As delivered, the Mitsubishi WS-65909 Diamond provided a rather uneven picture. The gray-scale measurement of color temperature leaped up and down across the chart, which is unusual and was not reassuring. The Low Color Temperature setting chosen from the video-adjustment menu was supposed to run the TV at 6500K, but Jamie Wilson of Overture Ultimate Audio/Video in Delaware found that the WS-65909 was several thousand Kelvins off. He was able to bring the color temperature close to the NTSC standard of 6500K, but not all the way there. In fact, when he'd done the best he could, the final plot was significantly worse than I'm used to seeing.

At the very low end of the spectrum, Wilson had a devil's choice of setting the bottom of the screen too dark or too green. He settled on too green, but the problem was slight and visible only on test patterns. He hypothesized that the WS-65909's power supply couldn't properly regulate its output at extremely low levels.

The Mitsubishi's geometry was respectable; straight lines were nearly perfectly straight at the corners of the picture. The Sharpness control had to be turned almost to "0" to rid the screen of visible ringing. The Contrast control, when the TV is set correctly, is set just below the halfway point. With no numerical values assigned to the picture-adjustment bar graphs, it wasn't possible to record the actual values chosen after calibration.—JB