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  • Tour & Design

  • Performance: Summary

  • Performance: Blacks & Whites

  • Performance: Color

  • Performance: Motion

  • Performance: Viewing Effects

  • Remote

  • Audio

  • Connectivity

  • Controls & Menus

  • Formats & Media

  • Power Consumption

  • Value & Comparisons

  • Conclusion

  • Ratings & Specs

  • Tour & Design
  • Performance: Summary
  • Performance: Blacks & Whites
  • Performance: Color
  • Performance: Motion
  • Performance: Viewing Effects
  • Remote
  • Audio
  • Connectivity
  • Controls & Menus
  • Formats & Media
  • Power Consumption
  • Value & Comparisons
  • Conclusion
  • Ratings & Specs

Tour & Design

From the front the JVC LT-47X899 is dominated by the 47-inch display. Below the display is an LED that tells you when the TV is on. The very bottom of the front facade contains the TV's speakers.

The 47-inch display with a glossy black bezel surrounding and the speaker at the bottom.

**Back**

All of the ports and on-TV controls for the JVC LT-47X899 are found on the back. The ports are arranged along the left side and bottom of an area that juts out of the back. Controls are found at the bottom left of the back, right near the edge of the TV.

On the back you see the controls on the left and ports arranged on the left and bottom.

**Left**

There are no features on the left side of the JVC LT-47X899.

**Right**

Nothing is found on the right side of the JVC LT-47X899.

There's nothing on the right edge of the JVC LT-47X899, but you can see the ports on the back.

**Stand/Mount**

The JVC LT-47X899 has a removable stand that it sits on. The stand does not rotate. You can also mount the TV on the wall, using the dedicated mounting points found on the back.

The stand of the JVC LT-47X899 is removable so the TV can be mounted on a wall.

**Controls**

The on-TV controls on the JVC LT-47X899 are found on the back of the TV just around the lower right corner, so the lower left corner when looking at it from the back. There are seven controls organized vertically. From the top they are Input, Menu, Ch+, Ch-, Vol+, Vol- and Power. The Menu, Channel and Volume controls also double up functions to help you get around the menu system, although we wouldn't want to try and navigate the menu on the TV with one hand wrapped around the side.

The on-TV controls are found on the back just around the right side.

**Remote**

The JVC LT-47X899's remote is an solid hunk of black plastic, with nary a curve or cushion to make it easier to hold and use.

The remote is pretty long, you can see that you'll have to shift your hand a lot to reach the power button.

**In The Box***(5.0)*

The JVC LT-47X899 ships with a remote and batteries as well as a manual and power cord. It does not include any cables, which is a shame. We expect all High Definition TVs to ship with at least one HDMI cable. Getting the TV out of the box is fairly straightforward, although we did like that the stand comes attached so no assembly is required.

**Aesthetics***(5.0)*

Like many TV's the JVC LT-47X899 is styled in black, with a glossy bezel surrounding the LCD and a dark gray speaker sitting underneath it. The TV is 5 1/8 inches thick, which is thicker than the Vizio VO47L, but not overly large for an LCD flat panel TV. Our overall impressions is that it's not going to make your living room look ugly, but it's not going to make a fashion statement either.

Performance: Summary

Overall, the LT-47X899 had only lackluster performance; although it was pretty bright and had decent blacks, the colors were poor and we saw some issues with how it presented colors. It also did a reasonable job of scaling lower resolution images up to fit the 1080p resolution, and didn't show reflections much. Motion also looked good; we saw smooth, clean motion in our tests, thanks to the 120Hz processing that it uses. But the viewing angle was disappointing; the contrast ratio of the display fell off rather quickly, making this display not so suitable for large groups of viewers.

**Calibration**

To get the best out of a display, it has to be calibrated, a process that finds the correct settings for the individual display. We use the DisplayMate calibration process to set the display up correctly; the calibrated settings that we found to give the best overall performance are listed below. To save space, we only list the controls that have been changed from their default settings.

Basically, our calibrated settings were pretty close to the defaults; we didn't have to tweak much to make it fit with our standard set of calibrated settings. The only thing we had to do was to tweak the red color axis control to get the HDTV closer to our desired color temperature setting of 6500k.

**Video Modes**

The LT-47X899 has 6 video modes, which are detailed below

Each of these modes can be customized; if you prefer your Theater preset to have more backlighting, the display will remember if you change the default setting.

**Dot Pattern**
Built around a 47-inch LCD screen, the LT-47X899 has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, which means it can accurately represent every single pixel of a 1080p signal. We look at the dot pattern of the screen using a microscope. The photo on the right (taken at a 20x setting with a microscope), shows the dot pattern of the display, with the familiar grouping of red, green and blue elements. The LT-47X899 has the same  angled-V shaped elements as the Vizio VO47LF, with each group of three elements forming a single pixel.

