Big-screen, rear-projection HDTVs based on traditional CRT (cathode-ray tube) technology are inexpensive enough — and good enough — to warrant consideration by just about every shopper. But they aren't all that sexy. Most of the HDTV excitement is reserved for slimmer, lighter DLP (Digital Light Processing), LCD, and other chip-based “microdisplays.” But don't be taken in by buzzwords and claims of superior picture quality: three-gun CRT models still offer the best big-screen bang for your buck.
The three widescreen CRT sets reviewed here — Zenith's 45-inch R45W47 ($1,700), Mitsubishi's 48-inch WS-48515 ($2,099), and RCA's 52-inch HD52W58 ($2,199) — are all priced considerably less than their microdisplay counterparts of the same size, and you'll find them selling for even less than their list prices in stores. Yet they offer similar conveniences, including digital tuners so you can get HDTV broadcasts by simply hooking up an antenna, and their performance is comparable to that of microdisplays — or even better in some respects.
Unlike microdisplays, which generally sit on a tabletop or stand, rear-projection tube sets are freestanding furniture, complete with casters. They weigh around twice as much as microdisplays, so they're more difficult to ship and install. On the other hand, buying one means you won't have to spring for a separate stand, and once you get it ensconced in your living room, who cares about weight? If making your HDTV dollar go as far as possible matters more to you than being on the cutting edge of style and technology, these three sets are worth a closer look.
PDF: Features Checklist
PDF: In the Lab
The smallest of this bunch, Zenith's 45-inch R45W47 also carries the smallest price tag at $1,700 list. While it has a built-in HDTV tuner for watching off-air digital broadcasts, it forgoes a CableCARD, which lets Zenith charge a bit less. The tuner performed very well, too, grabbing stations that the Mitsubishi set and our Dish DVR 921 satellite receiver/HDTV tuner missed.
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The R45W47 offers the standard array of inputs, with digital video handled by a DVI jack instead of a newer HDMI input (adapter cables let either type connect with the other). I found the aspect ratio controls, or display modes, more flexible with HDTV sources than those on either of the other two sets. Cinema Zoom let me expand the image in sixteen small increments, and six modes worked with high-def sources.
The R45W47 provides numerous picture presets but limited control over image quality — one custom picture setting applies to all inputs. As with the other two sets, screen uniformity for off-angle viewing wasn't great: the picture's brightness and color changed as I moved left (dimmer and redder), right (dimmer and bluer), or up or down. And after I ran the automatic convergence routine, I still saw fringes of color around some objects.
For my DVD viewing tests, I turned to the Vin Diesel thriller The Chronicles of Riddick. All the detail of the DVD came through intact, including the complex pattern of fine lines on top of the Necromongers' “temple.” And the Zenith did a wonderful job of portraying the blackness of space as Riddick's stolen ship careens toward the civilized planets.
The brightness of the sky as he flies into the atmopshere was also apparent. In fact, the Zenith has the brightest picture of the three, so it should be better equipped to compete with ambient light. Later, however, I realized that I was missing some detail in the shadows. Riddick's dark brown tunic flattened to black during very dark scenes, its wrinkles blending into a mass of shadows. I could reclaim the detail by bumping up the brightness a bit, but that made the black areas brighter.
During the scene where Riddick first meets the “elemental” Aereon (Dame Judi Dench), he looked a bit too pale, and she somewhat too ghostly. But when I turned up the color control, the Zenith's tendency to exaggerate red made her face seem a little florid. I kept the color control relatively low after that, which gave me realistic skin tones at the expense of some punch.
For my high-def test, I chose the montage of images from the 1080i version of the Digital Video Essentials D-VHS tape, which looked more impressive than anything I saw on DVD. The mountain sunrise was beautiful, with snow patches and ridges visible as the light got brighter.
While colors also seemed richer than with DVDs, faces of the kids at play were too red. One shot of a couple dancing on the back of a ferry illustrated the set's clean, deep blacks in the dancers' silhouettes — as well as the less-than-uniform sky. Toward the top corners of the screen, the sky appeared a little too dark compared with the middle, while the middle seemed a bit too bright. (Such “hotspotting” is fairly common among CRT-based rear-projection TVs.) And the links of a chain on the ferry were less distinct than on the Mitsubishi, indicating a slightly softer image.
Overall, the R45W47 gets points for its deep blacks, flexible display modes, excellent tuner, and price.
PDF: Features Checklist
PDF: In the Lab
The best-looking of the three sets, the $2,199 RCA HD52W58 has a smart two-tone color scheme, with a swath of silver above a completely black speaker grille. The 52-inch screen has a protective pane of transparent acrylic that can't be removed, which is too bad since it tends to reflect room light.
I'm not a big fan of RCA's small remote. It lacks backlighting, and the button labels are difficult to read. But the excellent onscreen menu system is another story. Its intuitive design, packed with common-language explanations, makes it easy to adjust even the most esoteric parameters — settings like edge enhancement and color temperature.
Among its numerous other jacks, the set's back panel includes an HDMI input and a CableCARD slot. The built-in digital tuner bested that of the Mitsubishi TV and our Dish DVR 921 satellite receiver, although it couldn't quite match the station-pulling prowess of the Zenith TV.
