Looking at this new TV before turning it on is like taking a trip into the recent past. The matte-black bezel, with the Elite logo tastefully emblazoned in the bottom centre, harkens back to Pioneer Electronics' Project Kuro plasma TVs. Pioneer launched its Kuro TVs in 2007 to massive acclaim, then withdrew from the TV business in 2009 because of cutthroat price competition.

"Kuro" is the Japanese word for "black;" and no TV has ever delivered blacks as deep as these ones did. The result was a picture with wonderful impact, depth, detail and colour. Many people believe that Project Kuro plasmas were the best TVs ever built.

Like other Pioneer home A/V products, including A/V receivers and Blu-ray players, Project Kuro TVs were sold under two brands: Pioneer and Elite. Elite models typically have additional features and refinements, and are sold through a network of specialty retailers.

Fast-forward to 2011: Elite TVs are back. But they're not plasmas, and they're not made by Pioneer. They're built by Sharp Electronics, and like all of Sharp's TVs, they use LCD technology. Sharp has licensed the Elite brand from Pioneer for the new TVs, and is selling them through Pioneer's Elite dealer network in Canada.

For readers (like myself) who typically jump to the end of a review to see the conclusion, I'll save you the trouble. In every way, these new Elite televisions are worthy successors of the legendary Project Kuro models. They don't have "Kuro" in the name, but blacks appear every bit as deep. And the new TVs can put out more light, so maximum brightness is higher. Colour and detail are astoundingly good.

Features

Besides the 60-inch PRO-60X5FD reviewed here, the Elite lineup also includes the 70-inch PRO-70X5FD. Priced respectively at $6,000 and $9,000, these are the most expensive TVs in their class.

Like all premium TVs for 2011, they're 3D-capable and have Internet connectivity. They have built-in Wi-Fi, and a suite of Internet services that includes Netflix, YouTube, Napster, and Elite Advantage, a concierge service that provides owners with remote assistance and diagnostics.

Elite televisions ship with two pairs of active-shutter LCD glasses. As with Sharp's 3D televisions, Elite 3D glasses have a 2D/3D switch. Viewers who find 3D bothersome can watch in 2D, while companions watch in 3D. The new TVs also have 2D-to-3D conversion, which can be quite convincing with some programming, nature documentaries for example.

Like Sharp's premium Quattron LCDs, the new Elite TVs add yellow sub-pixels to the conventional red-blue-green mix. Instead of "Quattron," this technology is more prosaically described as "RGB + Y" for the Elite brand. Whatever you call it, RGB + Y extends the range of colours the TV can produce, Sharp says: not just yellows and golds, but Caribbean blues and greens as well. Also, it boosts light output, for a brighter picture.

The PRO-60X5FD's 60-inch screen is surrounded by a black bezel that's about an inch and a half wide. The set itself is just over three inches deep. While it's attractive and elegant, it's not as breathtakingly stylish as some of the ultra-thin LED-illuminated on the market.

In large part, that's because of the panel design. Instead of LED edge-lighting, in which the display is illuminated by LEDs arrayed along the perimeter, the PRO-60X5FD uses full-array LED backlighting, with local dimming. The light source is behind the picture. Light output of groups of LEDs can be adjusted dynamically and separately to suit picture content. LEDs behind dark areas of the picture can be dimmed, while those behind bright areas can be left at full output. This allows deeper blacks without "crushing" the picture, which is what dynamic-contrast controls typically do.

Complementing local dimming is Intelligent Variable Contrast, which dynamically adjusts backlight, contrast and brightness to deepen blacks and enhance colour and detail.

FluidMotion interpolates extra frames and applies backlight scanning to prevent motion blur. Precision Pixel Plus allows each red, green, blue and yellow sub-pixel to be addressed individually, to avoid jagged diagonal lines.

Setup

The PRO-60X5FD ships with a very nice remote, whose well labeled buttons are nicely differentiated in size and shape, so it's easy to find the function you're looking for. There are dedicated buttons for 3D viewing and Netflix, so you can get these functions without going through menus.

Appropriate for this TV's upmarket aspirations, the glossy bound manual is housed in a separate slip case. However, I do wish that more attention had been spent on the manual's contents. Basics like getting the TV on the supplied stand aren't adequately explained. Nor are the myriad of possible picture adjustments. (In fairness, explaining adjustments is something that no TV maker does particularly well.)

