Westchester County, NY-flat panel retailer ValueElectronics.com has contracted with a charter member of the Image Science Foundation (ISF) and other video engineers to evaluate the newest flagship flat panel HDTVs from the five leading manufacturers on Saturday, September 17, at 6:00 PM and Sunday, September 18, at 1:00 PM. The seventh annual event, held at Value Electronics’ retail location in Scarsdale, NY, will feature a shoot-out evaluation using Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers’ (SMPTE) standards, the only accredited calibration standards set by the consumer electronics industry.
The televisions featured are all 55-inch to 65-inch high-end LEDs and plasmas from Panasonic, Samsung, LG, Sony, and Elite. The events will be streamed live over the internet [at www.valueelectronics.com] and made available for future viewing. Consumers and media representatives are also invited to attend, however seating is limited to 30 per event and available on a first-come-first served basis by registering.
Robert Zohn, founder and president of Value Electronics, commented: “Our Shoot-out has proven to be a must attend event among true HD enthusiasts and industry leaders each year, featuring a demonstration of how flat screen HDTVs perform as they come out of the box in their standard mode, and then again when they are professionally calibrated to ISF standards. ValueElectronics is the only company to conduct an independent test of HD panels simultaneously on all leading brands.”
Kevin Miller, of ISFTV and TweakTV, along with expert calibrators D-Nice and Ed Johnson, will calibrate the seven flat panels and provide their findings and other key background information in individual presentations. The evaluation of contrast ratio, peak brightness, black level, color accuracy, color saturation, motion resolution and energy efficiency will be measured and discussed. All the high-end models to be tested are 3D capable, so ValueElectronics will be evaluating 3D performance as well. The audience will vote on each of the four picture quality attributes, with the winning panel crowned “King of HDTV.”
All tested panels will be concurrently fed through a professional HDMI distribution amp from the same Blu-ray player using the exact same HDMI cables for all panels. The a/c power will be a dedicated 20 amp circuit run through a power conditioner. A Q&A session will be held at the end of each presentation.
“In addition to the tested panels, several manufacturers are expected to display and provide information about advanced products that will launch in the future, with image and audio that provides a true reference quality for the audiophile and videophile,” Zohn said.