In a rather large departure from our typical PC display reviews, Tom's Hardware got its hands on NEC's V801 presentation monitor. This 80-inch LED/LCD screen is a commercial-grade model that can be used for just about anything requiring a large display. You would most likely see the V801 in an airport, for example, functioning as a dynamic message board or showing news feeds, for example. Obviously nobody's going to set this beast up on their desktop.

Since our lab is more intimate than the average mall food court, we’d rather see how it works as an HDTV. Our monitor benchmark suite is still very much relevant in this review, but we'd be remiss if we didn't spend some quality time watching content like movies and TV shows.
A few short years ago, the only way to experience an image much larger than 50 inches diagonally was to use a front projection system, and that remains the best way to enjoy screen sizes in excess of 80 inches. There’s nothing like the immersion of an image that fills your peripheral vision.
However, projectors have inherent limitations and installation challenges. For example, you need a dedicated room with full light control to extract maximum performance from a projector. Our reference room at Tom’s Hardware is painted flat black, walls and ceiling, and completely light-tight. If we still used film cameras, it would double as a dark room.
Our screen is 92 inches diagonal, is lit by an Anthem LTX500 LCoS projector, and the setup cost about $10,000 in 2009. Even with all of the light controlled, the brightest image we can display is around 54 cd/m2. And that has become our reference minimum output standard.
Back when we built the system, our ultimate big-screen fantasy was Panasonic’s 100-inch plasma display. With an output of around 137 cd/m2, it would have been an amazing experience. Unfortunately, it also sold for $80,000! A screen like NEC's V801 makes an excellent home theater display. Price-wise, it competes with mid-priced projectors like JVC’s LCoS line. And at less than $10,000 on the street, it costs quite a bit less than a Runco or Sim2 DLP model.
| Brand | NEC |
|---|---|
| Model | V801 |
| MSRP | $9,400 |
| Panel Type | UV2A |
| Backlight | W-LED, edge array |
| Screen Size | 80 in |
| Max Resolution | 1920x1080 |
| Max Refresh Rate | 60 Hz |
| Aspect Ratio | 16:9 |
| Response Time (GTG) | 6.5 ms |
| Brightness | 460 cd/m2 |
| Speakers | 2 x 10 W |
| Analog RGBHV | 1 |
| Composite Video | 1 |
| VGA | 1 |
| DVI | 1 in, 1 out |
| DisplayPort | 1 |
| HDMI | 1 |
| Control | Ethernet, RS-232 |
| Panel Dimensions W x H x D | 72.3 x 41.8 x 3.4 in 1836 x 1061 x 87 mm |
| Weight | 132.3 lbs |
| Warranty | Three years |
You can see from the specs that the V801 is one immense monitor. It arrived via freight on a pallet and had to be moved with a dolly just to get it in the door. Where a desktop monitor’s screen area is measured in square inches (311.13 for a 27”), the V801’s size is better expressed in feet: roughly 19. While the max resolution (1920x1080) may seem underwhelming in this age of QHD and UHD, you won’t be able to see individual pixels at a distance of seven feet or more. And since consumer video content is still at 1920x1080, the benefits of a higher pixel-count display are minimal at best.
The V801’s panel technology is not something we’ve covered at Tom’s before. UV2A is a manufacturing technique that Sharp pioneered, and is basically a more precise way to control the angle of the liquid crystal molecules in each sub-pixel. The main advantages include greater contrast and higher power efficiency. The additional control precision is also a precursor for future 4K resolution panels, which will require much smaller pixels for a given screen size.
Product 360
The V801 presents an all-business appearance with a neutral style that puts the image front and center with no distractions from the chassis. The bezel and the back plate are stamped steel. There isn’t much going on up front besides the screen. All of the interesting goodies are on the sides and back.

There is plenty of ventilation to keep the V801 nice and cool. Thermostat-controlled fans are built in and can be managed from the OSD. Around the NEC logo are lugs for a 400 mm VESA mount. NEC even has a wall bracket available for this beast. If you hang this display, make sure the studs are reinforced to support at least 150 pounds.
Speaking of hanging…

There are two of these lugs at the top of the V801. With the appropriate hardware, you can hang it from cables in a free-floating configuration. The idea of having a 135-pound monitor hanging overhead is both tantalizing and terrifying!

