Sharp LC-52D92U 1080p LCD

It pays to be a big website, and Cnet's case it netted them a 120Hz 1080p LCD from Sharp. On the positive side, the black levels were extremely good but it did suffer from banding problems. It some scenes the reviewer could see alternating bands of lighter and darker areas on the screen. How did the 120Hz turn out? According to the reviewer, it didn't help a lot and when compared to a 60 Hz Vizio there was no discernable difference. They did not mention in the review if they tested with 1080p/24 material.

From the article:

We were also curious to see how the Sharp's 120Hz refresh rate affected the picture, and we must say the impact was nearly unnoticeable. Comparing the LC-52D62U directly to the Vizio, which has the standard 60Hz refresh rate, we didn't see any evidence of the image appearing smoother or less blurry during motion, even during the fast-paced combat scenes in Black Hawk Down. We also watched a basketball game on ESPN, and the only time when the Sharp might have looked slightly less blurry was when the camera panned quickly to follow a player's fast-break dunk, but it was really difficult to see.

We checked out the Sharp's ability to handle standard-definition signals by putting it through the HQV benchmark test via its component-video input at 480i. Overall its performance was slightly above average. It delivered the full resolution and bandwidth according to the disc's color bars pattern; detail in the stone bridge was very good; and 2:3 pull-down detection was exceedingly quick. We appreciated the LC-52D92U's excellent three-step noise-reduction control; the high mode did as good a job of reducing video "snow," in low-quality shots of skies, trees, and sunsets, for example, as any HDTV we've tested recently. The Sharp's main standard-definition weakness was in smoothing out moving diagonals and other lines; it left more jagged edges than most displays we've tested.