LCoS Display Technology Shoot-Out
Dr. Raymond M. Soneira
President, DisplayMate
Technologies Corp.
Copyright © 1990-2006 by DisplayMate
Technologies Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
This article, or any
part thereof, may not be copied, reproduced, mirrored, distributed or
incorporated
into any other work without the prior written permission of DisplayMate
Technologies Corporation
Part C – Test Pattern and Jury Panel
Evaluations
Article Links: Overview Part A Part B Part C Part D
LCoS HDTV
Manufacturers Sidebar
Shoot-Out
Hardware and Software Sidebar
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Introduction
This is the
third article in a four-part series examining Liquid Crystal on Silicon, LCoS, a
relatively new and obscure display technology that is now making its grand
entrance into the HDTV marketplace. Here in Part C we’ll start with a revealing Test Pattern analysis,
then provide a description of the extensive viewing tests by a 34 member Jury
Panel, and finish with individual Assessments for each of the units, including
the Jury grades, evaluations and comments.
If
you read Part A,
then you can skip this Introduction. Already, LCoS provides the highest
resolutions, the highest non-CRT Contrast Ratios, and the most artifact-free
images of any display technology. For people that are sensitive to flicker and
eye-fatigue, LCoS operates at the highest refresh rates (120 Hz) for the
smoothest most flicker-free images. This article series will be an in-depth
examination of LCoS technology and five LCoS HDTVs, all but one of them
prototypes, in order to get an early look into this unfolding technology.
In
Part A we started
off with a description of the LCoS HDTV units that we tested, followed by an
overview of LCoS technology. In Part B we continued
with a discussion of How We Tested and then examined the photometry and
colorimetry of the units in detail, which provides a quantitative assessment of
their color and gray-scale accuracy. Here in Part C we'll begin with a revealing Test Pattern analysis,
followed by a description of the extensive Jury Panel testing, and then provide
individual Assessments for each of the units, including Jury grades,
evaluations and comments. In Part D we’ll start
with an Assessment of LCoS technology, followed by detailed technical
performance comparisons between all of the major display technologies: CRT,
LCD, Plasma, DLP, and LCoS, and we’ll finish with a discussion of the most
exciting new developments in display technology that will be the subject of
future articles in this series.
Note
that this article is the latest in a series of Display Technology Shoot-Out
articles that have covered CRT, LCD, Plasma and DLP display technologies. The
topics for the original series are: Part I: The Primary
Specs, Part II:
Gray-Scale and Color Accuracy, Part III: Display
Artifacts and Image Quality, and Part IV: Display
Technology Assessments. Online versions of these earlier articles are available
on www.displaymate.com.
When
we started planning the Shoot-Out there were just two shipping LCoS HDTVs
available, so I decided to enlarge the sample by persuading several
manufacturers to loan me their precious laboratory prototypes for the article.
The goal was to include every LCoS manufacturer that could provide a working
unit. There were only five candidates: JVC, Sony, Brillian, eLCOS and
SpatiaLight. We included units from both of the standard HDTV resolutions:
1280×720, which is roughly 1 mega-pixel, and 1920×1080, which is roughly 2
mega-pixels. They will be referred to as 720 or 1080 units throughout the
article.
Brillian, a small startup company based
in Tempe, Arizona, provided a prototype
of their 65 inch 720 unit (model 6501m, which
is now shipping) and also a prototype of their 1080 unit (model 6580i, which
is now shipping). eLCOS is another small
startup company that worked with light engine manufacturer JDS Uniphase to
deliver a 56 inch 1080 laboratory demonstration unit. JVC sent two units: the Consumer division sent
their shipping 61 inch 720 HDTV (model HD-61Z886),
and the Professional Products division sent a prototype of their 48 inch 1080
Reference Monitor (model DLA-HRM1,
which is now shipping) designed for television and movie post-production
studios. Note that the LCoS technology and devices in the two JVC units are
significantly different: the Consumer unit has a digital backplane that
controls each pixel with Pulse Width Modulation, while the Professional unit
uses analog voltage to control each pixel. SpatiaLight
was unable to deliver a prototype in time for the Shoot-Out and Sony declined
to participate. See Part
A for an in-depth description of the units and their technologies.
Caption:
The
Shoot-Out with the lights turned on. From left to right: JVC Consumer 720,
Brillian 720, JVC Professional 1080, CRT Studio Monitor, eLCOS-JDSU 1080, and
Brillian 1080 units. Photograph by David Migliori.
Test Pattern
Analysis
The
best way to analyze the performance of any display is to feed it a series of
specially constructed test pattern images that challenge it in very specific
and carefully controlled ways. This is actually my specialty - my company DisplayMate Technologies produces
Windows and DOS based software products that generate proprietary test patterns
for setting up, tuning up, testing and evaluating displays and projectors.
