By Kevin Miller

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Pros: The PRO-60X5FD, a full array LED backlit LCD panel with Local Dimming Technology, produces superior blacks to the vaunted reference Pioneer Elite panels, and is definitely one of the best performing most color accurate flat panel displays available today.

Cons: Quite pricey carrying MSRPs of $5,499.00 for the PRO-60X5FD and $7,999.00 for the PRO-70X5FD. Off angle viewing is not as good as plasma.

To Buy Or Not To Buy? If you want the very best in an LED based LCD flat panel in a very large screen size, then one of the two Elite models is definitely what you are looking for.

I was recently brought in by Sharp to do a thorough technical evaluation of the new PRO-60X5FD. This new panel, and its larger sibling, the PRO-70X5FD, is the fruit of a collaborative effort between Sharp and Pioneer as the model number indicates their similarity to the now defunct line of Pioneer Elite plasma panels. The mission of the company was to produce the very best LED based LCD panel on the market. Indeed, the panel delivers superb performance in all areas of video performance. Thanks to the full array LED backlighting with Local Area Dimming technology that enables the panel to deliver deep rich blacks, and the inclusion of all the tools a qualified technician needs to calibrate the panel to an extremely high degree of accuracy, the PRO-60X5FD is capable of delivering awesomely accurate and engrossing pictures. Read on to see if the PRO-60X5FD actually lives up to the company’s lofty goal.

Contrast Ratio:  With the extremely deep black level capability of the PRO-60X5FD, contrast ratio is superb.  In a completely dark room with dark décor, I measured 555:1 using the ANSI checkerboard method. Black on the panel is well below the capability of my Minolta CS200 to measure accurately, which means black is extremely low. Direct comparisons to a fully calibrated Pioneer Elite PRO-151FD revealed the PRO-60X5FD to be superior to the Pioneer, which is actually not surprising at this stage of the evolution of smart dimming technology on full array LED backlit panels.

Gamma on the PRO-60X5FD was quite good in the Movie THX mode at the factory presets, and post calibration measured a near perfect 2.19. As part of a professional calibration, a qualified technician can dial the display into delivering a smooth 2.3 curve for very well controlled home theater like environments by carefully manipulating contrast and backlight settings in conjunction with the five selectable gamma settings in the Advanced Menu. Shadow detail was superb as a result of the excellent gamma curve. The opening scenes of “Watchmen”, for example, had awesome detail in the dark areas of the picture.

The LEDs do not exhibit the “Halo” effect to the degree that some other full array LED backlit panels do. Specifically, the “Halo” effect on the Sony 55XBRHX929 is significantly worse. Looking at the rolling credits at the very end of the “Star Trek” Blu-ray, some minor haloing around the letters could be noticed, but was not nearly as bad and overly distracting as it was on the Sony. 

Color Accuracy: Color gamut on the PRO-60X5FD is reasonably accurate from the factory in the Movie THX mode, but not as close as I would expect it to be in that mode. I attribute this to the fact that my review sample was a pre-production sample, and I expect that it will be improved by the time the units are in production. The CMS (Color Management System) works extremely well to fine tune the colors to nearly perfectly meet the Rec 709 specifications. The Hue and Saturation features manipulate the x and y coordinates of the colors, and the Value feature acts as a luminance control for each color. The end result is extremely accurate color gamut with near perfect luminance. The accuracy of the luminance of the primary and secondary colors is extremely important to overall color accuracy, and many flat panels currently on the market have problems meeting that specification. Color decoding is also spot on accurate.

I was very pleased to find that Sharp allows for full access to all the advanced setup and calibration features in the Movie THX mode. Grayscale tracking from the factory on the PRO-60X5FD is fairly good for the Movie THX mode preset prior to calibration, but again this will likely be improved for production units. Post calibration, the grayscale tracking showed an extremely flat and linear curve thanks to the excellent implementation of a 10 Point White Balance feature.

White field uniformity normally one of the areas of performance where any LCD based panel fails miserably is the best I have ever measured on an LCD panel, period: Remarkably good performance, especially considering the screen size. White field uniformity typically gets worse as the screen size gets bigger. This 60-inch measures similarly to some of the better 32-inch panels I have measured recently. In fact, the luminance and color shifts are so minor as to be completely invisible to the human eye.

Black field uniformity is also superb with very little blotchiness. Capable of delivering all of the aspects of color extremely accurately, the resulting overall color accuracy on the PRO-60X5FD is as good as it gets. Skin tone rendition in Chapter 6 of “Star Trek” on Blu-ray in the scene that takes place on the bridge before the starship Enterprise gets to Vulcan is extremely natural, and color saturation is excellent.

Video Processing: Processing is mostly good, except for 480i SD. When processing for 480i SD, 2:3 pull-down is slow to engage, thus exhibiting some motion artifacts in the process. This issue was evident on the SD DVD version of the Silicon Optix HQV test disc where it failed several of the motion tests, including the Film Detail test. The opening scene of the SD DVD version of “Star Trek: Insurrection” revealed a slow 2:3 pull-down detection as well. However, it is arguable how important this issue really is as the only scenario where this may be a problem would be with 480i being output from a cable or satellite set-top box with film based content, which is not very common as many set-top boxes will not even put out a native 480i signal via its HDMI output anyway.

The PRO-60X5FD does fail one important motion test called the Film Resolution Loss test on the Blu-ray version of the Silicaon Optix HQV test disc, which indicates that the panel is not de-interlacing 1080i film based content properly. However, it does handle 24p correctly smoothing out sharp pans nicely as demonstrated in Chapter 7 of “I am Legend” in the helicopter fly over scene, which most displays do not handle correctly. Even though the pan is quite smooth, the planes on the deck of the aircraft carrier do exhibit some jerkiness toward the end of the pan. In fairness to the Elite panel, all flat panels currently on the market exhibit this issue to one degree or another.

The PRO-60X5FD has a Motion Enhancement feature with multiple settings that actually works very well. I used the Low 120Hz setting for my evaluations, and I can say it is the only LED based panel with this feature that did not alter how it made film based content on Blu-ray look from a motion standpoint.  This is the only LED based LCD panel that I have ever encountered that I did not feel the need to shut off the interpolation when viewing 24p Blu-ray content. Sharp recommends using the Fluid Motion setting for fast action movies, and the Low 120 Hz setting for slower motion movies. The PRO-60X5FD did pass the rest of the tests on the excellent Silicon Optix HQV Blu-ray test disc. According to Sharp, the panel’s processing is 120Hz with back light scanning technology that brings the panel’s refresh rate to nearly 720Hz.