The V801 is a tremendously flexible monitor as evidenced by this very full input panel. From the left we have analog RGBHV BNC-type terminals, DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI in and out for daisy-chaining, VGA, and composite video inputs. At the far right is a LAN port and RS-232 I/O connections. As long as your source outputs a compatible signal, you can connect almost anything to the V801.

You're only able to use this control panel if the V801 is mounted to a frame, rather than a wall. And you can't see what you're doing as you manipulate its buttons, either. They control the power, select the input source, and navigate through the screen's menus. Fortunately, there's a TV-style remote included.

This wand works very well, except that it isn’t back-lit, making it difficult to use in a dark room. At the top are discrete power keys, plus one-button input access, picture mode toggle, aspect ratio, and audio. In the middle is menu navigation with volume and PIP controls. You can use a single remote to control up to 100 V801s by giving each monitor a unique ID.

Four of these handles are bolted onto the V801 to help you move it. We found them indispensable in our lab.

Here are the external speaker connections. The slot cover above them can be removed to insert a single-board PC, which NEC sells as an optional accessory. This would be extremely handy in presentation situations where you’d want a self-contained solution.
A tiny box on the back of the display contains one of the two down-firing speakers. They boast 10 watts of power, but their output is underwhelming. Consider them fine for basic computer sounds and little else. Frequencies are limited to the upper mid-range.

NEC also sells a simply stand as one of the V801's optional accessories. It’s a two-piece affair that bolts onto threaded fittings in the back. It was very helpful for our purposes, but we believe a majority of owners will mount the screen in some fashion.
Included in the box is a power cord, a DVI cable, and a CD containing drivers and user manuals. NEC also throws in batteries for the remote control.
To say that the V801 can do just about anything is an understatement. We’re not sure there is a source, analog or digital, that it can’t handle. Because of this, we decided to treat it like an HDTV rather than a computer monitor. We’ll take a tour of the vast OSD, but there is so much to cover that it makes the most sense to concentrate on the items relevant to entertainment or computer use.

This is the first menu that comes up, and it's where you’ll find the necessary calibration controls. We applaud NEC’s decision to put them in a single menu, which is very intuitively laid out. Like most HDTVs, the backlight and brightness controls are separate. In fact, both contrast and brightness have very small sweet spots where they won’t clip highlight or shadow detail. If you want to control light output, use the backlight slider.

Even though the RGB sliders are marked “gain” there is no bias control. Calibrate the V801’s grayscale using an 80 percent white window and you’ll be rewarded with excellent results. When you start moving the sliders, the overall color temperature changes from 6500K to Custom.

This is the color management system. It only adjusts hue, so all we could do was tweak the cyan and magenta secondaries. Fortunately, the color doesn’t need much help. It’s very accurate right out of NEC's box.

The gamma’s default preset is 2.4; we changed it to 2.2. The other options are for specific content. DICOM is a medical imaging standard. Setting the gamma to programmable lets external software control the preset.

Telecine is another HDTV feature, specifically a video processing algorithm that converts a 24 FPS film cadence to 60 Hz. It’s also known as 3:2 pulldown. Adaptive Contrast plays havoc with gamma and crushes highlight and shadow detail, depending on content. It’s best to leave that option turned off.

Of the six picture modes available on the V801, Standard, Cinema, and HighBright are fully adjustable. There are two Ambient modes that utilize the built-in room light sensor to modulate the backlight. And an sRGB mode locks out the color temperature and CMS sliders.

The best choice for maximizing resolution is 1:1, since it maps each pixel from the source signal to the screen without scaling or overscan. We use HDMI for our testing, and this option leaves a gray frame around the edge that blocks 5% of the image. To eliminate it, go to the Advanced Option menu and turn Overscan off. The image adjustment sliders in the lower right allow you to zoom in on part of the image.