Since many PCs now produce RGB, DVI, Component Video, S-Video and Composite
Video signal outputs, it’s easy to connect most HDTVs to a PC in order to run
through the large library of DisplayMate test patterns.
For
this article I used our most advanced products: DisplayMate Multimedia Edition
and DisplayMate
Multimedia with Motion Edition. The advantage of the DisplayMate
computer based test patterns is that they are all generated real-time from
scale-free mathematical equations so they will run at any desired resolution
and aspect ratio. By using equations it’s also possible to generate an incredibly
large number of test patterns with all sorts of interesting variations. (The
traditional method of providing the test patterns as stored images limits you
to a relatively small number of test patterns at the specific resolutions they
were produced.) The Multimedia Edition includes 500+ High Definition test
patterns with an additional 300+ variations – not counting specific color
variations, which increases the total number of available patterns by
additional factor of about 50. This provides an incredibly powerful analytical
tool to search for and evaluate subtle image artifacts that might otherwise go
undiscovered.
All
of our tests were done at the native 1920×1080 and 1280×720 resolutions of each
unit. Note that testing based on DVDs will miss most of the High Definition
display and processing artifacts. For additional information on the testing
procedures and instrumentation see the Shoot-Out Hardware and
Software Sidebar and Part I.
DisplayMate
also includes an extensive suite of test patterns for setting up and adjusting
all of the user and service controls and test patterns designed for use with
instrumentation, such as the Spectroradiometer measurements that we’ve used
throughout this article series. The test patterns also allowed me to carefully
test and verify the performance and accuracy of the signal distribution system
used in the Shoot-Out (both the digital and backup analog systems). The two
Windows PCs that were used to generate all of the test patterns were connected
to the Gefen digital switcher and distributed in exactly the same way as all of
the other signal sources (see Part B).
So
the first part of the Shoot-Out consisted of me sitting in a perfectly dark
room carefully studying each HDTV in turn as I went through the complete
library of DisplayMate test patterns. In several instances we had to construct
new test patterns in order to understand and analyze some artifacts that I had
not seen before. Some of these will be added to the next edition of DisplayMate
– the incredible variety of artifacts is one of the reasons why so many test
patterns are needed.
Based
on this extensive testing I have assigned letter grades to each of the units in
a number of categories, which are shown in Table 1. Each of the entries is
discussed below.
Table 1 : Test Pattern
Evaluations
|
Brillian 720
|
JVC Consumer 720
|
Brillian 1080
|
eLCOS-JDSU
|
JVC Professional 1080
|
Geometric Distortion
|
A
|
A-
|
A
|
B+
|
A+
|
Overscan
|
1 percent
|
4 percent
|
1 percent
|
2 percent
|
0 percent
|
Screen Uniformity
|
A
|
B
|
A-
|
A-
|
A
|
Gray-Scale
Irregularities
|
A-
|
C
|
A-
|
A-
|
A+
|
Gray-Scale Noise
|
A
|
A
|
A
|
A
|
A
|
Focus and Convergence
|
A-
|
B
|
A-
|
A-
|
A-
|
Fine Detail Artifacts
|
A
|
D
|
A
|
A+
|
A
|
Motion Smear
|
A-
|
A
|
A-
|
A-
|
A-
|
Overall
|
A-
|
B-
|
A-
|
A-
|
A
|
Geometric
Distortion:
Although the geometry of the LCoS devices are perfect, the projection optics
generally introduce some distortions due to design or cost limitations. The JVC
Professional unit was indistinguishable from perfect (even with its zero overscan)
and so it earned an A+, the eLCOS-JDSU unit had some significant keystone
distortion near the very bottom of the screen and so it received a B+.
Overscan: Most TVs don’t let you
see the outermost 5 percent or so of the image, which was originally introduced
in order to allow for aging of the CRT deflection circuits. That’s no longer
necessary, but a small amount of overscan (1 percent) is still desirable
because of slight timing variations that occur with some HDTV signal sources.
Professional units are expected to show 100 percent of the image, so that’s why
the JVC Professional unit was set for zero overscan. It can be adjusted to provide
some overscan if desired. The JVC Consumer Unit had considerably more overscan
than necessary.
