OTHER TECH

PERFORMANCE

While HD Vision WrapArounds look an awful lot like regular old-person sunglasses, the scaling technology delivers a jaggie-free view of the world with zero motion blur. If they destroy your ability to interact with the opposite sex, you'll have more time to enjoy the high contrast, edge-enhancement cloud-viewing feature.

Life in HD, meanwhile, is definitely darker. However, I know that a properly ISF calibrated screen has a darker, more film-like image, so I was OK with that. It also made me comfortable knowing that the glasses were in a "contrast safe" setting, meaning I probably wouldn't have to worry about screen burn-in or image retention.

After several minutes, I started feeling a bit of eye fatigue. At first I thought it had to do with the hard, plastic frames bisecting my eyebrows, but then I understood what was really happening; I was experiencing the shock of my brain and retina dealing with life in full HD. After the giddiness wore off, I settled in for some serious testing.

Prior to testing, I gave the lenses a thorough calibration using the bonus microfiber cleaning cloth. I began by checking off-angle viewing, and no matter where anyone stood, I looked damn fine wearing these shades. Dare I say Pimpalicious? While the "Modern European Style" is perhaps more Sacha Baron Cohen's "Bruno" than Versace or Pininfarina, they definitely have a style all their own, and elicit jealous comments like, "My grandmother has a pair of those!"

Corner focus was good, allowing me to look through all sections of the lens without distortion. There was a bit of underscan where the frames cut into the lower periphery of my vision. Sadly, I was unable to find any service codes to correct this.

An HDTV must display dark, inky blacks to be truly cinematic, and the WrapArounds certainly deliver the darkest blacks I've ever seen. Sitting in my darkened theater, I couldn't even see my hand in front of my face. For a minute, I thought my eyes were still closed - it was that black! Until Pioneer's new Kuro sets arrive, these establish the new performance standard. Due to the screen (aka "lens") color, peak white performance is severely affected by a noticeable shift towards a pinky-yellowy-brown color. Using a modified eyes open/eyes closed testing method, contrast ratio measured an impressive infinity.

Scaling artifacts are something we've all come to live with. For those who can't afford top-shelf video processing, the WrapArounds offer performance every bit as good at a fraction of the cost. The Coliseum flyover in Gladiator has long been used as a test benchmark. Unfortunately, Sound & Vision's Gulfstream G650 was already wheels-up, so I modified the testing by looking at brick buildings, electrical lines, and billboards while driving to work. Never once did they break into jaggies or exhibit any judder or motion artifacts. Equally impressive was the handling of motion blur. Cars whizzing past remained stable and rock solid, out to the limitations of my testing equipment. Detail and resolution was so good, I wonder if they're using 240 - or even 480 - Hertz processing?