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Mitsubishi LaserVue 65" HDTV - We Meet Again
Introduction
Kurtis and I got another chance to check out Mitsubishi's LaserVue DLP set in the early morning hours this Tuesday, and this time we were armed with some juicy, hand-picked HD goodness. Last time around, we only got to see content provided by Mitsubishi that was playing from a hard drive player hooked up to each set over HDMI. There were some great clips in this material, but we felt that we would be doing the Internets a terrible injustice to base our opinions solely on clips straight from the proverbial horse's mouth. If you missed our coverage of the LaserVue launch event from a couple weeks ago, that's where we got down with the specs and features of the new Mitsubishi set. This trip was all about picture quality. The staff at Bjorn's hooked us up with a Panasonic DMP-BD30K Blu-Ray player and some quiet time with two of the best displays in the store. For comparison's sake, we pitted Mitsubishi's LaserVue 65" against the Pioneer PRO-151FD Kuro 60" Plasma. They're in roughly the same price range ($6999 for the Mitsubishi vs. $6500 for the Pioneer) and are recognized as the "piece de resistance" for each company. We brought along Iron Man and Ice Age: Meltdown on BD and chose a few key scenes in each film for analysis. Bjorn's also supplied us with a test disc that comes with the Kuro. The process of determining what scenes were utilized during testing was highly scientific - known in the 'biz as the "fast-forward-until-something-cool-happens" technique. We weren't able to get an HDMI signal to both sets simultaneously, so we watched the scenes back-to-back on each display a few times, juggling HDMI connections. We also paused on particular frames to compare color representation and contrast. We've got some photos that are fairly representative of a few differences we noticed, which Kurtis will now explain. [Kurtis: First I want to be clear that the photos are not meant to be conclusive, scientific proof that one set is better than the other. The purpose is to show a fair apples-to-apples representation of what we saw in our testing. We did our best in the circumstances to produce meaningful results, and to that end, we believe we succeeded. That out of the way, here are the hows-and-whats of the photos: Photos shot with a Canon 5D w/ Canon 24-105 f/4L IS @ 40mm, f/4, 1/4", ISO 400, from atop Gitzo GT3531S legs and a ReallyRightStuff BH-55 ballhead. We turned off overhead lights and nearby televisions to eliminate glare, color cast, and reflections. For what it's worth, we also ate some tacos beforehand.] Test Setup As is the case with most any electronics store, the televisions were configured with the more dramatic video settings enabled. This means the "Vivid" or "Brilliant" setting - or something like it - on both the Pioneer and the Mitsubishi. Since people like shiny things, this probably helps to sell TVs, but it's not the most accurate representation of a display's capabilities. On the Pioneer set, we first checked out the "Optimum" setting but opted for the "Pure" mode once we took a look at the results. Optimum mode uses a sensor on the front of the display to dynamically adjust the picture settings based on the ambient lighting. It was a step down from the vibrant setting that Bjorn's had been using, but it didn't fly for an even comparison to the Mitsubishi set. Pure mode is more like a "standard" setting (or equivalent) on any television, and it matched up nicely with the LaserVue's. For the LaserVue, we switched to the standard setting, called "Natural" in this case. This lowered the brightness by a small amount and muted the color palette ever so slightly. It gave us a much more natural picture and matched closely the picture on the Kuro next door. After a few small tweaks to contrast and saturation, we were ready to roll. "Pure." "Natural." Sounds like a hypoallergenic soap commercial.
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39 User Comments 1 - Posted by
ombsz
on October 18, 2008 - 8:01 am Ice Age isn't a pixar film.
2 - Posted by
Synthaxx
on October 18, 2008 - 8:55 am I think i'll wait for a front projector version of the mitsu to replace my CRT Sony 1271 FP. If the above is any indication, i can lose the 70 kg extra weight and go with this mounted to a ceiling instead of bolted to the floor. 3 - Posted by
RolfSchewe
on October 18, 2008 - 9:32 am I have heard a lot about the Kuro sets and have been greatly impressed by what I hear. The question I have is: How are movie scenes with fast motion? Some will argue whether or not these sets were optimally configured for their best image quality. The colors are what mostly impress me on the Mitsubishi. Very nice. What I love mostly about this is the advancement of the technology. The competition is what brings us better and better TVs. Kudos to both companies.
4 - Posted by
cameron
on October 18, 2008 - 2:23 pm To my eyes, the Kuro lagged slightly in the faster paced scenes. Motion was a little smoother on the LaserVue. It wasn't a massive difference between the two, but definitely noticeable.
5 - Posted by
Kurtis
on October 18, 2008 - 2:37 pm Fixed the Pixar thing. Painstakingly... on my iPhone. Need to make an iPhone App for ourselves...
6 - Posted by
JBrown
on October 18, 2008 - 2:37 pm How did the viewing angles compare? I've seen some blurry event shots that looked like the LaserView might suffer from the classic DLP 'washout.'
7 - Posted by
meeeeee
on October 18, 2008 - 3:47 pm This is no DLP TV! How can you write about the first Laser-TV and still think it's a DLP? This is like testing an electric car and saying that bad acceleration is normal for diesel fueled cars...
