Mitsubishi WS-55807


	Mitsubishi WS-55807 An affordable 16x9 television set from the leader in the bigscreen market, with features like a grown up

	Every DVD owner wants a 16x9 television set, right? After all, that’s what the whole anamorphic image mode of DVD is all about. Until recently, such widescreen television sets have been very expensive with prices starting at $6000 for even the smallest sets. As time went along, almost unnoticed, prices for 16x9 TV sets have come down quite a bit in the past year or so and with the WS-55807, Mitsubishi sends a 55” widescreen rear projection television set in the market that is not only very affordable, but also extremely versatile. Also available as a 46” and a 65” version, this Platinum Series model marks the lower end of Mitsubishi’s

widescreen television range, but given its features, exactly that should make it a very attractive model for everyone considering to upgrade without wanting to spend a little fortune.

When the TV set arrives in your home it is pretty much ready to go with everything installed and set up. All you have to do is to run the automatic cable tuner, and make some basic set-up definitions if you like and you’re in the game. However, I do have to point out that the factory settings of this set were way off the scale and almost unusable for DVD usage - and television usage I may say. More on calibration and full set up of the set in a little however. I will not cover much of the set’s TV capabilities in this review, as we were mostly interested in its capabilities as a reproduction platform for DVD presentations.

Looking at the back of the set you will see that the WS-55807 offers a wealth of inputs, ranging from two separate antenna cable inputs - for advanced picture-in-picture features - as well as a loop out so you can route the antenna back to your VCR. For home theater users an array of direct video inputs is of more interest however. There are three inputs that can be used with either an RCA composite input or an S-Video input, and each of these inputs also has separate stereo audio input jacks. You can not run a composite and S-Video signal at the same time on any one input, and you simply select which one of the jacks to use through the TV’s onscreen menu system. In this array you will also find a composite video output, as well as audio outputs for monitoring purposes.

Apart from these three input arrays, the WS-55807 also offers high definition inputs - after all the TV set is HDTV capable, although only in a very limited sense, supporting only some of the lower HDTV resolutions. However, in this section you will find two separate sets of component video inputs, which are ever so important for DVD users with players that support component outputs. Through these connections you will get the best possible image quality, as the NTSC coding/decoding stage is completely circumvented and the video signal is fed to the set in direct color components. The clarity you achieve through these inputs is noticeably better than through even the S-Video connections and should be the preferred connections wherever possible.

Since the WS-55807 also supports a 480p progressive scan mode through these component inputs, owners of progressive DVD players will be able to witness yet another improvement of the quality, as the image material is coming through the input in its purest form possible. The component inputs are also complemented with stereo inputs for each of the separate channels. Finally, the TV set also offers component DTV inputs for high definition video signals, also complemented by a separate set of audio inputs.

Once you have connected your video equipment to the TV set, you can use the WS-55807’s onscreen menu - which by the way is very easy to use and offers a lot of customizations - to disable unused inputs, which is a very welcome feature given the amount of inputs.

Features

· HDTV Ready
· Built-in two-mode Line-Doubler
· V-Chip Technology
· Color Temperature Control
· Sleep Timer
· Multi-language Onscreen Menu
· 181 Channel Tuner
· Picture-in-picture Tuner
· Universal Remote Control


	The WS-55807 comes with a built-in line-doubler, and when you first start up the model, you will quickly notice that the set does not contain any of the black horizontal lines between every image line that are extremely noticeable on big screen sets and projectors without such a feature. At the same time line-doublers have a tendency to introduce artifacts at time as video and broadcast signals are usually recorded at 30 frames per second in the US, while film presentations, like those on DVD, use a 24 frame per second display with a so-called 2/3 pull-down to compensate for the different frame rate. These different signals require different treatment for best possible results and the WS-55807 allows you to switch between “Video” and “Film” mode. Sadly, every time you go back and forth between TV and DVD for example, you will have to switch the line-doubler back and forth with your remote control. It would be preferable to assign this setting to an input so that the set automatically switches to “Film” mode whenever you switch to your DVD input.


