c-post's Full Review: Mitsubishi LT-46148 46 in. HDTV TV
As a film and video professional and tech-head, my entrance into the HD market has been long delayed. Nevertheless, since BluRay has recently been acknowledged as the agreed upon format for 1080 television, now was the right time to make a move on a 1080p HDTV, which at this time is the format of choice. Also, prices have come down a whole lot in recent months. I have begun using this monitor for viewing broadcast programs, Blu-Ray disks, DVD's, and as a third computer monitor for a Windows desktop computer. I looked carefully at some of my other favorite brands such as Sony, Samsung, and Panasonic, before choosing this unit. What cinched the deal is the Mitsubishi's thin black frame, which in my situation is highly desirable. A thick frame, which most TV's have, would cause me some problems in my particular room install.
I got a great price on a 46148 floor model from Fry's, along with a Panasonic BluRay player. Since my mix room is already set up for 5.1, the Panasonic's 5.1 analog audio outputs are ideal. 7.1 audio models are, in my view, overkill and not necessary. Also given that my audio setup is rather complete, speakers on the 46148 were unnecessary. There are no speakers on the front of the unit, they are located underneath the monitor. Therefore, for optimum sound quality, I would recommend using the LT-46148 with an external sound system.
I have long been pleased with Mitsubishi video monitors which i use at home and in my post-production work, and the LT-46148 with it's thin black frame and superb picture quality, continues the tradition. The picture quality is, in a word, stunning...much better, in fact, than what I saw in the store.
SETTING UP
You will need two people to lift the unit onto whatever platform you have set aside for it, because the weight is upwards of 55 pounds. One man could lift it, but not recommended. Connecting the Mitsu to various video feeds is straightforward. For broadcast digital TV, connect your coaxial feed (in my case, from an antenna on top of my house) into the coaxial input. Use the supplied HDMI cable to connect from your Blu-Ray player to the LT-46148 HDMI input 1. (It comes with four HDMI inputs). Use an S-video cable if you wish to connect a DVD player (or in my case an FCP video edit system) to the Mitsubishi. And my final connection was a link between my windows XP computer with a DVI output to the second HDMI input of the LT-46148. There is a full compliment of audio RCA ins and outs as well. If you want to go into an external amp as I do, you will need to tap the audio outputs of this monitor to hear broadcast or cable TV.
Once you power up, you can go into the setup menu and have the LT-46148 scan the available broadcast channels in your area. Even if you cut power to the HDTV, the Mitsu will still remember the channels when it gets power the next morning. You should run everything from the remote control although there are basic buttons along the upper left of the TV.
The input button on the remote allows you to choose from 4 HDMIs, Antenna 1 or antenna 2, and also a PC input.
IMAGE QUALITY
Blu-Ray playback and broadcast TV too looks absolutely awesome. With 120hz motion smoothing, the reaction of family and friends to the incredible image quality varies from "too-lifelike", "hypnotic", etc. The 120hz technology smooths motion between frames, reducing the frame chatter normally associated with 24 frame film or 3:2 pulldown. I am an ex-union cameraman and SMPTE member who has shot stuff in Vistavision and Cinemascope, and who shot material on 35mm film for over a decade, and my friend, a long time theater projectionist and pro cameraman, came over to have a look.
We were both floored by the jaw-dropping color fidelity, the contrast ratio (the difference between the dark blacks and the bright whites), and the sharpness and clarity of the image of the 46148. From my friend, a projectionist and film purist who once worked for Filmex, that's quite a compliment.
To a substantial degree, I have to say it looks better than film. We looked at Casablanca in HD and Star Trek TOS, and also some wide screen material. You can see film grain easily, but with no hot spots or surface irregularities. Sharpness and clarity is maintained right out to the edges of the screen.
Even regular DVDs look significantly better on a Blu Ray player through an HDMI connection than a standard DVD player with an Svideo cable to the LT46-148. The image is sharper and the colors are absolutely pure. The reason why is because from the Blu-Ray player through HDMI to the LT-46148 is an all-digital signal path.
VIDEO CONTROLS
The selection of video controls is as follows: sharpness, color temp, video noise, back light, picture mode (natural, brilliant, or bright), brightness, color, tint. I think the video noise setting is designed to clean up analog video noise...it seems to have no effect on HD video signals.
The format button offers four standard options in hi def: HDMI full native, 1080p standard, 1080p wide expand, and 1080p zoom. One thing that would be handy is a squeeze mode. Sometimes standard def supplemental material comes off a blu ray disk or another media source which is already expanded and should be narrowed. Everybody's faces are too fat. There should be an easy "squeeze" option to reduced the image size back to normal -- to "deanamorphisize" the image. But it's not a big problem because the issue really resides within the Blu-Ray player, where the proper menu setting will get the aspect ratio of the 4:3 image back to where it should be.
In my case with the Panasonic DMP-BD80, you choose SETUP, TV/DEVICE CONNECTION, and set the value to 16:9 to correct the problem.
USE AS A COMPUTER MONITOR
I knew that I could use the 46148 as a computer monitor, but this turned out to be somewhat challenging. My current Windows XP desktop has two, 23" flatscreen monitors running off a dual head AGP graphics card. To accommodate the HDTV, I purchased an NVIDIA FX5200 single head DVI graphics card to handle the Mitsubishi as an additional (third) monitor. For more recent computers, you can buy an HDMI graphics card, but for my slightly older machine running XP and PCI slots, DVI is the only available type of graphics card.
A "knowledgeable" sales manager in the computer department at Fry's said that large HD monitors are not supported by PCI graphics cards. WRONG! Even NVIDIA's own American tech support person told me that this graphics card cannot push resolutions higher than 1360x768. WRONG!
You will need a DVI to HDMI cable to make this connection, which is inexpensive and commonly available. I recommend installing the graphics card's driver off the disk. To set up the monitor, right click on the background, and choose NVIDIA display (NOT Properties!). A variety of resolutions and a surprising number of controls are available, but obviously the appropriate one to use is 1920x1080. Because I use a single, dual screen 2600x1300 jpeg for my screen background, and use the "stretch" setting in Properties, the background did not fill the HDTV screen completely, although I am not sure why.
I solved this problem by resizing the background in Photoshop to 1920x1080 and choosing "center" for the background.
Thus I now have a windows XP desktop with the two 23 inch flatscreens on the left and the HD on the right. The mouse travels between them. There is no overscan or underscan in the HD monitor. I can run photoshop, dreamweaver, and other programs with plenty of screen real estate.
With some fine tuning of the Mitsubishi in the PC display mode to match the color balance and contrast of the Samsung computer flatscreens, the image quality is better than the standard LCD flatscreen. Typography, tables, and images on the HD screen are terrific! It won't be long before everybody is using the 3 HD screens side by side on their computer and immersing themselves in their taxes (how exciting), their pornography (how dull), spreadsheets, websites, whatever. Huxley said it would be like this! ;-)
Well look, I am thrilled to finally be partaking in the first REAL advance in television technology in decades. And paying less than a third the price I would have spent in 2007.
New Page 1 New Page 1 New Page 4 New Page 1 MITSUBISHI LT46148 Brand new Factory Sealed Not refurbished Not B Stock Full US warranty No extra fees, (i...More at eBay
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