Performance: Blacks & Whites

**Black Level***(5.16)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#blacklevel)

The black level is a critical part of the performance of a TV; the deeper the blacks, the higher the contrast and the better the display will be at keeping the dark bits in scary movies properly dark. We measured the darkest black that the LT47X899 could produce at 0.37 cd/m2 ( Candelas per square meter), which is a reasonable level for an LCD screen. Because LCDs use a backlight, the blacks are never going to be as deep as a Plasma screen (where the light is generated by the plasma; if the plasma is not being activated, there is little or no light). But the 0.37 cd/m2 of this display means that blacks aren't really all that black; there is still some light getting through the screen, and this is always visible as a pale light on even the darkest screens.

Another interesting thing to note is that the display has an automatic dimming feature; if you display a nearly all-black screen, it automatically turns down the backlight after about 20 seconds. There is no way to disable or control this feature.

**Peak Brightness***(8.84)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#peakwhite)

At the other end of the spectrum is the peak white; the brightest white that the display can produce. We measured this at 307.44 cd/m2, which is a decent, if unspectacular score. This means that the white parts of the screen are going to be pretty bright, and a decent peak brightness also means that the display will hold up better in situations with lots of ambient light (such as watching TV in daylight).

**Contrast Ratio***(5.74)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#contrastratio)

Contrast is the ratio of the darkest black to the brightest white, and it is the figure that many TV manufacturers use to advertise their models, as a higher contrast ratio means darker blacks and brighter whites. We measured the contrast ratio of the LT-47X899 at 831:1, well below the manufacturer quoted figure of 3500:1. That's because the figure they quote is for what they call dynamic contrast ratio, where the whites are measured with the backlight on full, then the blacks with it turned down to make the blacks darker. Our test measures what's often called the static contrast ratio, where the backlight remains at the same level (maximum) all the time; we feel this is the more important figure, as it represents what you will get when using the display. 890:1 is an acceptable figure for an LCD TV, but it is not overly impressive; several HDTVs have much better scores here.

**Tunnel Contrast***(8.38)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#tunnelcontrast)

The black level test that we do above is based on how dark an all-black screen is, but that's not a situation that occurs in the real world that often. What you more often get is scenes that contain areas of white and black next to each other, which is why we also test what we call test tunnel contrast. In this test, we look at if the black on the screen stays black when it is surrounded by white, by measuring a small area of black that's surrounded by differing amounts of white. On many displays, some of the white leaks into the black area, making blacks look lighter and lessening the dramatic impact of a scene. The graph below shows our measurements of the small area of black in the center of the screen as more and more white is put around it, until 95% of the screen is white. The ideal for this would be a flat curve on the graph, which would mean that the black remains at the same level, irrespective of how much white surrounds it.

As this graph shows, the blacks stay pretty dark on the LT-47X899 as the amount of white increases; there is only a slight increase in the luminosity of the black area as it is surrounded by more and more white. In fact, the luminosity of the black area only increases by about 0.2 cd/m2 when the black area is surrounded by 95 per cent of white on the rest of the screen. This is good, as it indicates that the only a small amount of the light from the white area of the screen is escaping into the black area. So, if you are into film noir, you should have no problem picking out Harry Lime in The Third Man's Vienna street scene on this display.

**White Falloff***(7.21)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#whitefalloff)

The flip side of the performance of displays is how well it displays larger areas of white. In our peak white test, we measure a small area of white on the screen, but brightness of the white can often change depending on how much white there is on screen. On some displays (particularly plasma displays), the white gets paler as the amount of white on the screen increases, as the display generates more heat when it is displaying an all white screen, so it turns down the luminance to stop it from melting. On others (such as most LCDs) the whites get brighter as the amount of white on the screen increases. So, we test this by displaying a sequence of progressively larger areas of white and measuring the luminosity of the center of the screen. The graph below shows the result of this; the luminance of the white on the screen increases slightly as the amount of white on the screen goes up.

In this test, the luminance of the white started at 280.19 cd/m2 with five percent of the screen white, then increased to 303.7 cd/m2 with all of the screen showing as white. This lack of any major change in brightness is a fairly common behavior we see with LCD displays, and it is one of the things that makes them appealing for use in situations where there is a lot of ambient light (such as in a living room with lots of daylight or an office), they start out bright and stay bright as the amount of white increases. Many plasma displays loose brightness when there is a lot of white on the screen, but LCD screen keep a very uniform brightness with both small and large amounts of white on the screen.

