Marantz 61-Inch Plasma Monitor
April 2002
The Picture Dreams are Made Of
By Grant Clauser
Unless you're a professional basketball player, a pop singer, a major CEO or a Hollywood star then you probably have little chance of owning a gorgeous 61-inch Marantz plasma display monitor like the one that showed up at E-Gear's offices. But you can dream.
There's a lot to dream about on this baby. At about $30,000 or $491.80 an inch the PD6120D is the ultimate in high-tech home entertainment. It's also as big as these things get, at least for now. Smaller, 42-inch plasma monitors have caught on with up-market consumers (who says we're in a recession?) who want to enjoy a big screen without having to live with a TV cabinet the size of a piano. And of course there's the appeal of flaunting your expensive tastes to the neighbors.
The new bigger class of plasma, which this Marantz is among, offer a lot more pixels than those that came before, 1365 x 768 to be exact, thus making them true high definition displays. Unless you want to hang a projector and big screen in your home, this is THE way to see high def.
One of the benefits of plasma is that you can have a big TV in a fairly light package, though this 61-inch behemoth is not something you can carry under your arm. Its slim 4.7-inch depth still gives it that classic appeal of a wall mirror or painting.
As I've said in previous articles about plasma monitors, the technology behind them has improved dramatically over the last year alone. Big screens like this Marantz are testaments to how good plasmas have gotten. It's no easy thing to get all those pixels working together so well that you can comfortably sit back and lose yourself in the illusion.
When I first powered it up and connected it to a progressive scan DVD player, the colors were slightly off. The picture had a little green cast to it and was overly bright. Getting into the picture controls and correcting the image via test patterns eliminated a lot of the problems but the monitor really begged for a full grayscale calibration. I set the mode to theater and the color temperature to PRO which gets you access to the advanced controls. The gain and bias controls for correcting grayscale were easily accessible and allowed me to get the unit to run at a pretty consistent 6500K color temperature. The monitor's DC restoration, the ability to hold black levels, was very good. Once calibrated it held a steady color temperature across the gray spectrum.
Once that was done it was time to enjoy the monitor's many features. Because it has two 7-watt amps I was able to connect a pair of B&W VM1 speakers directly while I ran some DVD demos.
Like most widescreen displays these days, the Marantz includes aspect ratio controls to allow you to get images of varying size and shapes to fit the screen the way you want them. For most people that will mean making everything fill the entire screen. Normal mode keeps standard 4:3 aspect material in its original shape. If you want to fill the screen choose the Stadium mode. It maintains the look of most of the picture while only stretching the edges a bit. The effect is pretty good and you only notice the distortion in certain scenes. High definition TV and anamorphic DVDs should be viewed in Full mode while non-anamorphic widescreen DVDs or widescreen standard definition TV programs should be viewed in Zoom mode. There's an Auto Adjust button which switches the picture to Zoom mode when using the component video inputs, but when using the RGB PC input picture-quality adjustments and position adjustments are made. When using the monitor for TV or DVD viewing the Auto Adjust button is better left alone.
Because phosphor burn (the uneven aging of screen phosphors) can occur when watching 4:3 images or widescreen letterbox images Marantz has thoughtfully included a feature that allows you to replace the black bars with gray bars. You can adjust the brightness of the gray bars to your taste; in fact it's probably a good idea to vary the brightness from time to time if you use the bars a lot to keep the intensity of phosphor aging from being static. Personally, I prefer to keep the screen filled with picture information even if that means distorting the picture a little.
The monitor includes a Multi Screen feature, something I've seen in a lot of rear projection and direct-view high-def television but not in plasma monitors. Utilizing Multi Screen allows you to view up to two different video sources at once. It's really ingenious in that you can select screen size and orientation (side-by-side picture or picture within picture), and you can switch between them both with very simple commands from the remote. Since the screen is big enough you can easily watch two sporting events at once or watch TV while monitoring a surveillance camera or a Web page in a small picture window.
Marantz has included a significant improvement in this monitor's video processing capabilities over the 50-inch PD5010D that came before it. While the previous monitor upconverted all signals to the screen's native resolution it didn't include the important inverse telecine or 3:2 pulldown correction. The new 61-inch monitor does include 3:2 pulldown for taking the annoying jagged edges and moire lines out of film-based signals like DVD movies.
DVD and high definition test patterns showed lots of detail when played on the Marantz. Colors were bright and deeply saturated without bleeding into each other. The monitor's 3:2 pulldown eliminated almost all the edge artifacts and moire errors. Test patterns at high definition resolution showed all the detail one expects from the format. While the picture has sufficient punch from deep blacks there were times when solid fields of dark colors produced a blocked or pixelated effect. The Marantz handled this phenomena better than most, but it is a fairly common problem with plasma technology. The addition of an external video processor often can fix it up. People considering purchasing a big plasma like this should also budget for a native scan rate processor/scaler such as those made by Faroudja.
The PD6120 doesn't come with any sort of stand or legs, but they are available. The back of the monitor can accommodate wall brackets. Most people considering purchasing something like this will probably have a custom installation idea in mind anyway.
Let's be clear here; this is strictly a luxury item for the rich and impulsive. But unlike a lot of luxuries, it's also an excellent performer, achieving picture qualities many plasma monitors before it couldn't have hoped for. Don't think of this as a $30,000 TV; think of it as a high performance car. A Lexus and a Dodge are both cars, but you know the difference when you look at them. Marantz's 61-inch plasma monitor is one of those things you don't merely want; you covet it. Products like this may have only a limited audience of buyers but a huge audience of gawkers.
