Video Asylum

Posted by Harmonia (A) on October 09, 2002 at 13:06:49

In Reply to: Re: Anyone seen/heard about the KF-50XBR800 50" Grand Wega posted by JCW on October 07, 2002 at 04:05:34:

...over at avsforum.com, on the rear projection forum. Many details and descriptions.

I did not like the previous LCD Grand Wega I at all, the black levels and deep shadow looked grayish, the contrast wan't good and the shadow detail was poor.

This new model has 25% higher contrast and deeper blacks. Several people saw it at CEDIA in September and liked it a lot. It would have to be really better to appeal to me, but you never know. From the comments at avs I believe this set to be much improved over the old GW, but whether it is a giant stride forward in challenging the limits of LCD technology I can't say. Retailers are getting them in now, although some won't get them until end of October/early November.

Although rear projection CRTs are undoubtedly the biggest bang for the buck currently available, I don't love them. People will tell you plasmas look terrible - not true anymore, the newer/better ones look very good. All current HDTV technologoes - CRT, DLP, LCD, LCoS, plasma - have strengths and trade-offs. All line doublers are not created equal. Many HD sets have trouble with digital cable and sat feeds. There is no perfect TV. But there are some pretty good ones.

Best to let your own eyes be the judge. Do some research over at avsforum.com, hometheaterspot.com, hometheaterforum.com, and then get out and look at the GWs when they come into your local retailers.

One word of advice: if you are going to be watching DVD movies, get the dealer to hook up a progressive scan player and test any set with some nice dark DVDs like Blade Runner, Dark City or LOTR. If you can live with the GW's blacks and shadow detail with these difficult discs, yer done.

PS: Onecall has this set at 10% off.