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LCoS Shoot-Out Results
mikemuch writes "DisplayMate founder Ray Soniera has revealed the results of his LCoS HDTV Shoot-Out. He puts five HDTV's through a slew of test pattern measurements, and then lets 34 real people, including home-theater lay people and experts, conduct jury tests and make comments. There was one case where the experts gave low marks to a display that the lay people loved. From the article: 'We 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, because of internal signal processing, but a number of consumer panelists commented on how sharp it looked. The copious artifacts and significant edge enhancement produced so much artificial texture in the image that some panelists interpreted it as superior sharpness. All of the Video Experts recognized this effect and gave the unit the lowest score.'"
I actually think this result is just a matter of a having a trained eye... just as a real musician would probably cringe at the sound of most pop songs on the radio, despite the fact that a large number of people actually enjoyed that kind of "music". [flamebait warning]
But seriously, I wouldn't expect a "lay person" to be able to understand the technology involved in these units and to be able to make any intelligent\educated distinctions about their quality. IMHO, there's a reason we call them experts and they are the only ones we should really be paying attention to.
Capitalism: When it uses the carrot, it's called democracy. When it uses the stick, it's called fascism.
I know people who watch 4:3 content stretched out to 16:9, and are apparently immune to the completely distorted aspect ratio, they just think whatever they're watching should fill the screen regardless. If a consumer panel contains people like that, I don't wanna know what they think.
Oh no... it's the future.
Lesser Church of Scientology? XENU?
To the average Best Buy shopper, the brightest screen in the lineup wins. Doesn't matter if the red tones are blown out, doesn't matter about artifacting.
Just turn the brightness control down a few notches on a particular TV in the lineup, and watch the Best Buy sales numbers change.
Same thing with audio equipment. Room-shaking bass and razorblade sharp piercing highs sell gear. Doesn't matter if its a balanced sound, or if there's any separation between the elements in the mix. More bass? check. Killer sharp highs? check. Go to the checkout counter.
Han shot first.
Experts also go into these reviews with their own 'professional' bias against specific companies, models and brands while a lay-consumer, like myself, doesn't care if it's a Hitachi, RCA, Samsung or Sony.
Regardless of HOW it gets a 'sharper picture', if it appears to be a sharper picture to my eyes, then of course it's going to get a higher score over something with possibly better technology that SHOULD create a sharper image but creates other problems in it's 'excellency.'
Do you buy a name brand TV that has all of the gizmos and gadgets to make it perfect, or do you buy the Walmart brand TV that looks good and sounds good (to your eyes anyways) until your TV expert friends comes in and poo-poos on everything?
"Anybody who tells me I can't use a program because it's not open source, go suck on rms. I'm not interested." (LT 2004)
Yeah, average people know jack shit about what they see and hear. I know some people (even musicians!) who are just fine with listening to 64kbps mp3s, and can tell the difference between that and 192kbps, but don't care enough to prefer 192. Meanwhile, I can still hear the difference between 128 and 192.
Convert FLACs to a portable format with FlacSquisher
People believe what they are told, even if its not as sharp, but if someone says that its then it must be sharp, kind of like politics.. Money is made on stupidity of the people and every smart business man knows this..
You mean to tell me that people unqualified to make a judgment call about something don't necessarily make the best decision?!?
This guy's the limit!
Fools line up, your money is needed.
No Sony LCOS. Give me a break.
Think of how many tech products of obvious low quality to any expert are big sellers. This applies to consumer products in general as well... it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone!
stuff |
it's about making consumers look stupid. Evil, yes, but aren't we all?
Many consumer sets are tuned to be strongly oversharpened. I was at circuit city and some guy was doing consumer research for whatever big company he worked for, asked me to compare some DLP and Plasma units. Since I was doing that for myself anyways, I was happy to oblidge in some discussion.
The JVC at first looked really eye catching and noticable from the rest, but staring at it for three minutes made me realize it was because they cranked the crap out of the sharpness filter. Everything looks sharp and bold for a couple minutes, very eye catching, but after three minutes it gets really exhausting and thoroughly artificial. I cant remember the other set that did this. Way too much post-processing, but it catches your eye.
I told the guy this, he says I was defiantely the first person to ever describe anything as "oversharp" to him. Suprising, considering how much filtering some of these units do.
It is really too bad Sony wouldn't send out a unit. Their SXRD line-up, right now, is probably the best consumer grade TV out on the market.
I have been in awe of LCoS since it came out, when Toshiba's failed attempt at releasing it. Toshiba had some major problems out of the gate and I don't think it helped their price tag was $8,000 for the 50 some inch and $10,000 for the 60 some inch. They did look great though, dispite the problems.
Then JVC hit the market with one, re-naming it to HD-ILA. Not exactly sure why they renamed it, maybe to disassociate themselves from the failed Toshiba LCoS sets? They looked great when compared to DLP, LCD and even plasma, though they still were on the pricier side. My only complaint with them is they were JVC, a company that I would put in the middle of the road as far as quality. I also hate this new trend for silver TVs, but those two were only minor issues with one just being a personal preference.