The input jacks are on the back of the set rather than the side, which makes it easier to hide wires.

When you power up the TV for the first time, the EZ setup process asks you to confirm language, country, time zone, environment (home or store) and whether you're using an antenna or set-top box for TV. The next step is Internet/network setup. After confirming that I was connected wirelessly, the TV searched for my network. As usual, entering the security key using the remote and an onscreen keyboard was fiddly, especially since I had to toggle between numbers and letters. But it's a once-only process.

The PRO-60X5FD first comes up in Standard video mode, with backlight set at +11 (the max is +16), contrast at +32 (the max is +40), brightness centred at 0, and Intelligent Variable Contrast in the Advanced Low position. In the Advanced Picture Settings sub-menu, colour temperature is set at High (producing a cool bluish colour balance), and picture-processing features like active contrast are activated. The resulting picture will be pleasing to many, especially in bright environments. But in settings with controlled lighting, it will appear a bit overblown to viewers with purist sensibilities.

There are many other picture modes, including Elite Pure, Optimum, Movie and Movie THX. All of these modes are promising for obtaining an accurate picture. I started with Movie THX. In the default settings, backlight, brightness, colour, tint and sharpness were in the centre positions. Contrast was set at +32; and Intelligent Variable Contrast was set for Local Dimming. In the Advanced Settings menu, colour temperature was set at Low, motion enhancement was set at 120Hz Low, active contrast and precision colour were turned off, and film mode was set at standard.

Often, I like changing colour temperature from Low to Mid-Low, but in this case, the result was a colour balance very close to the Standard setting, which is a bit on the blue side, so I left it at Low.

I wanted to take advantage of the Intelligent Variable Contrast feature, so changed this setting to Advanced Low. With the higher settings (Advanced Middle or Advanced High), highlights pop more, but the lower settings preserve shadow detail better, while blacks remain deep.

The brightness test patterns (pluge and ramps) on the calibration disc DVE HD Basics displayed perfectly with the default settings for backlight, brightness and contrast, though you can safely increase the backlight contrast to +5 if you want more vibrant highlights. Blacks will remain deep.

In the colour test patterns, red and green appeared slightly under-saturated at the default centre setting, but the blue channel was perfect. With actual programming, I found it helpful to boost the colour setting slightly to +3. Changing the tint control to -3 produced more natural skin tones.

Viewing

Watching actual programming on this state-of-the-art TV was a joy. With its dark night scenes and moody Depression-era interiors, Road to Perdition on Blu-ray is a great test for blacks and shadow detail. In the pivotal murder scene of Finn McGovern at the beginning, blacks were perfect. Even in very dark scenes, the black bars above and below the picture in this widescreen (2.35:1) movie were indistinguishable from the surrounding bezel. Yet detail in dark areas (the case containing Mike Sullivan's tommy gun, Michael's checked brown jacket, Connor's grey overcoat) was excellent. Highlights, such as the streetlights illuminating the falling sleet, stood out beautifully. No artifacts arising from the Intelligent Variable Contrast processing, such as halos or hotspots, were visible.

Barry Lyndon on Blu-ray looked wonderfully film-like. In a roadside scene during the Seven Years War, there was simultaneously superb detail in Barry's white horse and Captain Potzdorf's black horse. Dark interior scenes had loads of atmosphere. The candlelit night scene with Barry having supper with a German woman was exquisite. The effect with this movie was like viewing one painted masterpiece after another.

Sports: Televised sports looked fabulous. In a Toronto Maple Leafs game, the ice was dazzling, but had good texture. The Leafs' home uniforms were just the right shade of blue, even in long shots, when dark colours on some sets become crushed. I've never seen televised hockey look this great.

In a high-contrast afternoon post-season baseball game from Detroit's Comerica Park, there was detail in dark areas like sweaters in the crowd. Once the sun went down, facial modeling and detail in close-ups was excellent. The stadium's natural grass field was a perfect shade of green.

3D: To watch broadcast 3D programming, you press the 3D button on the remote, and choose the appropriate format (almost always side-by-side).

