Sharp: LC45GD4U 45 Inch AQUOS LCD DV 1920 X 1080

[chuckken]

Is the new LCD 1920x1080 better than 1920x1080 DLP?...What are your thoughts on this technology?...Is it the future?

http://ww1.onecall.com/PID_24955.htm

[hdinnwdc]

The Sharp 45" LCD is a flat screen panel (not a projector like the Sony model mentioned previously in this thread). It also has full 1080P resolution (upconverted from various sources since no one broadcasts anything higher than 1080i at the moment). There is no "screen-door effect" with the set, even close up.

This flat planel is flat out incredible. I refer you to the New York Times and David Pogue's expert evaluation of the unit, although his review unit had its speakers on the bottom (mine has them on the sides).

[Richard]

The link you provided is for subscribers. No issue at all with your account here..

At this time I have not read a review that covers all the bases that need to be covered. I have said before that I saw these new generation LCD flat panels at Infocomm and at the stores and they overcome many of the difficulties and artifacts of plasma. My subjective eye liked 'em but I have yet to put an objective eye on the matter.

Two big things remain. The display needs a black level control and light output control to get the black level set properly and it has already been noted that this has been missed on some of these. The other is the light spectrum from the lamp is not correct and therefore color saturation will not be correct; washed out or faded is the best analogy when compared to a CRT display. That said they are working on both of these issues as I write... I will speculate that the future looks really good with this technology and videophile applications. For the casual viewer I fail to see what would stop you except the price.

[HDLarry]

Here is the article that you guys were talking about...


November 18, 2004
STATE OF THE ART
Dream TV Screen, Now in Size Large
By DAVID POGUE


Correction Appended

THESE aren't exactly flush economic times. But believe it or not, according to a new Consumer Electronics Association survey, the most desired electronic gift item for this holiday season is a plasma TV.

Of course, there are other kinds of TV sets (cathode-ray tube, projection and so on). But those big, thin, wide, wall-mountable screens look so good, they continue to make a statement even when they're turned off. (Namely, that you just spent a few thousand dollars on a TV set.)

By far the most popular plasmas are the 42-inchers, which are broad and sweeping enough to make any wall blush with pride. But if you're about to go buy one, three words of advice:

Don't do it.

Before you drop all that money on a 42-inch plasma TV, consider dropping it on a different kind of flat-screen TV, one that until this month wasn't even in the running: L.C.D.

Of course, liquid-crystal display screens aren't anything new; they've graced laptops, camcorders and cameras for years. But until recently you couldn't buy flat-panel L.C.D.'s with screen sizes above 40 inches, not even if you were Bill Gates. They just didn't exist.

It finally dawned on two of the world's biggest L.C.D. makers, Samsung and Sharp, to spend a few million bucks to upgrade the screen-size capacity of their factories. The fruits of their labors, the world's largest commercially available L.C.D. screens, have just arrived: a 45-inch L.C.D. from Sharp (the LC-45GX6U) and a 46-incher from Samsung (LT-P468W).

Apart from their sheer neighbor-humbling size, the biggest breakthrough is these screens' resolution: 1,920 pixels by 1,080 pixels. That's the highest resolution of any flat-panel TV (including the gorgeous new 42-inch L.C.D. sets from Sony and Philips). You're getting more than two million tiny color dots.

Compare that number with the 786,000 pixels on a typical 42-inch plasma HDTV, 345,000 on one of those $2,500 "enhanced definition" plasmas, and only 300,000 on a standard TV. No wonder these are very, very sharp screens. Now, high-definition geeks may be protesting at this point. "But that's more resolution than anyone's broadcasting yet!" And true enough, all those extra dots don't make DVD's or today's high-definition broadcasts (known as 1080i and 720p signals) look any sharper.

For now, the primary benefit of all those seething pixels is improved brightness and contrast, simply because more of the glass is covered by pixels. You also enjoy a greatly reduced "screen door" effect when you're sitting up close; the square pixels are so tiny, you can't make out the pixel grid even from three feet away.