	For every external input as well as the standard TV mode, the WS-55807 stores all relevant parameters separately. This means you can adjust and calibrate the brightness, contrast, etc. for every input source separately and every time you switch to that source, these parameters will be restored. When using the set for the first time I noticed that everything had a very unnatural look. TV programming was extremely harsh looking with visible edge-enhancement and exaggerated artifacts that are a result of the poor quality of cable signal feeds. Immediately I set about to adjust some of the most basic parameters. As expected the set had its “Sharpness” control at its maximum setting by default, which caused the ringing artifacts. Turning it down halfway removed them and immediately gave the image a more natural look. The set also features a noise reduction, which can help improve the quality of the poor cable broadcast signal, although it is advisable to have it turned off for your DVD viewing, as it creates a softened image. I then proceeded and quickly browsed through brightness, contrast and color settings and it was immediately obvious that the set had not been calibrated for home theater use, but for glaring showroom display.


	After burning in the set for a few days it was time to calibrate the picture for DVD use and with the help of our friend Joe Kane’s “Video Essentials” disc, I began setting up the most basic parameters. After calibrating the set with the controls that are available to the user however I still had some problems. Most notably, the set had a green push, which caused blacks to appear green, and I was never able to adjust the red color in a satisfactory manner. Further, the set had an appearance that was significantly too black. This effect was so noticeable that I didn’t even need the test patterns to notice that all shadow detail was lost in solid blacks. Finally, the picture geometry had flaws. Although I used the

calibration control that is accessible from the user menu, it was obvious that the color cannons that produce the image were not aligned properly and a white line for example would have a red and blue halo - or in some instances would not even overlap..

So what to do? I decided to make use of the television set’s service menu, which is accessed through a certain key combination on the remote control. While I was able to fix pretty much all of the problems the set exhibited, the problem with this approach is that it is not safe for consumers to use the service menus because you can completely and literally destroy your TV set with incorrect parameters. However, the service menu allowed me to adjust the overall green push very nicely. A gamma correction control allowed me to bring details back into the shadows. Further it gave me access to the complete picture geometry so that I could adjust the set’s overscan correctly, make sure all lines are straight and truly vertical/horizontal without bending or warping. In a separate menu I finally had access to each of the color guns and was able to converge them properly so that a white line anywhere on the screen comes up as a white line without misplaced halos.

All in all, the service menus of the WS-55807 give you access to practically everything you need to have access to in order to correctly set up this set. However, since using the service menus can damage your set if not done by a skilled technician, this is of very little use to the regular consumer who will end up having a TV set running at a fraction of its real potential. The proper calibration of the set is of extreme importance and if you decide to buy the WS-55807, you should either be quite knowledgeable about hard-core TV calibration or seriously consider having a technician set it up for you at an additional cost. Believe me, it is worth the effort. Since it took this review set almost 8 weeks to properly settle, you should not make this expense before that time however, in order to avoid costly recalibration. In our case, the model did not hold calibration longer than a week during these first 8 weeks and required recalibration on a weekly basis until it eventually settled.


	After successfully calibrating the set you will notice that the WS-55807 creates an image that is a far cry from the artificial-looking presentation it offered straight out of the box. The set has a good definition and color delineation and creates a warm-looking image with good highlights. In “Film” mode the line-doubler does a good job when playing back DVDs without introducing distracting artifacts. When operated in full progressive mode with a signal coming from a progressive DVD player, the level of detail is even better and allows the WS-55807 to fully bloom.


