LCD TV Reviews

Full-On/Full-Off Contrast Ratio—1,112:1; ANSI Contrast Ratio—922:1

Measured Resolution with the Leader LT-446:
480: 480 (per picture height)
720p: 720 (pph)
1080i: 1,080 (pph)

DC Restoration (poor, average, good, excellent): Excellent

Color Decoder (poor, average, good, excellent): Excellent

Measured Color Points:
Red Color Point: x=0.638, y=0.328
Green Color Point: x=0.271, y=0.592
Blue Color Point: x=0.145, y=0.059

The top chart shows the M40's gray scale relative to its color temperature at various levels of intensity, or brightness (20 IRE is dark gray; 100 IRE is bright white). The gray scale as set by the factory, in the 6500K color-temperature mode, measures exceedingly cool with dark images and perfectly accurate with brighter images. No positive change could be made with calibration.

The bottom chart shows the gray scale (or color temperature) relative to the color points of the display's red, green, and blue color filters. These are somewhat off those specified by SMPTE. Red is very slightly undersaturated. Blue is very slightly oversaturated. Green is very slightly undersaturated and somewhat bluish-green.

After calibration, and using a full-field 100-IRE white (45.58 ft-L) and a full-field 0-IRE black (0.041 ft-L), the contrast ratio was 1,112:1. Using a 16-box checkerboard pattern (ANSI contrast), the contrast ratio was 992:1. The best contrast ratio was achieved with the Brightness control set to "0." The brightest image was achieved with the Brightness control set to "100." In this mode, the M40 produced 125.5 ft-L with a 100-IRE field and 0.128 ft-L with a 0-IRE field for a contrast ratio of 981:1.—GM