Then Sony came out with their renamed LCoS, the SXRD. Sites like AVSForum were all the buzz with these new sets. When I finally got to see one in person, it was a dream come true. LCoS overall is a better technology that DLP and especially LCD. DLP maybe able to make a surge in taking LCoS's crown once we see 3 chip DLPs sets and at "affordable" prices. I use affordable loosely, as $4,000 for 50" and ~$5,000 for 60" isn't exactly "affordable" for everyone, but for videophiles, it is.
I have not heard of the other companies that they listed, and to my fault, I haven't been on AVSForum much recently. I would not trust them until I see some reviews, off-brands tend to not do well. Especially like startup companies like Brilla, they usually just don't have the funding or experience to make quality sets their first time around. The one company I would love to see make a LCoS set would be Mitsubishi. I am loyal to them, to a degree. They have been making big screen TVs for many years now, actually almost 3 decades now. They know what is up, when they truely entered the DLP market. I am not talking about thier first sets when DLP was brand new and never took off, but rather about two years ago when them and Toshiba challenged Samsung DLP crown only because they were the only one making DLP sets. Mitsu did it right, beating out Samsung sets hands down. Only downside, you were paying a little more for a Mitsu DLP. Toshiba also did a great job at DLP, I would rank them Mitsu, Toshiba and then Samsung in overall DLP quality, though the new pseudo DLP/LCD 3 driver 1080p Samsung set is pretty impressive.
The sad thing is, I think LCoS is only going to have a short life as the technology to get. SED and OLED are on their way. SED is suppose to actually rival CRT picture quality for about the same price with out the size and weight of CRT. Something plasma and flat panel LCD is unable to do and probably will never be able to do. Though, for the time being, LCoS is the way to go and if you can't afford the Sony SXRD set. JVC's are still great sets and for much less. I think their ~50" is going for about $2,500 or maybe even less.
There always have been - and always will be - products that certain types of consumers think are better because they perceive artifacts as being "better sharpness" or "more detail". A certain type of digital camera sensor guilty of just this kind of artifact springs to mind...
Granted, that wasn't the case in this test, but it happens a ton on the actual retail front.
Han shot first.
"IMHO, there's a reason we call them experts and they are the only ones we should really be paying attention to."
ummm...the people best suited to judge the quality are the people who are actually going to buy it and watch it.
is the one that looks the best to you. That's all that matters. The experts are looking for picture flaws, the public is looking for a picture that looks good.
One possible explanation for the consumer ratings is that JVC is simply giving consumers exactly what they think they want.
This statement hits the nail on the head...JVC knew what they were doing when they made a technically crappy screen, just like Microsoft cares more about how much users like clippy the office assistant than they do about a buffer overflow. They know what they need to do to sell their product, most other things are irrelevant. Why should JVC give a flying rat's if 100,000 geeks see artifacts when 1,000,000 non-geeks see "sharpness and texture"? They'll probably make more off the geeks by selling them some model they deem "higher-end" than the consumer version for 20% extra, because the geeks will percieve it as being so much better than the "inferior consumer" model. Someone at JVC really knows how to play the consumer perception card real well, and I bet this particular example comes at a manufacturing cost savings as well.
A search of PC mag does not even come up with this article...
He actually comments on this point in the previous article in the series http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1923419 ,00.asp--so you're both right!:
"Why are these TVs so bright? Why are the manufacturers putting in bigger lamps and special higher gain screens to make these already way-too-bright TVs even brighter? I know they've all read the earlier articles, so why are they doing this? Sadly, the reason is that in a retail setting, brightness is frequently a deciding sales factor. So, like it or not, the manufacturers have to build their sets to be as bright as possible in order to be commercially successful.
I spoke at length about this with Steven Lopez, manager of the Nashua New Hampshire store of Cambridge SoundWorks (a specialty AV chain based in New England). Steven expanded upon what the manufacturers had already told me, "The unfortunate truth to selling TVs on the sales floor is that bright sets attract the mass consumer. The most accurate sets may not be the most appealing. The brightest units simply make the other nearby sets look anemic and old, kind of like the tired CRT they are replacing. Often that's enough to tip the scales in a sale, regardless of the price range involved."
Do you have to cling so desperately to your 'superiority?' Let it go, you have failed.
So perhaps the technically precise unit is the 'losses' presentation, and the JVC unit gave up on the technically precise elements that the average consumers eyes can't "hear", and so the 'lossy' presentation looked just as good, or better, than the lossess one because it suited the analog eye instead of the digital microscope?
Not A Sig
See subject.
If the experts love it, then you can expect high quality. If the average joe likes it, then you can expect a good experience. If they BOTH like it, then you have a winning product!
