AVV MMP reviews five new LCD and plasma monitors
from Sony, LG, Barco, Pioneer, and NEC
Peter Putman, CTS
In the market for a plasma or LCD monitor?
Last time I checked, there were over 60 different models available
from 20 to 63 inches in size, packed with a bewildering array of features
and connectivity. Some are branded with the manufacturer’s logo, while
many others are ‘private label’ products, wholesaled from one of the
big plasma or LCD factories in Japan, Korea, or China.
Many questions will come to your mind as
you browse through plasma and LCD monitor spec sheets. How well do
these panels show video? What kind of brightness and contrast performance
can they deliver? What signals will they accept? Do they offer digital
video interfaces? How about network interfaces?
For this review, I chose a cross-section
of plasma and LCD monitors ranging from 42” to 61”. Five models were
procured, with two from the fast-growing LCD monitor camp, and three
from the well-established plasma monitor crowd. All of them are true
multimedia monitors, with the capability to show both analog and digital
PC and video signals.
Sony Electronics arranged for me to
look at the PFM-42X1, a 42” (diagonal) plasma monitor with
1024x768 non-square pixel resolution. It was supplied with a table
stand and comes standard with an internal 7W stereo amplifier and
optional speakers. It will list for $5,899.
LG Electronics shipped over their
L4200A, a 42” LCD monitor with 1280x768 pixel resolution. It
also came in with a table stand, but doesn’t have an internal audio
amplifier. List price right now is $8,499.
Barco sent up the Solaris LC40M,
a 40” LCD monitor that also features 1280x768 pixel resolution and
includes a unique internal 40 GB hard drive media server. A table
stand was provided, but there’s no on-board audio amplification. You’ll
find it lists for $10,500, or $8,400 without the server
(model LC40).
Pioneer submitted their 4th-generation
50-inch plasma, the PDP-504MX. It also offers 1280x768 pixel
resolution and rests atop a small but strong pair of legs. The internal
audio amplifier is rated at 2 watts per channel and speakers are optional.
List price is $12,500.
Finally, NEC talked me into inspecting
the PX-61MX2A, their latest 61-inch offering and one of the
larger plasma monitors around. It has a unique three-piece table stand
and the on-board audio amplifier system is rated at 9 watts per channel
with optional speakers. The list price tag on this big boy is $16,495.
OUT OF THE BOX
All of the monitors in this review can be
considered ‘plug and play’ and include both analog and digital video
connections, but the number and type of connections varies. Each model
provides the basics – a 15-pin d-sub jack and a DVI input jack, ostensibly
for connection to a PC or media server.
Composite, S-video, and three-wire (YPbPr)
component video inputs are standard on the LG, NEC, and Barco monitors,
while Pioneer requires you to add the PDA-5004 video expansion card
to get any of them.
Sony takes a minimalist approach with a single
15-pin d-sub jack that pulls double duty for showing PC and component
video signals (the latter requires a breakout cable for BNC or RCA
connections). Composite BNC, S-video, and DVI-D jacks sit alongside.
Barco’s Solaris LC40M has the built-in media
server with a LAN interface, so it can be dropped into a network quite
easily. No such option exists on the LG and NEC monitors, but there
are aftermarket LAN plug-in cards available for Pioneer plasma monitors.
Sony offers network interfacing for the PFM-42X1
through the external NSP-100, EBS-N100, and EBS-N200 server/players,
but as of now there is no available direct plug-in card for a network
interface (although Sony does make one for their 50” plasma).
The DVI-D interface on each monitor (except
for the PX-61MX2) is compatible with the DVI-HDCP copy protection
system, which means you can hook up so-equipped DVD players and DTV
set-top receivers to any of these displays.
You’ll find the NEC input jack field particularly
friendly; it is situated on the side of the PX-61MX2 and is very easy
to access. Plus, it offers six different input jack types from RCA
and BNC to DVI and d-sub. Barco and Pioneer also use BNC jacks, while
LG and Sony don’t.
On the Sony, LG, Pioneer, and Barco monitors,
you’ll have to make connections from the underside of the monitor.
