Mitsubishi LaserVue 65" HDTV

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Mitsubishi LaserVue 65" HDTV - We Meet Again

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Cameron Baker
Kurtis
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Oct. 17, 2008

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Conclusion

After a few hours of playing with two of the hottest HDTVs on the block, we decided to call it a day. My eyes were worn out, probably from being cooked by three different flavors of laser all morning, but I became intimate enough with Mitsubishi's flagship TV to voice my opinions about why you might want to think about setting up a date with the LaserVue.

After much discussion and wandering thought of the subject, we came to agreement about who this TV is for right now. If you are the kind of guy (or girl) who has to have the latest in tech, no matter what the cost - an early adopter, a frequent flyer on the bleeding edge - you'd be wise to take a closer look at the LaserVue. The picture quality is fantastic across the board, from unruly action flicks to serene, Sunrise Earth-like films.

And the colors. You're not going to find a set that is capable of displaying colors quite like this one. If you're a Nebraska fan or you cheer for a team sporting a cardinal for a mascot, you're set. If George A. Romero's film collection never leaves your Blu-Ray player, or you're a Republican, you'll love the LaserVue.

That's not to say that the LaserVue is the best HDTV display ever. That's a highly subjective designation, as we found from discussing the matter with Bjorn's staff, who eat, sleep, and breath high-end A/V gear. Some of them were smitten with the LaserVue's all-around picture quality. A few others still thought the Kuro was the set to beat. They talked about the tremendous black level capabilities and value-added features of Pioneer's plasma jewel in comparison to the Mitsubishi's average (for this price range) feature set and not-quite-as-deep blacks.

[UPDATE on 10-19-08: A couple of our readers have asked about viewing angles and power consumption... The Kuro kills the Mitsubishi in the viewing angles department. The LaserVue's is basically the same as a non-laser Mitsu DLP in this regard, whereas the Kuro looks like a [beautiful] picture hanging on the wall. If excellent viewing angles are at the top of your list of requirements, the LaserVue probably won't satisfy. In terms of power consumption, as we mentioned in our previous article, one of the long-term benefits of the LaserVue technology is a significantly lower level of power consumption compared to other HDTV technologies. The Kuro 60" plasma requires 524W for operation; a Sharp Aquos 65" LCD requires 525W; Mitsubishi's 65" LaserVue TV only needs 135W. On average, the LaserVue required one-third the power of a comparably sized LCD and one-fourth of a similar plasma set.]

At the end of the day, I think this tech is going to make a significant impact on future generations of DLP sets. The advantages run across the board, and the only real limiting factor at this point is price. If you've got the cheddar/jack/swiss/bleu (pick your variant of cheese, just make sure you've got lots of it) to put one of these in your living room, you won't regret it. It'll bring you Grade-A, bona fide HD satisfaction. Once the price inevitably drops, it's going to be even more attractive.

Once again, we'd like to thank the folks at Bjorn's for giving us the opportunity to get some one-on-one time with the LaserVue and Kuro.

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Page 1: Introduction, Test Setup
Page 2: Observations
Page 3: Conclusion

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33 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.

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