By Grant Clauser
Unless you're a professional basketball player, a pop singer, a major CEO or a Hollywood star then you probably have little chance of owning a gorgeous 61-inch Marantz plasma display monitor like the one that showed up at E-Gear's offices. But you can dream.
There's a lot to dream about on this baby. At about $30,000 or $491.80 an inch the PD6120D is the ultimate in high-tech home entertainment. It's also as big as these things get, at least for now. Smaller, 42-inch plasma monitors have caught on with up-market consumers (who says we're in a recession?) who want to enjoy a big screen without having to live with a TV cabinet the size of a piano. And of course there's the appeal of flaunting your expensive tastes to the neighbors.
The new bigger class of plasma, which this Marantz is among, offer a lot more pixels than those that came before, 1365 x 768 to be exact, thus making them true high definition displays. Unless you want to hang a projector and big screen in your home, this is THE way to see high def.
One of the benefits of plasma is that you can have a big TV in a fairly light package, though this 61-inch behemoth is not something you can carry under your arm. Its slim 4.7-inch depth still gives it that classic appeal of a wall mirror or painting.
As I've said in previous articles about plasma monitors, the technology behind them has improved dramatically over the last year alone. Big screens like this Marantz are testaments to how good plasmas have gotten. It's no easy thing to get all those pixels working together so well that you can comfortably sit back and lose yourself in the illusion.
When I first powered it up and connected it to a progressive scan DVD player, the colors were slightly off. The picture had a little green cast to it and was overly bright. Getting into the picture controls and correcting the image via test patterns eliminated a lot of the problems but the monitor really begged for a full grayscale calibration. I set the mode to theater and the color temperature to PRO which gets you access to the advanced controls. The gain and bias controls for correcting grayscale were easily accessible and allowed me to get the unit to run at a pretty consistent 6500K color temperature. The monitor's DC restoration, the ability to hold black levels, was very good. Once calibrated it held a steady color temperature across the gray spectrum.
Once that was done it was time to enjoy the monitor's many features. Because it has two 7-watt amps I was able to connect a pair of B&W VM1 speakers directly while I ran some DVD demos.
Like most widescreen displays these days, the Marantz includes aspect ratio controls to allow you to get images of varying size and shapes to fit the screen the way you want them. For most people that will mean making everything fill the entire screen. Normal mode keeps standard 4:3 aspect material in its original shape. If you want to fill the screen choose the Stadium mode. It maintains the look of most of the picture while only stretching the edges a bit. The effect is pretty good and you only notice the distortion in certain scenes. High definition TV and anamorphic DVDs should be viewed in Full mode while non-anamorphic widescreen DVDs or widescreen standard definition TV programs should be viewed in Zoom mode. There's an Auto Adjust button which switches the picture to Zoom mode when using the component video inputs, but when using the RGB PC input picture-quality adjustments and position adjustments are made. When using the monitor for TV or DVD viewing the Auto Adjust button is better left alone.
Because phosphor burn (the uneven aging of screen phosphors) can occur when watching 4:3 images or widescreen letterbox images Marantz has thoughtfully included a feature that allows you to replace the black bars with gray bars. You can adjust the brightness of the gray bars to your taste; in fact it's probably a good idea to vary the brightness from time to time if you use the bars a lot to keep the intensity of phosphor aging from being static. Personally, I prefer to keep the screen filled with picture information even if that means distorting the picture a little.
The monitor includes a Multi Screen feature, something I've seen in a lot of rear projection and direct-view high-def television but not in plasma monitors. Utilizing Multi Screen allows you to view up to two different video sources at once. It's really ingenious in that you can select screen size and orientation (side-by-side picture or picture within picture), and you can switch between them both with very simple commands from the remote. Since the screen is big enough you can easily watch two sporting events at once or watch TV while monitoring a surveillance camera or a Web page in a small picture window.
Marantz has included a significant improvement in this monitor's video processing capabilities over the 50-inch PD5010D that came before it. While the previous monitor upconverted all signals to the screen's native resolution it didn't include the important inverse telecine or 3:2 pulldown correction. The new 61-inch monitor does include 3:2 pulldown for taking the annoying jagged edges and moire lines out of film-based signals like DVD movies.
DVD and high definition test patterns showed lots of detail when played on the Marantz. Colors were bright and deeply saturated without bleeding into each other. The monitor's 3:2 pulldown eliminated almost all the edge artifacts and moire errors. Test patterns at high definition resolution showed all the detail one expects from the format. While the picture has sufficient punch from deep blacks there were times when solid fields of dark colors produced a blocked or pixelated effect. The Marantz handled this phenomena better than most, but it is a fairly common problem with plasma technology. The addition of an external video processor often can fix it up. People considering purchasing a big plasma like this should also budget for a native scan rate processor/scaler such as those made by Faroudja.
The PD6120 doesn't come with any sort of stand or legs, but they are available. The back of the monitor can accommodate wall brackets. Most people considering purchasing something like this will probably have a custom installation idea in mind anyway.
Let's be clear here; this is strictly a luxury item for the rich and impulsive. But unlike a lot of luxuries, it's also an excellent performer, achieving picture qualities many plasma monitors before it couldn't have hoped for. Don't think of this as a $30,000 TV; think of it as a high performance car. A Lexus and a Dodge are both cars, but you know the difference when you look at them. Marantz's 61-inch plasma monitor is one of those things you don't merely want; you covet it. Products like this may have only a limited audience of buyers but a huge audience of gawkers.
