PRODUCT REVIEW: SHARP LC-26GD6U INTEGRATED LCD TV

by Peter H. Putman, CTS, ISF

Sharp’s LC-26GD6U is the smaller brother to the LC-45GX6U I reviewed in the January 2005 issue of Stereophile Ultimate AV. It’s actually one of four integrated digital LCD TVs in the Sharp line, with 32-inch and 37-inch offerings rounding things out.

Figure 1. Sharp’s LC-26GD6U LCD TV

All four models are CableCARD ready and share many things in common, including the on-screen displays, remote, and menus. While the LC-26GD6U is the smallest of the bunch, its screen size is perfectly positioned at the low end of the “sweet spot” (26-42 inches) for flat panel TVs.

Out of the box, the LC-26GD6U comes pre-assembled with a stand and 10 watt stereo speaker system attached. You simply pull it out of the box, plug in your antenna and/or cable connection(s), and you’re ready to watch TV.

Unlike some other CableCARD TVs I’ve tested, this model (and its big brother) require that analog and digital RF connections be separate. To that end, three ‘F’ connectors are included – two for analog TV or cable with a loop-through, and one marked ‘digital’.

Figure 2. Only one RF connection is available for digital cable
or off-air signals, right below the CableCARD slot.

That means you can’t watch off-air and digital cable simultaneously, as you can with LG’s DU-42PY10X 42-inch plasma TV, reviewed elsewhere on this site. Rather, it’s an ‘either-or’ situation, unless you add an external two-way antenna switch.

For those who want to watch analog and digital cable, you’ll need to use a two-way splitter from your cable connection, and you’ll have to change antenna inputs on the remote to go between both sets of channels. Not the best or easiest way to navigate around!

The start-up menu gets you through antenna and cable setup pretty quickly. Of course, you will need to have an authorized CableCARD from your local cable company. The owner’s manual doesn’t explain this all too well; instead of simply stating that you will need to contact your cable company customer service center to authorize and receive a card, you must “first fill out an application” and “call your cable company to discuss receiving an application.”

If you want to do more than simply ‘watch TV’ and have other components in your system, you can hook them up to one of two component (YPbPr) inputs, a single S-video input, a composite video jack, a DVI-I jack, and an HDMI jack. All of these inputs also have companion analog audio inputs using RCA jacks or mini jacks.

The DVI-I input can accept any of these four signal formats – digital PC (DVI), Digital AV (DVI-HDCP), analog PC, and analog AV (YPbPr). The last two require appropriate adapter cables.

There’s also a digital audio output (Toslink) to drive an external AV receiver. This provides a digital audio connection from an HDMI, digital cable, or digital terrestrial source only – there are no other ways to run digital audio through this box.

Figure 3. A pair of IEEE1394 i.Link jacks is on the back panel
for recording to or playing back from D-VHS devices.

For those readers into D-VHS recording, there is a pair of i.Link (IEEE1394) jacks that can be connected to camcorders and D-VHS recorders and players. The LC-26GD6U will automatically recognize and control any of these products through the supplied remote control. (And yes, it works just fine with JVC, Mitsubishi, and Panasonic D-VHS decks.)

REMOTE AND MENUS

The supplied remote control is shaped like a long flat baton with a busy button layout. You won’t have direct access to any input; you’ll need to bring up a list of inputs and scroll through them, although they can have custom labels.

Direct access is provided to either of the analog antenna inputs and the sole digital RF input. You can also build a list of favorite channels for surfing. Four color-coded buttons on the remote bring you to these lists, which can memorize a maximum of four stations in each, or 16 total.

Figure 4. Sharp provides an excellent channel lineup OSD for off-air and cable stations.

Another button provides access to the built-in memory card reader, which supports all of the popular types including SD, XD, and CompactFlash. You can also see a list of available digital cable and of-air stations for fast surfing, once you’ve either installed a CableCARD or done an off-air channel scan.

The menus provide numerous image and signal adjustments. Four aspect ratios are available– 4:3 with sidebars, stretch (anamorphic), smart stretch (edges more than center) and zoom (fills the screen from letterboxed material). Some of these modes work even with 720p and 1080i programs.

