A couple of years ago, when the Dells and Gateways of the world were trying to build a flat-panel TV business by rebranding products purchased from other manufacturers, HP was quietly engineering its own HDTVs from the ground up. So far, so good. The 1080p DLP rear projectors the company introduced last fall were a critical success, lauded by enthusiast magazines and Web sites for their excellent picture quality and innovative features.
Although digital media adapters and media extender add-ons for Media Center PCs have been around, there are advantages to this integrated approach. Of course, you get rid of the extra box, but there are performance benefits to knowing the display's screen characteristics in advance: Still images and video streamed to the TV can be optimized, and in this case, the system can even stream high-def in the form of WMV-HD files.
Perhaps more critically, a two-piece, multi-vendor streaming solution assumes a level of technical expertise on the part of the consumer that HP hopes to leapfrog here with simplified setup and functionality built into the TV's own menu system and remote. It's assumed that you already have a wired or wireless network, but, theoretically anyway, the MediaSmart is intended to be plug-and-play.
All of which begs two questions: 1) Does it work? and 2) Is this what you really want?
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The Short Form
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| Price $2,000 ($2,200 LIST) / hp.com / 800-525-6947 |
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Snapshot
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| Though its LCD picture quality is outstanding, there's still work to be done on this forward-thinking TV's media functions. |
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Plus
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•Excellent LCD image quality with good blacks and accurate color •Streaming functions move content out of the home office and into the living room •Well-designed MediaSmart interface |
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Minus
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| •Sluggish MediaSmart performance |
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Key Features
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•1,366 x 768-pixel LCD HDTV •MediaSmart streaming of photos, video, and music files from PC direct to TV •Works with wired or wireless networks •Supports JPEG, BMP, GIF, PNG, TIF photos; WMA, WMA-Pro, WAV, MP3 music; MPEG-1, MPEG-2, DivX, AVI, DVR-MS, WMV, WMV-HD video •Inputs: 1 HDMI, 2 component-video, 3 composite-video, 1 S-video |
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Test Bench
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The HP's grayscale tracking with Movie and Low presets came very close to 6,500K; service-menu calibration brought it spot on, but even without this most users will be fine with the Low or Mid-Low color-temp settings. Accuracy of primary colors was very good, though the color decoder showed –22% green and +7% red errors; the undersaturated greens weren't troublesome, and the reds were fully tamed by notching down the color saturation. Overscan measured 2.5%, which is average. The HP perfectly resolved 720p test patterns via HDMI and component inputs, but a 1080i multiburst pattern via HDMI exhibited blurring of the finest lines that wasn't detectable in programs. 1080i via component video looked fine. Full Lab Results |
Along with five picture presets, HP provides helpful controls for color temperature and LCD backlight intensity (lowering this is an excellent way to get purer blacks on an LCD panel). I eventually settled on the Movie mode and Low color temperature, which came within spitting distance of industry-standard grayscale (see Test Bench). The TV also has a sensor on its front that adjusts contrast according to the ambient light; you can even set the upper and lower limits of its swing. I would use it day to day, but turned it off for critical viewing. One small disappointment: On most of the presets, picture adjustments made to one source input were carried over to the others; the exception to this rule is the User mode, which had individual memory for each input.
Setting up the SLC3760N's networking can be intimidating for some, one reason HP is working with dealers to provide installation help for a limited time. Connection to your wireless (802.11a, b, or g) or wired (via Ethernet jack) home network is menu-driven and, thankfully, automated if you have a DHCP-compliant router. Once connected, you run a supplied disc on any Windows XP-driven PC you intend to tap for content, which facilitates downloading of Windows Media Connect software for the streaming of files. The SLC3760N will also recognize any Universal Plug and Play (UPnP)-compliant server on your network, such as the new HP Media Vault the company sent with the TV. The Vault is a sophisticated 500-GB backup drive that you can load with your content so you can actually turn off your PCs and stream files 'round the clock.