Screen
Uniformity: All
projectors have an inherent tendency to be brightest at the center and dimmer
in the corners. The effect was more noticeable in the JVC Consumer unit, where
the luminance in the extreme corners was 50 percent of the center value. This
actually wasn’t as visually noticeable as you might think because of the way
the eye processes images. The much smaller intensity variations in the other units
were not noticeable. However, there can be slight variations between the red,
green and blue channel LCoS panels, which can introduce slight color and
gray-scale variations across the screen. Most of these units include some
screen uniformity correction tables that are calibrated at the factory. It was
not yet implemented in the eLCOS-JDSU unit and was slightly out of calibration
on the Brillian 1080 prototype, but was virtually perfect on the Brillian 720
and JVC Professional units. These correction tables are very impressive: the
Brillian and JVC Professional units can divide the screen into thousands of
cells and correct for differences in intensity, color and Gamma between cells.
Neither of them, however, implement a correction for the intensity fall-off in
the corners of the screen. This would require a sacrifice in peak brightness at
the center of the screen, which in my opinion is a fine trade-off in view of
the earlier discussions. This is yet another example of how peak brightness can
be traded for improved picture quality.
Gray-Scale
Irregularities: It’s very important for a display to have a very smooth gray-scale
so as not to produce false intensity contours in an image. All of the units
with internal 12-bit Gamma tables should be able to accurately reproduce the
input 8-bit signals provided all 256 levels are accurately measured and
calibrated at the factory. The JVC Professional unit had a perfectly smooth
gray-scale that was indistinguishable from that of a CRT, the ultimate
comparison test, so it received a grade of A+. The eLCOS and both Brillian
units had small gray-scale irregularities, but they were none-the-less much
better than most displays using other technologies and they received grades of
A-. Since these were all prototypes I would expect the production units to be
even better. The JVC Consumer unit showed considerably more gray-scale
irregularities and false contouring and received a grade of C.
During the Jury Panel
viewing tests quite a few panelists noticed that the blue wallpaper in the
Windows Media Center Edition was actually a continuously moving background
image with subtle variations in intensity, which made it an excellent indicator
of false contouring and gray-scale irregularities. I’m sure that wasn’t
Microsoft’s intention but it’s an excellent test pattern. Note that the image
has a small amount of contouring built-in, so you need a CRT for a reference.
Gray-Scale
Noise: Because
the LCoS gray-scale is produced by an analog Liquid Crystal response (Part A) I did not
expect to see the dithering noise that is present on DLP and Plasma displays,
which is generally noticeable at the dark end of the gray-scale. And I didn’t,
even on the eLCOS-JDSU and JVC Consumer units, which use digital Pulse Width
Modulation to generate the gray-scale. This is very impressive and imparts a
very smooth CRT-like gray-scale to the LCoS HDTVs.
Focus
and Convergence: The sharpness of the image depends on the focus of the individual
the red, green and blue channels and also their registration, which is referred
to as convergence. Most of the units had excellent convergence, with a peak
error of about one-third of a pixel in some areas of the screen. The JVC
Consumer unit had a peak misconvergence error of one pixel in some areas.
Fine
Detail Artifacts: Since I was feeding the units perfect digital test signals and
they all use digital signal processing throughout I was expecting near perfect
performance in all of these tests. I expected to have perfect control over
every single individual pixel on the screen, and also with every combination of
pixels that I constructed. I was not disappointed, except by the JVC Consumer
unit. But let’s start with the good news first: the eLCOS-JDSU unit was
absolutely flawless in every test. I gave it an A+, which is a 98, but it
deserves a perfect 100. The reason is the fully digital backplane (Part A): for example,
it got a perfect 100 on DisplayMate’s very sensitive Video Bandwidth Index
test. The other units, which have analog backplanes got slightly less than
perfect in this and related tests - they all got pure As, which is still an
outstanding grade.
The JVC Consumer unit was a
different story. When I fed the unit native mode 1280×720 black and white test
patterns I saw moiré interference patterns (in both the vertical and horizontal
directions), which is generally an indication of scaling artifacts. When I
switched from black and white to colored test patterns the images broke up
severely. For example, non-horizontal colored lines were reproduced as dashed
lines with segments alternating between color and gray. Colored text was
unreadable. Any fine detail content in red and blue was missing half of the
pixels. Periodic pure green fine detail produced what appeared to be a
full-spectrum of on-screen colors. I finally realized that the unit was
converting the 4:4:4 DVI RGB into 4:2:2 YCbCr and then reconverting it back to
RGB. There was no appropriate filtering so colored content drawn in even pixel
columns was correctly reproduced but content drawn in the odd pixel columns was
reproduced as gray (with its Luma value). If an odd pixel was surrounded by
colored even pixels it would get an interpolated value of their color. Periodic
full resolution vertical black and white lines were reproduced as solid gray,
indicating significant low pass filtering, which softens the images. However,
there was also a significant amount of edge enhancement to give the feeling of
a sharp image. These are very severe artifacts. I gave the unit a D. The visual
picture quality from ordinary video was surprisingly good given the above
discussion, so there was a significant amount of visual tweaking built-in to
the unit’s engineering. We’ll discuss this further below. Hopefully the new
generation of JVC Consumer units will take a different approach and correct
these problems.
