Which TV brand is best?

3D TV

LG Electronics is the other major Korean brand of course. As long as I’ve been reviewing TVs, it has nestled there just a little lower than Samsung in price and performance. But with 3D it has branched off in an interesting new direction. It is using polarising technology rather than shutter glasses. This is a high-risk strategy. It tends to provide better 3D separation, at the cost of losing half the horizontal resolution of the picture. Only time will tell whether it pays off, but I have high hopes for it.

 

We shouldn’t forget Sharp, since it toiled away on LCD technology for years while the latter-day convert Sony stuck with plasma. Its Aquos TVs were for a long time all there was in the way of LCD with any pretence to high quality. Its recent TVs have been very classy looking affairs, with gorgeous styling. But I fear that its ‘Quattron’ four colour (it adds yellow pixels to the usual red, green and blue) TVs have been bit of a pointless diversion. Soon, I hope, it will get back into the game.

Sharp’s projectors, though, have had a very high reputation for a number of years for the simple reason that these DLP projectors, simple in design, have consistently produced picture quality of remarkably high-end quality. That has not changed with the most recent version, which supports 3D. Indeed, as I write, it does 3D better than any other even half-affordable 3D projector.

Projectors

Of course Panasonic and Sony aren’t the only makers of front projectors. Epson does a very nice line of LCD projectors, with top notch video processing. In fact, it dominates the front projector market in Australia, for good reason. Most recently its ‘R’ projectors are changing from LCD to what Epson calls ‘reflective LCD’, which seems to operate a lot like SXRD or DILA.

All are beautiful, but as we go to press Epson still lacks a 3D unit.

Mitsubishi, on the other hand, does have 3D. This is based on three SXRD panels and is glorious (read all about it on page 75). But Mitsubishi is agnostic on display tech, and also has conventional LCD and DLP models available. Of all the brands with which I’m familiar, Mitsubishi is the least predictable. Its LCD, SXRD and DLP projectors may as well come from different brands.

JVC uses a liquid crystal on silicon variant called DILA. It was one of the first to offer full high definition front projection, and has consistently offered a brilliant and detailed picture since then. The most recent version delivers 3D as well, and delivers it beautifully (if not quite as well as Sharp).

With projectors, you can go as high as you like in terms of price. In the higher reaches are such brands as Runco and Barco and SIM2. Their premium pricing brings you higher build quality and in previous years significantly better picture quality. But the other brands have narrowed the gap, in some cases eliminating it.