Connections to the Solaris LC40M media server are on the side of the
monitor and include a mouse, keyboard, PCMCIA, and Cat-5 LAN connection.
MENUS AND REMOTES
Everyone does remotes and menus differently,
granting you more or less access to service adjustments. LG’s monitor
provides the least amount of control, particularly in video mode.
If you want to set up your own white balance, you can’t do it with
a video signal – only with a PC signal in the RGB format.
The Solaris LC40M, on the other hand, provides
the usual detailed Barco menus and a full range of adjustments, including
precise white balance controls, sync adjustments, and picture gamma
settings. Ditto NEC’s PX-61MX2, with full access to a wide range of
integrator-level tweaks and picture gamma presets.
Sony’s PFM-42X1 also has an excellent menu
structure with lots of user adjustments for image parameters and plenty
of memories to go along with them. Pioneer offers two menus – the
main menu will let you do most picture tweaks and provides white balance
adjustments to RGB signals. A series of ‘secret word’ button pushes
brings up the hidden and more detailed integrator menu for all kinds
of image tweaks.
The NEC, Pioneer, and Barco monitors can
be configured as part of a tiled display by selecting the matrix type
(usually 2x2) and the position of that monitor in the tile from a
special menu. Video and PC images are then automatically re-mapped
across the entire tiled display, a set-up that can fool you if you
are using only one monitor and the tile feature is enabled. (The review
PDP-504MX arrived this way from InfoComm, and it took some time and
a few phone calls to Josh Kairoff at Pioneer to exit this mode!)
Many key menu functions are brought directly out to
the remote controls. Barco provides direct input selection, access
to the ‘big five’ image adjustments (brightness, contrast, color saturation,
tint, and sharpness), plus aspect ratio. Sony’s remote features direct
access to any input, brightness, chroma, horizontal and vertical image
position and size, and aspect ratio. There’s also a key to toggle
between RGB and YUV color spaces.
The NEC remote isn’t as complex. It toggles
through available signal inputs in groups (DVD/HD, VIDEO, RGB/PC)
and lets you select aspect ratio and enable the auto picture setup
function. Pioneer’s remote is almost as limited, with five buttons
for input access, aspect ratio, and auto set up plus several inputs
for picture-in-picture functions.
LG’s L4200A monitor is so new that the review
remote came with Korean lettering – it had been previously used at
InfoComm. Still, I managed to find the English language menu and determined
by trial and error that the LG remote uses a scrolling input menu
as well as traditional scrolling menus for image adjustments, picture
gamma, and aspect ratio. It’s more of a consumer-level remote, but
gets the job done.
If you are interested in using any of these
displays as a set piece for a video shoot, be advised that you can
set the white balance all the way down to 3200K to match tungsten
studio lights on all but the L4200A. The Pioneer and Barco monitors
have a built-in one-touch setting for such applications, while it
will take some tweaking with a color analyzer to get the Sony and
NEC where you want them.
Since all of these monitors have 16:9 aspect
ratio screens, they include a variety of cropping and aspect ratio
corrections for different source material. In RGB mode, you’ll usually
get a full screen representation (stretched 4:3), a 4:3 or 5:4 ‘normal’
modes, and sometimes a pixel-by-pixel (or dot-by-dot), actual size
mode.
With video sources, you can select a non-linear
stretch for 4:3 sources, an anamorphic stretch for widescreen DVDs,
and a variety of zoom modes for subtitles and letterboxed (widescreen
in a 4:3 format) material. NEC goes one step further with a unique
2:35:1 screen adjustment in their menu, which may be unnecessary since
any widescreen DVD mastered in this format is already letterboxed
and needs only to be stretched to fit the width of the screen, not
squeezed vertically. (But it was a nice gesture, nonetheless.)
Taken together, the Barco and Sony menus
and remotes are the fastest to navigate and operate. Pioneer and NEC
were about even in terms of user friendliness – neither provides much
functionality from their remotes, although you don’t need to know
the ‘secret word’ to get into NEC’s integrator menu. But NEC still
doesn’t provide numeric readouts for image parameter settings, while
Pioneer, Barco, and Sony do – and numeric readouts are a must for
reference when calibrating any flat panel display.