Motion
Smear: All
of the LCoS panels have reasonably fast response times so I did not expect to
see much on-screen smearing with moving test patterns or moving video – and I
didn’t. Although response time specifications are for black to peak white and
then the reverse, the medium intensity gray-to-gray transitions are often much
slower. The DisplayMate test patterns use continuous intensity ramps to examine
all of the gray-to-gray transitions and very little on-screen smearing was
seen. The JVC Consumer unit had the best performance and I gave it an A, while
all of the other units received an A-.
Viewing Tests
After
the test pattern analysis it was time to see how good photographic images and
normal video looked. Test patterns are designed uncover subtle image quality
issues so they always provide a much more severe view of display performance.
All of the artifacts seen with the test patterns also exist in normal video
source material, they’re just not as concentrated nor as obvious because such
images normally have a very complex structure that tends to obscure the
artifacts.
In
addition to the standard Jury Panel evaluation program discussed below, we also
looked at many ATSC High Definition broadcast television shows, a number of
digital D-VHS High Definition recordings, half a dozen IMAX Windows Media Video
High Definition 1080 movies, and half a dozen or so (Standard Definition) DVDs.
Many of the prototype units were not yet HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content
Protection) compliant, so we actually looked at very little encrypted D-Theater
movie material. Finally, I used a large selection of still photographs from the
InfoComm Projection Shoot-Out CDs and DVDs from the 1996 to 2002 editions
(which include a selected set of DisplayMate test patterns).
In
order to evaluate how well these HDTVs can perform as high quality large-screen
living room PC monitors, I spent quite a bit of time browsing the web with them
and even wrote a portion of this article using each of them in turn as my
display. I set the computer to the lowest HDTV native mode of 1280×720. At
1920×1080 almost everything comes out looking way too small. It takes a fair
amount of effort to make all of the fonts and graphics come out looking right,
and many applications simply aren't capable of properly rescaling their
internal elements. But at 1280×720 things looked beautiful, similar to a
widescreen version of 1024×768, which all applications generally handle quite
well. The large 65 inch Brillian 720 set was outstanding as a giant PC monitor,
but the 1080 units also looked really good using Silicon Optix video processors
to do the necessary high quality rescaling. The Brillian set demonstrated how
fabulous and functional a PC in the living room can be – the Holy Grail of
convergence is finally a reality.
There
were just two troubling issues that needed attention: first many PC
applications operate with a peak white background, so the excessive brightness
issue (that was discussed in Part B) was even more
disturbing than with video, which generally operates at low Average Picture
Levels. Another great reason for an iris control! The second problem was
dealing with the slight overscan, which cuts off some menus and buttons. As far
as I can tell none of the major video graphics board manufacturers make a
driver with a proper overscan control to correct this issue for all of the
modes and signal outputs. (The scan timing must remain unchanged, so for PC
applications the video drivers need to introduce non-functional black pixels
into the overscan region by reducing the screen resolution below 1280×720 by
the appropriate amount so that everything actually appears on screen.) In fact,
the display drivers supplied by the board manufacturers are mostly a confusing
kludge of controls. Microsoft needs to implement a very simple and cleanly
layered video driver interface if it wants the PC welcomed into every living
room.
Jury Panel
Evaluations
Since
we had all of these great HDTVs and lots of fabulous high quality source
material to show on them I decided to turn all of the hard work (mine and the
manufacturers) into some fun, so my wife Julia and I threw a series of HDTV
parties where friends and colleagues were invited to watch and then grade each
of the units on image and picture quality. We had a total of 34 people come to
view a roughly one hour presentation that I had assembled. Most people liked it
so much they stayed much longer to watch most, and in some cases all of the
shows and movie clips that we had. Some came by more than once. The group sizes
were intentionally small and ranged from two to six people at a time. This
allowed everyone to spend a fair amount of time directly in front of each unit.
