LCD TV Reviews

Westinghouse is one of the most venerable consumer-appliance brands in American history, so it's no wonder the company has gotten into the LCD TV game in a big way. I've reviewed several Westinghouse sets, and I've seen steady improvement with each generation.

The brand name may be new to you, but NuVision, headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, didn’t just arrive on the 3:10 from Yuma [ba-da-bing!—Ed.]. One of the new display companies that have sprung up in the transition to HDTV, it has been marketing video products in the U.S. for several years with little fanfare.

When you think of LCD TVs, NuVision is probably not the first name that comes to mind. Based in Scottsdale, Arizona, the company is aiming its Lucidium line at the custom-installation market with high-end displays at high-end prices. How does this 52-inch model measure up? Let's see...

Before I became the editor of <I>UAV</I>, I was the video editor of <I>The Perfect Vision</I> and, after that magazine folded, <I>Playback</I>, an all-digital monthly published by the same company. My final assignment for <I>Playback</I> was a survey of eight LCD TVs, and the last TV I evaluated for that survey was the Samsung LN-T4671F.

Given the explosion of LCD sales, one might expect LCD manufacturers to simply ease up on technology development. The average consumer seems quite pleased with LCD's image quality, so why change anything? It is to the manufacturers' credit that they continue to strive for improvement, to create a picture that both everyday users and videophiles can appreciate. Thus far, they've focused their efforts on two performance areas: motion and black level.

I have to say this TV surprised me, although, to be honest, it really shouldn't have. At first glance, there is nothing to set it apart from the innumerable other LCDs on the market. It has a narrow black bezel, it's thin, it's bright, has a remote, turns on; you know, all that stuff that LCDs usually do. Then I started throwing test material at it, and it started doing things that LCDs typically don't but JVC TVs typically do. And I mean that in a good way.

With flat panel sets now available in increasingly larger sizes, a 46-inch display is almost petite for a home theater setup. But it's a popular size with buyers as its ratio of size to price is often attractive.