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 Projection Tv Comparison - Is the world's first DLP rear projection telly a plasma beater? We fire up LG's latest big screen.
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Projection Tv Comparisons. With the advent of big plasma and LCD technologies, rear projection
televisions have become decidedly unfashionable. Yes, they're inexpensive
by comparison, but they also frequently sport the unappealing combination
of poor image quality and unwieldy dimensions.
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Projection Tv Comparisons
LG RE-44SZ2ORD rear projection TV
Is the world's first DLP rear projection telly a plasma beater? We
fire up LG's latest big screen
In the days when the plasma screen was no more than a twinkle in some
mad inventor's eye (probably), those who wanted a big screen TV
usually opted for a rear projector. They had to:that was basically
all there was.
With the advent of big plasma and LCD technologies, rear projection
televisions have become decidedly unfashionable. Yes, they're
inexpensive by comparison, but they also frequently sport the
unappealing combination of poor image quality and unwieldy
dimensions.
However, LG's snappily- monikered RE-44SZ2ORD is different from most
rear projection models, being the first of its kind to feature a DLP
projector rather than the usual CRT and LCD varieties. The big sell
on DLP is picture quality, so we approached this TV with high hopes.
In tests, the 300Hz image is flicker-free and the colours reasonably
lush and well-reproduced, but we can't help feeling underwhelmed by
this TV's performance. It suffers from the strange rainbow effect
often associated with cheaper DLP home-cinema projectors. Some
people don't notice this, but we did and it becomes a pain in the
posterior once you've spotted it out of the corner of your eye.
On-screen movement isn't handled well either, with grainy artefacts
appearing to disturb the picture around moving objects. Add to this
the slight imperfections in screen convergence, the lack of
component video inputs (so no progressive scan DVD support) and the
fact that only one of the three Scarts is RGB capable, and the
RE-44SZ2ORD is something of a disappointment.
It's not all doom and gloom, though.The TV may not be as slim as a
plasma or an LCD panel, but it's not bad looking, and setup is a
piece of cake the automatic tuning takes no longer than a couple
of minutes. Admittedly, at £2,500, it's considerably kinder on the
wallet than similarly sized plasmas and LCDs, for which you'd expect
to pay at least £4,000 for a decent example. But it's still not
bargain basement material you can pick up a rear projector lacking
the DLP touch for as little as a grand. Radical new technology? Not
on this evidence.
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TV Sets
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