32-inch LCD TV Shootout

I remember the days an LCD would be the center of attention of any household, quite elusive and out of reach for many. Now, after close to 10 years of development we can point out that every household in India has the capability to get an LCD TV. Prices have come down, and the 32-inch entry level segment always remains the most sought after series every Diwali. Now with the auspicious seasons coming up around the corner, as usual we're bombarded with a myriad of marketing slogans, thinner bezels, chrome accents, ridiculously high Dynamic contrast ratios etc.  At the end of the day TVs really never conform to their specs. The latter has become a tool to sell ad entice, thus it's vital to switch on all the models and sift through their rendering capacities, in terms of luminance (very important for pure whites) and then color accuracy and naturalness in the video. After all, it’s the combined effort of a couple of processors and then the all important panel itself.

So, for this roundup we have 8 brands, all popular in the market, namely: Samsung, Sony, Philips, Sansui, LG, Moser Baer, VU ad Hitachi. Any brand missing was due to their lack of cooperation. Each of these TVs are selected from the brand’s wide range of products, and the most preferred model for an entry level category is selected, and of course , only latest releases; models adopting any possible new technology is taken. This is where we encountered many proprietary features, christened quite interestingly by the companies. Some were cool, some were just bells and whistles. So overall, we needed to see which one is a worthy winner, and viable for a purchase. The test processes we adopted to see who the winner was, are described hence.

The Test Process
The tests can be divided into 2 broad categories, the first one is an aggregate of physical tests in which we check aesthetic beauty, build quality, ergonomics, Remote control etc. The other is performance based tests wherein each TV is subjected to software test patterns and video sequences, to see how the panel can handle the aspects of video.

Thus, under external tests, any design element that straightaway makes the TV look better and unique (not peacocking weird) is given plus points- like Samsung’s Touch of Color, or generically speaking, slim bezels, metallic accents, bezel contours etc. After all it is a luxury item, and needs to look good. After that, the Joint of the stand and the wall mounting capabilities are looked at. For wall mounting, all the TVs conform to VESA standards, so no problem there. But stand joints need to be firm, no wobbling. Position of connectors, their easy accessibility, button placement etc. also differ from model to model, thus their viability is looked at.

For video performance, the first thing to look at is Greyscale, where we start off with 256 bar pattern to see how well minute levels of light pass through, especially at lower(blacks) and high ends(white). Near white and near black bars are looked at for clipping, blooming, coloration etc. A series of 0 IRE to 100 IRE( black to white) screens are displayed and luminosity is checked, to see the luminance curve.

Then color saturation is checked for red, green, blue and also secondaries: cyan magenta and yellow. We use Displaymate and HCFR Colorimeter software a lot for this purpose. This is also a subjective test with High res JPEGs and Motion sequences from DVE test DVD, as slight oversaturation sometimes looks good in the right amounts.

Finally for motion and detail checking, the DVE test sequence and some action trailers are employed, all in HD minimum 720p files. These scenes are a racecar driving by (to check motion blur), animated geometric objects rotating around to check jaggies, wide shots with minute detail in them to see aliasing problems and many more. Highly colorful and detailed sequences are used to see how the TV can spew frame after frame. These scores are entered into our comparison chart, and overall test result is then drawn out based on those scores.