Albatron LWX-30-AMS: Albatron's Convergence LCD TV

Full Screen Application

Component Video - Obviously, we had enormous problems producing the correct aspect ratio for DVD playback on the PC. We are attempting to produce a letterbox (16:9) aspect ratio on a 5:3 Native LCD screen, which is displaying a skewed 5:4 XGA signal. To attempt to bypass our signal problems, we connected a DVD player via the component inputs.

Our specifications claim that the LWX-30-AMS is capable of reproducing 1080 interlaced, 720 progressive/interlaced and 480 progressive/interlaced.

480i (NTSC) - Watching broadcast NTSC on our LCD TV was almost laughable. This is partly because viewing an HD signal is incredibly better, but also partly because the LWX-30-AMS stretches the image so much that normal NTSC is difficult to watch. This is not a specific problem with the Albatron monitor that we are looking at today, but all displays with a 16:9 aspect ratio have trouble displaying 4:3 imagery without issues. Options to crop the image so as not to scale would have been welcomed, however.

480p - Using a progressive scan DVD player, we were able to obtain our 480p signal. DVD playback was on par; certainly better than many of the DVD playback tests that we have done in the past. The particularly bright backlights reveal even more details that we weren't really capable of noticing on 20" PC LCDs.

720p - 720p begins to push the limits of the CMO 30" panel. Finding an unconverted 720p signal proved harder than we originally thought, but fortunately, it seems a particular broadcast in our area in fact prefers 720p over 1080i. The HD signal is noticeably better than 480p. ATI may have just disclosed its HD All-In-Wonder (thanks for the head's up, Matt), but watching full screen HDTV on our LWX-30-AMS leaves us with the impression that we may never watch TV on our lab monitors again.

1080i - Visually on a screen this size, we really should not be able to tell the difference between a 720p and a 1080i signal. In fact, since the panel size is only 1280x768, we will not even be able to see the 1920x1080 interlaced signal. Much to our expectation, even though the signal processor on the LWX-30-AMS is capable of a 1080i signal, we were presented with exactly the same image as 720p during our analysis.