From Sharp Minds

Sharp is a prime mover and shaker in the flat-panel business. The company has been dedicated to LCD technology from the beginning of the beginning—all the way back to the earliest LCD pocket calculators.

If you sometimes get nostalgic for the days of 2-channel audio, you're not alone. Life was simple then. You plugged your CD player in here, your turntable in there, hooked up the preamp to the power amp (unless you were a hair-shirt audiophile with an all-in-one integrated amp) and you were done. Select the source, adjust the volume, sit back, and listen.

The Panasonic TH-50PZ800U is one of the first HDTVs to earn THX certification. But you might ask, “Isn’t THX mainly into audio?” I can see where you’re coming from, but THX isn’t exactly new to the home video business. It has certified video software for years and has begun to do the same for projectors and flat-panel displays.

Two of the LCD sets in this Face Off, including the Samsung, produce black levels that were unheard of in LCD flat panels until recently. Like the Sony in this group, the Samsung LN55A950 uses clusters of multicolored LEDs as a backlight, together with local dimming of the individual clusters as required by the program material. The LN55A950 is the larger of Samsung’s second generation of LED local-dimming sets.