**Uniformity***(6.75)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test#uniformity.htm)

Having a deep black and bright white screen isn't going to help if the screen is not uniform; dark spots in white areas or there are bright spots in the dark bits are going to distract from the image on the screen. So, we do extensive testing of the uniformity of the screen, using several test screens in DisplayMate that highlight any issues here. We didn't find many issues with the LT-47X899, but there were a few. We found that, on our review display, the top right corner of the screen was a bit darker on white screens, and the bottom right was a little lighter on dark screens. Both of these issues may be slightly distracting in some situations; if you are watching a dark movie, you might notice the brighter corner, and the difference in the corner on white screens is noticeable if you are using the display as a computer screen. But these are fairly minor issues, and they won't be noticeable in most situations.

**Grayscale Gamma***(7.78)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#greyscalegamma)

Update: We have rescaled our scoring for this section. The original score was 8.66.

The Gamma correction of a display relates to the way that the display converts the intensity of the incoming signal into the intensity of the light coming from the screen. In order to correctly represent the level of the signal, the display has to process it using something called Gamma Correction. That's what we test here; the way that the display converts the incoming signal into the light you see coming off the screen. We test this by feeding the TV a series of white screens of slowly increasing intensity, and measuring the luminance of the screen. The graph below shows how the screen luminance increases as the signal intensity increases.

Because of the way that the eye interprets light, we don't get a straight line from this. However, we can analyze the curve a little easier if we plot it on a graph with logarithmic axis, such as the one below. On this graph, the luminance is show by the black line, while the blue line shows the trend line for the main part of the curve. An ideal display would follow this trend line exactly. In reality, most are close, but not always right on.

The LT-47X899 did a reasonable job here; the curve follows the trend for most of its length, only going a bit off track at the bottom end. This indicates that some of the darker shades of gray change suddenly from one level of brightness to another, which could lead to some banding in dark parts of the image. However, this is a minor issue.

We also measure the gamma correction, a number that indicates the shape of the curve in the first graph. There is no perfect figure here; instead, we look for the gamma to be within a range of 2.4 to 2.5, and the LT-47X899 falls just a little outside of this range at 2.57. This is not far enough outside of our ideal range to be a big problem, but it is less than ideal; the gamma is a bit high, which could make some images on the screen look a bit flat as some grays may be slightly darker than they should be. But it's an acceptable figure, and that should not prove to be a big problem.

**Resolution Scaling***(6.21)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#resolutionscaling)

We do most of our tests feeding the display a signal at the highest resolution the display supports (for the LT-47X899, that's a 1080p signal), but that isn't what the display will always have to work with. Many devices (such as DVD players, cable boxes and game consoles) produce a lower resolution signal will also be connected to the display, and the display will have to scale and process these to display them on the screen. So, we test how well the display scales these by feeding it a signal at each of the lower resolutions (in this case, 480p, 720p and 1080i) and examining how well the display deals with scaling these to fit the screen.

One interesting thing to note here is that the LT-47X899 has an aspect ratio button on the remote, which has a big effect on the way it deals with lower resolution signals. Some HDTVs move this control to an on-screen menu or otherwise hide it, but it's right there on this one, on a button the same size as the menu button. This is both a good and a bad thing; it's a good thing if you connect an older analog TV source (such as an old DVD player or a VHS video recorder) as you can change the aspect ratio to make the video fit the screen as required. The modes on offer vary with the input device, but for an analog source, you get the choice of Panorama (which stretches the width of the image to a bit beyond the screen width), Cinema (which stretches both the width and height to go beyond the screen size), Full (which stretches the image to overscan slightly on the screen) and Regular (which fits the image to a standard definition 4:3 aspect ratio). With a digital signal, you get the choice of Panorama Zoom, Cinema Zoom (which behave the same as their analog cousins), Full (which scales the display to overscan slightly on the screen), Full native (which scales it to fit the screen exactly) or the oddly named Slim, which scales the screen down to a 4:3 aspect ratio. Perhaps the latter was designed to help people who are concerned about their weight; if you view a widescreen signal in this mod, everybody looks as thin as a supermodel.

The downside is that these choices are somewhat redundant when you're watching a high definition digital source, and that the LT-47X899 defaults to the Full mode, which means that the image is a little overscanned. This is especially irritating if you are trying to use the display with a computer, as the menu bars at the bottom or edge of the screen aren't visible; to get them, you have to switch the display to the Full Native mode every time you turn the TV on or change inputs.

480p (7.13)

480p signals are produced by devices such as DVD players and older cable boxes that display standard definition TV. We found that the LT-47X899 did a decent, if unspectacular job of displaying this type of signal; the image was extremely soft, which meant that text at smaller font sizes was mostly unreadable. But the flip side of this is that the image didn't have the problems we often see with displays that overly sharpen the image to make it look more like a high definition one; we didn't see much evidence of issues such as moire patterns in screens that use alternating black and white lines, or patterns caused by the sharpening process. The image was overscanned by around 2.5 percent, which means that the edges of the image were slightly trimmed off, but not to an unacceptable degree.

