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

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.
The problem with CRTs is they don't have very good ANSI contrast. Well, direct-view tubes are usually decent, but if you want anything larger than 40" you have to go RP, and their ANSI contrast isn't very good at all.

That's why I never really understood why RP CRTs were declared king of big-screen blacks. Sure, they can do a fully black screen, but as soon as you see some white text, all supposedly black areas are no longer so.
 
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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.
Just FYI, you can't really tell from a digital camera shot. They usually emphasize contrast and don't pick up near-black shades when other bright stuff is visible in the scene.

On AVSForum there are plenty of pictures of D-ILA and 3LCD sets that seem to portray good blacks. Go see one in person, though, and they're absolutely attrocious.

However, it does look like the person who took these photos intentionally overexposed the image (hence the blown highlights) in order to emphasize the low-light parts of the screen, so maybe this TV really is quite good.

By the way, how much to the current 10,000:1 TV sets cost? Are they only found in really high end stores? I've seen various AQUOS and Bravia sets recently in the $4000-5000 range, but they most certainly did not have that contrast ratio.
 
The problem with CRTs is they don't have very good ANSI contrast. Well, direct-view tubes are usually decent, but if you want anything larger than 40" you have to go RP, and their ANSI contrast isn't very good at all.

That's why I never really understood why RP CRTs were declared king of big-screen blacks. Sure, they can do a fully black screen, but as soon as you see some white text, all supposedly black areas are no longer so.
Black crush, anybody ;)
 
Just FYI, you can't really tell from a digital camera shot. They usually emphasize contrast and don't pick up near-black shades when other bright stuff is visible in the scene.

On AVSForum there are plenty of pictures of D-ILA and 3LCD sets that seem to portray good blacks. Go see one in person, though, and they're absolutely attrocious.

However, it does look like the person who took these photos intentionally overexposed the image (hence the blown highlights) in order to emphasize the low-light parts of the screen, so maybe this TV really is quite good.

By the way, how much to the current 10,000:1 TV sets cost? Are they only found in really high end stores? I've seen various AQUOS and Bravia sets recently in the $4000-5000 range, but they most certainly did not have that contrast ratio.

Oh i know, believe me i tried. I'll post examples of my old LCD and the screen in my laptop: You just cannot take one picture that shows how dark the new one is and how crap the old one is. Not in the same picture, there just isn't enough range for some strange reason - strange because the camera takes really good shots of "reality". Which means that these new LCDs really are quite something.
 
Black crush, anybody ;)
AFAIK black crush is something different. It's when a signal asking for, say, things ranging from 0% to 5% luminosity comes out looking similar, so you lose detail in dark areas. It often happens when high contrast is applied to make the images pop out more in the showroom. The difference between 50% and 5% is amplified, but you "crush" the difference between 5% and 0%. It also happens when a display has bad blacks but is calibrated for all other colours to be as accurate as possible.

I don't think CRTs in general show black crush.
 
AFAIK black crush is something different. It's when a signal asking for, say, things ranging from 0% to 5% luminosity comes out looking similar, so you lose detail in dark areas. It often happens when high contrast is applied to make the images pop out more in the showroom. The difference between 50% and 5% is amplified, but you "crush" the difference between 5% and 0%. It also happens when a display has bad blacks but is calibrated for all other colours to be as accurate as possible.

I don't think CRTs in general show black crush.
I meant for non crts :oops:
 
If black=0, and any brightness above 0 = n..

n/0


Essentially, the 1 million contrast thing is a marketing number.

The real contrast ratio is of course, undefined :D
 
If black=0, and any brightness above 0 = n..

n/0


Essentially, the 1 million contrast thing is a marketing number.

The real contrast ratio is of course, undefined :D

That's right. That's why the Brightside never gave a real contrast ratio figure, instead saying that their tech allowed for "infinite" contrast ratio, because of what you just explained. It's just a bit strange to market something as "infinite anything" cause people will laugh at you. 1gazillion:1 contrast ratio is more "realistic" than "infinite" contrast ratio.
 
I believe Brightside stated their HDR technology can produce a dynamic range of up to 200,000:1 or some such.
 
If black=0, and any brightness above 0 = n..

n/0


Essentially, the 1 million contrast thing is a marketing number.

The real contrast ratio is of course, undefined :D
Well, there's always some scattering, unless you're talking about on/off contrast ratio which is a bit useless IMO.

I think to me the best test would be a white dot, covering say 1% of the total pixels, in the middle of an otherwise blank screen. It doesn't let manufacturers get away with a global iris or backlight adjustment, but it's more useful than the ANSI checkerboard pattern where you'd have a hard time noticing true black anyway due to human eye limitations.
 
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