8 - Posted by
Canizorro
on October 18, 2008 - 8:02 pm Meeeeee.... That's because it still is a DLP. The lasers didn't replace the DLP chip. It replaced the light source. This is a DLP TV.
9 - Posted by
turls
on October 18, 2008 - 8:23 pm Please will somebody compare LED DLP and Laser DLP? I doubt there is 4k difference. Mits never did it when they debuted these, and I'm still waiting.
10 - Posted by
Time2upgrade
on October 19, 2008 - 12:04 am You guys mention: "My eyes were worn out, probably from being cooked by three different flavors of laser all morning" I read on another site that a guy got a headache after 20 min on the LaserVue. Did you get a headache? Any thoughts?
11 - Posted by
Kurtis iPhone
on October 19, 2008 - 1:56 am The LaserVue does use DLP technology. And it does have the same old DLP viewing angles so that's still a plus for the plasma - we talked about that but looks like we forgot to mention it in the article.I didn't get a headache by the way. I don't think he meant it literally.
12 - Posted by
Kurtis iPhone
on October 19, 2008 - 2:00 am Turls: I have a mitsubishi lamp based dlp and a samsung led based dlp, and personally I'd recommend thee bang-per-buck dlps over the laservue or the kuro. This really isn't an upgrade path for those looking at dlp sets but more of a competitor to plasma and LCD sets, at least the way they're positioning it. I'm sure it'll drop in price eventually to offer better value.
13 - Posted by
bhx
on October 19, 2008 - 10:16 am They didn't mention the power consumption. I don't know why they never include this in reviews.
14 - Posted by
Kurtis
on October 19, 2008 - 12:55 pm We mentioned power consumption in our previous article, but for those who haven't read both I'll go ahead and add power consumption to the conclusion.
15 - Posted by
Peterlb
on October 21, 2008 - 11:48 am I'm impressed by the color details displayed on both sets. I know the reviewers are most in awe of LaserVue compared to the Kuro. My question is - How do we know if the colors displayed by the LaserVue were the correct level of details? We don't have the photos of the real-life objects for comparrison. What if the underwater women's red dress was actually more red than orange? What if Iron Man's suit was closer to "hot rod red" than to the battle scar red? We need more details.
16 - Posted by
Kurtis
on October 21, 2008 - 12:12 pm Well, here's the thing, Peter... The LaserVue wouldn't go out of its way to change the colors of a scene to make the woman's dress with light flowing through it a different shade than the other part if it wasn't really supposed to be like that. And I think it's pretty obvious that the LaserVue was the more accurate set in the IronMan test, because you could see -more- detail. There's no way the LaserVue could randomly make up that detail on the fly, because it's just plain not there in the Kuro. At the end of the day, everyone should have a look for themselves, but I think the LaserVue was hands-down better image quality / colors.
17 - Posted by
Squit
on October 21, 2008 - 7:13 pm The sets aren't calibrated very well. Highlights are crushed in the LaserVue and to a lesser extent the Kuro. Check out the detail around the light in Iron Man's chest. Now look at the detail in the wall behind him. The LaserVue has much less detail in these areas although it has much more detail over all than the Kuro does. That means with proper calibration both sets have a lot more potential than whats being depicted here. Take a look at this screen shot of the same scene in iron man on your computer monitor. http://flickcabin.com/public/view/full/11142 Even with the improper calibration the LaserVue wins...thats a huge plus for LaserVue. 18 - Posted by
MrSatyre
on October 21, 2008 - 7:51 pm Aren't the power consumption levels you quote actually peak, and not average? I would be interested to know how they compare when measured with a power meter.
19 - Posted by
Squit
on October 21, 2008 - 8:06 pm I also hope that the purple color fringing along areas of high contrast (last picture, her face and arms) is due to the limitations of your camera and not the Kuro...because that would be horrible. :P
20 - Posted by
kevin k
on October 22, 2008 - 9:31 am What about geometric distortion on the LaserVue? Any DLP that I have seen has an hour glass effect. Most noticeable on my Samsung in SD.
21 - Posted by
Kurtis
on October 22, 2008 - 10:50 am lol, yeah, that would be because of my camera. :-D
22 - Posted by
dmspen
on October 22, 2008 - 11:58 am Were these sets calibrated in any way prior to review?
23 - Posted by
Kurtis
on October 22, 2008 - 8:24 pm Read the article, we talked about that.
24 - Posted by
chengo
on October 25, 2008 - 5:18 am According to hdguru.com the Mitsubishi has a maximum motion resolution of only 610 lines (in 120hz mode), it is clearly inferior to Panasonic and Pioneer high-end plasma in this regard (they should have about 900+ lines). Does it give any edge at all to the plasma? 25 - Posted by
Pro 150fd
on October 28, 2008 - 6:01 am I think Pio- top plasma still has the best pics. When viewing fast paced movies etc, I did not notice any blurs. Blurs usually caused by the source, not the tv itself. I know this because I have one. Nothing has come close yet to the realism of the colors, detail clarity as this pios.