720p (5.38)

Many broadcasters use a 720p signal when they are broadcasting sports, as the progressive nature of the signal (where it contains 60 full frames per second, instead of the interlaced frames of 1080i) makes for smoother movement on the screen.  And the LT-47X899 did a moderate job of displaying this mode; we found that text was only legible at medium and large font sizes, and that the image was still somewhat soft. Unusually, the LT-47X899 had some overscan here (about 2.5 percent, the same as the 720p signal); most TVs don't overscan a 720p signal.  Although the LT-47X899 has several aspect ratio modes available from the remote, none of them got rid of this overscan, as the Full Native mode was not available when displaying a 720p signal. But the overscan wasn't a big problem; it just means the edge of the screen is slightly trimmed off, which would only be an issue if you were using the LT-47X899 as a PC monitor in 720p mode. And as most graphics cards can now produce a 1080p signal, this shouldn't be a big issue for most users.

1080i (6.23)

1080i is the format that most people associate with high definition TV; it's what most high def cable boxes and satellite boxes produce. And the LT-47X899 did a reasonable job with this type of signal; text was moderately sharp (all but the smallest fonts were visible), but there was some evidence of moire patterns in our test screens; these screens use a series of patterns of gray and black dots to see how the screen processes the image, and these had an odd, almost checkerboard-like look to them. As we noted above, the LT-47X899 defaults to the Full aspect mode, but switching this to the more appropriate Full Native mode didn't make things any better. In this, some of the screens had a greenish cast.

Performance: Color

**Color Temperature***(6.51)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#colortemperature)

You might assume that white is white, but you'd be wrong; the color of white on a display is determined by something called the color temperature. This is a rather complex issue, but the bottom line is that a display should have an identical color temperature whatever the intensity of the white on the screen. However, displays seldom have this, so we test how the color temperature varies as the intensity of the white on the screen varies, going from the brightest white right down to nearly totally black. As part of our calibration process, we calibrate the TV so that the color temperature of the brightest white is as close to 6500k as possible (which is the same as daylight), then test how this varies as the intensity of the white decreases. An ideal TV would have a flat curve here, but the LT-47X899 didn't have that; particularly at the darker end of the curve, the color temperature got significantly higher, which means that some pale grays could look rather cool and slightly bluish. However, it is worth pointing out that for the majority of the curve, the difference is not enough to be noticeable by most users; it's only at the very low end of the range that the slight error creeps in.

Another way to look at this is to plot the measured color values of the different intensities, which is below. On this graph, all of the the measurements of the different intensities of white (shown by the black line) would be on the same spot. The red line indicates the smallest change in color that is perceptible by the human eye; if the line stayed inside the red circle, you would not be able to see the change. But the line goes outside the circle, indicating that some people with good eyesight might be able to spot a very slight blue cast to the low intensity whites.

**RGB Curve***(7.73)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#rgbcurves)

To analyze the performance of displays such as the LT-47X899 in more depth, we also analyze the red, green and blue components of the display. All displays use red, green and blue to create the colors you see on the screen, so it is important that these are accurately represented. In particular, our tests look at how well the display represents the range of colors for each of these primary color components, going from black to the maximum color intensity. Our testing produces this graph, which shows the intensity of the input color signal (from 0 to 255) along the bottom, and the intensity of the resulting color on the screen along the side.

The critical factor here is not the height or shape of the curve, but the smoothness of the curve. A bumpy curve indicates that the display is not rendering the color accurately; bumps and jumps are a sign that there are issues with the way the display processes the color behind the scenes and then displays it on the screen.  These could lead to inaccurate colors and even artifacts such as banding, where a gradual change in color becomes a sudden one, creating a visible band of color in subject such as blue skies and subtle foliage. The LT-47X899 has some issues here; the red and blue curves show distinct stepping, which makes them look more like elevator steps than a smooth curve. This stepping leads to problems such as banding and fringing because subtle color changes get lost, and we saw evidence of this on our tests with a variety of test images; a sunset had a rather grainy look, and some colors had a slightly flat, artificial look to them.

**Color Gamut***(3.59)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#colorgamut)

The color gamut is the range of colors that a display can reproduce, based upon the three primary colors (red, green and blue). There is a specific set of recommendations for this that were defined by color experts which detail the gamut of colors that a HDTV signal should contain (called Rec.709, short for the ITU-R Recommendation.709), so we measure how closely the range of colors that the display can reproduce matches this range. The results of our tests are shown below; the dotted line indicates the recommended gamut, and the solid line is the gamut that we found on the LT-47X899. An ideal display would have exactly the same gamut as the recommendation, with the solid and dotted lines overlapping. The dots in the middle are the D65 white point, and again on a perfect display, the two dots would be right on top of each other.

