Pioneer held its 2008 line show last week in New York City, and there were a few surprises to be found in the upper floors of the Gramercy Park Hotel.

The theme built off last year’s KURO launch with displays of improved KURO panels in 50-inch and 60-inch sizes. (Goodbye to 43-inch panels!) The line has been slimmed down considerably as a result, with two new KURO models, the PDP-5020FD ($4,000 SRP) and PDP-6020FD ($5,500), making up the "entry level" category. Both are full 1080p designs.

Stepping up, you’ll find the Elite KURO PRO-111FD (50", $5,000) and PRO-151FD (60", $6,500), also full 1080p plasma HDTVs. In a new twist, there are two KURO HD 1080p plasma monitors (no integrated tuner or speakers), the PRO-101FD (50") and PRO-141FD (60"). No prices have been announced on these two models, which debut in October and August, respectively. (The others are all launching next month.)

Pioneer has given us a bit to chew on here. Having a product line with only six big screen HDTVs is quite a departure for any first tier electronics manufacturer, as is keeping the skews to just two sizes. The price range across the line is also intriguing - the difference between Pioneer’s low and high-end plasma is only $2,500 this year.

The two plasma monitors are targeted directly at the CEDIA channel as part of a high-end audio installation, and these are pretty skinny products (just over 3 inches deep). Why? Pioneer believes the custom install market is going to be a mainstay of their business and their press release cited a Parks Associates study that predicts an increase to 226,000 installations by 2012, with over $23,000 spent on average per install.

Clearly, they are trying to straddle a fault line between the "quality is everything, price is no object" customer and those who shop by price tags alone at Best Buy. What’s more, everything below 42 inches will go 100% LCD (no surprise) with a line of Pioneer-branded HDTVs still to come.

But the real news was to be found in another room, where Pioneer unveiled its new 1080p KURO home theater projector (an OEM JVC RS-series D-ILA chassis). This projector picks up on the KURO black styling across the rest of the line and will retail for $9,000 - about $3,000 more than JVC’s price for their DLA-RS1X.

Some readers may recall Pioneer’s last foray into front projectors with the late, lamented RVD-XG10. This was a 1024×768 LCoS projector that made its debut at Comdex in 1997 and retailed for $9,995 for about a year. Problems with price competition and low yields eventually forced the product off the market, leaving Pioneer to concentrate on doing what it did best - plasma.

Now, Pioneer’s back in the projector game, convinced there is a market for a high-quality sub-$10K projection system that can take business away from the $20 - $30K offerings from longtime CEDIA stalwarts like Runco and SIM2. The image quality of the KURO projector I saw was certainly top-notch for LCoS and consistent with Pioneer’s current image campaign.

Two new Blu-ray players round out the line, the Pioneer Elite BDP-05FD ($799) and BDP-51FD ($599). Both support BD networked BonusView content, both use 12-bit processing, and both use Wolfson digital-to-audio converters for high-quality audio playback. These players will begin shipping this summer.

One question that came to mind during the post-show reception was this: How would Pioneer source these new, super-black KURO panels, given the company’s pending exit from PDP fabbing? In discussions with Pioneer executives, Matsushita (Panasonic) was identified as the logical source for plasma glass going forward and the latter will likely gain access to Pioneer’s secret KURO sauce as part of the process - something that could also lead to improved black levels on Panasonic PDPs down the road.

As for Pioneer, the company has bet that they can maintain a price premium for their plasma displays by stressing KURO image quality and the Pioneer brand, trying to avoid becoming "just another plasma manufacturer." The question is, will consumers see the difference in image quality, and will they pay extra for it? Stay tuned…

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