The ABC network's first prime-time show to be colorcast (as it was called back in 1963) was the Hanna-Barbera cartoon The Jetsons. Most of those who wanted to see George, Jane, and crew in color opted for deluxe TVs in freestanding cabinets. These sets typically fetched $499-about $3,300 in 2007 dollars.

Fast-forward to today, when the same expenditure, adjusted for inflation, will more than finance the asking price of Syntax-Brillian's Olevia 747i. This full-featured 47-inch LCD flat-panel HDTV is as advanced as they come, with full 1080p top-tier HDTV resolution and solid engineering to ensure artifact-free viewing. As is the case with other specialist HDTV makers, Syntax-Brillian obtains its LCD panels from a larger vendor (in this case CMO), but the chassis, cabinetry, and circuitry are its own.

From a signal processing standpoint, the 747i includes Silicon Optix's top-performing deinterlacing and scaling chip, the HQV Realta, which ensures that both standard-definition and high-definition interlaced signals are correctly reconstructed into artifact-free progressive frames.

Loudspeakers are arrayed along the bottom of the fascia; with optional brackets, the speaker modules can be relocated to the cabinet sides to increase the apparent acoustical spread. While our long-standing advice to ignore the stock, factory-supplied speakers in favor of good outboard units still applies, the sound quality from the 747i's speakers is a cut above the norm. A subwoofer output jack is provided, and the use of an external compact subwoofer with the 747i's provided speakers should prove satisfactory for many users.

The 747i's picture controls menu reveals defined color-temperature choices, including the optimum 6,500-degrees-Kelvin neutral gray choice. The color analyzer, however, finds the set's gray scale tilted toward blue, running about 7,800 degrees over most of the range from black to gray to white. (Olevia says the set is calibrated to 6,500 degrees; perhaps ours was anomalous.) After I calibrate the set, it achieves a respectably flat gray scale that closely hugs the 6,500-degree ideal. However, the 747i's color-temperature on-screen adjustments are hampered by a crude sliding pointer that doesn't feature numerical indicators, and I'd like to have seen a password-protected lock option that lets you recall the calibrated settings should an adventuresome family member diddle with the controls.

From a colorimetry standpoint, the 747i is a good performer, with the color analyzer reporting mostly good reproduction of both the primary and secondary colors. The red and blue are close to the ideal, while the green is somewhat off, but the cyan, yellow, and magenta secondary colors are pretty much where they should be. The upshot of all this is, if you have the set professionally calibrated, the colors will look essentially as they should.

Cycling through a variety of test patterns reveals mostly good results, but a gray shaded ramp pattern shows a distinct cut-off at the lower end of the luminance spectrum. That is quite typical of the LCD breed, where the transmissive capabilities of the individual LCD pixels behave more like a switch than a valve when at the point of near-opaqueness. The real-world effect of this is what video engineers call crushed blacks, and the excellent Casino Royale on Blu-ray high-def DVD shows that in the poker game scenes. Bond's tuxedo is sufficiently detailed (as were most of the other characters), but the tux worn by his nemesis Le Chiffre is rendered completely black and entirely devoid of detail-an aberration that black level adjustment will not fix.

Another high-def test pattern, that of alternating black and white pixels to evaluate how a display handles extremely fine detail, reveals an additional anomaly. With this ultra-fine-resolution test pattern, the 747i exhibits excessive ringing, displaying a grayish palette with rows upon rows of concentric whitish circles. Other LCD sets I've tested show similar ringing, but not to the intensity of the 747i. Turning back to Casino Royale, the disc's opening menu features a grainy black and white close-up picture of Daniel Craig's 007 character, and it revealed the same aberration-noticeable rows of dark gray circles overlaying the crisp black and white graphic in the dark patches.

As expected (due to the HQV Realta chip), the 747i's deinterlacing prowess is excellent, and it sails through both standard- and high-definition tests. A golf game broadcast in 1080i high definition shows the set's mettle; the crisp leaderboard graphic superimposed over the game images is perfectly defined and without any visible flicker or line doubling.

If George Jetson were shopping for a flat-panel HDTV today, he'd certainly appreciate the 747i's firmware upgrade capability, via a USB port on the back panel (something I'd like to see on all premium displays). Whether a firmware upgrade can address the black crush issue (a possibility) remains to be seen. But George and his family would certainly be impressed by the 747i's otherwise excellent picture quality and very good feature package.

DESCRIPTION
47-inch LCD flat-panel HDTV with tabletop non-swiveling stand; can be wall-mounted with optional bracket

DISPLAY CAPABILITIES
Widescreen 16:9 LCD display features 1080p resolution. Accepts 720-line and 1080-line progressive HDTV, 1080-line interlaced HDTV, 480-line progressive and 480-line interlaced signals, and computer resolutions up to 1920 by 1080.

RESOLUTION
1920 x 1080 pixels

CONNECTIONS
Inputs: two component video inputs, two S-video inputs, two composite video inputs, two HDMI digital audio/video inputs, DB-15 video input for PC connection (can be used as third component video input), two RF inputs for analog and digital broadcasts, nine analog stereo inputs
Outputs: coaxial digital audio output, optical digital audio output, stereo analog audio output, pair speaker outputs, subwoofer output, headphone output
Control: RS-232 port for external control, USB port for firmware upgrade

DIMENSIONS
36.1 x 46.4 x 6.3 inches (hwd)

PRICE/CONTACT
PRICE: $2,999
CONTACT: 866.9OLEVIA, www.olevia.com