The Datacolor ColorFacts CIE Chart is used to display the colors the Proton LX-37B1C2's LCD television is able to reproduce. This appears as a white triangle overtop of a darker triangle which represents the gamut of colors in the HDTV-capable range. The full "shark fin" chart is a representation of everything we are capable of seeing with the human eye.

This color gamut triangle on the CIE chart determines how "deep" or "rich" the colors will be from a display. For instance, a Red primary that is too high on the chart will indicate that the display device may only be able to produce an orange-red instead of a deep red. Similarly, a Green primary that is too low may indicate that the display device will produce greens that are closer to yellow than what may be desirable. A wide color gamut indicates that the device is able to produce rich, saturated colors.

Please note that since the AVIA Pro calibration disc was used for this test, the results may be slightly different when run from a higher quality source such as a test signal generator. We chose to use AVIA Pro so that we could calibrate the entire system using the full DVD-to-television path.

Perfect Score is 130
Proton LX-37B1C2 Benchmark Score: 15 (don't expect this TV to do any deinterlacing or noise reduction, simply use it with a good quality source component)

As you can see, the Proton television does not contain a sophisticated deinterlacer or noise reduction engine. As such, we simply recommend that you use it with a high quality source component. There is no reason why you shouldn't be completely satisfied with this television if you are feeding it with a relatively good quality DVD player or cable/satellite box. Remember, if you are feeding a progressive signal to a television, it is not handling deinterlacing, jaggie reduction, or cadence detection, only scaling of the image to the display's native resolution.

After running the measurements and test patterns I decided to pop in a few movies to see how the Proton television played some of my favorite test scenes. I chose the following movies and scenes because I wanted to specifically evaluate color reproduction, detail, and noise reduction. Viewing distance was 10 feet from the display in a light-controlled environment (but not completely darkened). The reference player, a Denon DVD-5900, was connected to the Proton LX-37B1C2 via component as this is likely to be the most commonly used input on this set which lacks HDCP support. All viewing tests were viewed at 480p and were performed after the television was calibrated via the User-level controls. The HQV video test results above are moot since we were using the deinterlacer and video processing found in our reference DVD player to drive these viewing sessions.

The color and picture was phenomenal. I would describe the color detail as being rich and extremely vibrant, yet not oversaturated. There were no issues of noise in this film since it was 100% CG. Dark scenes, like those in the shark's den showed acceptable black detail for an LCD panel. Except for during the darkest scenes, I was pleased overall with the detail available and didn't find the occasional crushed blacks to be overly distracting. In general, I almost couldn't believe the incredible picture quality. There is a scene where Oscar, the "shark slayer", confronts the Godfather. The skin detail on each of the sharks was fantastic. When Lola entered the scene, her hair and facial texture almost popped off the screen.

This movie stars Val Kilmer and is a great DVD in that it has lots of natural detail and plenty of scenes that challenge a display's capability to handle low black levels. There isn't a lot of edge enhancement present on the transfer (it's certainly no Tombstone Vista Series) though I did note a bit of it in some places. The variety of shooting locations made for some diverse and revealing viewing material. It was with this real film material that I had a chance to observe the way the set dealt with in-motion picture detail. There were a lot of handheld-style camera shots in this film which demonstrated the Proton LCD TV's speed and refresh agility in handling fast motion without causing images to blur. Close-ups of faces and the bark texture on trees consistently demonstrated a strong aptitude for keeping and holding detail during motion-intensive scenes. A night scene revealed some of the black level limitations with some content below 20 IRE appearing almost black and lacking in the detail that was most certainly present on the source.

Whenever facial close-ups came on the screen, such as when one of the main characters gets behind a sniper rifle mid-way through the movie, the textures and resolution are breathtaking. This television has an uncanny strength when it comes to showing off its resolution. A lot of times LCD TVs will show good resolution on ground, a tree, or a facial close-up, only to blur when the head turns or scene is put into motion and travels across the screen. The Proton could lock onto detail and hold the resolution across the screen.

Hulk is an example of a movie that almost constantly mixes CGI and actual location shots - making for a nice combination of real footage and clean computer animated elements. There is a gamma ray/nano-med sequence involving a frog that delivers plenty of opportunity to check out skin detail as well as fine hair and skin detail present on Eric Bana and Jennifer Connelly. Later in the movie there were some fantastic shots during a helicopter dual with the Hulk in the desert. This just firmed up for me that CG and animation are what really shine on this television - not to the exclusion of film material mind you, but in a way that is simply worthy of note.

A couple chapters later, airborne water shots, including some underwater explosions and a suspension bridge, painted a perfectly detailed image that all looked magnificent. Subsequent cityscapes and street-level shots showed off just how perfectly a well-lit film-based scene could look on the Proton. This movie really made the LX-37B1C2 shine.

Watching cable television on the Proton LX-37B1C2 was the only place where I would recommend trying to use a better quality external cable box. Football games, Nascar races, etc had a tendency to reveal the poor deinterlacing ability of the set (as did any material with lots of diagonal lines moving across the screen). Color was always superb and the Proton never smeared images - the pixel response time was very quick. On more than one occasion (but not so much as to qualify as epidemic) the television would freeze up when entering a channel directly on the remote. The only way to free up the TV was to do a hard boot (hit the main power button on the front of the unit). This happened a total of 4 times over the course of a month. Overall I was pleased with the tuner performance. Changing channels was pretty responsive and the remote had a channel recall feature which I feel is important.

The Proton LCD television is a fast response display with more than enough resolution to satisfy. While it is not a good deinterlacer, using it as a monitor and pairing it with some good quality source components makes for a very pleasing viewing experience. Calibration options are meager but a few gems like User-configurable color temperature and backlight control stand out. The addition of RGB gain/cut in future models would make the user settings even better. We would love to see a better video processor for watching cable TV, but the excellent picture quality and color reproduction more than compensate for some shortcomings.

MSRP: $2999