Sharp's 1,000,000:1 Mega-Contrast LCD vs regular LCD

London Geezer

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DAMN...

Don't get us wrong, we love our high contrast HDTVs -- especially those among us lucky enough to have a 10,000:1 Sharp set and the like -- but if you've never experienced a 1,000,000:1 picture, you've never seen truly black black-levels. At CES 2007 Sharp was showing off their reference grade 37-inch Mega-Contrast Premium LCD, which had even deeper blacks than most SED sets we've seen to date (but not Sony's OLED set). Granted, this side by side comparison was with a mere 1,200:1 set that didn't exactly put up much of a fight -- we might have liked to have seen it alongside one of their 10,000:1 or 12,000:1 sets, but still, you can see for yourself in our gallery.

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Glad i waited to purchase my HDTV. Id love to see a comparison between the sony oled and this lcd.

epic

I think they will both look so much better than normal LCD, it won't even matter :smile: According to these guys though, the OLED looked a bit better.

Personally, i'm not worried about the HDTV side of things, i just really want a laptop with one of those OLED screens. 1000000:1 CR, 3mm thin and using up less power than normal screens? Count me in!!

Anyway, when are these Sharp Megacontrast LCDs supposed to come out?
 
:oops: Good things are coming... good things are coming... must.... resist.... spending....now!

I wonder how Doom would look on that. ;)
 
They did jack up the contrast on the (left) normal LCD like a motherfukka to make their comparaison. Gotta love vendor biased demos/benchmarks...lol
 
They did jack up the contrast on the (left) normal LCD like a motherfukka to make their comparaison. Gotta love vendor biased demos/benchmarks...lol

I wouldn't automatically assume that... In a completely darkened room, the exposure on the camera may be long enough to make it look more "washed" than it really is. Still, in a completely darkened room, my current Dell 2007WFP (which I'm extremely pleased with) shows light bleeding that isn't much different -- and that's with the contrast, brightness and color calibrated as best as I can get it.

As for HDTV, I already cry at my three-year-ago purchase of my Hitachi 50V500. It's a fantastic TV to be sure, but it still performs terribly for dark scenes. And every time I think about upgrading, I also have to think about technology like this: "Oh, it's just a few more months away..."

:devilish: :cry:
 
They did jack up the contrast on the (left) normal LCD like a motherfukka to make their comparaison. Gotta love vendor biased demos/benchmarks...lol

Of course. If the "normal" LCD had a "backlight adjustment", then i'm sure that taking it down a few notches would give a much less grey image than that. Still, i think the point here is that the new LCD produced a completely black image, as black as the TV borders and the room around it. Which is just amazing.

I assume these sets have LED arrays for backlight.

I can't imagine how much money Brightside will make from the technology which is starting to be used a lot in future LCDs. I'm assuming they patented the technology, but i'm not sure if that's the case.
 
Of course. If the "normal" LCD had a "backlight adjustment", then i'm sure that taking it down a few notches would give a much less grey image than that. Still, i think the point here is that the new LCD produced a completely black image, as black as the TV borders and the room around it. Which is just amazing.
That it is. Better blacks on LCDs is a damned good thing.

However, I can't help wondering how black those blacks would have been in those shots if the right screen was showing the same level of detail as the left one. Then there is camera exposure to take into account and so on. Shots of a Luma grey ramp test image would have been much better for evaluating a photographic comparison.
 
That it is. Better blacks on LCDs is a damned good thing.

However, I can't help wondering how black those blacks would have been in those shots if the right screen was showing the same level of detail as the left one. Then there is camera exposure to take into account and so on. Shots of a Luma grey ramp test image would have been much better for evaluating a photographic comparison.

Heh, i fully expect they got the HDTV out of the box, plugged it in and forgot about it. It was probably on the usual "Vivid" factory setting which is plain bad. While i fully expect the other set to have been calibrated properly, or at least more than the "normal" LCD.

Still, those are bloody black blacks!! :D
 
Stoopid Question: How do "classic" CRTs stand against that? I`ve certainly never seen a contrast ratio for them (likely because that was never a problem) .
 
Stoopid Question: How do "classic" CRTs stand against that? I`ve certainly never seen a contrast ratio for them (likely because that was never a problem) .

Well FWIW i have NEVER seen a CRT which produced blacks that are indistinguishable from a completely black surrounding. It's always a liiiiiiitle be brighter even in the bestest CRTs.
 
Well FWIW i have NEVER seen a CRT which produced blacks that are indistinguishable from a completely black surrounding. It's always a liiiiiiitle be brighter even in the bestest CRTs.
My Sony Trinitron KV-30HS420 CRT HDTV produces blacks pitch black. Maybe you haven't seen a properly calibrated CRT. Even the best CRTs need to be calibrated for them to be their best.
 
Well FWIW i have NEVER seen a CRT which produced blacks that are indistinguishable from a completely black surrounding. It's always a liiiiiiitle be brighter even in the bestest CRTs.
Thats what I was thinking. I even see a faint glow after turning off the TV for a while, so it cant be a perfect anynumber:0 Contrast. (Even thought in theory the Cathode Ray should produce perfect blacks if you look at it in isolation)

So any guesses of the Contrast Ratio of CRTs ? :D
 
The megacontrast looks great :)

Give me only twice the calibrated contrast I have now and I will be very happy.
 
Cool, except a lot of detail was lost in those that is clearly visible in the "normal" LCD. I've also never seen a sane person's LCD that gray.

Really, I'll get excited when there is actual screens on the market and users with them that are not fanatical about this. Otherwise this is just more manufacturer setup "comparisons" that really show nothing but how even when they have a superior product they must go out of their way to make the competitor look bad.

Oh, also when one of these "miracle" LCD improvements actually comes to market at a reasonable price.
 
Hmm, my cheapo syntax tv lists a contrast ratio of 1600:1. Wonder how accurate that is. At least it beats the alledged 1200:1 set used in the test.
 
Cool, except a lot of detail was lost in those that is clearly visible in the "normal" LCD. I've also never seen a sane person's LCD that gray.

Mmm if anything i can see detail in the Megacontrast LCD that was totally white on the "normal" LCD... Could the be picture being taken with too high exposure though.

The only thing "missing" is some stars in the darker background but i was blaming that on the picture. I'm sure they would all be there if the TV was in front of me.
 
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