Verdict

You don’t have to be a TV to be HD Ready, you know. And to prove it, we’ve got just such a seemingly contradictory beast in front of us in the shape of NEC’s 42XR4 42in plasma screen.

The clue to what’s going on lies in our choice of the word ‘screen’ to describe the 42XR4 rather than TV. To become a TV, a screen needs to carry a built-in TV tuner – something that the 42XR4 conspicuously lacks. You can buy an optional external £180 TV tuner from NEC for the screen, but in its from-the-box state, the 42XR4 is resolutely a screen rather than a TV.

What’s more, it compounds this seeming aversion to basic telly with a SCART count of precisely zero. Yikes.

While this screen might not be interested in a normal televisual diet, though, it definitely seems to dig high definition. It sports two HDMI sockets as well as two sets of component video inputs, offering double the typical digital and analogue high definition connection options. Add these to an HD-friendly native resolution of 1,024 x 768 and compatibility with the required 720p and 1080i high definition formats, et voila: one HD Ready product that isn’t a TV.

While this makes the 42XR4 a far from ideal option as a simple replacement for the TV in your lounge, though, it certainly doesn’t preclude it from being a contender as a dedicated movie room screen. After all, people into AV enough to have a dedicated home cinema room will likely also have or be getting an Xbox 360 console, a Sky HD receiver, and a progressive scan or digital upscaling DVD player – none of which need either a built-in TV tuner or any SCARTs.

That said, we can’t help but wonder at this stage whether the NEC’s not-a-TV approach means that its picture quality might be optimised for PC use over video use.

We’ll come back to that later, but for now let’s go back to basics with how this NEC screen looks. And actually, it looks reassuringly glamorous in its sturdy dark fascia and metallic trim. Perhaps the 42XR4 does have one eye on the home user after all.

However, before you get too carried away by this apparent domestic touch, you should know that the screen doesn’t ship with either a stand, or any speakers – be they built in, or external ones. If you want NEC’s own speakers, tuner and stand for the TV, the price leaps from a reasonable £1800 to a really quite off-putting £2600. Hmm.

As we start exploring the 42XR4 for features, we can’t help but notice that it continues to raise doubts about its credentials as a home cinema machine by using neither the sort of remote control nor onscreen menus that you’d expect to find with a normal TV. The remote’s button layout feels extremely unfamiliar, while the onscreen menus are long-winded and prone to the sort of techie jargon likely to scare a technophobe to death.

Luckily we’re anything but technophobes, though, so we gamely dived into everything the 42XR4 has to offer – and actually came up with more than expected. Particularly surprising is the amount of apparently video-friendly processing going on in the background.

For starters there’s a Crystal Clear Driving for reducing false contours and boosting brightness levels. Then there’s something called Advanced Intra Field Noise reduction, to address the noise that can occur between frames of motion.

Accompanying this is a ‘bonded colour filter’ construction technique that lets you watch the screen from the side without suffering the usual ‘ghost’ image witnessed during off-axis viewing with most standard plasmas.

Next we come to a capsulated colour filter system for improving colour saturations and white balance, and finally so far as background stuff is concerned, the NEC continually orbits the picture slowly around – imperceptibly slowly – to avoid plasma’s problems with screen burn.

In terms of features you that can actually play with yourself, the ones of most interest to us include gamma adjustments for improving the brightness/contrast balance, picture in picture options capable of showing two HD sources simultaneously, and, promisingly, two ‘Theatre’ picture preset options, suggesting that maybe the screen does care about movies after all.

Thankfully this is at least partly borne out by the 42XR4’s performance with our usual collection of HD and standard definition video sources. The screen strikes an immediate direct bond with you, for instance, by painting its pictures free from almost all types of video noise. Surprisingly this is even true with standard definition sources like a Sky+ box, suggesting that the video scaling processing inside the 42XR4 is actually better than that of some supposedly more domesticated brands.

The 42XR4’s pictures are also spectacularly sharp thanks to some immaculate edging and fine detail portrayal. Naturally this makes the 42XR4 a good friend to the most important element of a high definition picture.

We also found the 42XR4’s colours to look likeably natural in tone, and its black levels deep enough to give pictures at least some sense of depth – especially as dark areas of the picture contain plenty of subtle shadow detailing.

There’s no doubt at all that the 42XR4 delivers the best video performance NEC has yet managed from a plasma TV. And yet… Black levels, while perfectly acceptable for normal TV viewing, don’t rise to the challenge of a really contrast-heavy film as well as some of the best plasma rivals. Also, despite their natural tones, colours look slightly muted compared to the ultra-vibrant hues put out by the latest plasmas from Pioneer and Panasonic.

And finally, although video noise is generally suppressed, there is one type that does still rear its ugly head from time to time: plasma’s common greenish fizzing over dark picture areas.

Although we don’t think they really justify their hefty cost, NEC’s optional speakers for the 42XR4 are at least no slouches, providing a reasonably crisp, clean, well-rounded and powerful accompaniment to the solid pictures.

”’Verdict”’

Although there’s nothing actually offensive about the 42XR4, its lack of domesticity and anything especially outstanding in its performance make it hard for us to find any particular reason – beyond, perhaps, its extensive HD connections – to recommend it. Especially considering it’s far from cheap once you’ve added a stand, tuner and speakers to the price.

Trusted Score