As you can see, the LT-47X899 has a mixed result here; the red and blue edges of the gamut are a little bit away from the ideal, and the green (at the top) is significantly off. This would mean that greens would be inaccurate; pure greens in particular will look slightly unnatural as the colors are pushed further out into the color gamut than they should be. Again, this was borne out in our test images; on this TV, foliage looked darker and deeper than it should, and other greens had a distinct color cast to them.

Performance: Motion

**Motion Smoothness***(7.25)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#motion)

The LT-47X899 is one the of the new generation of displays that refresh the screen at 120Hz, twice as fast as older models. And this was borne out in our testing of motion on the screen; we saw smooth, clean motion that preserved the detail of fast moving objects. We test using a number of DisplayMate screens that use photos and color charts in motion, and all of these had smooth, clean motion. This was also borne out in our informal testing with a number of movie scenes that involve lots of motion; with both a 1080p and a 1080i video source, sequences such as the first monster attack in Cloverfield and the mall chase sequence in Blade Runner had very smooth motion.

**Motion Artifacting***(7.50)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#motion)

Displays often use processing to try and make motion seem smoother, and these can often lead to glitches in the video. However, we didn't see much evidence of problems in this respect with the LT-47X899; in our tests using photos, color charts and movies, the smooth motion we saw above was without consequences such as ghosting (where movement leaves a trail), streaking (where the processing causes streaks or blotches of color) or advancing (where certain colors seem to move quicker than others because of differences in the response time for the LCD elements). We did see some slight issues with a 1080i source; the movement of objects on the screen was not as solid, and some high contrast objects had a slight jitter that was caused by the display de-interlacing the video

**3:2 Pulldown & 24fps***(7.0)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#3:2pulldown)

3:2 pulldown refers to the process where the display tries to re-create the 24 frames per second look of films. Most movies and many TV shows are shot at 24 frames per second, but then processed and transmitted at the 29.97 frames per second of conventional TV. This conversion process leaves traces in the signal, and many TVs can spot this and try to re-create the 24fps look of the video, using a process called inverse telecine.  This, in theory, should give you the same look as film, but only if it works. We use a Silicon Optix HQV test Blu-Ray disc to test this as it offers a test video that highlights if the process works or not. The LT-47X899 did a middling job of detecting and displaying the 3:2 pulldown; it detected that the source video needed processing, but didn't do a great job of rendering this using the inverse telecine onto the screen; the resulting video was jaggy and blocky, as if the display was processing the screen in distinct chunks.  This meant that the video had a blocky, grainy look, almost like a poorly compressed online video.

The LT-47X899 was able to display a true 24 frames per second video from a high-end video source such as a PlayStation 3 playing back a Blu Ray disc; it detected the signal correctly and did a decent job of playing back the video smoothly.

Performance: Viewing Effects

**Viewing Angle***(4.95)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#viewingangle)

Having the best color, motion and image quality in the world isn't going to help if the image on the screen turns into mush when you are more than a few degrees off center. That's why we test the viewing angle of displays. To do this, we measure the luminance (the brightness) of a white and black screen from a number of angles ranging from 0 degrees (straight on) right down to 85 degrees off the center of the screen, and measure how the contrast ratio between the two holds up.

The LT-47X899 had only lackluster results in this test; we found that the screen brightness fell off rather quickly as you moved away from the straight-on view. Our score for this is partly based on the angle at which the contrast ratio of the blacks to whites falls by 50 percent, and this happened at just 18 degrees off the axis. And it just got worse from there; by the time we reached 55 degrees, the contrast ratio had fallen to just 180:1, thanks to the peak whites getting much paler and the brights getting significantly brighter.

You should remember that our contrast ratio test differs from the manufacturers; their figures for viewing angles are usually determined by the angle at which the contrast ratio falls to 10:1, which is obviously significantly wider than our test. Our test is more realistic; a 50 drop on contrast ratio will still be watchable, but a 10:1 contrast ratio will look awful.

We also look at how the colors perform as the viewing angle changes, and the JVC did a little better here; we found that colors remained mostly constant, although they did become noticeably paler as the viewing angle increased. Red in particular became very dark and muddy, and many darker colors faded to obscurity very quickly.

**Reflectance***(6.75)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#reflectance)

If you're trying to watch a move in a darkened room, the last thing you want to see is a reflection of the light beside your couch on the screen. The LT-47X899 deals with this issue with a matte layer on the top of the screen, which does a decent job of making the reflections less irritating. Although reflections are still visible, they don't detract overly from the on-screen video, and there are no annoying hotspots. And the screen is bright enough that the image is still visible if you have daylight reflections; as long as you place the TV away from direct sunlight, the reflections should not interfere with your daytime soap opera addiction.