I
intentionally chose a broad audience. About half of the people had home
theaters or professional audio-video experience, the others were from
professional-level families that had standard definition CRT TVs. To look for
trends and examine consistencies I divided the panelists into six groups – each
group wound up with either five or six people. The Students were all High
School Juniors up through College Seniors, ages 16 to 21. The Home Theater
group consisted of panelists that weren’t part of the AV Pro or Video Expert
groups that had a home theater (with a High Definition CRT, LCD, Plasma or DLP
display). The remaining consumer panelists were divided into Technical and Non-Technical,
based on their occupations. The AV Professional group consisted of installers,
dealers and manufacturers reps. The Video Expert group consisted of a carefully
selected group of panelists with a considerable amount of expertise in video
picture quality. Included were Chris Chinnock, the publisher of Insight Media (Projection Monthly,
Microdisplay Report, MDTV-Retailer, and Display Watch), one engineer and one
executive from WMUR-TV (Jim Breen and Paul Falco), two professional HDTV
salespeople that I know have a great eye for picture quality (Ken Connors and
Todd Whorton), and a store manager from a specialty AV chain (Steven Lopez).
All of the Panelists are listed in the Acknowledgement section.
The
program consisted of four segments: the first was a (Standard Definition) clip
from the DVD Seabiscuit (chapter 7, which has a lot of great close-ups and
colorful outdoor scenes) played on Denon’s flagship DVD-5910 player, then a
digital D-VHS 1080i recording of Smart Travels with Rudy Maxa on
Florence Italy (a very clean and high quality 1080i source with lots of fine
detail, great cinematography and content that maintained everyone’s attention).
Next came a digital D-VHS 1080i recording of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,
which has one the best HD productions and sets. I chose a segment where Jay
pokes fun at bunch of consumer products using close-up shots of each. It was
amazing how you could read the fine print and UPC codes on the products. You
could also see the scratches on the Jay’s desk. Many of the women zeroed in on
Jay’s manicure, where you could easily see irregular cuticles, hang nails and
cracks and breaks in his fingernails. Clearly he had been working on his bike
recently. HD can be brutal with its clarity and this segment let people compare
fine details in the images. Note that Smart Travels and The Tonight
Show were recorded directly from Over the Air broadcasts because both
satellite and cable TV feeds apply additional compression that degrades the
picture quality.
The
last segment consisted of a series of HD movie clips encoded in Windows Media 9
Series and provided by the Microsoft Digital Media Division (see the Sidebar). The
Windows Media Video HD codec is a mandatory codec for both the HD-DVD and
Blu-Ray Disc consortiums and provided a taste of what the next generation of
pre-recorded material will be like. One major downside for me was that after
being immersed in all of this high quality HD material, DVDs now look like
something akin to VHS. The Windows Media Video HD material was all of very high
quality, was free of annoying Mosquito Noise that generally accompanies MPEG,
and was the hit of the Shoot-Out. Many people commented that the Windows Media
movie clips looked better on these HDTVs than they did in the movie theaters.
Most asked to see many more than the standard set of clips that I had selected.
Some stayed for two hours or more. Everyone genuinely had a great time and it
was thrilling to see people so enthralled with display technology.
I
intentionally provided as little guidance and information to the panelists as
possible in order to keep the opinions as unbiased and original as possible.
The only ground rules that I established were that the grading was to be based
solely on picture quality and that screen size, brightness and styling were not
to be factors in the grading. Shoot-Outs present the greatest of all challenges
for a display because individual sets that may look fabulous when viewed all by
themselves will generally look no where near as good when surrounded by many
other great displays showing the same high quality content. I explained that
the source material was of very high quality but that some image defects were
due to the source material. To decide if it was the source or the display,
compare several displays – if it’s in all of them the origin is in the source
material, otherwise it’s the display. Note that in order to eliminate the
differences in front-end signal processing between the units we had dual 720p
and 1080p digital signal feeds produced by prototype Silicon Optix video
processors that were equipped with advanced 1080i motion adaptive
deinterlacing. See Part
B for information on the all-digital signal distribution system.
The
units were graded on a school-like A to F system. To establish a base grading
scale, the best sets in a retail store would get a B-, so if a unit was better
than the best retail HDTVs it should get a B or better and a C+ or lower if it
was worse. Most of the Jury Panelists were blown away with the picture quality
they were experiencing. Many were initially overwhelmed and said the units were
all too good to tell apart, but after about twenty minutes of watching and
comparing the units everyone was able to clearly see picture quality
differences between them (without my guidance). By the end of the program
almost everyone had developed strong opinions. The tabulated results of the
Jury Panel Evaluations are shown in Table 2.