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After calibrating the RCA, I rejoined Riddick. Outer space looked a familiar deep black shade as he piloted his vessel toward Helion Prime, and the picture generally maintained its depth throughout. I quickly noticed, however, that edges looked somewhat unnatural: the mercenary's face and Riddick's hair as he leaned toward him with a knife were surrounded by faint halos. I couldn't fix this sometimes-distracting effect even though I switched off the TV's edge-enhancement circuit and turned the sharpness control all the way down.
During the confrontation between Aereon and Riddick, his tan head and her red lipstick appeared realistic enough, if a bit pale. I could easily see the brown color of the darkest areas of his garb and make out its wrinkles. And when the Necromongers attempt to convert Riddick, the RCA offered up plenty of detail. I could make out the vague, veiled female forms in the four cavorting ghost-creatures, the complex Baroque whorls and curves in their ghost-hutches, and the crisp water ripples in the bowls they carried. The image did appear slightly softer than on the other two sets.
Of course, I saw even more detail when I slipped in the high-def Digital Video Essentials tape. I could distinguish numerous windows during the pan of the skyscrapers, but I also noticed trailing edges along a lamppost and the side of a building.
Colors appeared more brilliant with HDTV than with DVD, and the blue of the sky above the dancing couple seemed relatively even from edge to edge. There was a hot spot, but it wasn't quite as intense as the Zenith's. I couldn't discern individual links in the silhouette of the chain, and again some fine details, like the freckles on the face of the beautiful woman picking fruit, seemed a bit soft.
With CableCARD, a large image, and a relatively low price, the RCA HD52W58 will appeal to just about every HDTV shopper. Videophiles will shun its nonremovable screen protector, but people looking for a classy big-screen TV will love its style.
PDF: Features Checklist
PDF: In the Lab
Mitsubishi has an extensive lineup of CRT-based rear-projection HDTVs, and the 48-inch WS-48515 is its smallest and best equipped. The screen has a protective shield, but it can be removed, which is good since it reflects quite a bit of room light.
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The back panel includes everything you'll likely need to connect present and future A/V gear and even boasts a pair of DTVLink (FireWire) ports so you can hook up, say, a D-VHS deck or a high-def hard-disk recorder. It also has a CableCARD slot. When you insert a compatible card from your cable company, you can tune digital and HDTV cable channels without an external box. During testing, the Mitsubishi's HDTV tuner grabbed fewer stations under difficult indoor conditions than either of the other two TVs in this group or our Dish satellite receiver.
I really appreciated the level of control over the picture the WS-48515 gave me. The TV can remember separate contrast, brightness, and other custom settings for each input. It also offers defeatable noise reduction and black enhancement as well as a set of PerfectColor controls that let you make unusually fine color adjustments.
Like the other two TVs here (and unlike microdisplays), the Mitsubishi's picture looked washed out at very wide viewing angles. On the other hand, I was able to correct most fringing problems via the set's 64-point convergence control. Sure, it took more time to adjust than the Zenith or the RCA, both of which provide automatic convergence, but the results were obviously better.
When I slipped Riddick into the DVD player, I was again struck by the rich, deep blacks that tube technology affords. Shadow detail was also good, and with a relatively low brightness setting (to keep those deep blacks), I could still see the wrinkles and brownish tinge of Riddick's tunic.
Although I'd calibrated the color temperature as close to the standard as I could (see “in the lab”), the darkest areas veered into bluish tones — which I couldn't fix without sacrificing the set's overall color balance. Still, the Mitsubishi did a fine job of conveying all the intricacies of the Necromongers' armor, from the tiny chain links in the neck pieces to the worn and dinged-up metal plates shaped into menacing faces.
One of the set's main strengths is the PerfectColor menu mentioned earlier. While I wasn't able to get the color balance truly “perfect,” the results were once again a huge improvement over the other two sets. After making this adjustment, I was able to increase color levels and lend extra realism to the whole palette. In the scene where Riddick meets Aereon, his bald head is splashed with reddish candlelight. The effect looked convincing and not too garish on his bronzed scalp, and Aereon's ghostly face and lipstick had just enough color to make her seem a bit human and friendly.
The Mitsubishi really came to life with high-def material. It provided the most detail of the three sets when it was fed 1080i-format HDTV programs. During the slow skyscraper pan at the beginning of the Digital Video Essentials montage section, I could make out the shapes of windows all the way to the very tops of the buildings. Details abounded in the neon of the Virgin Megastore sign and in the texture of a stone wall behind a scene of frolicking kids.
Colors looked equally spectacular in both this scene and the other HDTV programs that I watched. One kid's red tie and another's yellow hat looked vibrant. Even so, their somewhat flushed faces seemed realistic, not excessively ruddy.
All in all, the Mitsubishi's solid image quality and highly adjustable picture will make it a top choice if you're looking for a bargain on a full-feature HDTV.
PDF: In the Lab
As television technology becomes increasingly diverse, there's a certain comfort in these three tube-based big-screen TVs. They use time-tested technology, and you'll never have to replace a lamp as in DLP or LCD rear-projection sets. Their screens are large enough to do real justice to high-def, and their deep blacks and shadow detail can make a movie really pop when the lights are turned low. The built-in HDTV tuners in all three sets mean you can get high-def for free as soon as you open the box. Sure, they're not the most glamorous sets in stores, if only because of their bulk, and they won't help you impress your football buddies with your knowledge of the latest TV jargon. But they'll get you into the high-def game for a price that's just right.