42 Lcd Tv

When people think about flat panel TVs, they're often thinking about plasma displays. If you're in the market for an HDTV and have priced out any plasma display panels (PDPs), you've hopefully recovered from the initial sticker shock. They're generally very expensive, though prices for EDTVs (extended-definition televisions) have dropped considerably.

Nevertheless, PDPs remain the most expensive flat-panel displays on the market. Along with other PC makers, Gateway has gotten into the HDTV business--its offerings include three PDP units. Today we'll take you for a tour of the Gateway 42-inch HD-Ready Plasma TV, a $4,000 panel that does well in most of the places that matter, but not everywhere.

Is there a plasma screen in your future? Then turn the page to find out if Gateway's offering is what you've been pining for.

Here's a quick rundown of the Gateway 42's vital statistics:

Diagonal Screen Measurement: 42"

Panel Weight 68.8lbs.

Dimensions (HxWxD) 40.9"x27.2"x11.3"

Native Pixel Resolution 1024x1024 (non-square pixels)

Supported TV resolutions 480i, 480p pixel-for-pixel, 720p, and 1080i via a scaler through YPbPr connections

Aspect Ratio 16:9

Panel Response Time Not listed

Viewing Angles (vertical and horizontal) 160°

Inputs NTSC RF antenna, Composite Video (2), Component Video (2), S-Video (2), audio-in (6), audio-out, subwoofer

TV Tuner Yes, cable-ready NTSC (standard-definition)

Audio System Stereo (two speakers), 5W/channel

Remote Control Universal remote

HDCP Support Yes, 480p only

Naming conventions for HDTV units are nonexistent--manufacturers tend to use vague jargon to puff up their unit's usability. When you see buzzwords like "EDTV," "DTV," or "HD-ready," you should probably look at the fine print. You may find that the display is not a true HD-resolution display. This is indeed the case with the "HD-ready" Gateway 42" Plasma. Its native pixel resolution of 1024x1024 can display EDTV 480p resolutions (852x480 and 640x480) unmodified. However, 720p and 1080i HDTV content have to be scaled down to fit the screen. HDTV test content still looked fairly good, but we'll get to that in just a bit.

For more about HDTVs in general, check out our HDTV primer.

Back Panel and Side View

We first described our HDTV test methodology in an article about our new HDTV Test Lab.

We run our measurement tests via the DVI input of the unit under test at its native pixel resolution, using Milori's ColorFacts measurement software with a Minolta CA-210 colorimeter. The CA-210 is lined up to be perpendicular to the display, and is positioned at point-blank range.

We test four major areas of display performance: Contrast ratio RGB color response Grayscale linearity Color Temperature Linearity

Contrast ratio is the difference between the lightest and darkest values in two test images, one pure black and the other pure white. A large contrast ratio may indicate that the display is capable of displaying color subtleties and a very high degree of detail. Contrast ratio can be thought of as a kind of "dynamic range" of a display device. It is an important metric but can end up being an incomplete indicator of a display's overall performance. For instance, if a display can get very bright but not especially dark, the ratio can wind up masking this fact. For this reason, we look at a series of other tests--both objective and subjective--to more completely measure a given display.

For contrast ratio, we take five readings with the colorimeter: one dead-center and one at each of the display's four corners. For the other three measurements, we take one measurement at dead-center.

We measure grayscale linearity to see how close the display comes to 6500 degrees Kelvin along the full IRE range. IRE is an arbitrary unit for gray level, which is really the amplitude of the voltage representing the gray level. 100 IRE is pure white while the video blanking level is 0 IRE. One IRE unit is 7.14 millivolts.

Next, we run 720p HD video material into the LCD TV using a Sencore VP920 HD video player to gauge its ability to display fast-action and color-rich HDTV content. We use the player's VGA connector and run content into the panel under test at 480p, 720p, and 1080i.

A Sencore VP403 test pattern generator and a PC equipped with a Radeon 9800 Pro graphics card are used to generate a variety of test patterns, such as SMPTE bars, pure red, blue, and green, checkerboard, grayscale gradient, and high-frequency patterns to assess image fidelity. The PC is equipped with an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro; we use the DVI output from the 9800 Pro to display the test patterns that ship with ColorFacts. We also use DisplayMate's robust set of test patterns. The Sencore VP403 is also equipped with a DVI interface. We run these test patterns at all HDTV resolutions (480p, 720p, 1080i, and 1080p). Interestingly, the VP403 uses a subset of the DisplayMate test patterns in its firmware.

Subjective testing is performed using a Yamaha DVD-S2300MK2 progressive scan DVD player. Currently, we use the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers DVD, including both bright, intense action scenes and darker segments to gauge dark-tone response. Dark tone response is especially important for a display because we perceive light the same way we perceive sound--logarithmically. This means our eyes are very good at distinguishing subtle changes in luminance values in dark scenes but as we move toward fully bright scenes, our sensitivity diminishes and almost everything appears to be bright.

We used the Gateway 42's default settings here, changing only the color temperature to 6500K, the white target we test using our Minolta CA-210 colorimeter.

Measured Contrast Ratio

Average Contrast Ratio Max/Min Contrast Ratio Max/Min Dark Value Max/Min Bright Value

Model TK 181:1 1.09 1.08 1.05

The average contrast ratio at the five measured points was 181:1, well below what we've seen in our two previous display reviews of Gateway's 30" LCD-TV and HP's F2304 .

We observed brighter white levels when white was being displayed on only part of the panel. When we used a full-screen, pure-white test pattern, the measured brightness level was much lower-- 65cd/m2. However, when we displayed a small white square on the screen, the measured luminance level rose dramatically, up to around 250cd/m2. Plasma display panels use high voltage in their drive circuitry and some models attempt to maintain consistent power consumption in their drive circuitry. One result can be dimmer white levels if white is displayed across the entire panel (displaying white requires the most power). This is an artificial situation, so is unlikely to have a major impact while viewing typical video content.

Although the full-screen white/black contrast ratio was disappointing, we did see very good consistency of contrast ratio, black levels and white levels, much more so than LCD panels we've recently tested. We should also note that black levels were good and dark, down around 0.36cd/m2. The result was that black levels in DVD and HDTV test material were also generally solid, and details in dark scenes were well rendered.

RGB Color Response

The black triangle represents a "perfect" response, whereas the white triangle represents the measured color response.

Overall, the Gateway 42-inch fared pretty well here, delivering very good red and green response, and good blue response.

Grayscale Linearity

This graph shows (from left to right) grayscale tracking from gray levels IRE 0 (video blanking level/absolute black) through IRE 100 (full-on white). An ideal plot will be a straight line that runs along the dotted line, which is the target color temperature.

The Gateway 42-inch comes close to nailing this one, with solid linearity across the range of IRE values. This actually surprised us--given our previous observations, we fully expected the grayscale values to "roll off" as we approached IRE 100 given the aforementioned issue with full-screen white. We ran the test again to verify the result and it was repeatable.

Color Temperature Linearity

This chart shows color tracking as the luminance level is raised from 0 IRE to 100 IRE, and indicates how uniformly the display device tracks the selected the 6500K target white point. An ideal plot will show all three lines in this graph (Red, Green, and Blue) hovering around the 100% reference line, indicating the display device is converging on or near the selected target white point.

Here we see good, though not great color temperature linearity. Again using a white target of 6500K, we find that green is above target, whereas the red and blue are below. They are all within 10% of target, and are consistent, and in our subjective tests, color saturation and color correctness both looked correct. You might think given the RGB color response chart we showed above that these values would be closer to target, but remember that the CIE measurement doesn't factor in luminance, whereas the color temperature linearity does.

The Gateway 42-inch excelled at displaying our DVD test content, taken from Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and the Imax Coral Reef DVD. Colors were rich and vibrant with dark well-rendered. We viewed the test material both in a dark room and with overhead lighting turned on. The display's perceived brightness level was dimmer under lit testing conditions, though it held up fairly well.

When we brought up HDTV content on the Gateway 42-inch using our Sencore VP920, we initially hit a snag. We had been using a straight d-sub 15 VGA cable to run our component video test signal into flat panels we've tested without any problems. However, this display couldn't correctly present the content using this connection. Instead, we got an all-green image that only Kermit could love. We switched over to a component video cable and all was well.

HDTV content running at 720p and 1080i also looked good on the Gateway 42, though upon close inspection we saw some scaler artifacts such as temporary blurring of details in quickly moving images. Color saturation was quite good, however, and the overall effect was visually pleasing at a typical eight-foot viewing distance. We also tested standard-definition image quality via the panel's composite video input and the Gateway 42-inch did a good job scaling the content up to fill the screen. This panel also arrives with a built-in stereo speaker system, which is adequate for basic TV watching but lacking in the needed bass response for DVD movies.

In the past, plasma displays have had issues with image burn-in from static images left on the screen for long periods of time. Despite the flat-panel form factor and rich color response, you wouldn't want to use this panel as an electronic picture frame unless you really like only one picture. We connected a PC via the display's DVI connector, and left a digital picture on the screen for ten minutes. When we came back and minimized the image, we inspected what should have been an all-black desktop. What we saw were clearly ghosts from the static image we'd left on the screen. They did eventually fade to black, but it took quite some time. We did the same using a paused DVD movie image, leaving it onscreen for ten minutes. When we switched back over to an all-black image, the paused DVD image had left a ghosted image on the panel. Again, it faded after some time (about 20 minutes), but it's clear you'll have to be mindful of burn-in issues with this panel.

We briefly fired up the game Halo and the panel produced severe dithering artifacts in the game's 3D-rendered scenes. We also tried out AquaMark3 (a 3D benchmark) and observed the same dithering pattern. So the Gateway 42-inch, while a good TV, is a sub-par PC display.

Though Gateway has been somewhat successful in reinventing itself as a consumer electronics company, we have yet to see a TV that qualifies as a "home run" for the company. This HD-Ready plasma screen comes pretty close but it's not a true HDTV, so we're hard-pressed to give it a strong recommendation—especially given its steep price.

To Gateway's credit, DVD movies look very good on this panel, and HDTV content looks pretty good too. But if you're ready to take the plasma plunge, you'd do well to consider spending a bit more money to get a panel that can display 720p HDTV content pixel for pixel.

Product Gateway 42-Inch HD-Ready Plasma TV

Web Site: www.gateway.com

Pros: Does a very good job with DVD content and a good job with HDTV content; includes a good universal remote

Cons: Not a true HDTV and still an expensive display; some ghosting issues from static images left on the screen for a short time; some visible scaler artifacts on HDTV content.

Summary: Gateway's HD-ready panel is a great display if all you're going to watch are DVDs and standard-definition TV content. But the price is just a bit steep for a display that doesn't offer true HD resolution.

Price: $4,099

Score:

Copyright © 2004 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in ExtremeTech.

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