Geoffrey Morrison

A little less than a year ago, a predecessor to this TV competed in one of our Face Offs with five other RPTVs. It didn't do well. Despite the fact that it posted some of the best measurements of the group (including the most accurate color points and the best contrast ratio), it came in fourth place out of six sets. The reason was a video processing "enhancement" called DNIe, which two-thirds of the reviewers flat-out hated. It couldn't be disabled. Just the fact that the same processing on this HL-S5679W is defeatable would make it worth a review. (In fact, you can't enable DNIe at all in some modes.) As it turns out, this isn't even the most interesting feature on this RPTV—not by a long shot.

There is a reason why we say a display product's color temperature should be 6500 kelvins. There is a reason why we say color points are "off." There is a reason video has set parameters that define what it is supposed to look like. The reason is that people a lot smarter than us figured out what looks the best and wrote down what a display should do to look that way.

Someone at Sharp noticed a gap. They make all sorts of flat-panel LCD units, from dinner-plate size to plasma size. Then they have two DLP projectors that handle the huge-screen market. (In fact, we gave the XV-Z12000 our Best Overall Projector RAVE Award for last year in our May 2005 issue.) But there's this gap, you see, above 45 inches for flat panels and below 80 or so inches for front projectors. What to do? How about rear projection?