	The WS-55807 offers a series of display modes as a result of its unconventional 16x9 dimensions. There is of course the traditional 4:3 mode, which brings up gray letterbox bars on the left and right side of the image to create the 4:3 ratio. The set’s “Standard” mode is the anamorphic widescreen mode used to play back 16x9 enhanced DVDs at their full increased resolution - ultimately the thing all DVD owners hunger for and beautiful in its level of detail. The “Expanded” mode allows you to view non-anamorphic widescreen material using the full width of the set by cropping the letterbox at the top and bottom of the image. A “Zoom” mode enlarges part of the image and is pretty useless not only because it seriously crops the image, but also because of the distracting artifacts introduced by the scaling. A rather useful mode is

“Stretched,” which stretches a regular 4:3 image to a 16x9 ratio. Instead of stretching it linearly, creating an entirely unproportional image, the set leaves the center of the image intact and begins scaling gradually towards the sides of the frame. The effect is very subtle and usually manages to keep the focus of the image in proportion while more irrelevant picture information is stretched out somewhat.

The Mitsubishi WS-55807 comes with a universal remote control that also allows you to control DVD players, VCR, cable boxes and receivers by other manufacturers. It is clear in its layout and functionality. Backlit by an ergonomically located button on the side, the remote also works perfectly in the dark and the only thing really missing from it is a dedicated button to turn closed captions on and off. As it stands you will have to enter the user menu, go to the captions section and change the settings every time you want to display captions.

2 fullrange speakers are housed inside the WS-55807 cabinet that are powered by a 10 watts stereo amplifier. The speakers are of fairly good quality and have a good frequency response especially for TV usage. Since some of you may consider using these speakers as an alternative to more expensive, dedicated center speakers, it may be of interest to you to know that you cannot really use them as such. Although you can use the audio inputs to feed your center audio signal to these speakers, the problem is that they are then subjected to the volume control of the TV set. Since audio

calibration of home theater equipment is just as important as video calibration, this is makes use of these speakers as center speakers impossible. Although I have tried a number of varying combinations, there seems to be no way to circumvent the internal volume control circuitry of the set,

WS-55807

Manufacturer
Mitsubishi

Suggested Retail Price
$3499.-

Dimensions
55” 16x9 rear projection screen
Height: 51 5/8"
Width: 50 5/8"
Depth: 28 3/8"
Weight: 276 lbs.

Video
Motion-Adaptive Comb Filter
DPM3 Line-Doubler
480i/480p/960i/1080i Scan Rates

Connections
Antenna Inputs: 2 sets
Antenna Outputs: 1 set
Composite Inputs: 3 sets
S-Video Inputs: 3 sets
Component Inputs: 2 sets
HDTV Inputs: 1 set
Monitor A/V Outputs: 1 set
Active AV Network: 1 set

Rating
Average (Out of the box)
Very Good (Fully calibrated)

or to directly feed signal to the speakers, circumventing the internal amp. While this may sound like a disadvantage, look at it this way. These speakers can not compete with dedicated center channel speakers in terms of quality and because they are also not timbre-matched with the other speakers in your set-up, using them would most likely diminish the experience anyway.

The Mitsubishi WS-55807 is jam-packed with features that help making your viewing experience more pleasurable and customized to your personal needs. Whether it is the wide array of closed-caption settings, the general color temperature of the picture to match your ambient lighting of the viewing area, the lock out of unused and unwanted TV channels and inputs, the V-Chip technology that helps to make sure you children can watch only appropriate TV programming, the multi-language menus, the incredible picture-in-picture functionality or black level compensation, this TV set has been designed with versatility in mind.

After all the tribulations, the WS-55807 turned out to be a fantastic TV set if correctly set up and calibrated. It is a shame that many people will never have the chance to see the set in its full glory due to the rather poor factory set-up. Since you can buy this set for as little as $3000 or less, there can be no doubt however that this is a great widescreen TV that offers plenty of bang for its bucks. I would recommend this set to any home theater owner who has the time and knowledge to completely calibrate a set, or those who are willing to spend the extra money to have it calibrated for them. It is clearly one of the most cost-efficient and versatile widescreen TV sets in the market and will suit practically everyone’s needs.


	© 1997-2000 by “DVD Review”. All rights reserved.