Motion blur has been a big topic in the world of HDTV for as long as we can remember, but it wasn't
until recently that someone figured out a way to test it in a non-subjective way. Our friend Gary Merson -- aka the HD Guru -- actually got his hands on 125 2008 model HDTVs and not only ran them through all the more traditional tests like 3:2 pull-down, and de-interlacing, but also tried out his resolution motion loss test that indicates how many lines of resolution a set is capable of displaying when there is motion -- yeah, so like most of the time. For the most part Pioneer plasmas ruled the charts at about 900 lines, as expected, but the real surprise is that the ultimate winner was the Samsung
LN-46A950 -- in fact it was the only 1080 set to actually display all 1080 lines when there was motion (but only in one specific setting, other settings were as low as 330 lines!). What's more of a reason for 46A950 fans to rejoice in is that most 120Hz LCDs were closer to 600 lines, so it really is in a league of its own in regards to LCDs. These stats are fun and all, but we'd like to remind you while you download the PDF and check ou the specs on the latest sets, that specs seldom ever tell the whole story, so we still recommend buying with your eyes instead of a spec sheet.
posted Sep 29th 2008 8:51AM
FullHD my A**. I love how some many drool after "1080p" LCDs when they clearly look blurry. People need to realize that when you watch a blu-ray disc, the only static screens are the FBI warning, and rating screens, so the motion resolution test results give the real-world resolution of the HDTV. I wish Gary had a test for 720, because it would show that 720p Plasmas display higher resolution than 1080p "FullHD" LCDs.
an important point though; the LN-46A950 can not show that much motion resolution and still pass the 3:2 pulldown test. the mode activated to pass that test reduces the motion resolution to 330 lines. the pioneers just plain pass and still with 83% of its available resolution being used. they are easily the winners of this test IMO. it will be nice to see if they can keep this up with their lcd models
I don't give a flying crap what these tests say, for my money I will not buy an LCD over a Plasma. I would hate to think this test would convince anyone to buy a Samsung LCD over a KURO, that would just be stupid.
Actually the test shows that LCDs suck in resolution. Only one LCD is an exception and it can't pass the 3:2 pulldown test. Remove that Samsung, and the list is topped with plasma displays. The test ultimately proves you right.
A lot of these number figures are pure sensationalism bull crap in real life. Watching a blu-ray on a 1080p set with a supposed 330 lines of resolution in motion is pretty much guaranteed to look better than a 480p signal, even if the 480p signal is 100% reproduced. At least that's what I believe.
And his praise of samsung is somewhat unfounded because many other samsung sets can't even do full 1080 according to his numbers in static. The 1080p samsung I bought (LN40A650) supposedly can only reproduce 900 lines IN STATIC!!!
Out of all the Panasonic products he couldn't get a motion blur rating for a 50" 1080P. Why no blur information on 768P displays?
Those of you commenting DID read the article and report, right? His test were run on 1080i content (max resolution for broadcast), not 1080p. Unless I'm missing something somewhere?
Initially I thought (hoped ?) this was a review of HDTV channels which was going to finally give proof to how incredibly poor cable HDTV is.
Maybe they could somehow do a standardized test of that?
We're sick and tired of the HD ads from various companies claiming to be the best when the majority of their stations are just a pixelated headache. So many times it is like watching amateur webcasts.
Btw. We have Time Warner Cable (since they bought Adelphia)
What about rear projection TVs , like DLP , LCOS , HDILA , do those have low rez on motion also?
Despite using wobulation, DLPs usually have anywhere from 600-850 lines of motion resolution.
If we ever saw 3 chip DLP TVs using 1920x1080 DMD panels it's likely we'd see full motion resolution.
That's it... I'm waiting for OLED mass-production and -adoption.
again... proves Plasma is better than LCD. I hope everybody begins to realize this cause it bugs me so much that so many people are misinformed.