As you’re no doubt painfully aware, I’ve been writing extensively about the motion picture industry’s apparent decision to deny early adopters full-resolution component analog video outputs on the imminent HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc players.  I must confess that my outrage was fueled in no small part by my being among those early adopters.  I resented having to discard my home theater’s excellent NEC data-grade CRT front projector that routinely reveals wonderful levels of detail from over-the-air HD programming.  I was further incensed when I realized that to replace my projector with as good or better, I might have to purchase one of two prohibitively expensive replacements: the Sony Qualia 004 or the JVC DLA-HD2K.

I faced a nasty dilemma.  I had to ensure that my home theater would be in a state to support the site’s coverage of HD discs, and the studios have given no indication that they’re going to back off from their counterproductive policy of abandoning early adopters.  I was highly conflicted.  And then inevitable technological progress came to my rescue. 

(Before I continue, allow me to volunteer that all of the equipment in this article and the next were purchased from retail sources and not directly from the manufacturer.  My conclusions and observations were not affected by a relationship with any manufacturer.)

One Room at a Time

CRT-based displays may be found in two rooms of my home.  My NEC front projector has been hanging from the ceiling of my home theater since 1995 and there is a nine-year-old Hitachi 50-inch rear projector that has served us well in the master bedroom.  The NEC may be HD-ready, but the Hitachi is standard resolution, has only NTSC tuners, the screen is in the 1.33:1 aspect ratio, and is useless for high definition.  Without getting too far ahead of myself, a new imaging device came to my attention that could affect my choices for both the master bedroom and the theater.  And since replacing the rear projector is less expensive, lower risk, and less critical, I felt that the master bedroom would be a great testing ground for the new display technology.  I decided to start there first, but let me back up a bit.

Display Techniques

Display technology has improved significantly since I wrote the equipment selection chapter of this series in May of ‘99.  It was time for me to take another look. 

Front projection is out of the question for the master bedroom since there are ambient light issues.  Direct view CRT is out of the question due to size restrictions.  Displays with images as large or larger than my existing Hitachi require one of two types: flat panel or rear projection.  Potentially suitable flat panel displays include liquid crystal (LCD) and plasma.  Rear projection systems come in a few more flavors: CRT (conventional phosphor-based Cathode Ray Tube), LCD, DLP (Digital Light Processing micro-mirror arrays), and LCoS (Liquid Crystal on Silicon).

CRT and plasma are vulnerable to phosphor burn-in, which makes network broadcasts with permanent logos stuck in a corner a great annoyance.  Those constantly illuminated phosphors will potentially wear out faster, leaving small dark areas that might be visible while watching DVDs or HD discs.  LCD and plasma have a lower fill factor than the other technologies.  Fill factor refers to how much pixel area is active and how much is passive.  The greater the passive area that separates the pixels, the lower the fill factor and the greater the likelihood of the dreaded screen door effect.  Contrast ratios are not up to CRT capability in either LCD or plasma.  And plasma tends to be the most expensive of the fixed pixel technologies; consequently, it suffers from an undesirable size to price ratio.

I quickly reduced my choices to DLP and LCoS.  Those two technologies are available in rear projectors with one chip and a color wheel or with three chips, one for each of the primary light colors of red, blue, and green.  Color wheels have a tendency to contaminate the edges of moving high contrast transitions with color fringing.  For example, as a starship moves across a dark star field, the edge of the ship may not have a well-defined edge; it may suffer from narrow bands of color.  It would appear like a dynamic misconvergence.  So limiting myself to projectors with three chips further reduced my choices.  DLP projectors have good - but not great - contrast ratios.  Texas Instruments (TI) has made great strides to improve its chips, but DLP is not quite as capable as the venerable CRT. 

And then there is the issue of resolution.  Until relatively recently, TI’s best chips were 1280x720 pixels, the native resolution of HD’s 720p.  In 2005, TI introduced a new chip that they touted as a 1080p solution.  It was, in fact, a clever workaround.  The chip measures 960 pixels by 1080 pixels and illuminates the screen in an interlaced mode (that TI calls wobbulating) that may cause motion artifacts.  (TI showed a true 1080p chip at CEDIA this fall, but to the best of my knowledge, products based on that chip design haven’t reached the market yet.)  To minimize the potential for visible artifacts, I wanted a true 3-chip 1080p solution.  And that’s precisely what Sony introduced as part of its Qualia line.  Sony’s version of the LCoS chip was dubbed SXRD or Silicon X-tal Reflective Display.  It has enhanced contrast ratio as a result of the chip design combined with a dynamic iris that coordinates with video signal content.  But the 70-inch Qualia 006 costs $13,000; contributing to that cost may be the display’s large 0.78-inch diagonal chip size.  3-chip DLP displays tend to be a bit pricey, but $13,000, even after a competitive discount, was too rich for my blood.  But don’t underestimate Sony.

Progress to the Rescue

The company engineered a new version of the SXRD chip with a reduced diagonal of 0.61 inches.  I assume that between the smaller area and presumably a higher yield, Sony was able to greatly reduce the cost of the imaging chips - more about price later.  Sony introduced two new rear projector displays designed around that smaller SXRD imager; they set a new standard for price-performance: the 50-inch KDS-R50XBR1 and the 60-inch KDS-R60XBR1, which I purchased in early November.

I will not occupy your time with an extensive technical review of either of these remarkable projectors.  If you’re interested in reading such reviews, I direct your attention to: Sound & Vision, November 2005, pages 56-57; Widescreen Review, November 2005, pages 38-46; and, The Perfect Vision, December 2005, pages 79-82.  Bruce Cruce in WSR wrote, “The 60-inch KDS-R60XBR1 has the most satisfying image I have seen since watching an 8- or 9-inch CRT front projector, but is brighter and arguably has better blacks and contrasts.”  Randy Tomlinson in TPV wrote, “Rear projection sets produced up to this point - move to the rear.  SXRD has set a new standard.”