There are also six picture/gamma settings, five of which (Standard, Movie, Game, User, and Dynamic) can be tweaked. The sixth setting (Dynamic Fixed) is quite bright but the color temperature is very cold. It’s more of a digital signage mode, unless you are watching Ice Age or Dr. Zhivago and want to get in the right mood.

There are no RGB drive or bias settings for video signals. All you can do to change white balance is select from five different factory preset color temperature settings. You can also set the brightness of the LC-45GX6U’s backlight. There are also two sets of sharpness controls, one of which claims to make background images more detailed.

When watching digital programs, you’ll have access to a couple of noise filters. One is a 3D adaptive noise filter that does work but softens images. The other is a two-level mosquito noise filter, intended to clean up MPEG compression artifacts in digital TV programs.

Sharp’s Color Management System (CMS) lets you individually set red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, and yellow saturation, brightness, and hue for different inputs and save your settings into memory. However, I would be hesitant to use it to correct for analog and digital video color. Digital SDTV and HDTV programs shouldn’t need any correction at all – only white balance adjustments.

The built-in stereo speakers are rated at a comfortable 10 watts per channel and have good performance in small to mid-sized rooms. There is a Dolby ‘virtual’ surround mode that can be activated from the remote, but placement of the TV is critical for this feature to work. I stuck with conventional stereo playback instead.

PERFORMANCE

On the test bench, I measured 164.6 nits (48 ft-L) brightness with a full screen white pattern @1080i/30 from my AccuPel HDG2000 test generator. ANSI (average) contrast measured 160:1 and peak contrast came in at 193:1. You can do better by playing with the backlight to lower black levels, but overall brightness is compromised.

Figure 5. Color temperature tracking using the factory Medium Warm and Warm modes.

The grayscale tracking on this TV isn’t nearly as good as on its larger brother. After calibration for best grayscale and using the lowest white balance (Warm) setting, I came up with the curves shown. Low levels of gray were very cold (in excess of 10500 degrees K) and only started to approach the desired color temperature ‘ballpark’ at about 45 IRE.

After taking these measurements I realized how RGB drive adjustments might have cleaned up the grayscale. More’s the pity, because the LC-26GD6U actually makes some really nice pictures.

IMAGE QUALITY

The native resolution of this panel is 1280x768 and in general you’ll be happiest with image quality if you feed it either progressive-scan DVDs or high definition content from a set-top box set to 720p output. I was particularly happy with live sports and movies in the 720p format from ABC and Fox.

1080i content also looks good, although there is a lot of format conversion going on in the panel as a result. The only artifacts I saw here were slight blurring of movement with live 1080i programs from INHD – movies on HBO, Cinemax, and Showtime looked cleaner.

LCD TVs still have trouble with fast refresh material, although Sharp has come a long way in fixing that problem from their earlier 28-inch and 30-inch models of a few years back. Film content works because the original frame rate is 24 fps and some motion blurring is built-in to the program.

DVDs work very well into the panel, except if they have lots of dark or nighttime scenes such as The Fifth Element or Men In Black. Once the luminance level of any object in a scene gets down to a certain point (about 1 nit, or .29 ft-L) it simply disappears into the ‘fog’. The best plasma monitors and TVs also have problem with black levels, although they can get down to .2 to .3 nits – five times better than the LC-26GD6U.

CONCLUSIONS

Two changes would make this product more appealing to me. First, go to the multifunction RF input configuration that other CableCARD TV manufacturers use, so that switching between analog and digital TV channels is easier. Secondly, provide access to RGB drive controls for better white balance adjustments.

I’m a big fan of LCD technology and happen to think that competition between plasma and LCD is a good thing for the market. Of course, LCD has pretty much pushed plasma out of the market at 32 inches and lower screen sizes, and will make inroads in larger sizes as prices continue to drop.

So, if you are looking to get rid of your old 27-inch CRT TV set and want to get rockin’ and rollin’ in the digital TV world, the LC-26GD6U wouldn’t be a bad place to start. Sharp is one of the ‘big 3’ in LCD manufacturing (the others and Samsung and LG) and continues to lead in sales of LCD TVs, and from the look of this model, they aren’t sitting on their hands with respect to LCD imaging technology.

Copyright ©2004 Peter H. Putman / Roam Consulting Inc. All electronic and mechanical reproduction rights are reserved.