I was surprised to find that Samsung decided not to make any direct array LED backlit LED LCD panels for 2010. Coming on the heals of the excellent UN55B8500 and UN46B8500, which were widely regarded as perhaps the best direct type LED panels ever made, abandoning this path was a strange decision. Instead, the company has opted to go solely with Edge lit models for 2010.
Mitsubishi has made significant improvements
in the overall picture quality of its 3D DLP Home Cinema TVs starting with last year’s product line.
The newest line of Home Theater 1-chip DLP based rear projection HDTVs
in its 2010 lineup shows more improvements with an unmatched bang for
the buck in the industry.
I recently did a professional calibration
for a client of mine in New Jersey who had an LG 55LH90 direct array
LED LCD panel. Prior to my arrival, he had been using the settings for
grayscale and CMS (Color Management System) from a post on the AVS Forum.
It is one thing to share User Menu settings
as we do on this site and quite another to share all the settings for
Color Space and grayscale.
Grayscale and CMS settings rarely translate
from one system to the next with any degree of accuracy. Here is a perfect
example illustrated by the CalMan Pro PDF
file that shows the pre-calibration
data on the left side of the page from the settings my client found
on the AVS Forum, and, on the right side, the post-calibration settings
with my calibration results.
With the advent of “Avatar” in glorious
3D this past fall, it seems 3D has gone beyond the big silver screen,
and landed squarely in your living room.
3D has been around since the 1950s, but
in years past it has not been that compelling in terms of picture quality
and a true 3-dimensional viewing experience. Rather, it has been associated
with headaches and nausea at least up until very recently. I am as skeptical
about 3D as anyone especially when it comes to the experience on relatively
small screens in the home. I have to admit though that “Avatar”
was a visually engrossing film if not intellectually enticing. Cameron’s
use of the 3D technology was inventive and “laid back” as opposed
to “in your face”. Rather than ducking from projectiles flying directly
at you, the effect was subtle, and worked really well as a visual experience.
Mitsubishi has just recently launched their second generation LaserVue laser based DLP HDTV in May of this year. The first generation LaserVue, the L65A90, a 65-inch rear projection DLP HDTV was launched in the fall of 2008. The new L75A91 sports a 10 inch larger screen area as well as improved picture quality and performance at a significantly lower MSRP. It also adds a new Picture Mode called Cinema Color, developed by Mitsubishi in conjunction with Hollywood coloring specialists to approximate the wider color space of film versus the Rec 709 standard for HD video sources.
One of the main reasons we at TweakTV
do not provide the advanced calibration data on grayscale, and CMS (Color
Management System) calibration is that the results obtained after a
full calibration will not be the same from one sample of the same model
HDTV to the next. The reasons for this are many. Everyone’s system
is different with different components, different cables and length
of cables, etc. Not to mention the parts differential between the same
model TV in a given production run. Manufacturers often have to change
vendors for different parts several times within a given model year,
and that will impact the way the set behaves, and performs making the
correct calibration settings very different from one model sample to
the next.
Is it just us, or are the Samsung plasmas delivering better picture
quality
each year? We are proud to deliver these suggested settings off
of a professional calibration. Like always, nothing competes with a
professional in home calibration for your HDTV, but these settings are a
great place to start.