When I watched a PVR recording of CBC's 3D HD broadcast of last winter's Heritage Classic game, I was disappointed at first. The picture was unnaturally brilliant, with blown highlights; and there was noticeable flicker. I checked the picture settings. By default, the TV goes into Standard 3D mode when you activate 3D. There are other modes as well. I selected Movie THX 3D, which elevates settings for backlight and brightness to compensate for the 3D glasses. The effect was transformational. Now I could see the difference between the Habs' white jerseys and the ice. The ice was still dazzling, but now had convincing texture; it looked icy! And the 3D presentation, especially from ice-level cameras in the corners, was wonderfully compelling.

When you load a 3D title into a 3D-capable Blu-ray player connected to the Elite PRO-60X5FD (I used a Denon DBP-1611), the TV automatically switches into 3D mode, and an onscreen message prompts you to turn on your 3D glasses.

With the Elite set in Movie THX 3D mode, Avatar looked glorious. The nighttime scene where Jake gets lost on Pandora was amazing: suitably frightening when he is being pursued by a herd of hyena-like beasts, and magical afterward. What made this sequence so compelling was the inky night sky, menacing shadow detail, and the sparkling highlights (free of artifacts) in Jake's improvised torch when he is being hunted, and in the Pandoran vegetation afterward. This sequence shows the effectiveness of the LED-backlit design, local dimming, and judicious Intelligent Variable Contrast processing.

IPTV: Elite's implementation of Internet TV isn't particularly rich, but it is elegant and well organized. A button labeled "Apps" on the remote brings up a menu of IPTV features on the left side of the screen. Besides Netflix, YouTube and Napster (all of them available in Canada), the list includes Blockbuster and VuDu (not in Canada) and Alphaline (no longer operating). There's also a DLNA function for streaming media over a home network, and USB function for playing media stored on a portable device attached to a USB port. The version sold of Elite TVs sold in Canada is identical to the one sold in the U.S., which is the reason for the inclusion of services that aren't available here.

When I launched YouTube, a trailer for the deliciously gory Happy Wheels game started playing (I guess that's what the last user of my sample had been watching). To search for videos with an onscreen alphabetic keyboard, you press the Up button on the remote. To browse across categories like music, how-to and comedy, press the Down key. Videos display well when shown full-screen; but searching without a real keyboard is awkward.

There's a dedicated Netflix button on the remote. The first time you use this, you have confirm whether you're a member. If you're not, you can create a Netflix account. If you are, you enter your Netflix user name (i.e. your e-mail address) and password using an onscreen QWERTY keyboard. Again it's fiddly. After that, you can watched streamed movies. I watched Rent, which even in Netflix's highest-quality setting looked a bit soft. (That's a Netflix issue, not an Elite issue.) But blacks and shadow detail in the high-contrast opening and dark NYC nighttime scenes were great.

Conclusion

It's early days for IPTV features, and no version I've seen is ideal, although Sony's implementation is excellent. The network features on this high-end Elite TV are basic, and functions calling for keyboard entry are fiddly (as they are with pretty well all TVs).

But that's not why people will buy this TV. They'll buy it for its video quality with 2D and 3D content. If you're looking for a great picture, and you can afford the substantial price tag, you needn't hesitate. That said, other premium TVs we've reviewed recently cost considerably less. They deliver great pictures as well, though not quite on the level of these Elite screens. These are the best TVs on the planet right now.

Elite PRO-60X5FD
PLUS
Wonderfully deep blacks and vibrant highlights
Superb colour and detail
Excellent remote

MINUS
Expensive
Limited IPTV features
A little thicker than other premium LCD flat panels

NUTS & BOLTS
Screen size: 60 inches
Display type and resolution: LED-backlit LCD, 1,920 x 1,080 pixels
HD video inputs: HDMI (5), wideband component video
Network connectivity: Ethernet, USB (2), built-in Wi-Fi
Network features: Netflix, YouTube, CinemaNow, Napster, Elite Advantage Live, DLNA, VuDu
Technical amenities: RGB + Y (yellow sub-pixels as well as a standard red, blue and green); Intelligent Variable Contrast, FluidMotion
Size: 140 x 84.9 x 7.7 cm (w/h/d, without stand); 140 x 88.4 x 33.3 cm (w/h/d, with stand)
Weight: 30kg (without stand); 32.5kg (with stand)
Price: $6,000
Website: http://elitelcdtv.ca