Hey folks, Valkor here. Continuing with my CES coverage, we’re gonna move on to my best of show and that goes to the people at Pioneer for having one of the best demonstrations I’ve ever laid eyes. Not since the Dolby TrueHD Demo have I been this blown away and if you were at CES and didn’t catch it, then you’ve missed something special. Enter Project Kuro.
Project Kuro centers on the name “Kuro” which is Japanese that means black or in this case “deep black”. Project Kuro is a television with no glow and it was demonstrated next to a standard Kuro Tv without the Kuro technology. The first image was a ring and on the standard TV, well you can tell it’s a TV but with Kuro you would think the ring was floating in midair. It’s an amazing effect but the best was the goldfish. Again it’s a beautiful display but during that time I was thinking, man they need to show this with some actual film footage. And I spoke too soon because soon after a clip from Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End was shown and this probably would not have been my film of choice because other than the no glare which the standard TV on the right had, the look pretty much identical. But you can say the increase in contrast from the Kuro TV. Again not an example I would have shown; Batman Begins would have been better as there are plenty of dark areas to exploit.
It’s also not about the deep black that makes PK so special, it’s also its thinness. If Pioneer can pull it off PK will be one of the thinnest TV’s on the market, pushing 9mm thick! That’s about as thin as some cellphones. I’d love to see how that would work out and as we get closer to 2009 we will.
Right now Project Kuro is a conceptual idea and won’t be brought into fruition until about later this year into 2009. Hopefully before CES 2009 will we see the finished product but hey I can wait for the next big show to come around again. I give Project Kuro “Best of Show” 5 stars all around. I can’t wait to see more of this TV with some primo clips.