Insignia NS-PDP42 review: Insignia NS-PDP42

Insignia is Best Buy's house brand, so the company's inexpensive 42-inch plasma, the NS-PDP42, is available only at the giant electronics retailer. By all appearances, however, this plasma shares a strong heritage with LG, from the panel's external design, to its menu system, to the tendency for a somewhat noisier image than those of other plasmas. We can forgive a little noise, but the NS-PDP42 is cursed by a picture quality characteristic we find unforgivable, even at this price: burn-in. The NS-PDP42 has the worst case of "temporary image retention"--the more charitable term--that we've ever seen. That's too bad, because in other areas the Insignia's picture is perfectly decent for a budget set. To our eyes, however, the burn-in is a deal-breaker.

Design
When we first unpacked the Insignia, we felt a twinge of deja-vu. We had seen this design before--it was just a question of where. When we flipped on the TV and caught a glimpse of the menu system, the answer was staring us in the face: LG. The NS-PDP42 looks almost exactly like the 50-inch 50PC3D we reviewed in 2006, down to the horizontal protrusion below the logo and the green, nondimmable power indicator. The charcoal-gray Insignia looks pretty unassuming next to the shiny cabinets of its competitors, but its looks won't embarrass anyone.

We did appreciate the novel stand, which folds up behind the panel when it's packed into the box and swings out, ready for action, with a quick twist. Of course you can pull the stand off for wall-mounting, if you would like, so we'll supply the TV's dimensions in both cases. With stand, the Insignia NS-PDP42 measures 44.4 inches wide by 29.5 tall by 15 inches deep and weighs 64.4 pounds. Stripped of the stand, the panel measures 44.4 by 27.4 by 4.1 inches and weighs 55.8 pounds. This isn't the most compact 42-inch plasma we've seen, so it might be a hassle to fit into tight spaces.

We liked the ample spacing and well-differentiated layout of the big clicker's buttons, along with its direct-access keys for input selection and certain key menu items, such as picture and audio adjustment. The remote can operate three other pieces of gear. Those tell-tale LG menus are relatively well laid out and easy to navigate, and we felt the font and graphics--along with most aspects of the NS-PDP42's design--were a cut above those of most budget HDTVs.

Features
As with its design, the Insignia's feature set is pretty complete for a low-buck HDTV. Like most 42-inch plasmas on the market the Insignia has a resolution of 1,024x768, which qualifies it as an HDTV but doesn't quite allow it to display every pixel of the lowest high-def resolution. Of course, at this screen size, that pixel count is fine for most viewers--1080p resolution, as we found when reviewing models such as the Panasonic TH-42PX700U, is all-but-unnoticeable at 42 inches. Like most other HDTVs, the Insignia scales all sources, whether high-definition, DVD, or standard-definition TV, to fit the native resolution.

Picture settings can be stored in one of two "User" memories per input.

In addition to the three picture presets, which cannot be modified, there's a pair of User slots, which are each independent per input, allowing you to create two different user settings for each source. The selection of color temperature controls follows the same model, with three presets accompanied by a User mode that allows you to fine-tune the set's grayscale--although it wasn't much help; see Performance for details. We didn't like the global brightness control, which consists of a seven-position slider operated by a rocker switch on the remote (and absent from the menu). It doesn't improve the set's black level performance when decreased below the default middle position, but does make it worse if increased, so we left it in the middle.

The Insignia's user menu allows you to fine-tune the color temperature.

The picture menu also includes a section labeled "DB"--identified in the manual as a "digital booster" for use with HD sources--with On/Off controls for noise reduction, contrast, and color. We turned off contrast, because it adjusted the picture on the fly, but left color on because it improved color decoding a bit. Finally there's an Advanced submenu with options controlling 2:3 pull-down detection and black level. Only the latter was active with high-def sources, and should be set to "light" to preserve shadow detail.

With standard-definition sources, the Insignia lets you choose from among five aspect ratio modes, while high-definition sources limit this choice to a still-respectable four. Among other features, the Insignia also throws in a few to combat potential burn-in, which it calls "image sticking." These include a pixel orbiter, which moves the image around the screen slightly over time, an inverse mode, which turns blacks white, yellows blue, and so forth, and a simple white screen that can be left on over time if you notice the image "sticking." Owners of this TV may find themselves using this last option quite a bit.

Although we applaud the inclusion of a power-saving mode, which limits the TV's peak light output, in our tests it was too aggressive and didn't let the plasma get bright enough for our tastes. See the Juice Box below for further details on the Insignia's power consumption.

The back panel of the Insignia NS-PDP42 includes two HDMI, two component-video, and one PC input.

In terms of connectivity, the Insignia offers just about what we expect on a budget HDTV these days: two HDMI inputs and two component-video inputs, which should be plenty for most viewers' high-def needs. There's also a VGA-style computer input (1,024x768 maximum resolution), an AV input with composite and S-Video, an RF input for antenna and/or cable, an analog audio output, and an optical digital audio output. There's also an RS-232C port to interface with custom remote systems, although we doubt it'll get much use. For temporary connections, Insignia also throws in a side-panel AV input with composite and S-Video.

The Insignia's side-panel offers S-Video and composite-video inputs.

Performance
Our main issue with the Insignia NS-PDP42's performance is its tendency to temporarily retain after-images in dark scenes--an issue colloquially known as "burn-in." In other areas it's a middling performer, and if not for this issue we'd improve its score into an area competitive with models from Vizio, Westinghouse and other budget brands.