26 - Posted by
Kurtis
on October 28, 2008 - 7:59 pm chengo: We considered doing some resolution tests, but we decided to just take a more real-world approach, so I can't really comment on line-resolution specifically. If we actually had the TV in our labs for review, we'd certainly put it through some additional tests, but with the time constraints involved in testing this TV we ran the tests that we thought were most important. Pro 150fd: The photos I took show the difference pretty clearly between the two sets. It's the same exact source from the same exact blu-ray player at exactly the same frame. You may or may not notice any blur, so that's when other factors like price, footprint, viewing angles, etc. come into play. 27 - Posted by
Kolne
on November 16, 2008 - 12:01 pm I went to our local specialty house yesterday (Shimek's in Anchorage) to see what they have to offer. They have a 35" LaserVue hanging on the wall in a properly (relatively low) lit environment. 1080p signal. Truly awesome color presentation. And, yes, the red's do stand out. My impressions: a. the off-angle view was actually very impressive for RP technology. b. mildly disappointing graying of whites, with a particular image of someone placing kanji on white sheet, dimming out towards the top of the sheet. c. motion video was very impressive, though I'm not videophile. d. price of this iron match the color performing: truly stunning. 28 - Posted by
kolne
on November 16, 2008 - 12:02 pm Oops! Typo on that last note: 65". Sorry.
29 - Posted by
Kurtis
on November 16, 2008 - 10:40 pm Kolne: Thanks for sharing your impressions. One quick note, however, the viewing angle isn't any different on the LaserVue than it is on a lamp-based DLP. Which is to say, it's not great, but not so terrible as to be a deterrent for most people in most viewing environments.
30 - Posted by
Machster
on December 1, 2008 - 2:18 pm Is there the typical rainbow effect with this Laservue DLP? It seems to me that if this HDTV comes close to the Kuro then I would much rather have it as long as I don't see rainbows. I would never buy a plasma set. Burn-in risk makes the technology inappropriate for any kind of monitor.
31 - Posted by
Kurtis
on December 1, 2008 - 5:48 pm We didn't notice any rainbow effect, but that's something you can't really see on newer DLPs anymore anyways. And plasma burn-in, from everything I've heard anyways, isn't as much of a problem as it once was.
32 - Posted by
WelcomeToHell
on December 12, 2008 - 9:04 am When Mitsubishi finally starts LaserVu sales in Europe instead of crisis-struck USA ???
33 - Posted by
Kurtis
on December 12, 2008 - 2:40 pm They didn't say, but you'd have to guess once they introduce more models and really ramp up then they'll make it available elsewhere. So I'd assume some time next year.
34 - Posted by
Robert
on April 13, 2009 - 10:32 am Has Mitsubishi indicated if they might provide smaller sizes in this set sometime in the future? I thought it was very odd that they chose to only offer it in larger sizes. I would think sizes like 50, 55, and 60" would be much more popular than 65 and 73".
35 - Posted by
Kurtis
on April 13, 2009 - 8:08 pm New TVs tend to launch with large sizes that get the wow-factor. If you introduce exciting new technology in small sets, it's not as special - or at least that's how the folks in marketing see things. No official word on when we will see this in smaller sizes. 36 - Posted by
george
on April 29, 2009 - 12:15 pm its always amazing. every new tv that comes out is compared to the legendary Kuro. All have failed. Pioneer has stopped making tvs. The 2009 new models from every company are lagging behind the pio 8gs, let alone the 9gs. Maybe 2010 will be a closer match. We'll have to wait and see. It's hard to beat the King 37 - Posted by
PRO-111FD
on July 18, 2009 - 12:17 pm Pioneer pro-111fd is an amazing TV.
38 - Posted by
Quatre
on July 30, 2009 - 12:45 am Buy pioneer doesn't make a plasma larger then 60". Mitsubishi is coming out with a 67" laservue which is the sweet spot for me having a samsung 67" dlp and considering that Mitsubishi dlps used to go from 65" to 73" so I'm excited for the 67" size but am concerned about viewing angles as though I currently have 2 dlps, the room I have the 67" in and would replace with the 67"laservue when it comes out has seating with some angles that aren't straight on so better viewing angle may be a factor for me at least in that room. 39 - Posted by
Quatre
on July 30, 2009 - 12:50 am But pioneer doesn't make a plasma larger then 60" and I need a 67" or larger to upgrade my 67" s dlp and a 61" or larger to upgrade my 61" sam led dlp Mitsubishi is coming out with a 67" laservue which is the sweet spot for me having a samsung 67" dlp and considering that Mitsubishi dlps used to go from 65" to 73" so I'm excited for the 67" size but am concerned about viewing angles as though I currently have 2 dlps, the room I have the 67" in and would replace with the 67"laservue when it comes out has seating with some angles that aren't straight on so better viewing angle may be a factor for me at least in that room. Add Comment To add a comment without being a member, you may omit the password field, but you must enter your name (or nickname) along with your comment. * Denotes required fields. |
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