Calibration Notes for Video Reviews

Hitachi 42HDT79 | Pioneer PDP-4270 | Samsung LN-4092D | Sharp LC-37D90U | Syntax-Brillian Olevia 532H

Hitachi 42HDT79

Out of the box, the color decoder is incorrect, brightness is dynamic (changes with the average picture level), vertical sharpness is way too high, and contrast is high. Selecting the Day (Normal) picture mode and Standard color-temp preset gets closer to a calibrated image, but there is still a significant amount of work that needs to be done to get the most from this display. There is so much edge enhancement, it is impossible to tell where frequency response falls off; however, it does fall off. The highest-frequency burst is unstable and appears to pulse or bounce. Video processing fails the majority of the HQV tests. Black-level retention at high APL is an issue even after calibration.

Pioneer PDP-4270

The display comes out of the box in Dynamic mode; selecting the Movie mode brings it closer to D65. Color primaries cannot be adjusted and do not meet the HDTV spec. There is not enough range in the horizontal position control to make it accurate for the HDMI input; vertical positioning is fine, and both controls can achieve accuracy for the component input. The color decoder is accurate. The user controls are tied to the picture modes, not inputs; fortunately, the optimal settings for the HDMI and component inputs matched. I would like to see more advanced grayscale adjustments, more accurate gamma, and more accurate primary/secondary colors.

Samsung LN-4092D

The grayscale preset closest to D65 was Warm 2. The contrast control is designed incorrectly (it moves white and black level in opposite directions during adjustment), making contrast difficult to set properly. The grayscale goes extremely blue on the bottom end, which is characteristic of many LCD display devices. Uniformity is an issue. The color decoder pushes red. Edge enhancement is severe and requires extensive service-menu adjustments to help rectify; however, I could not completely eliminate it. Color primaries and secondaries are not adjustable. Frequency response falls off quite early, and there are chroma phase errors. The rolloff at the component input is slightly worse than on the HDMI input. Whites are clipped on the component input. Black level is not independent between HDMI and component and they do not match in level, causing an inaccuracy on one or the other based on which is prioritized during calibration. Use the High Energy Save mode for best black level.

Sharp LC-37D90U

The display had a severely elevated black level out of the box. It also had a black-enhance circuit enabled; once this was disabled, the black level stopped changing based on the average picture level. The factory backlight setting is cranked all the way up, making black level suffer; I reduced it to a point where overall light output was satisfactory while producing a decent black level. The color decoder needed alignment, but it can be made accurate. The grayscale was closest to accurate at the Low color-temperature preset. The user controls are tied to the picture modes, not inputs, so different picture modes must be assigned to different inputs to optimize them independently. The color primaries and secondaries were pretty far off with no ability to correct them. After calibration, the black level was more reasonable but the grayscale shifted towards blue, which is a common tradeoff for better black levels from an LCD display. The Dot for Dot mode provides 1:1 pixel mapping at 1920x1080.

Syntax-Brillian Olevia 532H

Brightness is significantly elevated out of the box, and the color decoder is incorrect. After adjustment, the color decoder comes very close to accurate, though finer resolution in the controls would be nice. Prior to calibration, there is quite a bit of edge enhancement present via HDMI at 1080i. Out of the box, image centering is accurate via HDMI at 1080i, which is rare. The menu system is confusing and a bit cumbersome to use. The color primaries are not quite at the SMPTE HD specification, but this display is closer than other LCD displays previously reviewed. The D6500 color-temp preset is closest to the D65 standard. There are separate memories for HDMI and component, allowing for separate settings during calibration.

Back to the top | Index page of Buyers Guide: Flat Panels