LCD TV Reviews

Full-On/Full-Off Contrast Ratio—894:1;
ANSI Contrast Ratio—712:1

Measured Resolution with the Leader LT-446:
480: 480 (per picture height)
720p: 720 (pph)
1080i: 1080 (pph)

DC Restoration (poor, average, good, excellent): Excellent

Color Decoder (poor, average, good, excellent): Excellent

Measured Color Points:
Red Color Point: x=0.642, y=0.330
Green Color Point: x=0.271, y=0.585
Blue Color Point: x=0.145, y=0.060

The top chart shows the LVM-42w2's gray scale relative to its color temperature at various levels of intensity, or brightness (20 IRE is dark gray; 100 IRE is bright white). The gray scale as set by the factory, in the Color 1 color-temperature mode, measures somewhat cool with dark images and cooler with brighter images. After making adjustments using the Photo Research PR-650, the gray scale measures within 57 Kelvin of D6500, the accurate color temperature, across most of the range. Darker images were still warmer than the rest of the gray scale, and the brightest images were slightly cooler than the rest of the gray scale.

The bottom chart shows the gray scale (or color temperature) relative to the color points of the display's red, green, and blue color filters. For the most part, these are fairly close to those specified by SMPTE. Red is pretty much spot on. Blue is very slightly oversaturated and very slightly greenish-blue. Green is slightly undersaturated and somewhat bluish-green.

After calibration, and using a full-field 100-IRE white (57.19 foot-lamberts) and a full-field 0-IRE black (0.064 ft-L), the contrast ratio was 894:1. Using a 16-box checkerboard pattern (ANSI contrast), the contrast ratio was 712:1. The best contrast ratio was achieved with a backlight setting of 0. The brightest image was achieved with a backlight setting of 100, which produced a blinding 158.3 ft-L with a 100-IRE field and 0.192 with a 0-IRE field. This makes a contrast ratio of 825:1.—GM