Nec PX-42XR4A brochure

BY ROBERT HERON

T

he NEC 42XR4 ($3,995 list) is the
most impressive a 42-inch plas-

ma display panel that PC Maga­zine has tested to date. It doesn't
include many extras, and its advanced
picture controls demand professional
setup, but with some tweaking, this
TV's accurate and faithful video repro­duction is a pleasure for the eyes.

Except for the power cord and remote
control, all accessories for the 42XR4,
such as speakers and mounting hard­ware, must be purchased separately. The
benefit of this à la carte arrangement is
that owners don't pay extra for things
they may not want or use. The downside,
of course, is that they must consider their
setup needs and purchase the appropri­ate hardware for the display. For our re­view, NEC provided the remarkably
sturdy PX-ST2U ($292 list) swivel table
stand, which offers about 10 degrees of
rotation left and right (20 degrees total).
This is definitely not a plug-and-play dis­play; securing the 60-pound 42XR4 onto
its new perch is best accomplished with
the aid of a second pair of hands. Com­fortable handholds on the rear of the
42XR4 helped reduce the risk of damage
to the display (or to the people lifting it)
during setup.

The 42XR4's thin black bezel has a
matte finish, which helps suppress the re­flection of ambient light sources. Silver

trim outlining the edge of the display was
attractive yet not distracting. The on-dis­play controls located under the left side of
the 42XR4 are slightly recessed into the
frame, keeping them out of sight but still
accessible. A small power indicator light
on the bottom right edge was appropriate­ly unnoticeable unless you looked for it.
The included remote control is a slender,
comfortable device with relatively few but­tons. The remote performed flawlessly
when we tried it from various angles and
distances, but as it has no backlight and the
keys don't glow, it's pretty hard to use in
dimly lit environments.

All A/V inputs on the 42XR4 are
grouped on a downward-facing block
on the rear of the display. The selection
of connections includes two HDMI in­puts, a pair of component video inputs,
and a VGA input for PC use. The tight
clearance between the inputs and the
top of the table stand required our pre­mium cables to make a 90-degree bend
close to the connection. But this con­figuration did prevent the cables from
being visible from the front of the dis­play. The 42XR4 is officially labeled a
monitor, since it lacks a television tuner
(DTV or otherwise). For cable and
satellite set-top box users, the lack of a
tuner is mostly irrelevant. But an inte-

grated DTV tuner would have been a
useful inclusion for those who enjoy
the superb quality of digital broadcast
television.

The 42XR4 has a native resolution of
1,024 by 768 pixels. That means that it
has 150,000 fewer pixels than a standard
720p broadcast signal. In general, 42­inch plasma TVs such as the 42XR4 are
considered high-definition displays,
since they offer at least 720 lines of ver­tical resolution. Horizontal resolution is
not a factor in the established definition
of what counts as "HD."

After connecting our standard and
high-definition sources, I found the
42XR4's default brightness (black
level) settings caused the darker de­tails of the picture to disappear into
the background. Color saturation ap­peared good, but the monitor's default
color temperature resulted in whites
appearing a bit cool (bluish). The de­fault picture settings for displays are
rarely optimal (except for standing out
on a store shelf), so increasing the
42XR4's brightness and adjusting the

NEC 42XR4

THE INDEPENDENT GUIDE TO TECHNOLOGY MARCH 22, 2006

EDITOR RATING

VERY GOOD

“The NEC

42XR4 offers

the best

picture quality

of any 42-

inch plasma

TV we have

seen to date.”

color temperature preset to low re­turned the lost dark details while pro­ducing the most natural-looking
imagery to my trained eyes.

The 42XR4's menu system appears
bland when compared with some of the
more colorful interfaces we've seen on
other consumer televisions (Samsung's
TVs spring immediately to mind), but
though the simple text menus lack vi­sual appeal, they are easy to read and
navigate. And for professional calibra­tors and videophiles, the 42XR4 offers
an advanced menu that provides a
comprehensive set of image controls
that are second only to those on the
Brillian 6501mPB in terms of available
options from a user-accessible menu.