Although the overwhelming majority of plasma HDTVs we test have no problem with burn-in, charitably called "temporary image retention," the Insignia's problem with retaining images is simply unacceptable. If any part of the screen displayed still images for a few seconds, such as the grid of our DirecTV programming guide, the news ticker on CNN, the menu of a DVD, or even a paused screen while we were watching TV, an after-image would remain. The after-image was most noticeable when viewing darker scenes, but we noticed it even in lighter scenes with a bit of darkness, and if the screen faded to black it was quite obvious--at times the darker parts of scenes displayed a palimpsest of old tickers, menu items, program grids, and sports scores. We ran the Insignia for as long as we could during our review period, overnight in a couple of cases for a total of about 70 hours by the time this was published, and this issue persisted. (Update 4/30/2008: We've put more than 300 hours on the Insignia since this review was published and the image retention issue is still as severe ever.)

We haven't seen nearly this level of temporary retention on other plasmas we've tested, even during their initial 100 hours of operation, so the NS-PDP42 is definitely unusual in this regard. At least the Insignia's retention was temporary in all cases (it faded after awhile of playing moving images or the white screen from the ISM menu), but overall it's still very problematic in our opinion, especially given the current state of the plasma art.

Moving on, for comparison testing we first reduced the light output of the NS-PSP42 to a respectable 40 footlamberts, our target for viewing in a dark room, and calibrated the other settings as well as we could. We also tried tweaking the user-menu color temperature controls to get the grayscale closer to the 6,500K standard, but we couldn't improve on the measurements we got in the default "Warm," preset, so we left it there. For our complete dark-room picture settings, click here or scroll down to the Tips section.

After setup, we sat down to compare the Insignia with a few other HDTVs we had on-hand--all more expensive than this model, but still worthy of comparison just to see how the entry-level NS-PDP42 stacked up. Comparison models included the Olevia 252T FHD, a 52-inch LCD; the Philips 47PFL9732D, a 47-inch LCD; the Panasonic TH-50PH9UK, a 50-inch plasma; and our reference displays for color and black level, the Sony KDS-55A3000 and the Pioneer PDP-5080HD. We watched the RoboCop Blu-ray on the Sony PlayStation 3.

We didn't expect the inexpensive Insignia to produce a very deep shade of black--and compared with the other sets it didn't--but then again, its blacks were better than those of a lot of low-buck plasmas we've tested, such as the Vizio VP50 and the Hitachi P50H401. On the night when RoboCop first takes his Taurus LX on patrol, for example, the shadows of the buildings and the spaces inside his car appeared lighter than they did on the other sets, with the exception of the Olevia LCD, which was about equal to the Insignia. Details in shadows were also less-apparent on the Insignia, which tended to get too bright too quickly--a sign of improper gamma. Then again, for the price, black level performance was certainly acceptable.

We can say the same about the other crucial area of HDTV performance: color. Helped by the NS-PDP42's relatively accurate grayscale in the Warm preset, skin tones, such as the close-up on Peter Weller's chin and mouth beneath the mask, looked realistic and not tinged by the bluish cast that plagued the Olevia, for example. Our main compromise was having to desaturate the image a bit to make up for the red push in the set's color decoding, which (along with the slightly lighter blacks) deprived the image of some impact.

Primary color accuracy was a bigger weakness of the Insignia, especially in green areas, although it wasn't as bad as that of some plasmas we've reviewed. When Robocop pulls up to his old house on Primrose Lane, the trees and grass of the neighborhood looked a bit bluer than on the Sony, but the difference wasn't drastic.

We did, however, notice more noise on the Insignia than with other sets in the room. As the camera pans over the white model of future Detroit in the boardroom, for example, we saw more motes of snowy noise on the NS-PDP42, even when we engaged the "DB noise" function--which didn't seem to have much effect at all--and left the other sets' NR turned off. On the other hand the NS-PDP42 wasn't as prone to false contouring as many plasmas we've reviewed, especially for a budget set.

As a 1,024x768 HDTV, we expected the Insignia to resolve more detail than it did when fed 1080i sources. It truncated more 1080i resolution than other 1024x768 plasmas according to test patterns, although the 720p patterns looked a lot sharper. As a result, we recommend going 720p when possible, especially since the Insignia didn't properly deinterlace 1080i sources, whether from video- or film-based sources. The set cannot accept 1080p sources, which isn't a big surprise for something in this price range.

With standard-definition sources, the Insignia did well on most tests, but its ability to combat video noise was poor. The color bar pattern showed that the set could handle all of the detail of the HQV DVD, and details in the grass and the stone bridge looked relatively sharp and well resolved. The moving diagonal lines on the stripes of a waving American flag evinced some jaggies, but the set still did an above-average job of smoothing them out. When we finally tracked down the noise reduction feature, labeled "DB noise" in the DB menu, we really couldn't see much noise reduction at all in the low-quality shots of night skies and sunsets from the disc--they appeared as filled with video noise and "snow" as we've seen on any HDTV. When we engaged "Cinema 3:2" mode, the set evinced fine 2:3 pull-down, removing the moire from the grandstands behind the racing car.

With PC sources, the Insignia did fairly well. First, we connected a PC via an HDMI cable (DVI works the same way), and the set resolved every line of its 1,024x768 native resolution with no overscan and nice, crisp text. Next, we tried going in via VGA, and while the results weren't as good, the PC image was perfectly acceptable for light PC monitor duty. The set couldn't resolve every detail or horizontal resolution, exhibiting some softness and interference in the highest-frequency areas, but text was still perfectly legible.

Juice box

Insignia NS-PDP42	Picture settings
	Default	Calibrated	Power Save
Picture on (watts)	216.76	203.87	137.64
Picture on (watts/sq. inch)	0.29	0.27	0.18
Standby (watts)	1.39	1.39	1.39
Cost per year	$66.67	$62.76	$42.64
Score (considering size)	Good
Score (overall)	Average