Introduction
By 2005 we owned a home, were married, had a baby and found an invention that saved our TV - TIVO. Prior to purchasing Tivo, we seriously considered dropping cable TV. We had used Netflix successfully for about 2 years by then and it served our needs fine. The only thing cable seemed to offer was New York Yankee baseball games and the Sopranos. However, Tivo opened new doors - shows we could not normally watch due to time. We loved Tivo. We still use our Tivo - Series 2 dual tuner. And it worked great on our Sony 32″ CRT TV.
By 2006 I was getting ancy. I wanted a “big screen.” The flat kind I saw everywhere else. I researched, crunched the numbers, and auditioned many in the stores and in friends’ homes. I finally settled on the Sharp Aquos 46″ LC-46D62U.
Sharp Aquos LC-46D62U
The Sharp Aquos 46″ LC-46D62U was an upgrade from the 42″ Sharp I was prepared to buy in the store. While looking at the 42″, I noticed the 46″ was only priced a few hundred dollars more. If I recall correctly, the 42″ was about $2,000 and the 46″ was $2,600 - so I guess more than just a few hundred more! But, amazingly, it was my wonderful wife Jennifer who pushed me to get the 46″. And for once I did not argue with her. Her point - with that much money on the line you better buy something you’re going to enjoy and not regret for a long, long time. How right she was. I only wish I bought the 52″!
I purchased the 46″ from Best Buy in Orange, CT on December 26, 2006 for $2,600. Within 30 days I was able to price match the 46″ at Best Buy to an add in CompUSA. Best Buy gave me a 110% price match. However, they made a mistake and price matched CompUSA’s 42″ model at $2,200 instead of the 46″ $2,400. So I made out really well on the price (at the time!). Further, it was purchased on a Best Buy credit card with 36 months no interest.
The LC-46D62U is light weight at about 80 pounds with the stand. It is easy to setup. I had the set connected to a Comcast Motorola 6412 III set top box (STB) and tuned the QAM tuner for over the cable unencrypted HD shows. The picture quality was amazing and showed how truly poor SD content really is. I quickly learned the poor picture was not a function of my TV, but a function of the incoming source. For instance, football games in HD are not all created equally. CBS seemed to have very poor quality, whereas FOX had the best. NBC sitcoms filmed in HD looked great, and ABC serial shows (i.e., Gray’s Anatomy) looked terrible in faux HD.
AVS Forums and BANDING
It was at this time I found the great web site AVS Forums. The information here was invaluable in setting up my TV set. However, I also read extensively about the flaw in this particular line of Sharps - BANDING! You can read all about banding on many web sites, including AVS Forum, so I will not repeat all of it. Briefly, there appear to be defined differences in backlight at certain areas of the screen creating noticeable bands.
Sharp customer service claimed they were aware of the problem and offered to replace the set at their cost and extend the warranty on the new set. They were going to send a pre-screened set specifically to ensure this defect was not present in the exchanged set. Four weeks later the new set arrived and…still bands. However they were 90% less noticeable. So, I decided to just live with it. It was only noticeable during gray screen tests (mostly). Whereas the previous set was noticeable during any pan-and-scan during playback.
Review
So, I have now owned the set for 11 months and do not regret it at all. It has lived through two moves and a baby. Our daughter has left permanent finger and hand prints on the LCD screen. I found it is worse trying to clean it. This is only really noticeable when the set is off, or during black scenes. 90% of the time I can’t see them.
The picture quality is as good or better than anything else I’ve seen. 1080p at 60hrz, 4ms refresh rate, and 2,000 native (10,000 dynamic) contrast ratio . Blacks are sharp. Colors are bright. Refresh rates are great. Fast action is smooth. Even the sound (typically a criticism of the set) sounds good to me for a TV. The piano black finish is sleek looking and not nearly as distracting after a few weeks. The remote is even pretty decent.
Observations
There are only two HDMI inputs. This is somewhat limiting for those who do not have a receiver with HDMI inputs. Although it is fine for a cable STB and DVD player. But, for those with more components, like gaming systems, the HDMI inputs are lacking. There are five inputs shared between two HDMI inputs, two component inputs, three composite inputs, one S-Video input, and four audio inputs.
This set is HDMI is 1.2 compliant. HDMI 1.3a become the standard just a few months after I made this purchase. So the set cannot leverage the two-way communication in the 1.3a spec. Not a huge deal.
All buttons are on TOP of the set. This is GREAT if you have a little baby running around obsessed with pushing all the buttons on all the electronics in the house.
At the time, the QAM tuner, contrast ratio, response rate, and P (progressive scan, rather than interlaced scan) made this set the leader for the price range and size. After about 12 months the set dropped about 50% in price after newer models (D64, D84, and D94) hit the market. Banding continues to be at least an annoyance on many sets, if not present in all sets in the D62 and D64 46″ and 52″ models.
Conclusion
All-in-all this continues to be one of the best purchases I have ever made. We enjoy this set every day. HD content via cable and HD-DVD looks amazing. SD upconverted content looks nearly as clear and crisp. I recommend the set to everyone I talk to about HDTVs. I have a feeling this set will have a place in our home for a long, long time to come.