Table 2 : Jury Panel
Evaluations
Group (panelists)
|
Brillian 720
|
JVC Consumer 720
|
Brillian 1080
|
eLCOS-JDSU
|
JVC Professional 1080
|
Student (5)
|
B+
|
B+
|
A-
|
A-
|
A-
|
Non-Technical (6)
|
B
|
A-
|
A-
|
A-
|
A
|
Technical (6)
|
B+
|
A-
|
A-
|
A-
|
A
|
Home Theater (6)
|
A-
|
B+
|
A-
|
A
|
A
|
AV Professional (5)
|
B
|
B
|
B+
|
B+
|
A
|
Video Expert (6)
|
A-
|
B-
|
A-
|
A-
|
A+
|
The results are all amazingly consistent with several
very interesting trends. First, the AV Pros were the lowest graders but the
Video Experts were (surprisingly) the highest. The JVC Consumer unit scored
highest with the consumer panelists and lowest with the Video Expert panelists
(we’ll explain why, below). The Brillian 720 scored highest with the Home
Theater and Video Expert panelists. The JVC Professional unit consistently
received the highest grades in spite of the fact that it was the smallest and
dimmest of the units, while the Brillian 1080 and eLCOS-JDSU units were both
fairly consistent with A- from most of the panels.
All
of the units were graded on the same scale, so the 720 units were expected to
score lower than the 1080 units because they have roughly half the number of
pixels and therefore the images should appear a bit fuzzier, and they did. Note
that I did not tell the panelists which units were which, and most of the
non-professional panelists were unaware of the distinction. We’ll discuss the
Jury Panel comments further under the individual unit assessments, below.
I
spent some time trying to understand why the consumer panelists rated the JVC
Consumer unit so highly. It had the lowest objective on-screen resolution of
all of the units due to internal signal processing (see Fine Detail Artifacts,
above), but a number of consumer panelists commented on how sharp it looked. It
turns out that the copious artifacts and significant edge enhancement produced
so much artificial texture in the image (more than any of the other units) that
some panelists interpreted it as an indication of the set’s superior sharpness.
All of the Video Experts recognized this effect, and it’s the primary reason
why they gave this unit the lowest score of the Shoot-Out. One possible
explanation for the consumer ratings is that JVC is simply giving consumers
exactly what they think they want.
Display
Assessments
The
assessments for each unit include summaries and highlights of the major issues
that have been discussed in Parts A to C. Please refer back to the appropriate
article for details, definitions, discussions and background information. Each
assessment includes Product Details, Measurements, Feature Highlights, a
selection of representative Jury Comments, test pattern and panelist Grading
assessments, the author's own Overall Assessment and Commentary. In the Grading
assessments, Advanced Panelists refers to the mean grade assigned by the Home
Theater, AV Professional and Video Expert panels. The author's own Overall
Assessment, is, not surprisingly, often closest to the Video Experts grade. It
includes a discretionary boost that estimates the performance of each unit with
the prototype kinks ironed out, so it’s sometimes higher than the other grades.
Brillian 720 Assessment
●
Product
Details: Model
6501m, 1280×720 native resolution, 65 inch screen, price $5,999.
●
Measurements:
Black-Level
0.24 cd/m2, Peak Brightness 449 cd/m2, Contrast Ratio
1,870,
Gamma
2.13, 4x4 Checkerboard Contrast 162.
●
Feature
Highlights: excellent
On Screen Menus provide extensive user and service controls, great for tweaking
and calibration. Outstanding manual, great for videophiles. Extensive AV
inputs, DVI but no HDMI.
●
Jury
Comments: Best 720p TV
I have seen [identical quotes from two Expert panelists]. Sharp, vivid and
crisp for a 720p. Crisp text and true color throughout. Good color accuracy.
Black levels were quite good.
●
Grading: Test Patterns A-,
Advanced Panelists B+, Video Experts A-
●
Overall
Assessment:
A- (as a production
unit)
●
Commentary: This unit is on par with
the 1080 units except the calibrated Contrast Ratio was only 1,870, which still
makes it an outstanding performer and definitely one of the very best rear projection HDTVs available. It
also makes an outstanding giant screen PC monitor for the living room. We have
given this model the DisplayMate
Best Video Hardware Guide Award and Trophy for the “Very Best Combination
Large Screen HDTV and Computer Monitor.”
JVC Consumer 720 Assessment
●
Product
Details: Model
HD-61Z886, 1280×720 native resolution, 61 inch screen, price $2,695-$4,699.
●
Measurements:
Black-Level
0.59 cd/m2, Peak Brightness 552 cd/m2, Contrast Ratio
936, Gamma 2.06, Checkerboard Contrast 107.
●
Feature Highlights:
The only
unit with an ATSC HD Tuner. Has HDMI and dual IEEE 1394 Firewire inputs. Has
“Motion Adaptive Dynamic Gamma” (not exactly sure what this means, most likely
just marketing puffery),
that changes the Gamma Curve based on picture content, “Smart Picture,” which
adjusts the picture contrast based on the Average Picture Level, and “Color
Management,” which modifies the picture’s colors. The set performed best with
all of these “advanced” features turned off.