ON THE TEST BENCH
For my tests, I connected a variety of analog
RGB and video signals to each display. Composite video, S-video, and
component interlaced (480i) video came from my Panasonic RP56 DVD
player, as did 480p DVD video. The RP56 has a Faroudja FLI2200 de-interlacing
and motion correction chipset in it that few flat-panel monitors can
match in terms of performance.
For 720p and 1080i video, I used a Samsung
SIRT-165 set-top receiver (with component and DVI HDCP output), a
Motorola DCT6200 digital cable receiver (also with component and DVI
HDCP output), and JVC’s HM-DH30000U D-VHS recorder/player.
Test PC signals came from my nVidia Gforce4
Ti200 video card, capable of up to 1280x1024 pixel resolution and
DVI-D support. I also generated test patterns from Extron’s VTG300
(PC and widescreen formats) and AccuPel’s HDG2000 (720p and 1080 patterns).
The correct way to test plasma and LCD monitor
performance is to calibrate each monitor for widest grayscale, not
highest contrast or brightness. Plasma monitors incorporate a brightness
limiting circuit anyway to guard against image burn-in and premature
fading, so the grayscale approach is the best way to do an apples-to-oranges
comparison.
After grayscale calibration and adjustment
of red, green, and blue drive and bias to D6500 white balance, I took
brightness and contrast measurements with a Progressive Labs CA-1
color analyzer. With a full white screen, the two LCD monitors easily
held sway at 245 nits (Solaris LC40M) and 220 nits (L4200A). These
numbers were largely unchanged when I switched to a small area white
test pattern.
The three plasma monitors reined back their
light output with a full screen white image, ranging from a low of
58 nits (PDP-504MX) to a high of 95 nits (PFM-42X1). Switching to
a small-area white field turned the tables in a hurry, though. The
PFM-42X1 clocked in at a mind-boggling 389 nits, with the PX-61MX2
(230 nits) and PDP-504MX (228 nits) right behind.
In terms of contrast, plasma usually wins
out due to its much lower black levels, and Sony’s PFM-42X1 didn’t
disappoint here. It set a new record for peak contrast in my reviews
while using the ANSI standard 16-block checkerboard pattern, delivering
readings of 648:1 average and 2007:1 peak. NEC’s PX-61MX2 didn’t do
quite as well, but still turned in respectable numbers with 200:1
ANSI and 358:1 peak readings, ahead of Pioneer’s 146:1 ANSI and 208:1
peak measurements.
A closer look at black levels reveals the
disparity– Sony’s lowest reading was .18 nits (that’s CRT-level performance!),
while the best NEC could do was .56 nits, more than three times as
bright. Pioneer’s lowest black level reading was a bit better at .54
nits, but it couldn’t match the NEC in peak brightness.
Black levels are the ‘Achilles Heel’ of LCD
monitors. LG’s L4200A produced an ANSI contrast reading of 61:1 with
a peak reading of 73:1, but Barco’s Solaris LC40M did a bit better
with measurements of 190:1 ANSI and 204:1 peak. Why? Because its black
levels were half that of the L4200A (1.25 nits vs. 2.6 nits).
In terms of white balance, only the L4200A
couldn’t hold a consistent grayscale at low color temperatures, running
quite ‘cold’ between 10000 degrees Kelvin (degrees K) and 24000 degrees
K. The other monitors made a much tighter race of it, tracking very
closely to the desired D6500 color temperature across a 16-step grayscale.
The Solaris LC40M amazed me at how well it
could ‘hover’ around D6500, with a total swing of 360 degrees. That’s
just not something LCD displays are known for and rivals a good CRT
display.
Among the plasma monitors, the PDP-504MX
did the best job of maintaining consistent white balance from low
grays to full white, staying within 210 degrees K.
While the PFM-42X1 and PX-61MX2 performed acceptably, their
color shifts were much higher with swings of 740 degrees (Sony) and
620 degrees (NEC).
AUTOSYNC TESTS
A true ‘plug and play’ monitor should be
able to correctly size and sync up a wide variety of compatible PC
and video signals. I tested this function using the fine “H” text
pattern on the VTG300, as it creates lots of pixel clock errors.
