Pioneer's 2008 line of plasma HDTVs, monitors, Blu-ray drives, and projectors are billed as offering five times the level of black as the first generation of Project Kuro, which wowed audiences at CES 2008 just last January.

NEW YORK CITY (BetaNews) - Despite the hard work of Hollywood film makers, movies show up on most flat panel high-definition displays "all washed out," said cinematographer Ousama Rawi, meanwhile making it clear he considers Pioneer's 2008 Project Kuro line-up -- rolled out at a press launch Wednesday night -- to be a shining exception.

"We want to paint a black canvas so that the colors will come alive," said Russ Johnston, senior VP of marketing and product development for Pioneer Electronics USA, speaking at the press conference in Manhattan.

Consequently, Pioneer has embarked on a quest for attaining "absolute black," Johnston told reporters. True, deep black produces pictures with greater contrast, finer detail, and deeper colors, according to Paul Meyhoefer, Pioneer's VP of display marketing and product development.

Slated for release later this year, Pioneer's 2008 generation of Kuro products are also accompanied by a feature called Optimum Mode, designed to monitor video and room light conditions and make automatic adjustments to produce the best possible image quality for a room.

In addition, the 2008 HDTVs provide a new user interface for HD integration; a redesigned remote control; and a networked "home media gallery" for playback of HD movies and other files over USB; and compatibility with Microsoft's PlaysForSure and Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) home networking specifications.

In developing these new capabilities for Kuro, Pioneer is departing from tradition by working closely with Hollywood pros such as Rawi, whose credits as a cinematographer include the TV mini-series and Blu-ray disk set "The Tudors."

Rawi told journalists at the press conference that cinematographers are frustrated by how their work comes across on most plasma and LCD flat panel displays.

After testing eight different flat panel displays, including one display in the Kuro line-up, Rawi gives high marks only to the Pioneer model. The cinematographer indicated that high contrast displays are particularly important for viewing scenes shot under lighting conditions with a lot of contrast.

In "The Tudors," for instance, the nighttime scenes used only candlelight against the dark, since electricity didn't even exist back in the seventeenth century, when the movie is set.

Suggesting the need for an automatic adjustment feature such as Pioneer's new Optimum Mode, Rawi also noted that employees in consumer electronics stores aren't necessarily well versed on how to handle the complicated settings on most HD equipment.

In an interview with BetaNews during the event, Meyhoefer said that Pioneer has consistently targeted a high level of technical innovation, starting with audio speakers and car stereo systems several decades ago.

Meyhoefer told BetaNews that, for the future, Pioneer is working on plasma screens in larger form factors than the 50- and 60-inch 1080p models in the 2008 line-up. "And, of course, we'll continue to strive for 'absolute black,'" he added.