●
Jury
Comments: Much better
off axis. Color speckle on the screen. Obvious banding. Massive and tragic
artifacts. Obvious artifacts add illusion of texture but lacks sharpness.
Details appeared sharpest on this set.
●
Grades: Test Patterns B-,
Advanced Panelists B, Video Experts B-
●
Overall
Assessment:
B (LCoS Technology without the front-end electronics)
●
Commentary: It’s unfortunate that the severe artifacts from the
front-end signal processing for this set significantly degraded its otherwise
fine performance. It was the only production unit in the Shoot-Out and its
$2,695 price for a 61 inch HDTV would have made it an outstanding value.
Hopefully the new generation of D-ILA sets will correct this problem.
Brillian 1080 Assessment
●
Product
Details: Model
6580i, 1920×1080 native resolution, 65 inch screen, price $7,999.
●
Measurements:
Black-Level
0.12 cd/m2, Peak Brightness 457-509 cd/m2, Contrast Ratio
3,807-4,239, Gamma 2.18, Checkerboard Contrast 204.
● Feature Highlights: excellent On Screen Menus provide extensive user and
service controls, great for tweaking and calibration. Outstanding
manual, great for videophiles. Extensive AV inputs, DVI but no HDMI.
●
Jury
Comments: Great detail.
Good shadow detail. Great looking picture. Crisp, limited artifacts, very
watchable. 1080i material looked realistic. Black levels are good. Screen on
this display adds unnecessary grain to the image.
●
Grades: Test Patterns A-,
Advanced Panelists A-, Video Experts A-
●
Overall
Assessment:
A (as a production
unit)
●
Commentary: This is essentially an
enhanced version of Brillian’s 720 unit with an improved Light Engine,
electronics and 1080 devices. It has the same advanced front-end controls as
the 720 unit. It performed extremely well for an early prototype. Production units should be even more impressive.
eLCOS-JDSU 1080 Assessment
●
Product
Details: Model
Demonstrator, 1920×1080 native resolution, 56 inch screen, price NA.
●
Measurements:
Black-Level
0.20 cd/m2, Peak Brightness 885 cd/m2, Contrast Ratio
4425,
Gamma
2.18, Checkerboard Contrast 202.
●
Feature
Highlights: this
unit was a technology demonstrator produced by a consortium of four companies.
The DNP screen, with a gain of 4, was outstanding, very sharp with no speckle.
Silicon Optix provided the excellent front-end signal processing with a
prototype Niobe Reference Design HQV board that provides 1080i motion adaptive
deinterlacing.
●
Jury
Comments: Terrific
blacks, ultra crisp text and detail. No noise. Very clear. Very good detail and
accuracy. Second best [compared to JVC Professional] for overall color and
detail. I believe I developed a slight tan while viewing this set.
●
Grades: Test Patterns A-,
Advanced Panelists A-, Video Experts A-
●
Overall
Assessment:
A (as a production
unit)
●
Commentary: It’s surprising that a
unit this good isn’t even a prototype, and it’s not even expected to enter the US market until sometime
in 2006. A number of panelists wanted to know how to buy one and were shocked
that it wasn’t going to be possible anytime soon. The only major complaint is
that it was excessively bright, but that is relatively easy to fix by going to
a larger screen with a lower gain.
JVC Professional 1080 Assessment
● Product Details: Model DLA-HRM1, 1920×1080 native
resolution, 48 inch screen, price $44,995.
●
Measurements:
Black-Level
0.11 cd/m2, Peak Brightness 234 cd/m2, Contrast ratio
2,132,
Gamma
2.19, Checkerboard Contrast 63.
●
Feature
Highlights: This
is a high-end professional studio reference monitor. Includes a low 1.25 gain
screen made of glass rather than plastic, and a Silicon Optix based HQV
front-end signal processor that provides 1080i motion adaptive deinterlacing. Very
accurate geometry with no visible geometric distortion.
●
Jury
Comments: Gorgeous
image. Clarity and crispness are very impressive. Vivid, great depth, very
crisp and clean. Smooth picture, not as much punch as the other sets. Closest
I've seen to actually looking out a window. Felt I could stick my head in and
look left and right. Easiest display on the eyes. Easiest to watch. Best
overall, please bring to my house.
●
Grades: Test Patterns A,
Advanced Panelists A, Video Experts A+
●
Overall
Assessment:
A+ (as a production
unit)
●
Commentary: This is an outstanding
High Definition monitor designed (and priced) for high-end professional users
in television and movie post-production studios. It’s virtually artifact free
and has very accurate colors, gray-scale and geometry. We consider it as the
new Reference Standard monitor. It out-performs a comparably priced
professional CRT studio monitor (Part D).
