![]() Again, like most sets today it's vastly improved over what was considered state-of-the-art in LCD displays even just two years ago. ![]() The fly in the soup was the Sharp's performance in the dark grays and blacks. Flesh tones, for the most part, were also quite believable, if sometimes just a bit lightened. Greens displayed less of that phosphorescent glow than on some digital sets. It does slightly enhance some colors and shave of a bit of others (see "Measurements"), but, properly adjusted, the set's color was never unnatural or less than satisfactory. Its color space is good, and its deviation from the standard is not severe. My measured results show that the Sharp's color is just a little on the cool side even in the Low color temperature setting, and as noted earlier it cannot be fine-tuned by calibration. The set's color performance couldn't match this elevated level, but was still more than acceptable. Again, I haven't yet tested another one-piece set that can do better in this regard. And provided the Sharpness control is set correctly and the program material is up to par, the image never looked overly sharp or enhanced. The Sharp combined this excellent video processing with exceptional resolution to produce a compellingly crisp, detailed image. I have not yet tested any other video display that produced a better result on these tests. Just as important, it properly deinterlaced 1080i HD to 1080p, including recognition of 3/2 pulldown. It turned in an excellent result on most of my 480i-to-1080p deinterlacing/scaling tests, and the few that weren't quite excellent were still good. Starting from the top, the Sharp has superb video processing. But this won't happen if you are listening through a home theater audio system. If you are watching any of the numbered inputs this will switch you to the TV input. My only complaint is that the channel and volume control are located close together where you can easily hit CH up or down if you're reaching for the volume. Its buttons are even backlit, though as usual some of the button functions are on the body of the remote-where they aren't backlit-and not on the buttons themselves. Not all HD sets can enlarge such material properly, but rather display it only as a letterbox within a 4:3 area in the center of the screen. This includes standard definition letterbox programming over cable that's upconverted to 1080i by a cable box. The zoom mode can enlarge letterboxed material to fill the screen from left to right with an undistorted, correctly proportioned picture. The other View Mode choices are typical and provide a good range of capabilities. While there is no overscan control, the View Mode (aspect ratio) option Dot-by-Dot (not available with all inputs and resolutions) provides zero overscan. But apart from checking its operation I left of Off for all my tests. The Digital Noise Reduction control (oddly, located under the Options menu, not Picture) can work well when you need it without seriously degrading the picture.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |