Westinghouse Lcd Tv

HDTV has become the hot item in the consumer electronics world. The bull market on HDTVs kicked into high gear last holiday season and shows no signs of slowing. Most price/performance offerings leverage older panel technology to drive down price. Gateway attempted this strategy, with only limited success. A relative newcomer to the scene, The Syntax Group has brought its Olevia line of HDTVs to market this year, and today we take their largest LCD HDTV for a test drive.

Many 30-inch LCD HDTVs have street prices in the $2500 to $3000 range, Olevia's LT30HV checks in at around $1,700, and is one of the lowest-priced HDTV panels of this size that we've seen to date. There are now others around that price-point (Westinghouse, Albatron and ViewSonic to name a few), but this is the first offering we've seen in this price range that we'd actually want to recommend. To find out why, click on Next.

Brightness: 700 cd/m2 Contrast ratio: 750:1 Pixel resolution: 1280 x 768 (15:9) Response time: 15ms Viewing angle (degrees): 170 (H) / 170 (V) Individual brightness/contrast/color settings for each input: Yes Optional audio system: Two-channel, 10 watts per channel Dimensions: 21.8" (H) x 35" (W) x 8.8" (D) with Stand and Speakers Weight: 50 lbs. with stand

Inputs HDTV Input Y/Pb/Pr (480p, 1080I, 720p) (with associated stereo audio RCA inputs) Component Y/Cb/Cr (with associated stereo audio RCA inputs) Composite Video RCA (with associated stereo audio RCA inputs) S-Video (with associated stereo audio RCA inputs) DVI-I (mini-jack stereo audio input shared with VGA) VGA (mini-jack stereo audio input shared with DVI) Dual TV Tuners (NTSC) capable of showing PIP and side-by-side Mini - Stereo Jack x 1 Service Port (RS232) Ouputs Stereo audio (RCA) Earphone (Mini-Stereo Jack) Sub-Woofer Out (RCA)

Olevia's LCD HDTV doesn't have an HDMI port, but it does support HDCP via its DVI connection, so with a converter cable, it will accept HDMI-encoded content. We also found out (the hard way) that only one of its two component video inputs will accept a progressive-scan signal. Presumably, you'd run your set-top box in via this connection, and your progressive-scan DVD player into the other. However, having both component video inputs accept either type of signal would have been the way to go here.

The panel response time, rated at 15ms, should allow for a frame rate of 67fps, which adequate for HDTV, and should be fine for 3D games as well. Probably the most impressive spec the Olevia can boast is its thin profile. At under nine inches deep, this panel will neatly tuck into a shallow space, though you'll need to allow for cable routing.

I/O options are pretty plentiful, but this panel (whose most noteworthy selling point is its low price) doesn't include an I/O box to route a single cable to the panel for wall-mounting. If you're planning on wall-mounting your HDTV, an I/O box is worth considering for this reason. Granted a home theater receiver can handle some of these duties, but not all.

The Olevia unit uses a PixelWorks video processing chipset specifically designed to wring out the best possible video performance from LCD panels. LCD displays have certain weaknesses when it comes to video, including variable response times and image quality shifts at different viewing angles. PixelWorks can tune their chipset to the eccentricities of different LCD panels. Does it help? Let's check out the video tests.

We test 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 indicates 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 doesn't get 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 fully measure a given display.

For contrast ratio, we take five measurements, 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.

We used Microsoft Windows Media HD clips from our PC test system, as well as the VOOM satellite HDTV service to check out high-definition content.

We used a PC equipped with a Radeon 9800 Pro graphics card to generate a variety of clean, robust test patterns, such as SMPTE bars, pure red, blue, and green, checkerboard, grayscale gradient, and high-frequency patterns to assess image fidelity using DisplayMate. We run these test patterns at 480p and 720p. We also use a Sencore VP403 signal generator to evaluate the 1080i HDTV resolution. Interestingly, the VP403 uses a subset of the DisplayMate test patterns in its firmware.

Finally, we use DVD movie content coming from a Yamaha DVD-S2300MK2 progressive-scan DVD player (check prices) connected via the panel's component video connectors. Currently we do this testing using the Gladiator and Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers DVDs, and use both bright, intense action scenes, as well as darker scenes 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 to our eyes.

We also use the DVDs to look for banding, also known as false contouring. This effect can be noticed in scenes where a single color (usually dark gray or white) transitions from one shade to another. These transitions should be a smooth blend, but some displays can show noticeable banding. CONTRAST RATIO MEASUREMENT Average Contrast Ratio Max/Min Contrast Ratio Max/Min Dark Value Max/Min Bright Value Olevia 30-inch LCD 541:1 1.30 1.20 1.26

As we brought up the Olevia 30, we noticed that the menus had a three-level setting for backlight intensity. The display arrived to use with this setting at its maximum, likely to boost perceived brightness. This is what some industry types call "showroom settings," since this setting will make the panel look its brightest when displayed in a store next to countless other panels. We dialed the backlight setting down to its "normal" setting.

Allowing users to adjust backlight intensity is a highly desirable feature. Some manufacturers, such as Sharp in their Aquos line, even have light sensors built into the bezel of the unit so that the backlight adjusts to the level of the room light.

What impressed us here wasn't the overall brightness level, since one of LCD panels' principal strengths is their brightness. What impressed us more was the uniformity of the black levels, all of which remained under 1 candela/square meter (cd/m^2), and that the brightest dark value was only 20% greater than the darkest. This is one of the lowest ranges of variance we've seen from displays we've tested thus far.

The average contrast ratio came in at 541:1 using the ANSI checkerboard--actually pretty good compared with other panels we've tested to date, but well below the Olevia's stated 750:1 contrast ratio. The overall variance of contrast ratio was a bit more than we'd like to see, but much of that variance is attributable to the upper-left-corner measurement, where bright values were considerably dimmer (more than 100cd/m^2) than the other eight measurements.

RGB Color Response

The black triangle represents a "perfect" response, whereas the white triangle represents the measured color response. Note that these are pure color measurements that don't factor in luminance (brightness).

The Olevia LT30HV offers three color-temperature settings: cool, normal and warm. The Olevia nails the red response, although it's off a bit on green response, and its blue response doesn't go quite as deep as we'd like. However, as we'll discuss in a bit, the Olevia's color saturation to our eyes was actually quite good.

Grayscale Linearity

The above 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.

Here again, we started our tests using the normal backlight and color temperature settings. But after getting some initially off (but consistently off) measurements we switched the color temperature setting to Warm, and the Olevia panel was very close to our D65 white target. This is unusual, since most panels' default color temperature is D65, the standard white target for HDTV color space. The "hotter" temperature setting usually maps to 9300K (degrees Kelvin).

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 that green response is just about dead on, whereas red tracking is below white target, and blue is consistently above white target across the 20 IRE levels we test. So while blue and red tracking were off-target, they did track consistently.

Getting the Olevia 30 setup is pretty straightforward. The speakers have mounting screws so that you can remove them and use your existing audio hardware for sound chores. The unit weighs about 50 lbs., and is wall-mountable. However, it doesn't come with any kind of I/O box to help hide the jumble of cables running into multiple inputs on the back. If you're really intent upon wall-mounting your HDTV, you'll either need to neatly dress all your cabling to hide the "spaghetti factor," or look for another HDTV model that actually has an I/O box that sends a single fat I/O cable to the panel.

The two-channel audio system can be configured using a splitter, so that both speakers act as your home theater's center channel. There aren't any menu options for enabling this feature, since it's a straight physical connection. However, the center channel plays such a critical role in delivering dialog for Dolby Digital and DTS material, that a dedicated center channel speaker is likely the better way to go here.