What’s Coming
Next
In Part D we’ll have an
overall Assessment of LCoS technology, followed by detailed technical
performance comparisons between all of the major display technologies: CRT,
LCD, Plasma, DLP, and LCoS, and we’ll finish with a discussion of the most
exciting new developments in display technology that will be the subject of
future articles in this series.
Article Links
Series
Overview
Part A: Introduction
to LCoS Technology
Part B: LCoS Color
and Gray-Scale Accuracy
Part C: Test Pattern
and Jury Panel Evaluations
Part D: Comparison
with CRT, LCD, Plasma and DLP
Sidebar: LCoS
HDTV Manufacturers
Sidebar:
Shoot-Out Hardware and Software
Acknowledgements
Over 75
people were involved with the Shoot-Out: about half were participating
manufacturers and the other half were Jury Panelists that came to evaluate the
HDTVs.
Special Thanks: A number of people made important contributions that warrant
a special mention: special
thanks to Dr. Edward F. Kelley of the NIST (National Institute of Standards and
Technology) for many interesting discussions and for generously sharing his
expertise. Special thanks to Dave Migliori for his
excellent photography of the Shoot-Out with its difficult lighting layout and
viewing angles. Special thanks to Julia Soneira and Lauren Soneira for
helping to produce the Shoot-Out, which turned out to be a much larger
operation than I had anticipated. Special thanks to Ken Connors and Todd Whorton for coming by to evaluate HDTVs late at night
after a long day of selling HDTVs. And special thanks to Tom Griffith, news
anchor of WMUR-TV, for his help with recruiting and coordinating the WMUR
panelists. And finally, very special thanks to Hope Frank (Brillian), David
McDonald (eLCOS), Terry Shea (JVC Consumer) and Rod Sterling (JVC Professional)
for the tremendous amount of work that they put in coordinating their company’s
efforts, which was crucial for making the Shoot-Out a success.
Panelists: John Bomba, Linda Bomba, Nicole Bomba, George Claborn, Judy
Claborn, Jason Edwards, Dr. Kenneth Edwards, Petra Clark, Ron Clark, Sabrina
Clark, Carol Fortin, Megan Hinners, Carol Lewis, Dan Ligett, John Lobsitz Jr,
Dave Migliori, Cindy Migliori, Kristy Migliori, Scott Migliori, Dr. Larry
Puccini, Marty Rowley, Maria Rowley, Susan Stefanec. AV Professional Panelists: Tom Lewis, Eric Pikcilingis,
Lori Pikcilingis, Mike Soucy, Craig Theberge. Video Expert Panelists: Jim Breen (WMUR-TV), Paul Falco (WMUR-TV), Steven Lopez (Cambridge SoundWorks), Todd Whorton.
HDTV Manufacturers: Brillian Corporation: Hope Frank
(Vice-President), Chad Goudie, , Gil Hazenschprung, Dr. Robert Melcher (Chief Technology Officer), Dr.
Matthias Pfeiffer, Jack Waterman. eLCOS Microdisplay
Technology: Dr.
David J. Cowl, Roland Lue, David McDonald. JDS
Uniphase: JVC (Consumer Division): Dan McCarron, Terry Shea, Fumi Usuki. JVC Professional
Products: Jack Faiman (Vice-President), Dr. David Hakala (Chief Operating
Officer).
Equipment Manufacturers: Anchor Bay Technologies: Gefen: Hagai Gefen (President),
Linda Morgan, Khasha Roholahi.
CinemaQuest: Alan
Brown (President). Konica Minolta Instrument
Systems Division: Tom Kwon and Maria Repici. Microsoft
Windows Digital Media Division: Silicon Optix: Gary
Chin, Ney Christensen, Darren Gnanapragasam,
Justin Lam, Gopal Ramachandran, Derek Yuen.
About the Author
Dr. Raymond Soneira
is President of DisplayMate Technologies Corporation of Amherst, New Hampshire,
which produces video calibration, evaluation, and diagnostic products for
consumers, technicians, and manufacturers. See www.displaymate.com. He is a research
scientist with a career that spans physics, computer science, and television
system design. Dr. Soneira obtained his Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from Princeton
University, spent 5 years as a Long-Term Member of the world famous Institute
for Advanced Study in Princeton, another 5 years as a Principal Investigator in
the Computer Systems Research Laboratory at AT&T Bell Laboratories, and has
also designed, tested, and installed color television broadcast equipment for
the CBS Television Network Engineering and Development Department. He has
authored over 35 research articles in scientific journals in physics and computer
science, including Scientific American. If
you have any comments or questions about the article, you can contact him at dtso.info@displaymate.com.
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