Contrast ratios, certainly the most
abused statistic in the world of con-

sumer televisions, are calculated by
measuring the light output of a white
test pattern and dividing the result by a
similar measurement of a black test
pattern. By itself, this dynamic range
calculation doesn't reveal how bright
an image a particular display will pro­duce, nor if the display's representation
of black will appear inky dark or have
more of a grayish glow. Interestingly,
the specs for the 42XR4 listed on the
company's Web site don't include con­trast-ratio information. But after cali­bration, the 42XR4 produced an ANSI
contrast ratio of 1,001:1, the best among
all displays (plasma or otherwise) that
we have tested to date. Impressive
black-level measurements (0.15
Cd/m^2) were responsible for that out­standing result, and only in a pitch­black room (like our test lab) would
you notice the slight glow of video
black on this display. Compared with

the Panasonic TH-42PX50U, a more af­fordable 42-inch plasma TV, the
42XR4's black levels were almost three
times as dark, improving the percep­tion of contrast in the picture, particu­larly in dimly lit viewing environments.
When you are viewing letterboxed
movies, the black bars will appear black
instead of dark-gray.

Prior to calibration, the 42XR4 ex­hibited a slight greenish tint in the dark­est portions of the grayscale, with the
image becoming more bluish toward
the bright (white) end of the scale. I
also noticed greenish dark grays in the
black bars of letterboxed movies such
as The Fifth Element. These color­tracking errors were corrected using
the 42XR4's advanced menu features,
and post-calibration, the display's re-

sponse was admirably consistent.

The 42XR4 is better than most dis­plays "out of the box," but proper cali­bration, including black-level and color
adjustments, transform a relatively
good plasma TV into one that grabs
your attention with its natural-looking
imagery. More important, the necessary
controls were accessible from the user
menus and didn't require a trip into the
arcane world of a display's internal ser­vice menus.

Considering that 42-inch high-defini­tion plasma displays have lower resolu­tion than 50-inch (or larger) models, the
42XR4 was better than other 42-inch
plasmas we have seen at scaling video
into its native resolution. HDMI video
input provided the best overall imagery;
component video input introduced slight
amounts of noise with 720p and 1080i
signals. The 42XR4 passed aspect-ratio
and geometry tests with all resolutions

and inputs. This means a video image of
a circle will appear circular and not flat­tened or otherwise stretched, as we saw
recently with the Dell W5001C. Over­scan with widescreen video formats was
less than one percent, which is very
good.

I use the HQV Benchmark DVD to
evaluate a display's video-processing
performance when displaying standard
definition (480i) content—similar to
traditional broadcast television. The
42XR4 managed a good HQV result by
providing excellent noise-reduction
abilities without softening image detail.
Deinterlacing was also impressive, with
no noted jagged edges in the synthetic
portions of the test or in the video clip
of the waving flag. The classic racetrack
scene that uses film-based video (24
frames per second) revealed that 3:2
pulldown engaged quickly, preventing
distracting moiré artifacts from ap­pearing in the grandstands. This indi­cates that the video processor is
throwing away half of the visual infor­mation. The beginning of chapter 12 of
the DVD movie Gladiator is a great
check for 3:2 pulldown problems, as the
slow panning shot of the bird statue
with its horizontal lines can turn into a
jagged, blurry mess if not properly
processed. The 42XR4 handled this
challenging scene perfectly.

The 42XR4 is a 42-inch plasma dis­play that, post-calibration, delivered the
most impressive imagery that we have
seen from any plasma TV in its class.
Subjectively, both DVD movies and
HDTV appear pleasingly correct, with
accurate colors and detailed imagery.
The 42XR4 strikes me as a great plasma
display that was designed for profes­sional installation. The à la carte acces­sories and the advanced menu options
(which can be hidden when not in use)
are ideal for customizing the display to
its owner. Yes, the 42XR4 costs more
than most other 42-inch plasma dis­plays, but I have yet to see a 42-inch TV
come this close to image perfection.

NEC Visual Systems Division

www.necvisualsystems.com

B

OTTOM LINE: The NEC 42XR4 offers the best picture

quality of any 42-inch plasma TV we have seen to date.
But its premium price doesn't include many extras, the
remote is near-useless in the dark, and to get the most
out of it you'll need to have it professionally calibrated.

P

ROS: Exceptional image quality. Comprehensive display

control options.

C

ONS: Remote lacks backlight. No extras bundled in.

Pricey.

llllm

Reprinted from PC Magazine, March 22, 2006 with permission from Ziff Davis Media Inc.

©2006 Ziff Davis Publishing Holdings Inc. All rights reserved.