TEST BENCH

Color Point Accuracy vs. SMPTE HD Standard

The combination of the Mitsubishi L65-A90's Natural picture mode and Warm color-temperature preset delivered the most accurate color. Grayscale tracking was somewhat bluer than standard, ranging from 300 to 900 K above the 6, 500-K target between 30 and 100 IRE. This result is better than most TVs, although any further tweaking would require a professional calibration, as there are no fine grayscale adjustments in the user menu. (Mitsubishi requested that I not enter the TV's service menu to make adjustments during my evaluation.) While the Brilliant and Bright picture modes use deliberately expanded color points, Mitsubishi says the Standard mode uses the HDTV standard Rec. 709 points. When measured, however, the TV's green point was significantly oversaturated, and its color decoder showed a strong green pull - presumably to compensate. But color decoding can be corrected using the PerfectColor adjustments. With these set correctly, there was no discernible green cast with regular programming.

A wide range of aspect ratio modes is available for both SD and HD signals, but there's no zero overscan option. (Overscan for most of the Mitsubishi's display modes measured 2.5 %.) Geometry was excellent. For a projection TV with such a shallow cabinet, I was surprised to see no bowing of horizontal or vertical lines on crosshatch test patterns. Convergence was also flawless, with no color fringing. However, the color "rainbows" that can sometimes be seen on sequential color displays as you move your eyes rapidly to one side were quite evident.

Full-field gray test patterns showed a noticeably brighter area near the bottom center of the screen. Other than this, the set displayed excellent uniformity, with horizontal off-axis viewing showing almost no dip in contrast until I was more than 100º off from the screen's center. The TV delivers an intensely bright picture, with both dark and well-lighted images showing lots of detail and no picture information crushed at either end of the grayscale. True black was not present, however: a black full-field showed pattern looked just dark gray, as opposed to black.

The TV's video processor did a good job handling the SD and HD test signals from the Silicon Optix HQV test discs, passing most of the video- and film-mode tests. However, a 2:3 pulldown test showed that the TV's Film mode was very sluggish to lock up; it would even slip out of Film mode from time to time. Since there is no forced Film-mode setting to avoid this, I'd recommend pairing the Mitsubishi with a disc player that has a 24p direct-output mode.