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(A waving American flag, where the jagged lines are easy to spot between the red and white stripes, is a standard test on several calibration discs.) The Sceptre also navigated trickier tests like a film-to-video sequence that causes the picture on many HDTVs to dissolve into a moire pattern.
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Everybody dreams big, but HDTVs 26 inches and smaller exist for the realities of a kitchen, home office or dorm room. Sceptre ? an off-brand found at retailers like Sears, Target and Costco ? is trying to work its way into the smaller corners of your life with a new series of fashionably dressed small-fry LCD screens. The X240CC-FHD I've been auditioning lately is a 24-inch screen bordered in chrome, though only the base qualifies as real-metal chrome. The bezel is actually plastic, a silvery, chrome-like plastic.
The set also comes in red, blue, pink and basic black. The Sceptre, at $400, is not an inexpensive 24-incher, but it has more than good looks to justify its price. Where many undersize sets are still 720p, the Sceptre is 1080p, or full HD. The optimum viewing distance for this size is a little more than 3 feet. Any farther and your eyes will not discern the sharpness in the additional lines of resolution.
The Sceptre is also ecologically sympathetic. This Energy Star 3.0-rated set drew slightly less than 33 watts in my tests when displaying HD programming from a cable set-top box. In stand-by mode, the Sceptre used no more than half a watt ? a fraction of the typical TV or DVD player.
When setting up a new HDTV, the first thing any new owner should do is calibrate the set ? adjust basic settings for brightness, contrast, color saturation, sharpness and, when applicable, backlighting. It takes more thana trained eye: I use a basic test disc calledthe HDTV Calibration Wizard (about $20 at Amazon. com).
Most HDTVs arrive from the factories juiced up in "Vivid" picture mode, brightness and contrast set high, so the picture pops in the showroom. Once home, the HDTV should be put in Cinema, Standard or Custom, where it's more likely to produce the most accurate picture. Then adjust the settings using a simple disc like the Wizard.
Already, the Sceptre was looking good. Any small LCD, though, has a tiny viewing angle where the picture retains its sharpness and clarity. Move to the left or right of the Sceptre, and the picture washes out. I put the Sceptre 6 feet off the ground to simulate placement in a kitchen cabinet, and the picture appeared blackened and ill-defined. Tilting the set, or using a wall mount with a pivoting arm, can restore a proper viewing angle. If you want to add a small TV to a home office or dorm, make sure it's at eye level facing you dead-on.
Samsung, Toshiba and Sharp are some bigger names in small HDTVs. Vizio's Razor series with LED backlighting is also highly regarded.
The bigger names would have a hard time outdoing the Sceptre, though. In tests that evaluate a set's video processing, the Sceptre sailed through several tests for jagged edges, or jaggies ? artifacts created when an HDTV fails to display video properly. (A waving American flag, where the jagged lines are easy to spot between the red and white stripes, is a standard test on several calibration discs.) The Sceptre also navigated trickier tests like a film-to-video sequence that causes the picture on many HDTVs to dissolve into a moire pattern. The screen's response time, rated at 2 milliseconds, is sufficiently fast to avoid ghosting on fast-moving action, particularly sports. (The lower the figure, the better. Do not pay attention to empty sales pitches touting a screen's "dynamic contrast ratio.") With the Sceptre, and any HDTV, be careful what you feed it. HD programming will look like fully dimensional hi-def ? only on a smaller scale. If you're using a small set like the Sceptre on a kitchen countertop, standard- definition programming can look hazy, stretched and blackened.
Given access to HD programming, the silver-fox X240CCFHD will be a glistening addition to a home office or dorm room.
What: Sceptre X240CC-FHD,
sceptre.com Price: $400
Hot: Full HD (1080p) in a small package, low power usage, fashionable design Not: Poor off-angle viewing, tiny speakers, expensive
(Copyright The Hartford Courant 2010)