You get a full complement of audio controls that govern the function of the internal 10-watt speakers. If you set Line Out to Variable, you can control the volume of an external sound system with the V801’s remote. The Surround option simulates surround sound by varying the phase (timing) of the two speakers to make them sound like five. However, it makes the sound a little boxy with an artificial resonance that we aren’t fans of. The two-channel sound is just fine on its own.

Up to seven scheduling programs are available. Each one can be set to specific on and off times, starting input, and picture mode. This is very handy in commercial applications when you want to run the monitor only during business hours, for example.

The PIP menu offers a lot of different options. You can have the secondary source in a window or in a side-by-side configuration. The window can be positioned anywhere on the screen. Additionally, you can have a text ticker that scrolls anywhere across the screen.

The text ticker is great for news or financial applications where you want to see a scrolling feed along with standard video. Not only can you control the position and size of the ticker, you can alter its transparency with the blend control.

The OSD is available in nine languages.

Imagine 100 80-inch panels in a video wall installation. The V801 supports up to 100 screens for display of a single image! You’ll need a distribution amplifier and a whole lot of AC current to do this. Each panel has a unique ID, which you can set here.

The panels in the video wall can be controlled via RS-232, which is the most common interface for residential and commercial automation systems, or via Ethernet through the V801’s RJ-45 jack. With RS-232 you can daisy-chain the monitors and copy settings from one display to the entire array.

There are all kinds of interesting things on this screen. Power Save shuts down the monitor after a specified time without an input signal. The internal fans can be set to Auto and you can specify a starting temperature. We never heard the fans during normal use except when we powered the TV on. Screen Saver and Side Border Color are options for preventing screen burn-in or image retention. This is not really a problem with LCD panels, but a monitor that is designed to run 24/7 might experience issues over time.
The Alert Mail function is pretty cool. Any V801 connected through the LAN port can email a message to you when a fault is detected.

The final menu, Advanced Option, has settings for input handling, overscan, and others that are of interest to those using the V801 as an HDTV. Deinterlace is defaulted to On and should be left that way to properly handle interlaced video signals. The HDMI black level control is under the Terminal Setting option and should be left at the default of Expand to be sure that all 256 steps of the signal are displayed. Color System will change the decoder matrix depending on the source signal. Auto works fine but you can force it to NTSC, PAL, SECAM, 4.43 NTSC, and PAL-60. In the U.S., we use NTSC for all broadcast and disc-based content.
NEC V801 Calibration
Calibrating the V801 was very straightforward and we handled it more like an HDTV than a computer monitor. With separate Backlight and Brightness controls, we were able to set the proper black and white levels, and then use the Backlight slider to adjust light output. In fact the default setting for Contrast is right on the money and Brightness only had to be turned up one click to the correct level. The Backlight control has a huge range, making it easy to set the proper output level for a given space.
The grayscale controls only cover the high range, so we used an 80-percent white window to set a 6500 K white point. You’ll see the excellent results on page seven. We tried out the CMS, but it only controls hue, so it wasn’t of much use. Luckily it isn’t really needed, as the default color gamut is pretty close to the Rec. 709 standard. Our settings are recorded below. We used two different Backlight settings: one for 200 cd/m2 and another for 170 cd/m2, which is our preferred level for TV watching. We also had to set the Brightness (black level) at different points depending on whether the content was PC or video-based. For our benchmarks, we used PC level. For the in-use tests, we used video level.
| NEC V801 Calibration Settings | |
|---|---|
| Backlight | 40 (200 cd/m2), 34 (171 cd/m2) |
| Contrast | 50 |
| Sharpness | 50 |
| Brightness | 51 (PC), 45 (Video) |
| Hue | 50 |
| Color | 50 |
| Color Temp | 6500 K (Custom) |
| RGB | Red 242, Green 222, Blue 169 |
| Color Control | Cyan 6, Magenta -2, all others 0 |
| Gamma | 2.2 |
| Picture Mode | Standard |
| Noise Reduction | 0 |
| Telecine | Auto |
| Adaptive Contrast | Off |
For our HDTV test setup, we use an Oppo BDP-93 Blu-ray player connected directly to the monitor. All Blu-ray discs are played in the Oppo’s Source Direct mode, which means any necessary video processing is performed by the V801 rather than the player.

