plus it looks better than stretched 16:9), and i watch 16:9 on component.... i have buttton on my device page that says "watch HD" .. when i hit that it auto goes to component 1 and switches channel on cable box to 1st hd channel....then the remote goes to a HDTV device page which mirrors the other page except for the button that says "watch Reg. Cable" (which has opposite effect)

oh ya... i have pioneer hd box from brighthouse and they have a stretch betton on their system that makes it easy to adjust (but i never use it)

Nimrod,

Thanks for the input. I will look into this.

-Don B

I was wondering if anyone is familiar enough with the Pioneer to discuss "Burn In"

I had a radar map displayed on the Plasma which did not change image very quickly. This was on the screen for about 1/2 hour. At the time we were doing things and just kept a causul eye on an upcoming thunderstorm as we were working. I had put the digital image in stretch mode to get rid of the side bars.

About 15 minutes into this I noticed that the Plasma had changed back to the side bar unstretched version of the radar map.

I quizzed the better half and was told the Plasma had blinked to a black screen and than had come back in the unstretched mode. I thought this was kind of odd but kept on working.

ABout ten minutes later I saw it do it all over again and than the image went to this degraded mode that Pioneer says it will go to during video games to keep from getting burn in. Pioneer made it sound like the image would still be viewable in this dimmed mode but it was virtually unviewable it was so dim. I tried turning the tv off and than on, but it did not seem to help and the plasma went to the dim setting with more frequency. At this point I turned off the Plasma and left it off. The ac was not on in the house and it was humid. I thought maybe the Plasma was just too hot.

A couple of hours later I turned the Plasma back on and it said "May take awhile for display to resume" or something to than effect. It than came back on after a few seconds and I switched to a channel other than the "Fixed Radar Channel"
When I was switching I happened across a blank channel and I could distinctly see the after image of the radar screen. I have since learned that this can happen but it is only temporary and will go away once you put moving images back up on the screen which it indeed did. I now do not see any after image presently.

So my concern is "Will I experince this same problem if I infrequently watch the Radar station or use the Plasma for a PC monitor" ?

The manual discusses using it for a monitor and infact the receiver even has a RGB plug to hook a PC up.

But I am having 2nd thoughts about this after experiencing above scenario. Was it because it was just too hot in the house?

And why did the Plasma dim to a non-viewable image when the manual says it will just get a little dimmer ?

And how do they use these Pioneer Plasmas in airport terminals with fixed airplane schedules displayed on them all day without them going into the dim mode ??

Thanks for any help.

Don B

I still find the fan to be louder than I expected on this Pioneer. Can any of you experts out there who own or have installed this model give me a rough ball park fiigure of how loud the fan receiver should be ?

Presently as soon as I turn on the unit I would say it is as loud as the drive mechanism in a typical VCR.

-Don B

Questions I sent to Pioneer:

My main question is about fan noise. As far as I can tell from reading on the
web it should be almost whisper quiet. I find the fan to be much louder than
whisper quiet.

As soon as I turn on the tv I would say it is as loud as the transport mechanism
in a VCR. I can easily hear it under normal conditions with normal volume
levels.

I sware that when I first turned it on several weeks ago it was quieter. But it
just so happened I was watching a storm move in on radar which was mostly a
still image on the screen. The unit got warm the
fan got loud and Plasma panel went into a "dim" mode as per the owners
manuals description that it will do when it is used for gaming. But.. it dimmed
to such an extent that the image was unusable.

So basically my questions are:
1. How quiet is quiet in regards to the fan.
2. How dim is dim in regards to screen protection vs viewability ?
3. Does this model have any advanced screen protection against permanent burn in
from side bars and logos such as "orbit" of pixels, or
"shifting" of pixels ?

Thanks in advance for any help and by the way I like the Plasma a lot !!!

Pioneers reply:

Thank you for contacting Pioneer Electronics, Inc.
1. Fan noise is normal.
2. Dim is unviewable.
3. "Advanced" screen protection is not available on this unit.