For those who prize picture quality above all else, there are TVs, and then there are Pioneer Kuro TVs, and it was sad news that the same day we took possession of the KRP-500A, Pioneer announced that this generation of Kuro will be the last.

A quality brand with a price tag to match, it's the global recession's first big kill of the AV world.

The brutal facts are that although LCD still can't match plasma for contrast, deep blacks and response time, it's getting very close, and the top end of LCD is half the price of the top end of plasma.

At just under £2,500, this isn't even Pioneer's top-end plasma – there is a 60in model – it also comes with built-in digital satellite and digital terrestrial tuners, and the satellite tuner supports DVB-S2 and MPEG-4 for high definition.

It's too early for a DVB-T2 tuner so there won't be a Kuro to take advantage of Freeview HD when that arrives.

Build

Not that you'll see Freeview or Freesat labels on the Kuro, on the screen or the separate media receiver, in the manual or on the box, although there is a DVB logo on top of the media receiver.

The lack of logos preserves the beautiful piano-black design of the screen and media receiver, with only a Pioneer logo on the screen, plus small blue and red power LEDs on the screen, and a trio of blue, red and orange LEDs on the receiver.

The screen comes with an elegant stand, although you'll probably want to wall-mount it for best effect, and at 50kg it's a two-man job. Optional 18W stereo speakers connect to terminals beneath the screen, but this is really designed to pair with a full home cinema system.

Two cables connect the screen to power and the media receiver, which hides behind its black fascia some basic power, input and volume controls, plus USB, HDMI, analogue A/V and VGA inputs, as well as a common interface slot each for satellite and terrestrial.

The back panel has a brace of HDMI, Scart, component video and stereo audio inputs, with two Scart outputs for recording and optical digital audio out for your amplifier (PCM and Dolby Digital are supported).

The analogue inputs include RGB and S-video support to suit most configurations. There's also an Ethernet port for media playback, although firmware upgrades use the front USB.

There's just one each of UHF and satellite IF inputs, and no loopthrough outputs, so you'll have to use a distribution amplifier to supply other Freeview or satellite kit. The terrestrial tuner also supports all analogue standards if you're still waiting for a decent Freeview signal to arrive.

Setup and searching

This is a pan-European product, so you'll have to set your country first for terrestrial TV, and a Freeview scan on Crystal Palace took an acceptable 1 minute 25 seconds. There's an optional signal strength check, manual channel update and you can scan individual RF channels for digital signals as well.

The satellite tuning menus have an unusual organisation, but you can set up your LNB (universal is assumed but you can set up a single local oscillator frequency for other types) and check the signal strength/quality across the range of transponders on your selected satellite.

However, this is only available for the 'By satellite' option, which uses a standard list of transponders for each satellite.