Contrast is a huge factor separating good HDTVs from great ones. Our favorite test of contrast is Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. It’s filled with dark murky scenes that provide a torture test for a display’s ability to render shadow detail. An average TV will look flat and lack definition. The V801 does an excellent job thanks to its low black levels and correct gamma. In the opening sequence, when Harry and Dumbledore are walking together in a nighttime setting, you can see details like roof shingles and bricks very clearly, while blacks remain rich and deep. The black bars aren’t quite invisible in our completely dark room, but they come close. With a small amount of ambient light, the bars disappear. While this monitor won’t dethrone the best plasma, it looks better than the vast majority of consumer LCD televisions we’ve seen.

With this first title, we discovered the V801’s one weakness. While it will accept a 24p signal from a Blu-ray player, it converts it to 60p before output. Obviously 60 is not a multiple of 24, so there are visible motion artifacts in any film-based content unless you set your player to output 60p. These artifacts manifest as brief stuttering at scene transitions and a slightly too-fluid sense of motion as extra frames are inserted to equalize the cadence rate. It’s a small issue, but the majority of dedicated HDTVs will display 24p content at a frame rate that’s a multiple of 24, like 120 or even 240 frames per second.
Another thing we look for in a home theater display is how it handles a noisy video. The Blu-ray edition of The Last Samurai is a great test for this. It’s not a particularly good transfer because it’s loaded with noisy images and edge enhancement. NEC's V801 impressed us, though. Even the edge enhancement, which comes from the disc not the display, doesn’t look too obnoxious. Noise is kept to a minimum even with the reduction slider set to zero, which means some processing is happening. This Blu-ray looks pretty bad on most TVs, but the V801 handles it very well.

To test the V801’s color rendering ability, we turned to the excellent Blu-ray transfer of Seabiscuit. This film is shot with lots of warm vibrant tones as it successfully recreates the era of The Great Depression. It’s quite easy to spot a TV with under- or over-saturated color here. Cueing up a scene with lots of pretty fall colors and bright sunlight, we lost ourselves in the entire movie. It looks that good. Color is rich and vibrant with a really nice natural look. The all-important fleshtones look just right without excessive redness.
Now we’ll move on to our traditional benchmark suite.
To measure and calibrate monitors, we use an i1Pro spectrophotometer and version 5.1.2 of SpectraCal’s CalMAN software.

For patterns, we employ an AccuPel DVG-5000 video signal generator. This approach removes video cards and drivers from the signal chain, allowing the display to receive true reference patterns. Connections are made via HDMI.

The AccuPel DVG-5000 is capable of generating all types of video signals at any resolution and refresh rate up to 1920x1080 at 60 Hz. It can also display motion patterns to evaluate a monitor's video processing capabilities, with 3D patterns available in every format. This allows us to measure color and grayscale performance, crosstalk, and ghosting in 3D content via the 3D glasses.
The i1Pro is placed at the center of the screen (unless we’re measuring uniformity) and sealed against it to block out any ambient light. The Accupel pattern generator (bottom left) is controlled via USB by CalMAN, which is running on the Dell XPS laptop on the right.
Our version of CalMAN Ultimate allows us to design all of the screens and workflows to best suit the purpose at hand. To that end, we’ve created a display review workflow from scratch. This way, we can be sure to collect all of the necessary data with a concise and efficient set of measurements.
The charts show us the RGB levels, gamma response, and Delta E error for every brightness point from zero to 100 percent. The table shows us the raw data for each measurement. The area in the upper-left tells us luminance, average gamma, Delta E, and contrast ratio.
Every primary and secondary color is measured at 20, 40, 60, 80, and 100 percent saturation. The color saturation level is simply the distance from the white point on the CIE chart. You can see the targets moving out from white in a straight line. The further a point is from center, the greater the saturation until you hit 100 percent at the edge of the gamut triangle. This shows us the display’s response at a cross-section of color points. Many monitors score well when only the 100 percent saturations are measured. Hitting the targets at the lower saturations is more difficult, and factors into our average Delta E value (which explains why our Delta E values are sometimes higher than those reported by other publications).
Our benchmark tests are relevant for any display whether it’s used with a computer or as an HDTV. The only difference here is that we’re including data from a consumer product, Pioneer’s Elite PRO-111FD, in our comparison charts.
Uncalibrated
Before calibrating any panel, we measure zero and 100 percent signals at both ends of the brightness control range. This shows us how contrast is affected at the extremes of a monitor's luminance capability. We do not increase the contrast control past the clipping point. While doing this would increase a monitor’s light output, the brightest signal levels would not be visible, resulting in crushed highlight detail. Our numbers show the maximum light level possible with no clipping of the signal.
Our comparison group for this review is the last five displays reviewed here at Tom’s Hardware, plus a Pioneer PRO-111FD plasma HDTV. Pioneer no longer manufactures this screen, but it still represents the pinnacle of flat panel performance. All data is collected in the Pioneer’s ISF Day mode, which is a special picture preset accessed by software through the set’s RS-232 port.
Another note before we talk about the results: thanks to the V801’s separate backlight and brightness controls, we are able to control light output solely with the backlight slider. We're leaving brightness and contrast unchanged for all of the benchmarks.

