These days, HDTV shoppers who ask about the differences between flat-panel technologies will likely get the traditional response: LCD is more durable and more suitable for bright rooms than plasma, while plasma has better picture quality in rooms with less light. Of course, what TV salesmen often ignore is that plasma is perfectly durable in its own right and can get plenty bright for bright rooms and that LCDs are getting better and better at producing a home theater-worthy picture.
Recent models such as the JVC LT-46FN97 46-inch LCD HDTV are helping blur that line even further. It's big enough to challenge plasmas at the home theater game, and it brings an extra trump card to the table: 1080p resolution. That means it can display every detail of the highest-resolution sources available today (though it's worth noting that most viewers will have difficulty seeing the difference in detail at this screen size). Aside from its native resolution, however, the LT-46FN97 looks a lot like a plasma on its spec sheet, and in person, with about an inch of matte-black frame on three sides and a thicker area below the screen housing the speakers.
SETUP The JVC's back panel includes the requisite pair of HDMI inputs, albeit spaced a bit too tightly to accommodate my bulky DVI-to-HDMI adapter alongside a standard HDMI cable. Another small disappointment: The JVC's HDMI ports won't accept a native 1080p signal from a high-def disc player, though it's extremely difficult (if not impossible) to tell the difference between 1080i and 1080p sources.
Along with HDMI are three inputs offering the usual variety of composite-, S-, and component-video jacks, as well as a VGA option. These are ganged up, so you choose one set of connectors to use for each input.
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The Short Form |
| Price $3,500 ($3,799 list) / jvc.com / 800-526-5308 |
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Snapshot
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| Distinguished by its excellent TheaterPro preset and accurate color, this LCD delivers a well-calibrated picture without much fuss. |
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Plus
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| •Accurate, well-saturated color •TheaterPro picture mode eases setup •Resolves every detail of 1080i sources |
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Minus
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| •Cannot accept 1080p sources via HDMI •Unevenness in dark areas |
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Key Features
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| •46-in 1,920 x 1,080-resolution flat-panel LCD display •Inputs: 2 HDMI, 2 component-video, 1 PC •CableCARD slot •44.4 x 30.6 x 13.5 in; 82.5 lb |
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Test Bench
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| Before calibration, the JVC's TheaterPro mode came very close to the 6500K grayscale standard, varying by an average of only 119K from 20 to 80 IRE. Slight adjustments improved it even further. Pre-calibration light output was also perfect for a dark home theater, measuring 35.5 ftL. Measured black level was very good, though not as good as the with some LCDs I've seen, and dark areas brightened slightly as brightness of other parts of the image increased. Geometry was perfect, and overscan was a perfect 0% in Full Native aspect ratio mode; the set fully resolved 1080i test patterns in Full Native as well. Primary color accuracy for red, green, and blue were all very good, and color decoding was excellent. Full Lab Results |
But when it came time to adjust the picture, I was thrilled with the accuracy of the JVC's TheaterPro preset, which required almost no changes to its defaults to achieve an ideal picture for my completely dark room. Color temperature was more accurate than on most HDTVs, and I especially loved that light output was nearly perfect because the default for the Energy Saver slider, which controls the LT-46FN97's backlight intensity, was almost all the way down — resulting in the darkest black the set could attain.
One thing I wasn't thrilled about, however, is that although the four picture presets are adjustable, they're not fully independent for each input. In any given picture mode, almost all of the inputs had to share the same settings. For example, if I set brightness at –4 for Input 3 in TheaterPro mode, it had to be at –4 for most of the other inputs as well. Fortunately there was one exception: For whatever reason, the HDMI 2 input was able to hold settings independent of the others.
I did tweak a couple of settings from JVC's TheaterPro defaults, selecting, for example, the "Full Native" aspect-ratio mode, which deinterlaces but doesn't otherwise scale 1080i inputs, to retain the greatest onscreen resolution. I turned off Color Management, which had the subtle but undesirable effect of decreasing the brightness of the color blue. I also disengaged Dynamic Gamma and Smart Picture and turned off the room-lighting sensor, which adjusts the TV's brightness according to ambient light.
PICTURE QUALITY The HD DVD of the movie Troy generally looked spectacular on the JVC, with all the detail I expected from a 1080p display. One memorable example was when Paris (Orlando Bloom) first rides into Troy with Helen (Diane Kruger) at his side, where it seemed I could see every strand of her blonde hair and every texture in his armor. The city's buildings looked wonderfully realistic, with the stones and bricks in the ramparts of the palace and the grain of the wood of the gatehouse both visible. From close-ups to epic, long-distance vistas, this high-resolution LCD delivered on its promise of detail.
One area where I was pleasantly surprised by the JVC's picture quality was in its unusually good rendition of colors. Measurements confirmed its accurate primary colors, color decoding, and grayscale (see Test Bench), and these were borne out beautifully onscreen. The skin tones of Helen and Paris appeared natural and vibrant in the bright sunlight, and when Thetis (Julie Christie), the mother of Achilles (Brad Pitt), prophesies about his fame and death in the battle of Troy, the range of color on her skin — the sunburn on her freckled shoulder, her pale forehead — looked realistic and nicely saturated. Colors throughout the film, such as the rich blue-green of the Aegean water, the browns and green of the hillsides, the beige of the buildings, and the brilliant costumes of the Trojan court, appeared as good as I've seen on any LCD, at least in bright areas of the picture.
However, as is often the case with today's HDTVs, picture quality fell off slightly in dark scenes. During one of Achilles' trysts with Polydora (Siri Svegler), for example, I noticed that the shadows around his tent, along with the black letterbox bars, were tinged somewhat bluer than I'd have liked, although the blue wasn't as objectionable as I've seen on some LCDs. When I sat a bit to the right or the left during this scene I also noticed that, as with many LCDs, the dark areas lost brightness when viewed from the side. Dark scenes also revealed that the screen's upper right and left corners were subtly brighter than the rest, which could especially be seen when the picture faded to black. These kinds of uniformity issues are common to flat-panel LCDs and can vary set to set, but on this sample they were more noticeable than usual.
Blacks on the JVC were relatively dark, although not the depth of the best LCDs I've tested. For an LCD, shadows were well detailed in predominantly dark scenes. I could discern details in the edge of Achilles' blanket or the depths of Polydora's brown hair, for example, though when some areas of the screen were bright and others dark, some of that shadow detail in the dark areas was lost.
BOTTOM LINE On many fronts, the JVC LT-46FN97 46-inch LCD HDTV can compete with the best plasmas for home theater viewing. Its modest issues in dark scenes certainly aren't enough to spoil its appeal for most viewers, and its excellent color, detail, and TheaterPro preset will appeal to both video nuts and everyday Joes who don't want to spend hours tweaking the picture. Overall, this is a great example of the recent progress in LCD flat-panel technology.
Full Lab Results
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