5. Video Processing

HDTV content looked excellent and non-HD sources also looked good. There were, however, a good deal of motion artifacts or "jaggies" when viewing film-based movies from non-HD sources. Otherwise, non-HD sources looked respectable, with digital cable looking better than analog. Note that the 46D1 does not have a full screen stretch mode when using the HDMI input, which may or may not be an issue for some viewers.

As you can see from the test image below, there is just a touch of false contouring compared to the reference image. However, during normal viewing it was not noticeable unless you were watching a source susceptible to it (black & white for example) and were really looking closely. The color temperature when set to the "middle" setting is slightly cool, but it is much closer to neutral than switching to the "warm" setting. Some displays have five-color temperature settings for finer tuning, which might have helped here.

Black and White Skyscape - Computer Image - 1080p

TOP: WinBook 46D1 - BOTTOM: Reference Image

Viewing Position

Because of the slightly above average video noise, I found myself moving back just a touch more than normal for a 46" display. That being said, I'm only talking about a foot or less, so the "sweet spot" for me was just about 10' away. You could move to 8-9' with no major issues, but I prefer to sit where I never see any artifacts during normal viewing. Despite the 46D1 not being a 1080p model, there was no "screen door effect" even when sitting pretty close. The viewing angle was quite reasonable, as I was able to sit at a substantial angle without sacrificing picture quality.