Their impressions nicely match my own, but not initially.  Auditioning the displays in the showroom can be deceptive.  Manufacturers invariably ship their sets with default adjustments that cause the images to appear vivid to the point of garishness.  And, in fact, the Sony displays’ default mode is called Vivid, for which color intensity, contrast, and brightness are all too high, the color temperature inaccurate, and artificial edge enhancement enabled.  The Pro mode is much more pleasing and film-like, but needs fine tuning for the best results.  I checked out the rear projector at a local major appliance superstore; my main concern was the reflectivity of the screen.  Far too many displays have a mirror finish that reflects the viewing room in great detail, marring the picture.  I found the Sony’s screen face to be acceptably matte.  I tried to look through the store’s exaggerated video settings and decided to go for it.  It wasn’t until I installed the 60-inch display in the master bedroom that my viewing experiences began to fall into line with the printed reviews. 

After considerable experimentation with the numerous video adjustments, I found the images to be wonderfully seamless.  High definition edges are exceptionally sharp.  The level of detail is truly impressive.  Colors are very natural, and primary colors have a terrific saturation that is quite satisfying.  As Sony’s dynamic iris reacts to image content and modifies the amount of light that reaches the screen, I discovered that the display’s contrast ratio is better than I experience in my home theater.  And I was unaware of the iris in action.  The Sony’s internal deinterlacer and scaler do a lovely job with all signals; standard resolution DVDs look very convincing and film-like.  The set has an NTSC tuner, an ATSC tuner, and a QAM256 tuner, so it can receive both analog and digital broadcasts and cablecasts.  And, of course, the display accepts an HDCP-compliant HDMI signal, so being able to display full resolution from Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD players is also a non-issue.  This is one terrific display, and you know how demanding I can be when it comes to video quality.

I’ve saved the best for last.  The 50-inch model has an SRP of $4,000 but is readily available for under $3,000; the 60-inch model has an SRP of $5,000 but is readily available for under $4,000.  Each may be mounted on an attractive, functional stand, the SU-GW12, which is available for about $450 street price.  The price-performance ratio of these two displays is unprecedented.

Bobbing and Weaving

I must mention one other issue in slightly more detail for those of you who may be in the market for an HD-ready display.  Also in the December issue of The Perfect Vision, there is a disturbing report by Gary Merson in his HDTV Insider News column about the scaling practices of various fixed-pixel display manufacturers. 

I’ll try to summarize briefly; for those of you who have prior knowledge, please excuse any oversimplification.  If you read my Mr. Blandings Part 8 on the Key Digital HD Leeza Video Scaler, you know that a scaler remaps pixels from one set of video dimensions to another set of video dimensions.  In my home theater, I’m scaling DVD’s 720x480 pixels to 1440x960 pixels with very pleasing results.  When a fixed pixel display - LCD, plasma, DLP, or LCoS - accepts video from any source, if the dimensions of those images measured in pixels don’t match the native resolution of the display, the video must be scaled.  So every LCD, DLP, LCoS, SXRD, and plasma display must have an internal scaler.  For example, the Sony SXRD rear projector will scale DVD’s 720x480 pixels or ABC’s 1280x720 pixels to its native progressive resolution of 1920x1080. 

Incestuously related to scaling is deinterlacing.  Some of you may still be using an older DVD player that has an interlaced video output, and the ATSC HD format of 1080i30 is interlaced.  So the display must deinterlace the video before driving its internal imaging elements (the wobbulating TI chip aside, all fixed pixel displays may be considered progressive), and that’s where some sets have problems.  (For a more detailed discussion of deinterlacing, see my February 2000 What The Heck is 3:2 Pulldown? article.)

The best, most detailed images will be visible when the deinterlacing is performed before the scaling.  But it takes more memory and processing power to scale a 1920x1080 image than, for example, DVD’s 720x480 image, and that impacts cost.  So some manufacturers scale each of 1080i30’s fields rather than scaling the 1080 image after the odd and even lines have been woven together to form a frame.  The first technique - scaling and displaying fields - is called bobbing. The second, higher quality technique - scaling and displaying frames - is called weaving.

TPV tested 53 models of fixed pixel displays to see if they bobbed (failed) or weaved (passed): 23 passed and 30 failed.  Alas, the magazine did not publish specific model numbers, but according to the report, the following displays failed: LG Electronics plasma and LCD panels, Mitsubishi LCD panel and DLP, Panasonic LCD rear projector, Philips plasma, RCA DLP, Samsung DLP, Sharp LCD and plasma panels and DLP front projector, Toshiba DLP, and Yamaha DLP front projector.  Sony was a mixed bag: some LCD panels, plasma panels, and LCD rear projectors failed.  But Sony’s SXRD rear projectors passed.

So in addition to a display’s native resolution of less than 1920x1080, the way the video signal is processed also may prevent full resolution visibility.  You’ll likely make a purchase decision based on your own budgetary comfort level, but I want you to make an informed decision.

Final Thoughts

This article does not directly relate to my home theater installation.  (Although, as you’ll soon learn, it relates indirectly.)  Regardless, I felt I had to bring this great display technology to your attention, just in case you’re in the market for a high definition display.  I recommend these two Sony SXRD rear projectors without reservation.  If they fit within your budget, you must consider them.  I think you’ll be pleased.

But what about my home theater?  Once again, Sony came to the rescue.  The company also built the new display chips into a front projector, the VPL-VW100 Ruby.  A third of the price of the Qualia 004 and promising even better performance, my experience with Sony’s SXRD rear projector convinced me to place my order.  The Ruby will be the subject of my next chapter.