PDP-LX508D Non-Review

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Sony KDL40X3500 Settings

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Sony KDL-40X3500 Review

Apologies for the delay, but the Sony KDL40X3500 review is now complete.

I haven’t received this much grief over a single review since I started this website. Some suggested that I was enjoying the TV so much that I forgot totally about writing the review. Some insinuated that I betrayed the trust of those who donated (my heartfelt thanks again) for the fundraising. A few challenged me to publish the settings to prove that what I write about the picture quality is true. Others emailed/ PMed me repeatedly urging me to release the review.

My reviews take a lot of time and effort, pure and simple. For each review I need to spend time on:

• Product photography, including cropping and resizing. Each review will typically contain between 15 to 30 photos… and unlike other websites/ magazines, stock photos are seldom used in my reviews.
• Calibration including screenshots of CCT and CIE charts. Depending on the difficulty on the HDTV in question, this can take a lot of time until the early hours of the morning. If it’s a plasma some time will be needed for run-in before calibration.
• Benchmark testing. I usually go through the checklist at least twice (sometimes more when the results are ambiguous) to make sure I don’t get it wrong.
• Write-up of review. This consumes the most time as I always strive to present a coherent flow rather than come across like a rambling madman (which is what I’m doing now haha). I still code all the reviews manually in HTML (don’t earn enough to pay a programmer to design a CMS).
• Upload of review to server and proofreading… it’s amazing how many times you need to read your own writings to pick up any mistake.

And this is excluding the time I need to post announcements like this, design and send out VIP polls, search for the cheapest deals (when I buy the TV to review), demo the TV when selling it as second-hand, etc.

Andrew Fee asked me recently what motivates me to continue to buy the HDTVs myself to review. I wish I knew, especially when my hard work is plagiarised without permission, when people copy and paste my content wholesale on public forums (snippets are fine) therefore tripping Google’s duplicate filter and getting my web page penalised, when other reviewers get away with 1 or 2-page reviews, when the honesty of my reviews (have you seen more negative points in each review anywhere else?) scares most manufacturers from ever sending me any review samples…

Till next time.

Panasonic TH 42PZ70B Review

The Panasonic TH42PZ70B review is now complete. Under the “Benchmark” section you will find an additional item labelled “Motion Resolution”, the value of which I shall explain below.

I’ve recently received a new test disc called “FPD Benchmark Software For Professional” (many thanks to Gary Merson from HDGuru for the heads up), which contains a few test patterns that will allow me to objectively quantify the amount of motion blurring on any display device. This is the pattern (Chapter 31, Resolution Pattern 2) I find most useful:

Each “pillar” contains 4 lines which progressively become thinner as we go down the screen; the numbers on the right denote the resolution of the lines. This particular test pattern will scroll horizontally at a rate of 6.5 ppf (pixels per frame). By noting down the resolution (the number on the right) at which we can still discern all 4 lines separately (i.e. they don’t merge into 3 lines or less), we can determine the motion resolution of the television.

Of course, the result will be influenced by:

• Whether the television is able to fully resolve 1080 static resolution in the first place;
• Your viewing distance (the farther you sit, finer resolution will be lost to the eye).

And remember, it’s only a test pattern. In real-life viewing, the panning speed and the resolution of the objects being panned will differ. But at least the “FPD Benchmark” provides me with an objective standard to assess motion resolution, and to compare the results between televisions. This motion resolution test will be performed on all future televisions I review, including the Sony KDL40X3500 LCD TV (Motionflow on vs off).