Testing Black Levels, Shadow details, etc.

[just4kix]

Yesterday I was (re) watching The Da Vinci Code. The whole movie has considerable dark/night scenes. The Smartcar chase, Robert and Sofie in the park, Chateau Villette, Robert/Sofie/Teabing discussing the grail, scenes at Temple, Rosslyn Chapel, etc. etc.

The ST50 showed excellent blacks and shadows. For example, I could make out the shelves in the background, books and scrolls in the shelves, statues in the background with their dithered surface, etc. So many details are not observed if I watch the same scenes on CRT but of course CRT is not FHD, not even HD-R, just SD.

I would like to confirm how it looks on other TVs - plasma and LEDs alike. My co-brother has Samsung 5 Series but does not have a BDP. I would like to test it sometime. Meanwhile, please share your experiences. Thanks.

Cheers.

 

[k11]

Don't the CRTs have better blacks.

Our old Goldstar is not bad on blacks. Trinitons, esp older foreign made ones, were very good too.

 

[just4kix]

Better blacks alone is not enough. The capability to display the entire spectrum is equally important. The SD picture will not contains details.

 

[shanmune]

Better blacks alone is not enough. The capability to display the entire spectrum is equally important. The SD picture will not contains details.

Right. In fact many people who are new to Plasma would always assume "dithering noise" as a negative phenomenon of the Plasma TVs, but actually the dithering only adds more accuracy and depth to the shadow details. In fact "shadow details" is one of the important attributes of the picture quality and that is very difficult or the most challenging part for any display TV to potray with accuracy and depth. Chad B once said about the dithering noise on his GT50. When he was calibrating his GT50, he found the dithering noise to be more on GT50, but he later found that it was only adding mode details and depth to the shadows.

Let me comment what I see on my Triniton CRT. It is very good with the SD when it comes to potraying true black color. I do see this only with quality DVDs and not on other sources. When I say true black color, it is not about one region on the screen being too black and the other part being too bright. The true black I meant is when there is a mixture of both black and white (or other colors) - for example - I can think of a pure black car standing with sun light beaming on it and it was absolutely a mixture of both black and sun light reflections. It is awesome on my CRT, but the shadow details looks slightly washed away (I guess - because of not being HD-R or HD). I cannot imagine how HD CRTs will look like and it is unfortunate that major brands stopped making HD CRTs for more slimmer flat panel displays. I guess nothing would come close to a HD CRT. I guess the last available HD CRT was only up to 720p if I am right. Any way, when I buy a flat panel display, I will look for all these attributes.

 

[viper08]

I guess nothing would come close to a HD CRT.

+1. I have seen a working Sony HD CRT and still believe nothing would come close till date. I wished for it but was too expensive. Its shame they got outdated just before the beginning of HD era.