The Perfect Vision

Sharp LC-52D64U Additional Notes and Technical Ratings

Under the Hood | Adjustment Notes | Test Discs | Technical Ratings

Under the Hood

As a member of Sharp’s entry-level 1080p line, the LC-52D64U uses a 60Hz refresh rate rather than the more advanced 120Hz rate that’s becoming more and more common. The Advanced Super View (ASV) LCD panel is said to achieve lower black levels than other types of panels because less of the backlight leaks through when a pixel is turned “off,” and the electrodes are smaller, allowing more light through pixels that are “on,” resulting in a greater contrast ratio.

Sharp’s “multi-pixel” technology divides each red, green, and blue subpixel into two sections and drives them independently. This is designed to reduce color shifts by 60 percent when viewed off-axis. Another Sharp innovation is a 4-wavelength backlight, which adds a deep crimson peak to the red, green, and blue peaks found in other backlights. This is said to improve overall color reproduction, especially skin tones.

Adjustment Notes

The picture settings are tied to the picture modes, not inputs. The only exception is the User mode, which can be set up independently for each input. Different source devices required very different brightness settings; "Scott's Settings" here were established for the Toshiba HD-XA2 HD DVD player. 1:1 pixel-mapping mode (called Dot by Dot) is selected with the View Mode button on the remote, not in the menu.

This set provides a color-management system with hue and saturation controls for each primary and secondary, but no grayscale calibration controls in the user menu. The hue and saturation controls don't seem to do very much. The Low color-temp preset yields the best grayscale, which is a bit toward green/yellow.

Setting the backlight to minimum produced a very good black level of 0.015fL, but the peak white level was too low at 12.4fL; raising the backlight so that the peak white level was around 20fL brought the black level to 0.026fL, which is respectable but not fabulous. Interestingly, the set automatically names the HDMI inputs according to the device connected to them (HD-XA2, BD-P1200, etc.); this is probably made possible by HDMI bidirectional communication.

Test Discs

The detail test on the HQV Benchmark DVD was excellent. Jaggies were mild—in fact, they were barely visible on the waving American flag. There’s only one noise-reduction control, which was reasonably effective without softening the picture. The set’s processor picked up 3:2 quickly, and the Fine Motion control seemed to reduce a slight shimmering in the bleachers as the race car sped past them.

On the HQV Benchmark HD DVD, there was no flickering in the video resolution loss test, and the film resolution loss test only flickered momentarily at the beginning and occasionally as the pattern changed direction. Turning to Microsoft engineer Stacey Spears’ test disc, the high-frequency horizontal and vertical bursts were somewhat rolled off but plainly visible. As with 480i, the processor picked up 3:2 pulldown at 1080i very quickly. The gently curving yellow trim on the sailboat showed only minor jaggies, and there were no jaggies on moving diagonals and no moiré in the screen door.

Technical Ratings

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