As a presentation product, the V801 needs to be as bright as possible, and it certainly delivers. While its output seems searing to us in our darkened testing space, it easily competes in a large room with skylights and other bright sources, such as what you'd see in a mall or building lobby. The Pioneer TV is actually quite bright...for a plasma, that is. Even the dimmest LCD monitors are brighter than most plasmas.
Here is where things get interesting.

The PRO-111FD is the ninth and final generation of Pioneer’s Elite line of HDTVs. Its black levels are pretty much unmatched by any display of any type, even today. While the V801 delivers a superb result and handily beats even the Samsung S27B970D for maximum black level, it isn’t anywhere near the reference-level plasma. However, for such a bright display, the V801 turns in incredible performance.
Here’s the final contrast result.

While we’re impressed with any contrast ratio over 1000:1, the V801 and PRO-111FD take that metric to an entirely different level. Even at the brightest setting, the images on these screens truly look 3D. We firmly believe that dynamic range is the most important factor in image quality. For a more thorough explanation of that concept, please read Display Calibration 201: The Science Behind Tuning Your Monitor.
We had to do things a little differently for the minimum luminance tests. On the V801, we left the brightness control alone and turned down the backlight control instead. Reducing brightness below a setting of 51 crushes shadow detail, but lowering the backlight slider does not. To turn down light output on the Pioneer, we set its contrast control to zero.

The Pioneer still presents a usable image, but NEC doesn't. We also took measurements at an output level of 53.3502 cd/m2 to get more realistic black level and contrast numbers.
Here are the black level measurements.

At the minimum brightness setting, NEC beats the Pioneer by a scant .0009 cd/m2. When the white level is raised to 53.3502 cd/m2, the black level is a still-excellent .013 cd/m2.
We’ll wrap up this section with the minimum contrast comparison.

NEC's panel achieves an impressive contrast result. Of course, the Pioneer is in another universe altogether. Even more impressive: when we measure the V801’s contrast at 53.3502 cd/m2, it climbs higher to 4091:1.
After Calibration
Since we consider 200 cd/m2 to be an ideal point for peak output, we calibrate all of our test monitors to that value. In a room with some ambient light (like an office), this brightness level provides a sharp, punchy image with maximum detail and minimum eye fatigue. It's also the sweet spot for gamma and grayscale tracking, which we'll look at on the next page.
As you saw in the max white test, the PRO-111FD can’t quite reach 200 cd/m2, so we took a second set of calibrated luminance measurements from the V801 at 171.3207 cd/m2. This is a more palatable light level for watching an HDTV in a darkened room.
We start with the calibrated black level. This can sometimes rise a bit from the monitor’s default state. We consider the tradeoff in contrast well worth the gain in color accuracy.

The V801 is our new calibrated black level champ among LCDs. Pioneer's television is renowned for its black levels. How does this translate to reality? When the PRO-111FD is displaying a zero-percent signal, you can’t tell it’s turned on. The NEC’s black level of .0475 cd/m2 is incredibly low, but still visible to the eye.
Here are the final calibrated contrast numbers.

