Over the years, we’ve had the opportunity to view, study and evaluate many flat-screen monitors. And with prices continuing to drop while features and performance increase, we’ve made the point that they are increasingly edging out CRTs. As bargain LCD products enter the mainstream, however, the number of clunkers is on the rise too, so this should be a good time to account for some glaring deficiencies of budget-priced displays.

First, the good news: native-mode video material is looking good enough to pass muster for the average viewer - contrast, brightness, and lag are usually sufficient to rationalize that "size matters." Now, the bad news: lower-priced displays seem plagued by a number of design and quality issues, some of which could be improved by a better knowledge of industry practices - and better customer support.

Several of these shortcomings are in the processing electronics. Overscan, for instance, has long been accounted for in 480i CRT displays, although to varying degrees. However, a more difficult problem now presents itself with 1080p displays, in that they must also properly upconvert 480i material. Data bits, upconversion artifacts, and similar "debris," not intended to be seen by the viewer, are clearly visible at the top of some displays, especially when the unit must upconvert video. (Some broadcasters may be worsening the problem, but that’s another story). Apparently, some manufacturers don’t know the difference between production aperture and clean aperture; not all 1080 lines should be displayed, for just these reasons.

Some displays seem unable to upconvert 480i video in real time, too. That means they must periodically drop frames, so that the scaler buffer memory does not overflow. Any video material that has slow panning or tilting results in an annoying jerkiness to the motion. Viewers may come to expect this on the Internet, but not on broadcast TV! And pushing the processing to 1080p means that a pixel rate of 148.5 MHz is required - so a sloppy design results in "sparklies," due to a noisy pixel clock or poor data latching.

While we’re on the subject, LCD monitors and even mobile displays can have yet another irritating characteristic - an arbitrary polarization angle. While resultant artifacts are usually subtle, they become quite noticeable when using multiple PC displays, due to a little-known entoptic phenomenon (visual effects whose source is within the eye itself) known as Haidinger’s Brush. The result is a distracting "spottiness" visible when alternating one’s gaze among multiple displays.

In addition, satellite navigation units also have a related problem when viewed with polarized sunglasses. The display can be rendered practically unreadable when the polarization angle is not compatible with that of the sunglasses (which are typically constructed to cancel glare from horizontal surfaces). We need a standard polarization angle for all displays.

Back to TVs, this reviewer has also found instances of faulty analog closed captions - an FCC violation - that led to an interesting discovery. An unscientific and anecdotal survey of TV-servicing shops suggests that they do not want to touch third-tier products, citing the unavailability of parts and service manuals, as well as getting stiffed by the manufacturers when it came time to getting warranty reimbursement. Even with low prices, these manufacturers need to provide high-quality support if they expect to stay in business!

Compounding the problem is the fact that many of these issues are not observable at the point of sale, as most live-video demonstrations will exclusively use the best material possible. So caveat emptor - ask to see upconverted material at the point of sale, and make sure that you can return a unit if it is not up to snuff, as some outlets (e.g., online refurbs) may preclude returns. As with most progress, two steps forward, one step back…