Proton LCD Menu System, Remote & Calibration

• DVI-D
• VGA/RBG/HD15 (up to 1280x1024 @ 60Hz, or 1024x768 @ 75Hz)
• Memory card (CF/MicroDrive/SM/MS/SD/MMC)
• Component video (2) [480i/480p/720p/1080i]
• Composite/S-video (2)

Switching inputs is accomplished through the remote - but be quick, the menu only stays up for about 2 seconds. Hitting the "Source" button brings up a menu of input choices (including the "Card Reader" and TV tuner inputs). You can either continue pressing the "Source" button to toggle through your options (stopping activates that input after a brief delay), or use the remote control's navigation keys to scroll up or down (and hit the "OK" button to select).

Both of the component inputs can handle 480i, 480p, 720p or 1080i input. All inputs retain their own picture settings - a big plus and considered a requirement for any serious display. The menu system is broken up into six icon-labeled sections for layout, picture, window, audio, options, and settings.

This menu section controls the picture-inon-picture and split-screen functions. There are four options. The first two, full screen and PIP, can also be cycled and accessed via the remote control's PIP button. The last two are somewhat special and involve split screen and multi-view modes. We mentioned the pop 3 mode earlier when we outlined some of the Proton's features, but it's important to note that it does this multi-channel update feature with only a single NTSC tuner, cycling through each channel as needed to update the image (the channels freeze during the cycle period). You can also feed any of the AV inputs into these screens should you really want to multitask.

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 color temperature settings plus a fourth "user" setting whereby you can dial in the color temperature incrementally to a desired value (there is no numeric designation). A "digital focus" setting seems to act as a sort of noise reduction circuit and makes analogue cable channels look quite a bit better, reducing some of the grain inherent in those lower channels.

A room lighting feature has 4 settings allowing you to alter the gamma settings of the display for Normal, Bright, Movie, or Factory modes. Factory supports the best black levels, but you can use the "Movie" or "Bright" modes for daytime viewing once you have calibrated the system for nighttime use.

The window menu, like all of the menu items is contextually aware and features settings and controls for image size (aspect ratio and zoom control), h position, v position, pip size, pip position, freeze window, and digital pan and zoom. Most of these features are self explanatory; however the image size is the one that will likely get used the most. Here is how the settings affect a simple 4:3 circle crosshatch pattern:

As you can see, the Normal and Anamorphic settings perform as you would expect (and I noticed only a few pixels of difference between Anamorphic and Fill All). The Zoom mode maintains the aspect ratio when viewing 4:3 content on a 16:9 screen by simply enlarging the picture to where the top and bottom are lopped off, leaving the center to fill the entire screen. Video Game Zoom vertically compresses the image a bit in order to net a bit more screen real estate for heads up displays and CG data that is common in games. The Wide setting cuts off a little bit of the top and bottom in order to deliver a slightly more true-to-shape image over Anamorphic. I was disappointed to not find a logarithmic scalable mode whereby the center of the screen remains less horizontally stretched than the edges. Many new displays have this and it is a very effective way to stretch 4:3 content to fit on a 16:9 television.

No remote will ever make everyone happy. This remote is sufficient to the task of getting the job done, but does run into some significant failings. The IR sensitivity is way too low. We put in fresh batteries and if you do not point the remote within 5 degrees or so of the IR sensor on the TV, it is likely that the command will not be interpreted and carried out (we were only 10 feet away). I like a little bit more leeway with my remote controls. The button arrangements are good, but not great. No backlighting is provided and the keys do not glow. Depending upon what menu function you are using, navigating images on a memory stick for example, you may find yourself using the outside volume and channel buttons instead of the more sensible arrow pad to navigate around the interface.

The top of the remote has the navigation keys for using the menu system as well as volume and channel buttons. The navigation area is bordered by four buttons which engage the menu, mute, source and power functions. "Menu" and "Source" can be toggled or you can interact with the navigation controls to make selections.

There are four colored buttons on the remote, however the manual does not tell you much about them let alone if they are programmable (we do not believe they are). Here is an Audioholics exclusive:

• Red - Adjusts PIP size
• Green - Swaps PIP
• Yellow - Turns PIP on and off
• Blue - Toggles the PIP mode and/or movies it if engaged.

The upper button section features a numeric keypad, but also performs double duty as controls for memory card functions. With them you can browse, zoom, rotate, and increment photos as well as engage a slideshow and show the photos as black & white images. A dedicated setup menu allows you to set the slideshow delay, select the card source, adjust the display mode (full screen or actual image proportions), set the slideshow transitions, erase photos or display photo information.

We used Datacolor's Colorfacts Professional 5.0 software to measure and help calibrate this LCD television. It allowed us to evaluate grayscale uniformity and contrast on the set as well as generate some telling histograms and CIE information. The worst thing I could say about the Proton television in terms of its default calibration was that it's color temperature is a bit high, making skin tones and such a tad on the blue side. The default Color Temp setting is medium, but we recommend setting it to just above the "low" value by using the User controls to manual adjust it. The other thing I quickly noted was that black levels at the bottom end 2.5-20 IRE were crushed - meaning you couldn't differentiate anything from 0-20 IRE. After turning down the backlight to 50% I was able to get much better dark resolution without reducing the overall contrast ratio (in fact it increased it by exactly 1 to 113:1 ANSI). While this isn't the best contrast ratio we've measured, the real-world picture quality still seems quite reasonable.