I'd would like to see the units myself, actually, and see how "bad" this consumer model is. And I would *really* like to see the professional unit. I was was thinking to myself when reading the description; "I could like with that display!". And then I saw the price...
Most consumers don't want a realistic looking picture, they want the picture they've seen all of their lives. Even with televisions; many of my wife's family and friends upon hearing about my background, asked me to look at their televisions. Most needed minor convergance/pincushion adjustment, all needed brightness/contrast/color/tint adjustment. I made them all look (IMHO) pretty good.
Virtually every set I touched was changed within a week. The single control that was most nudged: color (think saturation). Everybody is used to the cartoon-level, LSD-induced superbright colors of a children's room. Real skin doesn't look like that!. I could even hold my bare arm up next to a character on TV, show my relatives and friends that this is what the picture should look like (gee, flesh looks like flesh. Grass looks like grass), and within ten minutes they'd be cranking up the color.
I gave up. Nowadays, I tell people "I don't do Windows, and that includes televisions". Yes, I get some wierd looks for it, but I also get bothered a lot less.
Buy the television which matches your pocketbook and your expectation of picture quality. Most of you will never miss the extra quality that a 200-300% increase in price will bring; worse, you'll probably adjust the extra quality right out of the set in a quest to get the lurid color balance you want. By the way, on a new set you should have a pretty good picture if both brightness and contrast are set to mid-range. Cranking both of them to max may look like what you want, but you're just cutting the lifespan of your picture tube in half (applies to CRT's only - I have no idea what the effect is on LCD/Plasma displays).
Picture was the best looking in the store. Biggest volume seller there too. Everyone that comes over likes it.
:)
Who gives a @#$%@# what an experts opinion is or why I like it?
If the expert wants to pick out a set that is, according to their expert opinion, better...they can!
As far as an expert, or anyone else, telling me that i'm a dope or unsophisticated for buying something I like...they can feel free to blow me!
One thing many manufacturers do is default their white balance on the TV sets to 9000K or higher since it looks a lot brighter than a properly set TV at 6500K. However, when watching it at the lower temperature, although the image will not look as bright, the colors will appear more vivid. I believe the SMPTE NTSC standard recommends 6500K or there abouts. I don't know about ATSC, but I would imagine it's similar. Try it with a monitor. At first it will look yellowish until you adjust to it, though this usually passes shortly.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
take Equilibrium for example. the critics slaughtered it. i mean, it was universally trashed by the hollywood back-patters. yet it was one of the best freaking movies i've ever seen, and it has been givin high marks by everyone i know who has seen it. even if you don't like orwellian sci-fi, Equilibrium is a gem.
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Nothing on the market even compares to the Sony SXRD series. I bought the 70" version back in August and it has been a viodephile's dream come true. If you have not seen one of these units, go down to your local professional av store and see the image for yourself.
g
Pic of my setup:
http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/4562/9782fx.jp
This monster plays the 1080i HD channels with such clarity and vivid color that watching a DVD at 480p makes me cry. I really wish the industry would settle on an HD content disc format and start shipping some movies that I can watch in 1080i.
I have one bad ear. Stereo is a waste of bandwidth.
As for the vision, well, my eyes are starting to age too.
In terms of expert versus consumer opinions, the buyer's opinion is the only one that matters. But experts often pick up things that consumers miss in their initial (brief) evaluation, and then discover much later with regret. To get a handle on this point just replace "HDTV" with "automobile" for example. A consumer needs to be happy with their own "test drive" but they couldn't possibly examine emergency handling, engine and transmission performance issues that only an expert can do. In the context of the article, the JVC Consumer unit has some flaws (artifacts) that a typical consumer won't be able to identify, but that affect picture quality performance. Raymond Soneira DisplayMate Technologies Corp
What you mean, of course, is that panelests were told not to evaluate brightness. Whether they effectively ignored it or not is another question altogether, especially when evaluating nonidentical models simultaneously.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
I think that all white wines tastes like cat piss, yet there are huge pricedifferences between different brands, and people think some of them taste divine, while others taste like... cat piss.
It's the same reason why _really_ crappy surround sound systems sell like hotcakes, they sound like crap, but people really don't know the difference, and probably haven't really heard what a good system is suppose to sound like. It was like when I finally got a friend to come with me to a THX theater, and he finally understood why good sound and picture makes a huge difference to how much you feel like you are in the movie.
As far as music goes, when a show like "Idol" (The Swedish version) gets really popular even though the people can't sing that well, well, shows why the music industry doesn't have to care about talent...
What? Me bitter? Noooooo.... Now give me a 1080p screen, ok?
Take as a simple example the VHS/Video2000/Hi8/BetaMAX comparisons.
What won out: VHS, crappiest quality, enormous tapes, but the cheapest. It didn't matter that any of the others was a better quality, only the price mattered.
It's a shame they didn't tell the 'laymen' customers the price on these sets, or you might actually have gotten an extra (for most people important) variable in the equation.
Splut.
Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.