Olevia's audio subsystem works well enough for delivering baseline-level audio quality for TV broadcasts, but like nearly all TV audio subsystems, it lacks the needed bass response and overall dynamic range to really convey a Dolby Digital/DTS performance. The S-Video, composite and two component connections have associated audio inputs, but the DVI and VGA ports do not, so if you're planning to route signal into the Olevia from your set-top box via DVI, you'll need a dedicated external audio system when using that input.

Once wiring is in place, you replace the two back covers that help corral the 19 cables (audio and video) that you'd need if you were making use of all six inputs. We discovered early on that of the two component inputs, only one of them can accept progressive-scan signal. The Y-Pr-Pb input can handle either progressive or interlaced signals, whereas the Y-Cr-Cb input can only handle an interlaced signal. At $1,700, some corners are bound to get cut, and this appears to be one of them.

Once we got all of our inputs attached, we went ahead and closed up the rear I/O cover panels. Securing the panel involved getting all the I/O cables to fit in the side cable hole, which didn't accommodate our Monster cables especially well. But with some tender loving force, we were able to get the thing closed up and dressed.

The on-screen display menus are easy enough to navigate, although the Olevia remote still needs a bit of work. This remote isn't backlit, and it lacks both an "OK" and a "cancel" button. As HDTV menus grow, having at least a few buttons whose functions remain constant irrespective of context is important.

After we got the unit set up and configured, and had taken our objective measurements, it was time to spend some quality eyeball time with our new acquaintance Olevia. First, we played with both the backlight level and color temperature settings using a 100-percent white-field image (an all-white bitmap). The changes that occur when tweaking these settings are subtle, though noticeable. For example, the color temperature settings exhibited the following behaviors:

Cool: looked bluish Normal: going from cool, had some reds in it; going from warm, it appears to be more of a pure white Warm: had a slight yellowish/light sepia tone to it

Despite some initial futzing, we ultimately settled back on the Normal (middle) settings for both backlight level and color temperature. Once we got going, we did wind up dialing down the brightness (black) level about 10 points (on a 100-point scale), as colors initially looked a bit washed out. Then it was time to fire up our VOOM set-top box and see how the Olevia would fare with the ultimate test: HDTV content.

The news here was by and large good. We watched snippets of several movies, as well as a Spanish Premiera Liga soccer match that pitted Villareal versus Real Madrid, and overall, the Olevia performed quite well. During the soccer matches, color saturation was rich and vibrant, and scene detail was well rendered without being overly sharp.

This panel has a native pixel resolution of 15:9 (1280x768), not 16:9 (1280x720). Rather than do a slight vertical stretch to fill in the remaining 48 lines, Olevia runs 16:9 content at the top of the screen, leaving a small black stripe at the bottom of the display. It was actually several minutes before we even noticed it. Initially we wondered why Olevia didn't center the image, leaving 24 lines above and below the 16:9 image. But with the content filling three sides of the screen, our eyes mostly didn't notice the small gap at the bottom of the image, so it seems to have been a conscious (and good) design choice.

At times, it seemed almost as though a softening filter was being applied to round off overly sharp edges in the image. The effect was acceptable most of the time, and high-frequency images like the goal nets were rendered in fine detail. We also caught The Good, The Bad and The Ugly on one of the movie channels, and this spaghetti western's classic parched look was rendered nicely. The film's color palette was on target, and the Olevia did good job conveying details on the actors' faces in close-up shots.

We ran HDTV content into the Olevia using both its DVI and Y-Pr-Pb inputs, and once we equalized brightness settings for both inputs (this panel can remember individual settings for each different input--a nice plus) there was little or no appreciable difference between the two inputs.

The Olevia's audio system is about what you'd expect from a system with only 10-watts per channel. The system has limited dynamic range, and no low-end response to speak of. Movie soundtrack music in particular suffered when we ran it though this system. For basic TV audio, the speakers will be okay, but nothing you'd really want to hang your hat on. For movie audio, you'll want to have a dedicated audio system in place to do the job right.