Pioneer’s PDP-504MX won top honors here,
correctly recognizing and setting up 24 of 25 test signals (it choked
on a high scan rate UXGA pattern). The Barco, Sony, and NEC monitors
were close behind with 23 correct setups, while LG’s L4200A brought
up the rear with 20 correct setups.
IMAGE QUALITY TESTS
Here’s where the rubber meets the road. I
used everything from grayscale and multiburst patterns to clips from
the Video Essentials DVD and recorded D-VHS tapes to see what
these displays could do.
Each monitor had its component video inputs
swept for bandwidth with 720p and 1080i multiburst patterns. NEC’s
PX-61MX2 did best here with picture detail present out to 37.5 MHz.
None of the remaining monitors could do better than 18.5 MHz, unless
they were switched into RGB or DVI mode, where there was a dramatic
improvement in bandwidth.
Don’t expect 480i video to look all that
great on any of these panels. Plasma and LCD displays are inherently
progressive-scan displays and progressive content is what they like
to see at their inputs. All of the review monitors looked much better
when I fed ‘em 480p video from the RP56 DVD player. (You may find
outboard video scaling and de-interlacing of 480i (or 576i) sources
a good idea, depending on the quality of your source material.)
None of the review monitors had a really
good composite video decoder or de-interlacing circuit, with plenty
of cross-color and cross-luminance artifacts seen on a Zone Plate
test pattern. Switching to S-video or component formats will clean
up that problem in a hurry, so stay away from composite sources if
you can help it.
Pioneer’s PDP-504MX won my vote for best
overall video quality, even though it had higher black levels than
the PFM-42X1. The PDP-504MX had the cleanest grayscale (free of false
contours), best white balance, and little video noise with any source.
In contrast, there were false contours galore on the Sony, including
a whopper at 20% gray and other reddish bands seen from 10% to 30%
NEC’s PX-61MX2 had less false contours, but
exhibited a subtle reddish color shift at several levels of luminance.
LG’s L4200A had numerous false contours but none as marked as the
Sony, while the Solaris LC40 exhibited fainter contours in two or
three places.
PC images always look better than video images
on plasma and LCD monitors. Even though LG’s L4200A lacks white balance
adjustments for video signals and had the highest black levels in
this review, it is a top-notch, glare-free RGB display under normal
to high room lighting.
The same holds true for Barco’s Solaris LC40,
which cranks out bright, crisp images under any lighting. Sony’s PFM-42X1
can keep up with these two LCD guys most of the time, but not when
displaying graphics using white or very light backgrounds. I also
noticed the color green to be exaggerated on the PFM-42X1, as if there
was too much yellow mixed in.
As good as it looks, the PDP-504MX could
use more horsepower. I accessed the integrator menu but was unable
to set brightness levels any higher, so this monitor will be challenged
with high ambient light levels. NEC’s PX-61MX2 is in the same boat,
as it also doesn’t have a lot of nits to spare. Control the ambient
light environment, however, and you will be much happier with picture
quality on both monitors.
(One note on the Solaris’ internal 40
GB server: While I didn’t exercise it much for this review, I was
able to network it easily to my desktop PC and download several PowerPoint
files to it as well as some JPEG photos. This server can also daisy
chain to other ‘plain vanilla’ LC40s in a digital signage network.)
CONCLUSIONS
There were a few surprises in this review.
I was (and am still) amazed at the color consistency of the Solaris
LC40, not to mention the sheer brightness and high contrast of the
PFM-42X1. LG’s industry-first 42-inch LCD monitor is a good start,
but needs more menu and adjustment options to get better pictures
out of it.
Pioneer’s video quality still rules the day
(their plasma monitors are usually among the best overall performers
from year to year), but they need to figure out a way to get their
black levels down and improve contrast. As for NEC, they don’t have
too much competition in this screen size, and I like their combination
of connector options and detailed menus, which are very integrator-friendly.
Copyright ©2004 Peter H. Putman / Access
Intelligence Ltd. This article appears in the October 2004 issue of
AV Video Multimedia Producer.
