The Perfect Vision
Westinghouse TX-47F430S Additional Notes and Technical Ratings
Under the Hood | Adjustment Notes | Test Discs | Technical Ratings
Under the Hood
Among the more important features of the TX-47F430S is a true 1:1 pixel-mapping mode, which maps each pixel in a 1920x1080 signal to the corresponding pixel on the LCD panel. This prevents any artifacts that could arise from overscan scaling.
The Calibration menu provides one set of RGB controls to adjust each color-temperature preset, but this is not enough to completely dial in the grayscale from top to bottom. As always, do not attempt to adjust these controls without the requisite training and equipment. This menu also includes a second set of standard picture controls (Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Hue, Sharpness) that duplicate the same controls in the Video menu, which seems rather odd.
Adjustment Notes
The User picture mode is the only one that provides access to picture controls. Movie mode exhibited excessive edge enhancement, so don’t use that one! As I was setting up the TV using Digital Video Essentials on HD DVD, the whites were clipped quite badly no matter where I set the contrast. Reducing the HD DVD player's contrast control to minimum eliminated the clipping; however, I've never seen this effect on any other TV. Also, the player's black level had to be increased significantly to see below-black and to match its output with the Accupel signal generator’s. Another strange observation is that the saturation control did nothing above a value of 45 or so.
As I was measuring the set, it kept switching from the HDMI to component input until I realized that the Autosource function was enabled (the Accupel signal generator sends its signal from both outputs at once). Be sure to disable Autosource if you have more than one component connected to the TV.
With the backlight at 0, the peak white level was too low at 6.81fL; I increased the backlight setting to 30 to achieve a peak white level of 25.9fL and a black level of 0.05fL, which is quite respectable. However, the black level with backlight at 0 was 0.017fL, which is remarkable for an LCD TV. A black full field was not entirely uniform; it was slightly lighter in upper right corner.
Test Discs
On the HQV Benchmark DVD, detail was very good, and jaggies were moderate. The TV has no noise-reduction control, but noise performance was fairly good, with low levels of random and mosquito noise. Also, the set’s processor picked up 3:2 pulldown at 480i quickly.
Moving on to the HQV Benchmark HD DVD, there was no flickering in the video resolution loss test. Similarly, the film resolution loss test was excellent, with only the slightest hint of flickering as the test began and occasionally thereafter. The pan across the stadium bleachers was artifact-free, and jaggies were invisible.
Microsoft engineer Stacey Spears’ HD DVD test disc confirmed that the 47LB5D is the only set in this survey with a true 1:1 pixel-mapping mode (the Standard screen-size setting), which cropped nothing from the edges of the picture. High-frequency bursts were fully resolved, and the processor picked up 3:2 pulldown at 1080i very quickly and handled bad edits beautifully. The montage of images looked great, with no jaggies along the edges of the hockey rink’s safety glass and no Moiré distortion in the screen door. There was a slight shimmering in the gently curving yellow trim on the sailing ship.
Technical Ratings
Customer Service
Advertisement
