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Mitusbishi iSP LT-52149 LCD TV with integrated soundbar hands-on
No, it's not the hot new LaserVue set, but we've gotten to play with Mitsubishi's new LT-52149 120Hz LCD with integrated soundbar for a week or so now, and while we're impressed with the soundbar's simulated surround, the picture quality just isn't there on the $3,799 display. First off, we're not at all sold on the value of 120Hz dejuddering -- it makes everything look like it was shot on VHS on a soap opera set. We're totally unclear on who likes this, since we think it's pretty nasty. It does work well with sports programming, but for the most part we just left it off and didn't miss it. We also saw some gradient banding issues on HD content, and SD looked terrible, leading us to believe the built-in scaler isn't all that great -- an issue on a large 1080p set where almost everything has be scaled or deinterlaced in some way. That said, there's always a chance we didn't spend enough time tweaking settings, since Mitsu lets you get pretty deep -- we liked the PerfectColor adjustments, and the discrete brightness and backlight controls were much appreciated. Speaking of which, the backlight is one of the brightest we've ever seen, and it makes a huge impression when you first see the display -- it's incredibly vibrant. Too bad the image quality didn't hold up to harsher scrutiny -- the integrated soundbar is super easy to set up, sounds good, and would have made this set a perfect choice for rooms where traditional surround systems don't work. As it is, however, we just can't see dropping nearly four grand on a less-than-perfect picture. Check the gallery for some more hands-on shots.%Gallery-35635%
Mitsubishi's new iSP 149 series LCDs have it all in one place
If you're a lazy ass consumer (the very best kind), bent on pulling a device out of the box, plugging it into a wall, and never messing with another bit of "setup" again, you're certainly not alone. In fact, most folks never lift a finger to calibrate their displays, plug better speakers in, or place those speakers in actually advantageous spots. To that end, Mitsubishi is debuting its new LT-46149 and LT-52149 LCDs with integrated 16-speaker sound projectors. Similar to the sound bars offered up by many home audio manufacturers, the "Integrated Sound Projector" (iSP) is designed to bounce sound off walls and around the room to give the illusion of surround sound. The perk of TV integration is an easy to use room configuration on-screen tool to specify your room's dimensions, couch placement and preferred sweet spot size. At the end of the day, your sound is all coming from one spot, so directionality isn't going to quite match a for-realsie surround sound setup, and the system we listened to was a little sharp in the high end, but it's certainly a unique and appealing offering from Mitsu to the everyman TV watcher. The TV itself is CableCard ready, can support sound over HDMI and PCM inputs, and offers Mitsu's 120Hz film dejuddering -- that rather awkwardly makes your favorite films look like they were shot by a TV news crew. The 46-inch and 52-inch LCDs will sell for $3,299 and $3,699, respectively.