**Image Processing***(3.5)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm)

The LT-47X899 offers several features in the advanced video menu that claim to help improve the image quality. To test these, we examine each one.

It's worth noting that most of these have no effect if you are watching a digital source (including digital over the air TV); they only work with analog signals. And most of them had little or no effect;  Digital VNR might be useful if you are tied into a poor analog cable system, and MPEG NR might help if you're watching a home movie shot on a bad DVD camcorder. But, as usual, they are just stopgap measures; you w0uld be better served by complaining to your cable company or buying a better camcorder in both cases.

Remote

**Ergonomics & Durability***(4.6)*

The JVC LT-47X899's remote is rather large, measuring 8 13/16 inches long, 2 5/16 inches wide and tapers from 1 1/4 inches thick at the back to 1/2 inch thick at the front. It is fairly light, for its size, but the large width and the lack of contouring means that it doesn't feel particularly comfortable in the hand. That said the light weight does help when you have to shift your hand to the front or back of the remote as it doesn't feel too far out of balance. It's made of rather slick plastic, which in combination with it's large size means it will likely be dropped more than average. The rather cheap plastic does concern us in terms of durability, but there are no major moving parts and the battery cover feels well put together. The buttons on the remote are soft plastic, without only average key travel and not much tactile feedback when pressed. We were not impressed by the JVC LT-47X899's remote, we feel like not a lot of thought was put into it and it's basically just a cheap remote that you get with your TV.

**Button Layout & Use***(5.25)*

The rather large width of the JVC LT-47X899's remote means that those with smaller hands will have to stretch to reach controls on the opposite side of the remote, this effects the Menu and CH- buttons in particular. All of the other most commonly used controls should be within easy reach for most. The large length of the remote results in a lot of shifting of your hands required to access any controls except for those right around the central D-Pad. In particular commonly used controls like the number keys, inputs and power button all sit on the upper half of the remote and require quite a bit of hand shifting to access. Given the lack of contouring and slick plastic we believe this constant hand shifting will likely result in the remote being dropped quite a bit. The angle at which you can control the TV is good, however, we were able to turn the TV on at an angle of only 10 degrees from the face of the TV.

**Programming & Flexibility***(6.0)*

The JVC LT-47X899's doesn't have programmable buttons, but you can use it to control other pieces of your home theater setup, including a set top box, VCR, DVD or Stereo. To test how easy it is to set up we programmed it to control our Comcast Cable Box. We found the process to be simple, with good instructions found in the back of the manual, along with a list of codes for a variety of different devices. Of course given that we are not particularly impressed by the remote you may want to go out and find a more comfortable universal remote.

Audio

**Sound Quality***(3.0)*

The quality of the JVC LT-47X899's speakers is good for television speakers, which means they won't hold a candle to a dedicated surround sound setup. If you're not an audiophile, however, and you don't feel the need for that 'real' cinema experience they will serve you quite well. You can even make some slight adjustments via the TV's MaxxAudio feature, which allows you to choose from several presets or make adjustments to bass, treble, etc on your own. In our tests we found that the presets did have a discernible effect on the sound, although whether it is better or worse is a personal judgment.

**Surround Sound***(0.0)*

The JVC LT-47X899 does not have a simulated surround sound mode, which is probably to the best as we've not been impressed by the simulated surround sound on other TVs like the Panasonic TH-46PZ8OU or the Vizio VO47L.

**Loudness***(8.98)*

The JVC LT-47X899's speakers were able to get up to 89.8 decibels. This should be quite loud enough for anyone, in fact it's quite deafening and we don't recommend you turn the volume up this loud on a regular basis, not unless you're sitting fifty feet away. The JVC LT-47X899 is actually several decibels louder than either the Panasonic TH-46PZ8OU or the Vizio VO47L. We measure loudness using a sound pressure meter from a range of five feet. We use a standard tone for this test.

Connectivity

**Input Ports***(7.5)*

The JVC LT-47X899 has a wide range of input ports. All of the ports are located on the back, with some sitting on a strip that faces left and some facing down in an L-shape, as you can see below. The JVC LT-47X899 has a good selection of modern ports with three HDMI and two component video inputs, although it lacks a DVI input. Older analog inputs are also well represented with four analog audio input ports, an S-Video port and three composite video ports.

Along the right side of the JVC LT-47X899 you have easy access to many ports.

The rest of the ports are found on the back and are more difficult to reach.

**Output Ports***(2.0)*

In the realm of output ports the JVC LT-47X899 has one analog audio out and a digital audio out. There are no video output ports available.

**Other Connections***(0.0)*

The JVC LT-47X899 does not support Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee or any other form of wireless connectivity.