The real payoff, though, will come in a few years, when broadcasters begin filming and broadcasting an even better, so-called 1080p HDTV signal. When that great day arrives, you'll see far more picture clarity than your buddies who bought 42-inch plasmas instead.

These screens also enjoy the more universal perks of L.C.D.-hood, like being quite a bit lighter than a plasma. For example, the 45-inch Sharp, without its stand or speaker, weighs only 48 pounds; a plasma weighs about 80 pounds, requiring more structural support when mounting it on the wall.

Then there's the matter of burn-in, which has terrified plasma buyers for years. A static image left long enough on a plasma screen will eventually leave a permanent ghost image on its phosphors.

Now, everyday channel surfing doesn't produce this sort of burn-in. You're most likely to see it on, for example, airport monitors that show gate information 24 hours a day. But news hounds should beware the headlines ticker at the bottom of the screen, and video gamers may worry about the motionless grid of, say, the field in a football game. In any case, an L.C.D. doesn't have any phosphors, so images can't burn in.

In general, L.C.D. screens last longer, too. The Sharp and Samsung are rated at 60,000 hours, which comes out to six hours of viewing a day for 27 years, after which you can have the bulb replaced for $200, if in fact the TV, the company and you are still around. Plasma life spans are shorter, and you can't replace the bulb, although the latest models are catching up. The earliest screens, which are even now being hauled out to the curb by sobbing early adopters, lasted only a few years before the picture deteriorated noticeably.

Finally, L.C.D. screens consume less electricity than plasmas, and they don't buzz at high altitudes, as plasmas do.

So if plasmas are heavier, shorter lived, greedier for power, buzzier and vulnerable to burn-in, why on earth are they at the top of everyone's wish list?

The fact is, plasma is still superior to L.C.D. in certain areas, especially price. The 45-inch Sharp and 46-inch Samsung cost $6,100 and $6,200 online, respectively, and about $8,000 in retail stores. For that kind of money, you could get a 50-inch plasma and still have $1,000 left over for popcorn.

Plasma is also the only way to go if you want something larger than 46 inches (for now, anyway; Samsung and Sharp have already demonstrated 57- and 65-inch L.C.D. prototypes). You should also opt for plasma if you don't care about milking every speck of quality from high-definition broadcasts and you're perfectly content with the quality of DVD's. In that case, an "enhanced definition" plasma can save you thousands of dollars.

Picture quality is another debate. In general, an L.C.D.'s picture is sharper than a plasma's, and the colors are more vibrant. Moreover, an L.C.D. screen fares much better in a bright or sunlit room.

But in a side-by-side test, you might be inclined to declare the plasma's colors more lifelike and its blacks slightly blacker.

Still, most people would call this theoretical nitpicking. Both the Samsung and the Sharp look incredible. (Or, to quote a visiting home-theater installer who saw my review unit: "I - I've never - I've never seen a picture like that." He would have stayed to watch "The Godfather" Parts I, II and III if I'd let him.)

They couldn't be more dissimilar in design, however. The Sharp is understated, calming and minimalist: a pure, floating sheet of moving image with only a 1.5-inch margin of handsome dark aluminum. It owes much of its sleekness to an external box that houses the power circuitry and all of its jacks.

On one hand, you have to stack this box on your other components and hope that its 10-foot cable is long enough (or pay big dough for a special extension cord). On the other hand, the box offers three features that the Samsung lacks. First, it's a high-definition tuner, meaning that you can plug an antenna directly into it. (The Samsung is purely a monitor; if you get your TV from an antenna, you have to buy an external HDTV tuner box.)

Second, the box has a slot for a CableCard, a new offering from cable-TV companies that eliminates the cable box, its remote and its cords.

Third, it has a slot that (with an adapter that you have to buy) accommodates a memory card. It can play slide shows of your digital pictures, or even - get this - capture what's on TV, either as digital photos or even little digital movies. Sharp cheerfully suggests that this screen-capture feature could eliminate having to scramble for a pencil when a recipe or an 800 number appears.