VIDEO PERFORMANCE Clearly, any serious home theater enthusiast will want a larger TV if he or she can fit one, but the SLC3760N (and no doubt its non-MediaSmart sibling) is a very respectable LCD. Playing with the Contrast and Backlight controls enabled me to extract fairly deep blacks from the set, and though I had to sacrifice a bit of detail in the very darkest shadows to get it there, there was still plenty of shadow detail to be had. On the Blu-ray version of Click, for example, there's a scene in a dark workshop where Michael Newman (Adam Sandler) first encounters Morty (Christopher Walken), the mad tinkerer who will hand him the universal remote control that will alter his life. As they chat at Morty's bench, illuminated only by a spotlight above, I could clearly see the details of tools on a pegboard in the background shadows behind Morty, as well as the shimmering outlines of tiny key blanks on a rack.
Later, the superb transfer on the HD DVD of The Perfect Storm allowed me to really see how the HP handled colors. At the start of the film, when the doomed Andrea Gale pulls into port to unload its latest catch, the HP impressively captured the scene on the sunny dock, perfectly rendering the green of a John Deere cap worn by Captain Billy Tyne (George Clooney) and showing the bright orange of the fishermen's rubber jumpsuits without a hint of exaggeration. The 720p screen (actually, 1,366 x 768 pixels) also delivered oodles of delicious detail, like the netting on the back of Tyne's cap and the subtle shadings of grime on his crew's clothes after months at sea. If I were in the market for a 37-incher, I could easily live happily with this TV.
MEDIASMART FUNCTIONS Accessing digital content starts with hitting a dedicated Media button on the remote, a slim, contoured wand that follows the shape and general layout that I've grown fond of with HP's DLP sets. If it's not already done, you'll need to select the server you wish to access from a list; the TV can stream from just one network and one server at a time, though it can do multiple streams (such as photos and music) from individual servers. Striking the Media key then brings up the main media menu, from which you can select that server's Photos, Video, and Music files and a button marked Services. Photos in submenus come up as thumbnails, and music metadata is provided textually in menus to save load time, though album art is visible when playing. Behind the Services door you'll find access to a few subscription content providers via a dedicated HP portal that the company plans to expand over time. For now, partners include the Snapfish photo service, CinemaNow movie downloads, Live365 Internet radio, Zip.ca DVD rentals, and Rhapsody music. You'll need to set up accounts with HP and each service to initially gain access.
In the interest of space, I'll cut right to the chase: The media streaming on this TV was at once thrilling and frustrating. Thrilling because HP clearly saw a need I didn't know I had: to do something more with all those files sitting idle in my computer and to have my photos, videos, and songs quickly accessible in my living space right when the urge strikes. And thrilling because the onscreen interface and remote HP devised to manage this process are well thought-out and intuitive.
Frustrating, however, because the process of getting around the system and to my content was just too slow. I was using a Media Center PC as one of my servers and needed only to sit at it and access the same files directly from the Media Center Start screen to be reminded how long it took to get things done at the MediaSmart TV in the other room, even with a wired 100 Mbps network connection. Response to my commands to pull up the menus or content virtually always took anywhere from a few annoying beats to a few seconds, and in some cases, longer, especially if I was asking the TV to multitask. At one point, I was using the nav keys on the remote to step through through some 1.5-MB vacation photos while playing a 192-kbps WMA file, and for some reason it took about 10 seconds to bring up each picture. When I turned off the music, response time dropped to a more reasonable 3 seconds. At other times, the TV perfectly executed slide shows against music with no trouble at all. It was generally glitch-free, just sluggish.
On the upside, once a selected video or music track came up, it usually played flawlessly, even 720p WMV-HD clips. Picture quality was excellent on files with decent resolution, and the sound from both the digital and analog audio outputs was great. And I can't say enough about how cool it was to access Rhapsody and my music files from the TV, to tap into online sources for video clips and trailers I could then watch from the couch, and to be able to share digital photos with visitors without crowding them around my laptop. This is potentially lifestyle-changing stuff.
BOTTOM LINE With the MediaSmart TV, HP has recognized that the digital age has transformed our PCs into vast repositories of personal and entertainment content that yearn to be freed from the shackles of the home office. After getting a taste through a pretty kick-ass LCD connected to a good sound system, I'm convinced they're right. While the technology to pull this off isn't quite as seamless today as it needs to be for a mass-market appliance, this TV has its heart in the right place. It's yet to be seen if one of HP's low-slung entertainment centers, right there in the living room running Windows Vista, won't be the better solution. But, regardless, the HP SLC3760N 37-inch MediaSmart LCD HDTV points the way to a grand future.
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