News Release：Pioneer introduces its largest 61-inch high-definition Plasma Monitors for home- and industrial-use in Japan

PDP-615PRO

October 1, 2004, Tokyo, Japan - Pioneer Corporation announced today the release in Japan of 61-inch high-definition plasma display monitors for industrial use in early October at open price and for home use in late October at a suggested retail price of 1,869,000 yen (included tax). These new models are the first plasma display models from Pioneer Plasma Display Corporation, previously NEC Plasma Display Corporation, which Pioneer acquired from NEC on September 30, 2004. Pioneer plans to launch these 61-inch plasma display monitors worldwide.

These new plasma monitors offer various technological advances that create its excellent picture quality, including:

• "New Encased Cell Structure" and "Capsulated Color Filter (CCF)", which realize high brightness, high contrast and superior color reproduction
• All signal processing from A/D conversion, I/P (Interlace/Progressive) conversion to resize processing is integrated into one high-performance LSI, which increases the processing speed and accuracy.
• Newly-developed "I/P conversion processing circuit" creates pure and clear images without jaggy noise and color blur for progressive reproduction.

The PDP-615PRO "PureVision" high-definition monitor for home use is equipped with the HDMI^*1 terminal. When an HDMI compatible DVD recorder or player is connected to this new monitor via this terminal, users can enjoy fully-digital audio and video entertainment without any signal deterioration. "Two-screen display" allows users to select from two modes, "Two-divided screen" and "Picture-in-picture".

The PDP-614MX high-definition monitor for industrial use offers various functions especially designed for industrial-use models, such as "Multi-system function", which enables to make a huge multi-screen of up to 25 monitors for a variety of visual presentations.

Both monitors realize the lowest power consumption of 540W in the 60-inch class^*2.