**Media***(1.0)*

The JVC LT-47X899 has a single USB port that can be used with digital cameras to display photos.

**Placement***(7.5)*

The JVC LT-47X899's ports are located in two strips that make an L on the back of the TV. The vertical strip is left facing (when standing behind the TV), while the horizontal strip faces down. The HDMI, USB, VGA, Optical Audio and Antenna ports are the ones facing down, with all the other ports arranged vertically. The vertical ports are very easy to access, unlike some TV's where you have to get behind them to access anything these are convenient to reach and the labels are very legible just by looking at the TV from the right side. The ports that face down are a little less accessible.

Controls & Menus

**Ease of Use***(5.5)*

The LT47X899 has a rather complicated set of menus, as it offers a very wide selection of controls. You access the on-screen menu by pressing the menu button to the left of the directional pad in the center of the remote, and the directional keys and OK button are used to navigate and select the controls. The back button takes you back to the previous screen, and you can exist right out of the menu by pressing the menu button again. The menus are then broken up into 9 screens: initial setup, V-chip, closed caption, On/Off timer, picture adjust, sound adjust, features, key items and photo options.  Many of these have separate sub-menus and sub-screens. The overall effect of this is that it can be difficult to find the menu choice you need, especially as some of the least commonly used items (such as the closed caption controls) are amongst the first to be shown in the menu. Other, more commonly used ones (such as the bass and treble controls for the speakers) require more button presses to reach. This means that the LT-47X899 is somewhat frustrating to configure and use; it involves a lot of button pressing, scrolling and moving around overly complex menus. 

**Picture Controls***(7.5)*

This is going to be a long section, so feel free to pause here and grab a cup of coffee or something. You're back? Good. To say that the LT-47X899 has a lot of controls to alter the color is putting it mildly; there are a huge selection of color related controls on this display. You start on the picture adjust menu, which gives you the first major option to consider; the video status mode.

The 4 preset options (standard, dynamic, theater and game) control all of the other settings, so they are a good way to quickly change all of the settings at once. Two memory modes (called memory 1 and memory 2) allow you to save custom settings. You can also turn the natural cinema mode on or off (or leave it on auto mode), which tries to apply a telecine correction for material shot at 24 frames per second.

The other options on the picture adjust menu are as follows:

**Audio Controls***(5.0)*

The LT-47X899 has somewhat fewer audio than video controls, but there are still more than usual. The sound adjust menu uses a system called Maxx audio, which has four user-adjustable profiles; low, medium, high  and off, which disables the internal speakers. For each profile, the settings for bass, treble, stereo and balance can be altered on a scale of 1 to 10. There is also a setting for the turn on volume (the volume of display when it is switched on) and a volume limit setting, which sets the maximum selectable volume. This is useful if your kids keep cranking up the volume in Rock Band and you're sick of it. The MaxxVolume setting alters the volume as it is played back so you hear the quiet bits but don't wake up the sensitive neighbors with the noisy bits. You can also set the optical output format to PCM or Dolby Digital.

Although these controls cover the basics, there is no way to really tweak the sound; the LT-47X899 is lacking the equalizer controls that other displays have. It is also lacking the pseudo-surround sound features that other displays have, but given the lousy job these usually do compared to a proper surround sound system, that's no great loss.

**Other Controls***(6.0)*

There are plenty of other menus on the LT-47X899. Let's look at them in turn.

The Initial setup menu is the first one you see when you turn the display on. From here you can set up the Tv tuner and the channels that you receive if you connect the display directly to a signal source (over the air digital TV and analog cable are supported). The LT-47X899 can automatically scan for channels and add them to the lineup. From this menu, you can also set the clock (or set it to grab the time from the TV signal).

For those of you who like to put limits on what the family can (and can't see), the V-chip menu sets the content restrictions. These can be based on TV and movie ratings in both the US and Canadian format. You can also set the display to allow or block unrated material.

The closed caption menu provides a lot of control over closed captions, including turning them on or off and setting the font and size used. The LT-47X899 also supports the more advanced captions that can be included with digital signals, which can include closed captions in different languages.  

The on/off timer basically turns your display into an an alarm clock; here, you can set the display to turn on at a particular time, then off at another time. You can also set the volume and the channel that it goes to. This could also be useful if your dog has a fondness for General Hospital and you have to work, but there is only one timer, so it won't help if they also want to catch All My Children; you'll need a Tivo for that.

The features menu is a kind of catch-all for stuff that doesn't fit in any where else, such as switching the fifth video input between HDMI, the VGA and the component input, setting the TV to skip showing the JVC logo on startup and changing the position of the screen. One important feature that is covered here is the aspect ratio; this menu option provides you the same choices that you get from pressing the aspect button on the remote.