The V801 has almost three times the contrast ratio of the next best performing LCD in our tests, ViewSonic's VX2770Smh. The image depth on this screen is really something to see, and that’s why it makes such a good HDTV.
ANSI Contrast Ratio
ANSI is another important indicator of contrast. We measure a checkerboard pattern of sixteen zero and 100 percent squares, which is somewhat more real-world than on/off measurements because it tests a display’s ability to simultaneously maintain both low black and full white levels, and factors in screen uniformity. The average of the eight full-white measurements is divided by the average of the eight full-black measurements to arrive at the ANSI result.

Why is the Pioneer’s ANSI number so much lower than its on/off one? Because of the power supply limitations inherent in this display type. It takes a lot of current to drive a large plasma panel, so less juice is available when the overall picture brightness increases. You might measure a 100 percent window pattern at 170 cd/m2. But measure a 100 percent full field pattern and the result will be more like 46 cd/m2, a brightness drop of over 75 percent. LCDs do not have this issue, so the V801’s ANSI value is only slightly lower than its on/off number.
The majority of monitors, especially newer models, display excellent grayscale tracking (even at stock settings). It’s important that the color of white be consistently neutral at all light levels from darkest to brightest. Grayscale performance impacts color accuracy with regard to the secondary colors (cyan, magenta, and yellow). Since computer monitors typically have no color or tint adjustment, accurate grayscale is key.

Out of the box, the V801 is set to a color temperature of 10,000 K. While this is tolerable in a space lit by sunlight, there's plenty of output available to support a proper 6500 K white point. If you plan to use the V801 as an HDTV, you definitely want to calibrate it. Otherwise, the image will have a very obvious blue tint, no matter the light level.
Fortunately, you can calibrate this panel to any standard you wish.

Dropping the color temp slider to 6500K and adjusting the RGB controls produces an excellent grayscale result with flat tracking from bottom to top. Obviously the lack of low range controls is not a problem. Delta E errors range from a high of 2.0 at 70 percent to a low of .16 at 90 percent.

An out of box grayscale error of 7.71 Delta E is pretty high. But it's done intentionally. There are situations where you need the extra perceived brightness of a cool white point. The Pioneer’s number is even higher, reflecting the habit of television designers to make their sets stand out in big box store showrooms. The important thing is that the potential for improvement exists.

The V801 calibrates to a pretty solid average error of only 1.23 Delta E. With the highest error being 2.0, there are no visible issues at any brightness level. If you are setting up a V801 and you don’t have a colorimeter, set the color temp slider to 6500K. This will get you pretty close to the D65 standard.
Gamma Response
Gamma is the measurement of luminance levels at every step in the brightness range from 0 to 100 percent. This is important because poor gamma can either crush detail at various points or wash it out, making the entire picture appear flat and dull. Correct gamma produces a more three-dimensional image, with a greater sense of depth and realism. Incorrect gamma can negatively affect image quality, even in monitors with high contrast ratios.
In the gamma charts below, the yellow line represents 2.2, which is the most widely accepted standard for television, film, and computer graphics production. The closer the white measurement trace comes to 2.2, the better.

The V801’s gamma chart is pretty much flawless. It’s great to see that when you set the preset to 2.2 it actually measures 2.2! The default setting is 2.4 and the image doesn’t really suffer in quality at that number, but it just won’t quite match the content’s gamma setting.
Here’s our test group again for the gamma comparisons.

At a total variation of .12, the V801 is in elite company. It’s almost imperceptibly behind Pioneer's plasma screen and the Planar monitor. Only our meter can tell the difference. You’re looking at tiny degrees of perfection.
We calculate gamma deviation by simply expressing the difference from 2.2 as a percentage.

A .45 percent deviation is also near-perfect. The values range from a low of 2.14 to a high of 2.27. This means the brightness errors are 2 cd/m2 at most. It just doesn’t get any better!
Color gamut is measured using a saturation sweep that samples the six main colors (red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, and yellow) at five saturation levels (20, 40, 60, 80, and 100 percent). This provides a more realistic view of color accuracy than sampling only the 100 percent saturations.
Since the V801 includes a color management system, we tried it out. It only adjusts hue, so we made tiny tweaks to cyan and magenta. Because they didn’t make much of an impact on the final results, we’re only showing the post-calibration chart.

