Jonathan Takiff: For new TVs, CR says: Get the LED in

THE GIZMO: Consumer Reports' latest take on new TVs.

AT YOUR SERVICE: If this is (fill in the month here), you're likely to find a review of new televisions in Consumer Reports magazine.

Clearly, this fair and impartial reviewer of consumer goods has found flat-panel, high-definition TVs to be a source of special and near-constant interest among readers. And it helps that they've now got a first-rate equipment reviewer on staff, the unbilled James Willcox, doing most of the heavy lifting.

THE HOT SCOOP: CR's latest findings, in the August 2009 issue, conclude that new enhancements have made today's best LCD sets better than predecessors. Maybe not as good as the top plasma-based flat-panel TVs, they hint (and I'd affirm), but LCDs are getting close.

The biggest source of improvement is in screen illumination. Conventional LCD TVs light up the screen with a rear-mounted, always-on fluorescent tube or two. In front of those tubes, individual liquid-crystal-display elements open and close to blend the colors and allow light to pass through. But even closed LCDs leak a little light. That's why the darkest parts of an LCD picture often look dark gray instead of inky black, most notably when you're watching in a dimly lit room.

Now, the best-rated and most-expensive new LCD sets tested by CR - including the 52-inch Samsung LN55A950 and 46-inch Sony Bravia KDL-46XBR8 - have replaced those fluorescent tubes with a "full array" of 900 or so LED (light-emitting-diode) bulbs. The sets turn those bulbs on and (fully) off in sections with a computer-controlled process called "local dimming."

As a result, the dark parts of a scene achieve a truer, more dramatic blackness, akin to the quality found in the best plasma screens. Meanwhile, other parts of the screen remain partially or fully illuminated. The end result is a picture with better overall contrast and colors that pop.

There's just one problem with this pretty picture: LEDs are much more costly than fluorescent tubes, adding almost a grand to the retail price. That's why those Samsung and Sony sets mentioned above carry retail tags of $4,500 and $4,000 respectively.

Other new Samsung and Sony models also tested by CR use an alternate design - edge-lit LEDs. These sets place just a few dozen tiny bulbs around the perimeter of the panel frame, with reflectors distributing the light across the screen.

Edge lighting does help set designers shrink the depth of a TV to as little as one inch. But it doesn't allow for local dimming. "In our first experience with this type of backlighting, we didn't see the same level of improvement in black level as with full-array LEDs with local dimming," noted CR's report.

ANOTHER ENHANCEMENT: Much more prevalent in today's LCD sets is signal oversampling. That's a process that increases the number of times the picture is refreshed from the normal 60 Hz (60 times a second) to 120 Hz (120 times a second).

The result, as far as the eye can see, is a picture that appears to have less blur in scenes with a lot of motion, like a panning camera tracking the play on a football field.

STILL NEEDING TWEAKING: LCD "still falls short of plasmas" in off-axis viewing, noted CR. With most LCD TVs, you gotta sit directly in front of the set to appreciate the maximum brightness level. One CR "best buy," the 42-inch JVC LT-42P300 ($900), scored higher in "viewing angle" while another, the 46-inch Toshiba Regza 46XV540U ($1,200), did not.

CHEAPER OPTIONS: Too bad CR reviewers couldn't get their hands on Vizio's first LED backlit LCD TVs with local dimming, the XVT Series. Typical of this value brand, the 55-inch VF551XVT will come in at a much more attractive price - a suggested retail of $2,199.99 - when it goes on sale in September.

I had a brief preview of this set recently and thought the picture looked markedly better than an edge-lit, 55-inch set from a major competitor (priced in the $2,800 to $3,000 range) that was shown next to it for comparison's sake.

Also in the pipeline from Vizio are a 47-inch, smart-dimming LED model, the SV472XVT, coming in October at $1,699.99 with an added host of Internet connectivity features, and then a 55-inch model, the VF552XVT, also with Internet options.

This fast replacement for the 551 is promised for December delivery at the same $2,199.99. If you're not in a hurry, it might be the one to wait for.

WHAT ABOUT THE PLASMAS? Consumer Reports has to save some TVs to write about in September. So the publication is promising an update on the latest and greatest in plasma sets for that issue.

But here's an educated guess.

They'll probably froth all over the latest generation of Panasonic models - including 55-inch plasmas boasting excellent blacks, very good off-axis viewing and razor-sharp 600 Hz picture refresh rates - which I've seen discounted to as little as $1,600. *

E-mail Jonathan Takiff at takiffj@phillynews.com.