The penultimate menu is the key items menu, which allows you to set things like the favorite TV channels that are listed when you press the favorite button on the remote and the clock display. It also allows you to set the language for those TV shows ht athave a second audio channel.

The LT-47X899 has a USB port on the back that can be used to connect a digital cameras. These features are controlled through the photo viewer menu. This basically turns your expensive display into a glorified photo frame, allowing you to view, zoom in and scroll around photos on any device that can act as a USB storage device. But you can't do anything else with them; there are no slide show features, no way to add background music and no other controls. 

**Manual***(7.0)*

The JVC's manual is not as gigantic as some others we've seen, but it does a good job of providing sometimes complex information in an  accessible manner. In particular we like that there's a table of contents right inside the first page, although we also wish that there was an index in the back as well. Every page in the manual has large text at the top indicating what that page is talking about, which is very helpful when you're flipping through trying to find what you want. We did feel that the photos of menus were a bit on the small side, it was difficult to make things out sometimes. We did like the dedicated trouble-shooting section in the back, however.

Formats & Media

**Formats***(10.5)*

The JVC LT-47X899 supports most modern display formats including 1080p, 1080i, 720p, 480p and 480i. TV's that don't support any of these formats are becoming less common, so no surprises here. There is also support for 3:2 pulldown and 24p modes, which allow you to get a more cinema-like effect for content that is produced to look like film. The JVC LT-47X899 also supports x.v.Color, which is used by some modern camcorders to produce a wider range of color.

**Photo Playback***(5.0)*

Photos can be played back on the JVC LT-47X899 using the available USB port on the back of the TV. You can plug a single USB device like a camera, memory card reader or memory stick directly into this port, or you can plug a USB hub into it and plug multiple devices into that hub. Your options for viewing photos are simple, you can see a listing of photos organized in a grid pattern called Multi-Screen, or you can choose to view a slideshow.

In Multi-Screen mode you can select photos and open them to view them on the full display. The Back button is used to go back to the Multi-View interface. You can jump between pages of photos using the number pad. You can also rotate images by using the Vol+/Vol- buttons. When viewing a photo full screen you can zoom in using up/down on the Remote's D-Pad. When zoomed in you can pan an image using the number keys, 1 will move it up and to the left, for example. Hitting the number 5 will reset to default position.

For slideshows you have control over the transition used between photos, with options for Fade, Slide, Wipe, Zoom, Blind and Shuffle. You can also set the interval between photos up to a maximum of two minutes, or you can match the transition manually if you prefer. The photo playback options of the JVC LT-47X899 are fairly basic, we do like to see the ability to rotate and zoom into photos.

**Video Playback***(0.0)*

The JVC LT-47X899 does not support direct playback of video files.

**Streaming Playback***(0.0)*

The JVC LT-47X899 cannot stream video content from sites like Youtube.

**DVR***(0.0)*

The JVC LT-47X899 does not include video recording capabilities.

Power Consumption

**Power Consumption***(8.21)*

The JVC LT-47X899's power consumption is slightly higher than average when running at a peak luminance of 200 cd/m2, our standard level for testing. At this level the JVC LT-47X899 would cost $0.69 per week or $35.77 per year to run. This assumes you watch five hours of television a day. The level of your backlight does make a significant impact on the cost of running the television. Turning it up to a peak brightness will increase your annual bill to $57.76 while turning it down to minimum will save you almost $23 with an annual cost of $13.86. This is typical of LCD televisions and is a good reason to use the lowest brightness you can while watching television.

 

Value & Comparisons

**Value**

At around $2600, the LT-47X899 is at the top of the range for the size. And that price does not represent great value for money; there are other HDTVs at lower or similar prices that offer a wider selection of features and better image quality.

**Comparisons**

Samsung LN46A750 - The Samsung has much better image quality than the JVC, looks nicer and has more features. And the Samsung is a bit cheaper, too; it's available for $1900.

 

Panasonic TH-46PZ80U - This plasma display has a much wider viewing angle than the JVC, but the screen is significantly dimmer and it uses a lot more energy.

Vizio VO47LF - The Vizio has worse image quality than the JVC, with weaker color, lighter blacks and significantly worse motion. But it's also a lot cheaper, at nearly half the price.

Conclusion

The JVC LT-47X899 is an expensive TV for what you get. It costs a lot (around $2600) and has only lackluster image quality. There are a few things we liked about it (videos with lots of movement looked good and were pretty much glitch-free, and the Theater Pro II controls do provide a good degree of control over the color settings for those who liek to do their own calibrations), but these plusses are outweighted by big minus: the cost. It costs nearly double the Vizio VO47LF, and just isn't twice as good. And it is significantly more expensive than the Samsung LN46A750, which beats it in pretty much every category.

Ratings & Specs

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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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