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  • Tour & Design

  • 3D Performance

  • Other Performance

  • Connectivity & Media

  • Controls, Menu & Remote

  • Conclusion

  • Tour & Design
  • 3D Performance
  • Other Performance
  • Connectivity & Media
  • Controls, Menu & Remote
  • Conclusion

Tour & Design


From the front, the GD-463D10 looks like a standard 46-inch HDTV, with the same design style as other JVC monitors. It has a clean, smart design  with just a few indicator lights on the bottom right corner that show the status of the display.

Back


We were not able to take a photo of the back of the GD-463D10 as the people on the JVC stand at CEDIA started shouting at us when we tried to turn it around, but from what we could see, it was pretty standard, with the HDMI ports located in a panel on the right side.

 

Sides


The display is pretty thin: between 1.5 inches and 3 inches deep, depending on where you measure it. There are no controls or ports on the side; all of these are located on the back.

Stand/Mount


The stand of the GD-463D10 is also pretty standard; it is wide and deep enough that the display is not likely to tip or tilt.

Aesthetics


The GD-463D10 isn't going to win any prizes for innovative design, but it is functional: the design allows for easy control over the display and doesn't get in the way of the images on screen.

3D Performance

 

3D Performance


This is the big question: how well does the 3D effect actually work? The answer is pretty well: on the demos that JVC were showing (which were mostly scientific visualizations), the 3D effect provided a real feeling of depth without becoming disorientating. When wearing the glasses, the screen turned into a cube that had almost as much depth as it had width and height. Most of the samples on show involved arrows flying around in a 3D space (simulating airflow in hurricanes and the like), and these had a very convincing feeling of depth as they moved in and out on the 3D field of view. We only saw a few very slight instances where the effect broke down: some aspects of the demos looked like a series of flat layers plastered on top of each other. That was mostly due to the fact that this was how the content was actually created: the creators had taken a 2D image and layered it.

3D HDTVs rely on the fact that you have two eyes which are a certain distance apart. The brain takes the different images that each eye sees and uses the difference between the two to work out distance. If an object is close, the image in each eye will look very different. If it is far away, the two images will look the same. 3D HDTV system work by exploiting this and feeding separate images to each eye.

There are two ways to do this: polarization or shuttering. In shuttering, the user wears a pair of glasses that contain LCD screens that rapidly blank on and off at the same frequency that the screen is showing the two alternate images as an interlaced signal. Manufacturers such as Panasonic have been demonstrating systems that use shuttering. Polarization systems work by putting a polarizer filter in front of the screen, so each alternate line of the image is polarized in a particular direction. The user then wears a special pair of glasses that contain polarizing filters, so each eye only gets to see one interlaced frame.

The GD-463D10 uses a polarization approach; the display has a series of small polarizing filters built into the screen itself (JVC calls this approach Xpol), and the user wears one of the two pairs of polarizing glasses included with the display. We found these glasses to be pretty comfortable (even  with spectacles), although they did pinch the nose a bit. They might prove to be rather uncomfortable for long term user, though.

Of course, you also need 3D content, which is where things start to get a bit complicated. At the moment, you have to create your own; there are no 3D movies available, as the television manufacturers and content creators are still working on the standards that will define how this content works. The good news there is that we are not going to see a format war like Blu-ray and HD-DVD: manufacturers are working towards a single standard that everyone will use. The Blu-ray disk association (which sets the standards for the only high definition disk format left standing) has recently announced that they will be adding support for 3D to their format, and we are likely to see a similar standard adopted by broadcasters.

If the standards process works out, we will see 3D support Blu-ray players next year, although it is not clear if this will involve buying a new Blu-ray player. But at the moment, you have to create your own content, which is why this monitor has been aimed at scientific and medical users. That's unlikely to change for the next few months, so for most users a display like this would be an expensive white elephant.

Other Performance

 

 

Display Size & Technology


The GD-463D10 is built around a 46-inch LCD display, with a conventional CCFL backlight. The circuitry that decodes and displays the 3D image is built into the display itself.

Formats & Resolution


The GD-463D10 is a full 1080p screen with a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels. So if you feed it a conventional 2D television signal, it can display every pixel of a 1080p image. If you are working with a 3D image, the image is restricted to a 1080i resolution, as the display uses the alternate frames of the interlaced image to create the 3D effect.

Brightness, Blacks and Contrast Ratio


We were not able to test the black levels or the contrast ratio of this display, but the demo footage that we saw at the CEDIA show had decent black levels and bright whites. JVC claims a contrast ratio of 2000:1 natively or 10,000:1 with dynamic contrast. The first measurement is closest to how we measure contrast ratios.

Color


Some of JVC's recent monitors have support for wider color gamuts than normal HDTVs (Such as the LT-42WX70), but the GD-463D10 does not; it sticks with the standard HDTV color gamut.

Motion & Refresh Rate


Like most professional displays, the GD-463D10 does not include any motion processing. Professionals want to see the image as it is, without processing or tweaking. 

Viewing Angle


JVC claims a viewing angle of 178 degrees for this display, but we'd expect the real viewing angle to be somewhat less.

Connectivity & Media

Audio & Video Ports


There are three HDMI ports on the back of this display, but no analog video or antenna inputs. That's because this monitor is designed to be used as a 3D display, not as a home display.

 

Media & Other Connectivity


Neither does it support playing back music, videos or connecting to the Internet.

Placement


The 3 HDMI ports are located on the back of the display, and are not easy to reach without rotating the entire display around. But again; this is not a display that is going to be used with a large number of devices; you'll connect it to one video source and that will be it.

Audio


We were not able to test the audio features of the GD-463D10

Controls, Menu & Remote

Remote


We were not able to test the remote of the GD-463D10.

Controls


We were not able to test the controls of the GD-463D10; they were locked out on the demo unit we looked at.

Conclusion

 

Meet the tester

Richard Baguley

Richard Baguley

Contributor

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Richard Baguley is a veteran writer who has written about technology ranging from Alphabet to Zip file utilities. He has contributed to pretty much every major tech publication, including Amiga Format Magazine, PC World, Wired, CNET, Toms Guide, Forbes, and many others. He lives in the Boston metro area with his wife, dog, and an indeterminate number of cats.

See all of Richard Baguley's reviews

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