Sharp LC37RD2E review

Sharp Aquos LC37RD2E Review

Reviewed by: Ian Morris

Reviewed on: 1 June 2007

Performance
When we popped in our favourite HD DVD, Serenity, we were blown away by the difference 100Hz processing had on the CGI scenes at the start of the movie. As the camera panned across spaceships and computer-generated cities, we switched the TruD on and were amazed to see that it totally eliminated any film judder.

The 100Hz feature is so effective, it gives movies a TV show feel. If you're a purist who prefers to watch movies with their atmospheric motion effects, you'll leave it off. If you like smooth, judder free motion, this is the best system of its kind we've seen.

The only problem we noticed with the 100Hz picture mode was that on objects moving in the frame there was sometimes a distortion around them -- this is a side-effect of the complicated video processing the TV does. While it is slightly annoying, we suspect that after a while you wouldn't notice it. Plus, it's not there when the 100Hz movie mode is turned off.

The remote is the usual Sharp design, which is sturdy and responsive, and slightly ugly

The picture quality overall was excellent. Watching hi-def we found the images to be jam-packed full of glorious detail. Once we turned down the backlight, the blacks were dark and there was loads of contrast, even in dark scenes. We didn't notice any unpleasant grain on pictures, either.

Freeview picture quality was also good. We've criticised Sharp TVs in the past for displaying ugly de-interlacing artefacts -- we're pleased to say that this TV doesn't seem to suffer from those problems.

The 100Hz processing also seems to make Freeview look a lot smoother, which is no bad thing. We noticed that during camera pans there was much less motion blur than we've seen on other screens.

Sound quality was also good. We aren't fans of the built-in speakers on LCD and plasma televisions, but the speakers on the LC37RD2E were good enough for general use. We could make out speech, even when there were other sound effects happening at the same time. That's not to say we don't think you should get some external speakers too, after all if you've just spent more than a grand on a TV, you'd be mad to neglect the sound quality.

Conclusion
Sharp has managed to create an amazing TV set. We often hear people complain about how much HD DVD and Blu-ray judder -- this mode manages to eliminate pretty much all of this. How much you rate this feature will depend on how much you like the 'feel' of film. Either way, you can turn it off. But it's a remarkable piece of image-processing technology, and the most effective we've seen.

Overall the picture and sound quality make this television a good, sturdy performer and the only real criticism we can level at it is that it has slightly odd video inputs, which might make hooking up your games consoles a little harder than other sets.

Edited by Jason Jenkins
Additional editing by Kate Macefield