The Samsung, on the other hand, is entirely self-contained; all of its jacks are on the back. As a result, it's thicker (5.7 inches, compared with 3.4 for the Sharp) and a good deal heavier (99 pounds instead of 48). You'll certainly prefer it if the effect you're after is pure, wall-covering massiveness. The broader margin and the 30-watt permanently attached speakers make this screen a full foot wider than the Sharp.

Otherwise, though, these screens are more alike than they are different. Each offers a healthy assortment of jacks (HDMI, DVI, component, composite, S-video and so on), a swiveling table stand and a remote (the Sharp's is illuminated and much nicer). Both offer excellent viewing angles (now 170 degrees) and much better handling of fast motion than previous L.C.D.'s (now down to 12 milliseconds per pixel flicker). Both can memorize calibration settings (brightness, color tint and so on) independently for each video input. And both can serve as computer monitors, which is handy if you work with really, really big spreadsheets.

Above all, both of these screens change the landscape for anyone who's in the market for a big, gorgeous, luxurious flat-panel TV. If you're among those whose No. 1 wish-list item is a plasma, consider wishing upon a different star.


E-mail: [email protected]

Correction: Nov. 19, 2004, Friday

The State of the Art column in Circuits yesterday, about big-screen televisions with liquid-crystal displays, misstated the comparison of their depth with that of plasma sets. Plasma sets are often as slim as comparable liquid-crystal sets, if not slimmer. The column also gave an incomplete model number for a 45-inch set from Sharp. It is LC-45GX6U in the United States; LC-45G1H is its number overseas.

[Richard]

Larry,

Thanks for providing that!

Definitely a subjective article with only a few errors to my surprise.

For now, the primary benefit of all those seething pixels is improved brightness and contrast, simply because more of the glass is covered by pixels.

The smaller the pixel the less brightness you have due to simple physics with all other things remaining equal. That said this subjective comment was not created by the pixels but by the brightness of the lamp.

Picture quality is another debate. In general, an L.C.D.'s picture is sharper than a plasma's, and the colors are more vibrant. Moreover, an L.C.D. screen fares much better in a bright or sunlit room.

But in a side-by-side test, you might be inclined to declare the plasma's colors more lifelike and its blacks slightly blacker.

Don't quite know what to make of that. During Infocomm at the LG booth they had plasma on one side of a wall and LCD on the other with LCD being the clear winner for black level; recall this was subjective and it was also noted that the blacks may have been crushed but one can only do so much without test equipment. If this display does have a black level and brightness control though the reviewer should have been able to set this up correctly. I do know that the new lamp technology they are working on, LCD, has not been applied yet except on some very rare displays. At Infocomm NEC was bringing up this point on the much smaller PC monitors and Chuck Williams, Seth Schnaible and I were discussing the exciting future of LCD lamps and this new generation of LCD display.

As far as I know there has not been an objective review yet using test equipment.

The article does make one point very clear which I stated earlier...

For the casual viewer I fail to see what would stop you except the price.

[Richard]

But in a side-by-side test, you might be inclined to declare the plasma's colors more lifelike and its blacks slightly blacker.

One of the newest tricks with plasma is to use ABL to dynamically change the black level which is not a good thing since proper performance requires the black level be fixed. Unfortunately that will clearly show it's limitations for a dark viewing enviroment. While some folks are convinced these should work in a darkened room they won't without ABL. The best solution would be to not use ABL and provide a bias light. Waveform issue 08 covers this in great detail but the main point is...

What this means is that the brightness and contrast are setup on FPDs for maximum dynamic range and the ambient light in the viewing environment is setup with a bias light for the kind of output we obtained after this adjustment.

The concern is inaccurate color redition or viewing fatigue. Both are highly likely as few would watch a plasma at 3 screen heights due to the screen door effect. At that distance with the controls set properly it would be an eye scorcher anyway and you get the same results in a dark room. Plasma requires a room with at least medium light and works well in most bright room applications.

So what about LCD?

If we really have a black level and brightness control we can overcome these problems and use it in multiple applications plus the others stated in the article.

If you wanted a display that is like a picture on a wall without the hassle of plasma the future looks real good

This technology really excites me because of what it offers. I hope I will feel the same way when the calibration community starts reporting their findings. Maybe I will get a lucky and calibrate one