Many people, including us, thought that Pioneer's last generation of plasmas was good. Very good. But apparently the brand wasn't satisfied, for its researchers and engineers have gone into overdrive to deliver improvements for its latest (sixth) plasma generation.

We haven't got nearly enough space to cover all these improvements in full, but we'll give you a flavour of them. For starters, the PDP-506XDE's plasma panel is built using a new 'Deep Waffle Rib' structure, to reduce light and colour leakage between adjacent cells.

Also new is a 'Crystal Emissive Layer', which apparently improves discharge stability and efficiency in each plasma chamber (or pixel), and increases UV radiation to deliver deeper blacks, higher brightness levels and more energy efficiency.

Pioneer has been beavering away at its picture processing too. PureDrive II offers, among other things, improved noise reduction without impacting sharpness, sophisticated colour management, better processing of tuner images, improved digital colour transients and all manner of tricks for enhancing contrast and black level.

The I-Clear Drive system, meanwhile, uses high-power processing and image analysis to dish up enhanced colour gradations and depth.

The PDP-506XDE houses some of these technical advances in its sumptuous screen, and the rest in an external connections box. This box includes two HDMI jacks, three Scarts, component video inputs, a CAM slot and digital audio output for the TV's built-in digital TV tuner, a standard PC input and slots for adding digital camera cards, so you can view photos directly on the screen.

Swashbuckling pictures

Pioneer's efforts pay handsome dividends, as the PDP-506XDE's pictures are nothing short of spectacular. First, during the shots of Captain Sparrow's dungeon in Pirates of the Caribbean, even the darkest corners were perfectly black, with not a trace of the grey mist or blue toning issues seen on so many rival plasmas.

Colours, meanwhile, were almost miraculous. The rich lustre of the sea, vegetation, various flags and naval uniforms during Sparrow's arrival at the fort looked breathtaking from start to finish, with natural tones and extraordinarily vivid saturations.

The Pioneer has fine detail in spades, too. During Pirates' shots of ships crashing through the sea, the amount of detail in the sea spray and rippling waves - and the accuracy with which it was rendered - was a joy to behold.

This is especially true when we viewed an unscaled HD feed - which was really sensational - but impressively the Pioneer holds on to plenty of detail with standard-def sources, too.

Other tip-top stuff includes: the complete suppression of common plasma issues like fizzing over motion and colour banding; smear-free, smooth motion; immaculate rendering of even harshly contrasted edges; astoundingly good greyscaling in dark areas; a sense of three-dimensionality and no loss of quality when the set is viewed off-axis.

Is there anything bad about the PDP-506XDE's pictures? Um, no, there actually isn't. And come to think of it, there's nothing bad to say about its audio either. The screen's accompanying speakers delivered Pirates of the Caribbean's numerous action scenes with the sort of power, finesse and clarity we'd generally only hear from a dedicated speaker system.

As you may have gathered, we're really rather blown away by the PDP-506XDE. Panasonic's TH-50PV500 may be great, but this one's even better - and more than a grand cheaper. All in all, this TV is so damn good that it's almost revolutionary.