The V801 fares well, with a reasonably accurate sRGB color gamut. Red and magenta are slightly undersaturated, but the error is only barely visible above 80 percent. You can see this is compensated for in the luminance graph by raising the brightness of red. The overall result is as good as, or better than most computer monitors or HDTVs.
Let’s see how the NEC V801 stacks up for color accuracy.

The V801's 1.19 Delta E result is the lowest average color error we’ve measured this year. Only Pioneer beats it with an amazing .83 Delta E measurement. And that’s without the benefit of a CMS. Remember that we take into account all saturation levels from 20 to 100 percent, resulting in a higher number than if you only measured at 100 percent. The NEC’s extremely low score means it’s a very well-engineered display, worthy of its high price tag.
Gamut Volume: Adobe RGB 1998
There are basically two categories of displays in use today: those that conform to the sRGB/Rec 709 standard like HDTVs, and wide-gamut panels that show as much as 100 percent of the Adobe RGB 1998 spec. We use Gamutvision to calculate the gamut volume, based on an ICC profile created from actual measurements. The chart shows the percentage of both sRGB and Adobe RGB 1998 gamuts.

The V801 comes pretty close to rendering 100 percent of the sRGB gamut. We don’t know of any panels this big that display the wider Adobe RGB 1998 gamut. And we’re not sure what the application of such a panel would be. Given this and the Delta E results above, our opinion is that the V801 qualifies as a reference-level display for both color and grayscale accuracy.
Viewing angles are extremely important for a panel this large. In a home theater environment, you’ll likely be sitting 10-12 feet away, which means the angle from the center seat to the sides of the screen is around 32 degrees. We shoot our photos at a 45 degree angle, which, in the case of the V801, correlates to a seven-foot seating distance. That's definitely too close because you’ll see the pixel structure.
If you expand the photo, you can see there are slight color shifts in both the horizontal and vertical offsets. Light falloff is almost imperceptible, which is better than what we’re used to seeing from IPS screens. In normal content the color shift is barely noticeable. This is one of the best LCD panels we’ve ever seen with regards to off-axis image quality. And it’s another reason why the V801 is so well suited to be a home theater screen as well as a presentation monitor. We’re also impressed with how well shadow detail holds up as you move off-center. You can easily enjoy this display with a few friends and no one will fight for the middle seat.
Screen Uniformity: Luminance
To measure screen uniformity, we use zero percent and 100 percent full-field patterns, and sample nine points. In a change from previous reviews, we’re now comparing the results to other monitors we’ve measured. First, we establish a baseline measurement at the center of each screen. Then the surrounding eight points are measured and their values expressed as a percentage of the baseline, either above or below. We average this number. It is important to remember that we only test the review sample each vendor submits. Other examples of the same monitor can measure differently in this metric.
First up is black field uniformity.

This is where a large-format display is at a disadvantage to desktop-sized screens. A monitor of this size is bound to have hotspots. The center of the V801 is just a bit brighter than the surrounding areas. Considering that it’s an edge-lit display, we're still very much impressed.
We're surprised that the Pioneer plasma doesn't exhibit better uniformity in a black field. At least it's dark enough to hide the the hotspots. Only the meter knows the true result.
Here’s the white field measurement.

The V801 is brighter at the center in the white field measurement as well. Again, it’s barely noticeable to the eye given the sheer size of the screen. But its deviation is higher than the desktop monitors we’ve tested. The Pioneer, on the other hand, rockets to the top of the pack.
Screen Uniformity: Color
To measure color uniformity, we display an 80 percent white field and measure the Delta E error of the same nine points. Then we simply subtract the lowest value from the highest to arrive at the result. A smaller number means a display is more uniform. Any value below three means that variation is invisible to the naked eye.

