PERFORMANCE Once I got the WD-57831 tuned up, it was pretty clear that good high-definition material - namely HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc selections - looks absolutely outstanding on this set. Colors were vivid and looked quite natural, and detail was as sharp as I've come to expect from the best 1080p rear projectors we've tested (as borne out by its resolution of test patterns).

On the HD DVD of Troy, for example, there's a scene in which Achilles (Brad Pitt) is practicing swordplay with his cousin Patroclus (Garrett Hedlund) on a series of stone patios overlooking the sea. The sandy hue of the stones looked dead-on, as did the rusty striations running throughout them, and the foliage springing up between the rocks exhibited several natural shades of green, from dark pine to bright fern. They were reproduced in strong relief against the stones, the sandy terrain of the hill leading to the pungent blue waters of the sea below, and the pale blue sky. When Achilles stops to fling a spear at an approaching group of horsemen and intentionally lands it in a tree, the close-up of the tree trunk was startling for the gobs of detail in the bark and in the sun-worn skin and fine hairs on the hand of the soldier who retrieves the spear from it.

Furthermore, the weave in Achilles' blue denim-like vest and in the black outfit worn by his apprentice were visible even when they fell into shadows cast by the bright sun - evidence of the WD-57831's fine reproduction of black and shadow detail. I threw in a challenging dark scene from M:I III in which Ethan (Tom Cruise) and Luther (Ving Rhames) seek privacy to talk in what appears to be a poorly lit attic and found that the Mitsubishi's ability to extract room details from the dark shadows behind Luther was excellent, essentially equal to that of the 58-inch HP DLP (no longer available) that we still keep on hand as one of our reference televisions.

Tossing on the Open Season Blu-ray Disc took the experience up yet another level. This is a digitally animated production, as well as the first BD from Sony Pictures to use the MPEG-4/VC-1 compression codec favored by the HD DVD camp, and the picture quality is simply breathtaking. The style of animation calls for very rich colors and ample use of highlights to give the impression of Big West sunlight bathing everything in sight, so there's tremendous dynamic contrast in every scene, and on the Mitsubishi it looked so smooth and free of anything even remotely resembling video noise that it left my mouth hanging open. During the movie's opening, when Boog the bear is traveling in the back of Ranger Beth's Jeep to his performance at the nature center, you can see the fineness of his animated fur as the wind blows through. And when the nasty hunter Shaw pulls up alongside in a parking lot, the dirt on his fingernails was clearly visible, along with the shiny nylon texture of his brown sportsman's vest.