PD50A Menu System & Remote Control

The Optoma PD50A correctly allows for independent user settings for each input, subject to the particular and disclosed grouping of s-video and composite connections, which make up the AV1 input.

Switching inputs is accomplished through the remote - but in an oddly quirky manner. Custom installers will want to utilize RS-232C control to make input adjustments as the IR remote commands have two separate source toggle buttons ("Video" and "Data") which make for a very non-standard interface. The Logitech Harmony 880 universal remote, for example, never really adapted to the rather odd input selection methodology and I could hardly fault the remote in this instance. The dual buttons were intended to lessen the amount of toggling that needed to be done to cycle inputs, but the result wreaks havoc with "state aware" remote controls. The way it functions is:

Video Source

• TV
• AV1 (composite & s-video)
• AV2 (480i YPbPr)
• HD1 (480i/480p/720p/1080i YPbPr)
• HD2 (VGA.HD15)

Data Source

• Digital DVI-HDCP
• Analogue DVI

Both of the component inputs can handle 480i, but only the HD1 input will support 480p, 720p or 1080i input signals. As mentioned above, all sources retain their own picture settings - a big plus and considered a requirement for any serious display. The menu system is broken up into seven icon-labeled sections for layout, picture, window, audio, options, and settings. Coincidentally, the Optoma uses a different iteration of the software found in our prior review of the Proton 37" LCD TV.

PIP/POP

This menu section controls the picture-in/on-picture and split-screen functions. There are three options. The first two, full screen and PIP, can also be cycled and accessed via the remote control's PIP button. The last involves a split screen mode. There isn't much here to shout about, but for those who enjoy using PIP and POP functions, the Optoma provides all of the basic needs. Side by side Split Screens are extremely handy with widescreen televisions as the format is more conducive to viewing two programs at once (particularly sporting events - like trying to stay abreast of two different football games on Sunday afternoon.)

Picture

The picture menu is by far the most feature-packed section of the user menu. It features color, tint, sharpness, contrast & brightness settings. There are also three mode settings but the Optoma lacks the all important color temperature and "user" settings found in other displays implementing this software. All-in-all, there is not much users can do to improve the picture quality once black and white levels are configured. If future iterations of these Optoma displays added functional color temperature settings and RGB gain and cut controls this would transform this product into a much more powerful and feature-rich display.

Screen

The Screen menu, like all of the menu items is contextually aware and features settings and controls for image size (controlling aspect ratio and zoom). Most of these features are self explanatory, but here is a simple description of how they affect the input signal:

• Full: This stretches the input signal to the width of the display while maintaining correct aspect ratios for DVDs. Use for 16:9 HDTV content and widescreen anamorphic DVDs.
• Native: This displays the source in a pixel-to-pixel mapped area of the screen. For DVDs, that means that approximately 720x480 pixels are utilized out of the 1366x768 available. This is a 1:1 pixel map of the source content, resulting in a nicely crisp picture; however the unused space is a significant waste of screen real-estate.
• 4:3: This scales input signals vertically to 768 pixels, resulting in a 1024x768 pixel structure being utilized in the middle of the screen with the left and right portions of the screen remaining black.
• Stretch: This is a non-linear scaling mode that takes 4:3 material and fits it to the 16:9 aspect ratio of the screen while keeping center-focused content less scaled than the outer edges. This is handy for watching television, provided there is not a ton of left to right movement.
• Wide: This mode takes the incoming signal and stretches it to extend past the boundaries of the screen. This would perhaps be a good fit for those people who absolutely hate to see black bars on movies. The sacrifice here is correct aspect ratio and some picture content.

Audio, Settings & Options

These three Setup menu areas are not in the least confusing or complicated. Audio allows adjustment of bass, treble and balance and also allows you to engage a proprietary virtual surround mode that adds some artificial spaciousness from two speakers. An MTS audio selection is also provided for SAP, mono and stereo settings. We recommend keeping the surround function off, but bass and treble controls can be utilized to provide a minor amount of broadband adjustment to help compensate for any room issues you may have such a boundary gain. The Settings menu should probably have been combined with the Options menu.,It allows language selection, setting the OSD (on-screen display) timeout and engaging of a "screen safe mode" which is a cryptic (i.e. not explained in the manual or easily experienced) function that helps alleviate image retention issues should you find that there is such a problem on your display. The Options menu, sets closed captioning (including the mode) and content blocking, or parental controls as we tend to call them.

Tuner

The Tuner menu is one of the first places you'll stop if you are planning on utilizing the television's NTSC tuner. This is where you select whether antenna or cable is entering the television via the RF input and engage the "autoset" mode to automatically locate and add active channels into the tuner. You can select cable type as we mentioned earlier to better fine tune your reception choices and you can also manually add or delete channels from those programmed during the initial "autoset" session.

Remote Control

I really liked this remote overall. I found it a bit finicky at times with regard to sensitivity and how accurately I needed to point it at the IR sensor on the Optoma plasma TV, but overall it was simple yet sufficient. The dual source buttons were a place where I felt some discontent, but only because of what it meant to universal remote control functionality. It made it nearly impossible to program due to a lack of direct inputs (and the dual buttons, while nice for the user, resulted in a somewhat confused direct-select/toggle hybrid). Every manufacturer of display devices should take note - there aren't such a terrific amount of inputs that they cannot discretely be included on the remote control. It makes macro programming so much easier and takes a load of time out of switching inputs.

Navigation, volume and channel selection buttons were well laid out and the buttons themselves, and the remote in general, had a nice feel in the hand. I am a fan of vertical channel and volume buttons, so I wouldn't mind seeing that changed, but they were not completely horizontal so it wasn't terribly perplexing to get a feel for which buttons to press for what. The entire remote is somewhat flipped from the norm, with the number pad being located at the top of the unit, but I think this actually worked quite well in practical use.

The favorite channel functionality built into the remote was a nice touch and made quick work out of skipping the 80% of useless drivel that occupies the cable TV lineup these days. Adding and subtracting channels to the favorites list was as easy as pressing a button.

There are some fun "toys" on the remote as well (in addition to PIP functions). DISPLAY shows the active source, FREEZE grabs the current image on screen and holds it, and ZOOM gives you steps of magnification (2x/4x/9x/16x) on the current input while in Full Screen mode. For those night owls, there is even a remote control-activated sleep timer that can be set to shut the TV off after 30/60/90/120 minutes.