MITSUBISHI LaserVue HDTV
Posted by: Diego | View Comments
Laser illuminated HDTV has arrived, in the form of a 10” deep 65” display. It represents Mitsubishi’s effort to capture the top rung of home theater enthusiasts. For $7000 retail price, the L65-A90’s will treat you to a level of performance that exceeds any display I have tested to date in terms color gamut, brightness and low power consumption. In addition, its black levels were as deep as the darkest display previously reviewed. Complimenting the TV’s black level is its ability to resolve dark detail and not bury it (into black) as some other displays do.
Overall the L65A90 rates in the stratosphere of top displays, specifically the Pioneer Kuro Elite plasmas, the LED backlit Samsung 950 LCDs and the 65” Panasonic Premiere TH-65VX100.
Mitsubishi has announced it will sell additional models in the future, including a 73” in 2009. Lasers have been demonstrated by other companies for use in LCD flat panels and front projectors and while Mitsubishi remains hush-hush regarding other future products, after seeing the L65-A90, I have no doubt that we will be seeing a line of LaserVue HDTVs in the not to distant future.
Design
The L65-A90 is housed in an attractive high gloss black plastic cabinet, with a very thin (about ½ ”) bezel encompassing the top, left and right side of its 65” screen. The bottom contains the left right speakers, electronics and optics. The screen is a sandwich made up of at least four layers of material (Mitsubishi would not specify the exact number). They include a Fresnel lens specially designed to achieve the L65-A90’s 10.05-inch depth, a lenticular layer, a glass layer (it adds to screen rigidity) and a very effective anti-reflective top layer with a matte finish. The closed mouths at Mitsubishi wouldn’t reveal the details on how they shrunk the depth of the 65” projector, however previous Mitsubishi thin design commercial rear projectors used a convex mirror along with the special cut Fresnel lens to accomplish the reduction. The set’s dimensions are 57.7 inches wide by 38 inches high by 10.05 inches deep. The weight is 136.4 pounds. There is an optional wall bracket available ($199) that adds about 2″ to the depth.
The LA65-A90 uses a Texas Instruments .65” Dark Chip 4 DLP (Digital Light Processor) as the microdisplay imager. As with all 1080p DLP rear projectors, the chip uses a pixel shifting technique to produce 1920 x 1080 pixel frame every 1/60 of a second. The red, blue and green lasers each fire sequentially 28 times the frame rate (according to a Mitsubishi spokesperson), resulting in freedom from color breakup (often called rainbows), that can be seen by some viewers using conventional DLPs with projection lamps and spinning color wheels.
The remote control is similar the ones Mitsubishi supplies with it other HDTVs, except the backlight is blue rather than red. It’s a simple, straightforward affair with a “hot” button for Video settings (as well as a dedicated audio setting button).
The easy to use on-screen graphic user interface is carried over from the previous year’s Mitsubishi HDTVs. My only gripe, the menu expires in 5 seconds, an insufficient amount of time to compare different video settings.
Features
There are three picture modes called “Natural”, “Bright” and “Brilliant”. The “Natural” picture mode employs a color space that is close to the HDTV broadcast standard called Rec. 709, while the” Brilliant” mode expands the color points beyond 709 to the widest color space I have ever measured. A special algorithm converts HDTV content to Mitsubishi’s expanded color gamut. The “Bright” mode falls somewhere in-between Natural and Brilliant in its color range. The color point data for “Natural” and Brilliant are listed in the performance section below as well as a graphic above that compares the color gamut of the LaserVue TV in “Brilliant” mode against the showroom modes of Samsung’s LN-46A650 and LN46A860 and Panasonics TH-46PZ850U. There is also a “Game” picture mode, used with the Mitsubishi’s PC input and was not tested.
The L65-A90 has a 120 Hz display mode option Mitsubishi calls “Smooth 120”. Engaging the circuit significantly improves motion resolution (more on this later). There are two other picture enhancement modes. “SharpEdge” adds edge enhancement, but also creates a white halo around sharp edges. The other picture control called “Deep Field Imager” analyzes the image and dynamically enhances black levels in portions of the screen to provide strong detail.
There are six aspect ratios for standard definition signals: Standard, (some other set makers call it Full); Expand (linear Zoom) Zoom (recommended for 2:35 anamorphic DVDs) Stretch (often called Just by other set makers, it stretches the image progressively from center) Stretch Plus (Similar to Stretch it distorts the image less that Stretch but crops more of the top and bottom) and Narrow (4:3). When viewing HD images the aspect ratio choices are Standard, Wide Expand and Zoom (for window box images with black bars on all four sides).
The L65-A90 incorporates Mitsubishi’s Perfect Color and Perfect Tint adjustments. Using both controls allowed the taming of exaggerated reds called “Red Push” lowering the intensity of red its proper proportion to the other primary and secondary colors.
More Info over at http://www.mitsubishi-tv.com/product/L65A90
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