Brace yourself for a real blackout next month. Pioneer is unleashing its next generation of Kuro plasma displays in June, and the company is touting them as being five times improved over the black levels on current models—ones that Joel Silver of the Imaging Science Foundation told me were the finest black levels he’d seen in a non-CRT display.

The deeper blacks will give the new Kuros even richer, deeper overall colors, and to help you optimize them for whatever room environment your TV will go, Pioneer has featured six video settings (with accompanying sound settings): standard, movie, sports, performance, game and dynamic.

The new models, 1080p of course, are even slimmer than the current-gen Kuros, reduced by almost 20 percent to a depth of 3.7 inches.

Both the 50-inch PDP-5020FD and the 60-inch PDP-6020FD are scheduled to be available in June, with a suggested price of $4,000 and $5,500, respectively.

And those are just the basic Kuros. Pioneer is also slating two Elite Kuro models for June—the 50-inch PRO-111FD ($5,000) and the 60-inch PRO-151FD ($6,500)—and two Elite Signature Series monitors in the same sizes, with prices TBA, for August and October.

We say, bring ‘em on Pioneer!

Arlen Schweiger - Editor of Electronic House Magazine

Arlen writes about home technology installations and product news and reviews for electronichouse.com and Electronic House magazine.