Next, we ran some of VOOM's SDTV channels into the Olevia's S-Video input to gauge how standard-definition TV content looks. Despite our brave new HD world's growing in leaps and bounds, most TV content remains in the SD universe, and any HDTV you're going to buy now should be able to at least competently handle standard-definition. Several of VOOM's SDTV channels run with a 4:3 aspect ratio, and we set up the Olevia to run with pillar bars to render those images more accurately. Pillar boxes appear as two black vertical stripes on either side of the image.

Trying to fill a 15:9 display with 4:3 content would make for some very wide-looking people moving about the screen. The image is stretched to fill the screen vertically, however, and Olevia's scaler does a respectable job rendering SDTV content in this format. We were also able to run several SD letter-boxed broadcasts where the signal was 4:3, but the content was 16:9. The Olevia's scaler has an option to take that content and scale it to effectively eliminate the hallmark horizontal black bars you get with letterboxed content. We thought this worked well.

Finally, we ran DVD movie content into the Olevia's Y-Pr-Pb input, which can accept either an interlaced or progressive-scan signal. When sending the panel an interlaced signal, Olevia's de-interlacer/scaler did a pretty good job handling the de-interlace process. However, compared with the de-interlacer in our Yamaha DVD player, the Olevia de-interlacer was noisier: The image had a slight bit of "snow" in it, particularly visible in large areas of the same color.

We suspect that existing MPEG-2 compression artifacts were being amplified by the Olevia's de-interlacer, and the Yamaha DVD player's de-interlacer did a noticeably better job reducing this "snow" effect. That said, the Olevia's de-interlacer does fairly well handling its chores, though again, you'd want to do an A/B comparison with your DVD player's de-interlacer to see which delivers better results to your eyes.

One gripe we have is that while the Olevia has two component inputs, only one of them can accept either progressive-scan or interlaced content. The other accepts only an interlaced signal. It seems an odd design decision, since one input is effectively hard-wired through the scaler with no bypass, whereas the other input has the desired bypass to allow either signal type.

LCDs have historically had two trouble areas in terms of image quality--rendering dark tone detail and streaking because of insufficient panel response time to render fast-moving images. The Olevia's only weakness is its handling of dark tone detail. And even here, it did a pretty good job as LCD panels go. We used the opening battle sequence in Gladiator and the battering ram section of the Helm's Deep battle sequence from Two Towers to gauge the Olevia's handling of dark-tone detail.

The panel did a fair job, but did exhibit some of the washed out black levels we've come to associate with LCD panels. In those dark scenes, some dark details were simply lost, and we also found the display to be sensitive to vertical viewing angle. The result was color and brightness shifts that mean you'll want to be watching the Olevia LCD panel at eye level for best results. In the plus-column, we didn't notice any streaking issues during fast-moving scenes, using either DVD or HDTV material.

The first thing that jumps out at you about the Olevia is its low price, though with a 'low price' of $1,700, it still represents a fairly sizeable investment. But the Olevia 30-inch LCD HDTV is more than just a low price-tag. Its performance at that price is truly impressive, and if you're looking for an entry into the HDTV world, Olevia's panel is a very good place to start. Its image quality, optional audio system (which isn't especially good, so the better option here is to not get it), versatile I/O, and svelte form-factor all combine to make this sub-$2000 panel one of the best values we've yet seen in the HDTV world.

Product: Syntax OLEVIA 30" LCD Unit (LT30HV) Summary: For the money, Olevia delivers a very compelling HDTV display. A combination of good uniformity and color saturation and contrast, along with good I/O options make this one tough to beat for such a low price (as HDTVs go). Pros: Overall solid image quality; tremendous value for the price; good I/O options; thin form-factor; dual NTSC tuners. Cons: Black levels somewhat muddy on dark content; only one component input can accept either interlaced or progressive-scan signal; no HDMI port (though it does support HDCP via DVI port); no built-in ATSC tuner. Price: $1,700 (street) Rating: Company: www.syntaxgroups.com

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

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