LCD TV Reviews

Setup & Tests
Setting up the TX-52F480S was straightforward. The Warm color-temp preset got the grayscale quite close to correct, and setting the other picture controls was quick and easy.

As I was setting the Sharpness control, it soon became apparent that the set exhibits ringing (white halos around sharp black lines on a gray background) even when the Sharpness is set to 0. In addition, static test patterns "jumped" erratically in the vertical direction. This was very slight but clearly visible on static patterns; I didn't notice it on real-world content.

The Standard aspect-ratio setting is supposed to map pixels in a 1080i or 1080p signal to pixels on the screen in a 1:1 relationship. But as I mentioned earlier, a few pixels are cropped from the top and bottom of the screen with a 1080i signal. (None are cropped from the sides.) Even more disturbing, vertical high-frequency bursts exhibited broad banding, as if there was just a hint of overscan scaling in the vertical direction. Fortunately, none of this was evident with a 1080p signal, which is what I used for viewing real-world content.

With only one set of RGB calibration controls, you can calibrate either the high or low end of the brightness range, but not both. I chose the low end, since the eye is more sensitive to low-light deviations. As a result, the high end went slightly blue. But the difference between pre- and post-calibration was very small, so I don't really see a strong need to calibrate this set at all.

Starting with the HQV Benchmark DVD at 480i via component, the first thing I noticed was that turning the Deinterlace parameter off shifted the picture down a bit and seriously blurred the image. I would leave this on anyway, but it was a bit strange. Detail was fine (as much as DVD can be), and jaggies were mild, though they were a bit more evident in the waving flag than the rotating and oscillating bars.

Interestingly, there is no noise-reduction control in this set, but the test clips showed only mild to moderate noise levels. Motion trails were visible but not terrible, and 3:2 pulldown detection was pretty slow, taking about one second to lock on. The video text crawl over 3:2 film looked good, but the 2:2 video clip exhibited moderate shimmering.

Turning to the HQV Benchmark HD DVD at 1080i via HDMI, there was occasional flickering in the video resolution-loss test, and the high-frequency vertical bursts had broad, gentle bands that seemed to confirm slight overscan scaling in the vertical direction. These problems disappeared at 1080p. The film resolution-loss test revealed that the set took about one second to lock onto the 3:2 cadence, and there was some mild flickering in the horizontal bursts. Panning across the bleachers lost a moderate amount of detail, more than I'm used to seeing in modern LCD TVs.

The FPD Benchmark Blu-ray test disc confirmed that objects in motion lose a fair amount of detail, though stationary resolution was quite good. Differentiation in the mostly black shots was very good, but the mostly white shots seemed to be just slightly crushed, even though I had the contrast set below the clipping point.

Playing chapter 8 of Mission: Impossible III on HD DVD at 1080i, the staircase pulsed with moderate moiré. However, the shadow detail in the catacombs looked pretty good.

During my testing, the Samsung BD-P1200 Blu-ray player froze, perhaps because I hot-swapped the HDMI cable. Cycling the power on the TV and player didn't help, but unplugging and reconnecting the TV's power cord fixed the problem.