We have yet to measure any monitor that has visible color shift across an 80 percent white field pattern. Both the V801 and the PRO-111FD are under the threshold. Again, this is a very difficult test for such large a panel.
To perform these tests we use a high-speed camera that shoots at 1000 frames per second. Analyzing the video frame-by-frame allows us to observe the exact time it takes to go from a zero-percent signal to a 100-percent white field.
The pattern generator is placed at the base of the monitor so our camera can capture the precise moment its front-panel LED lights up, indicating that the monitor is receiving a video signal. With this camera placement, we can easily see how long it takes to fully display a pattern after pressing the button on the generator’s remote. This testing methodology allows for accurate and repeatable results when comparing panels.
Here’s a shot of our test setup. Click on the photo to enlarge.
The brighter section of the camera’s screen is what actually appears in the video. You can see the lights of the pattern generator in the bottom of the viewfinder. We flash the pattern on and off five times and average the results.
Here’s the screen draw result.

Playing games on a giant screen is undeniably cool. But if you demand the highest speed from your rig, the V801 is not quite fast enough. It measures about the same as the other IPS-based monitors we've tested. Though it's probably not quick enough for the most competitive gamers, the panel does a good job of keeping motion blur and smearing to a minimum.
Here are the lag results.

We expected the Pioneer to do better in the input lag test, but it only scored slightly better than the rest of the pack (except for Asus' 144 Hz screen, of course). The V801 was a little below average compared to other IPS desktop monitors. We did play a few console games on it using an Xbox 360. Since its output is limited to 60 Hz, we had no trouble keeping up in fast-paced shooters and first-person titles.
We’re not sure that NEC expected us to treat the V801 like an HDTV, but we just couldn’t resist. It’s really not the sort of display you would run productivity apps on, but it’s just begging to be used as the centerpiece in a home theater. It used to be that only a projector could provide that immersive experience movie buffs crave. Now, we can consider a large-format LCD as a worthy projector replacement.
At over $9000, the V801 isn’t for everyone (even its lower street price is prohibitively expensive). But if you've been dreaming about a truly large HDTV or monitor, and your significant other thinks you've behaved exceptionally well this year, well, there isn’t much else out there at this screen size. Time to start dropping some holiday hints. If you want to go bigger, you’ll need a projector, and that comes with its own challenges. For most media rooms, an 80-inch screen provides plenty of immersion while still allowing you to keep the lights on.
Of course, NEC markets this display as a commercial/professional product. And it is extremely well designed for that purpose. With rugged construction, tons of inputs, and easy integration into video walls and other large-space applications, it’s hard to imagine a better-suited monitor. But we think it performs equally well in a home theater.

The benchmark numbers, especially those for contrast, place the V801 in elite territory among both HDTVs and computer monitors. We gave it the toughest possible competition in the form of a Pioneer Elite PRO-111FD and it acquitted itself well against that iconic screen. Not only is its contrast ratio far higher than any desktop display we’ve tested, it beats the vast majority of HDTVs too. Fortunately, its color, grayscale, and gamma accuracy are also among the best. Its tremendous dynamic range is also impressive. With a max light output of almost 460 cd/m2, it displays a bright saturated image in any environment. But throttle back to around 170 cd/m2 and you have a high-contrast home theater screen.
We only found two flaws in the V801. First, its black field uniformity was not the best, mainly due to its large size. Even the Pioneer plasma turned in poor numbers there. The second issue, which could be fixed fairly easily, is its inability to match refresh rates from the source material. For computer-based content, this isn’t a big deal since everything is 60 Hz. When playing film-based content, however, it’s a real plus when a display can match its output frame rate to a multiple of 24. Our PRO-111FD switches to 72 Hz for this purpose, and most consumer LCD panels can operate at 120 Hz. The V801 is stuck at 60 Hz, and even though it accepts a 24 Hz signal, the conversion process creates brief stuttering artifacts. Perhaps a firmware update would address this?
If you’re in the market for a video wall, the V801 has all of the necessary functionality to make that happen. While it’s hard to imagine, you can connect up to 100 of these screens and have them display a single image. At that point you’re in scoreboard territory. The resulting wall would be over 60 feet diagonal with a 1500-foot screen area.
Whatever your big-screen dreams are, the NEC V801 can satisfy them. As a home entertainment display, it qualifies as a luxury for sure. But when do you ever regret buying the best of the best?




