Twist & Shout

A speaker designer I once worked with claimed it was no great feat to achieve superlative performance in a high-priced flagship model. In his opinion, a far greater feat is to bring performance nearly as good to as wide an audience as possible. I couldn’t agree more. I am reminded of this when I read the press release for Sharp’s new line of value-priced LCD flat-panel models. The release notes various features and technologies imported from the company’s top-tier sets, yet also emphasizes the line’s competitive pricing.

The LC-32D40U comes with a table stand, but it can also be removed from the stand and attached to a wall using an optional mount. The speakers are mounted on the bottom so the TV fits into narrow cabinets. (Click image to enlarge)

Upon opening the carton of the LC-32D40U, the 32-inch model in the new line, I immediately recognize the top control panel and the rear input jack, both of which I saw on an HP LCD TV we reviewed last year. However, I am quite sure Sharp is the originating vendor. I also notice that Sharp touts a new LCD glass panel design that features "multi-pixel" technology—which gives me a chuckle, since that descriptor could be applied to virtually any video display. I find no description of this technology, but later uncover its secrets myself.

The first evidence of corner-cutting I see is the lack of a CableCard slot, which is no big deal—you’ll just have to use a cable box to get scrambled channels. I am concerned about the lack of an RGB computer input, however, given that more than a few of these sets would likely find a place in a home office. A computer equipped with DVI digital video output can feed the LC-32D40U through its HDMI input, but older PCs and most laptops do not offer DVI, just RGB.

The set offers three color-temperature settings. We find the Cool setting to be quite obviously bluish, the Warm setting too reddish, and the Middle setting the most pleasing, even though it measures well above the 6,500-degrees Kelvin color temperature that produces the most neutral grays. To its credit, the Sharp measures quite well in terms of luminance linearity and color-temperature tracking, which means that shifts in scene brightness won’t be accompanied by noticeable variations in hue nor suppression of details in darker scenes.

The cursor and enter buttons on the remote supplied with the LC-32D40U fall right under your thumb, but the more often-used volume and channel buttons are a bit tough to hit. (Click image to enlarge)

When it comes to screen brightness, too much is still not enough for many set makers, and Sharp is no different. The LC-32D40U doles out a staggering 147 footlamberts at the brightest of the three preset settings, this amount being roughly 10 times the comparable brightness of a movie theater’s screen. Fortunately, Sharp provides adjustable backlighting, which lets me bring down the screen brightness to a much more pleasing level, improving the low black reproduction in the process. That adjustment is a global setting, however, which can’t be tied to one of the picture setting memories.

I note in my color spectrometer’s magnifying viewfinder the first glimpse that something is different about this screen. Normally, upon close inspection, one would expect to find triads of red, green, and blue pixels. Sharp’s new LCD screen has five pixels per grouping instead of the usual three—an extra one each for red and green. As I adjust the signal generator’s output, I note that at lower intensities, those two extra pixels are simply turned off. As the luminance, or brightness, intensity increases to the two-thirds point of the range, the extra pair of red and green pixels starts to energize and at the highest picture brightness levels are fully active. This makes perfect sense because blue constitutes only about 10 percent of the picture brightness and doesn’t need help. Sharp has found a way to provide increased brightness without compromising sharpness or washing out the blacks. I do wish I had thought of it.

With actual program sources, the Sharp does a mostly very good job, both with standard-definition DVD and high-definition from my satellite receiver. While banding—false contours where there should be smooth gradients—is occasionally noticeable, it is not overly objectionable and, surprisingly, isn’t a problem with animation at all. (Usually the reverse is true.) With test patterns, the set’s color decoder provides excellent results, and once the picture adjustments are optimized (something you can do with any of the available test DVDs or even the test patterns provided on some THX-optimized DVDs), the LC-32D40U looks as good as any LCD flat-panel set I have seen.

While some may quibble over the lack of certain amenities, such as side-mounted inputs for camcorder/video game hookup or a dedicated PC connection, it appears that Sharp has done a good job at providing a useful feature set along with an eminently watchable picture in a value-priced package. That it is equipped with a clever and innovative LCD display panel as bright as anyone could possibly want makes the LC-32D40U an even more attractive choice.

DESCRIPTION

32-inch LCD flat-panel HDTV with nonswiveling table stand. Optional wall mounting bracket

DISPLAY CAPABILITIES

Widescreen LCD panel operates in both 4:3 and 16:9 modes. Accepts 720-line progressive and 1080-line interlaced HDTV, 480-line progressive and interlaced standard-definition signals. Includes analog and digital broadcast tuners

RESOLUTION

1366 x 768 pixels

CONNECTIONS

Two component video inputs, two S-video and composite input pairs, RF input for antenna or cable, two HDMI digital audio/video inputs, five analog stereo audio inputs, one coaxial digital audio output, one analog stereo audio output

DIMENSIONS

23.3 x 32.3 x 4.6 inches (hwd)

PRICE/CONTACT

PRICE: $1,799

CONTACT: 800.BESHARP, sharpusa.com