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Samsung C630 TV: MVA vs PVA
Pierre-Jean Alzieu
Translator: Sam McGeever
Updated: September 20, 2010
Translator: Sam McGeever
Updated: September 20, 2010
| On the left is the Samsung LE40C630 HD TV with a PVA LCD panel manufactured by Sony-Samsung and CCFL backlighting. | | | | | | | |
On the right is another version of the same TV: the Samsung LE40C630, this time with an MVA LCD panel manufactured by AU Optronics and CCFL backlighting. |
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| PVA |
| | MVA |
| 1920 x 1080 pixels | | | 1920 x 1080 pixels |
| Sizes: 32'', 37'', 40'' and 46'' | | | Sizes: 32'', 37'', 40'' and 46'' |
| HDMI (x4), SCART (x2), Component (x2), Composite, VGA | | | HDMI (x4), SCART (x2), Component (x2), Composite, VGA |
| Viewing Angles: 178° / 178° | | | Viewing Angles: 178° / 178° |
| BACKGROUND |
 We had naively assumed that Samsung, which first developed PVA display technology, would use it in all of its own TVs. But to keep up with the huge numbers of sales, Samsung has had to look elsewhere for display panels. In theory, its suppliers have to meet a strict set of criteria ensuring consistent quality standards. |
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 On this particular model, the 40C630, we've identified two different panel manufacturers.Some units use a PVA panel from Samsung itself, while others use a panel from AU Optronics, which instead relies on MVA technology. |
| Whatever the source of the panel, the other components inside the TV are always the same, so upscaling SD content and displaying HD content will be exactly the same. On the other hand, factors like colour reproduction, contrast, viewing angles and the evenness across the whole screen are subject to variation. That's what we're interested in here. |
| BUILD QUALITY AND DESIGN: A DRAW |
| Of course, the choice of panel doesn't affect the overall design or the other qualities of the TV, none of which change. Both versions of the C630 scored three stars in this section, making it very average. |
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Panel: the first thing we noticed when we unpacked them was that, like the Sony EX503, both versions of the C630 have matte panels, making them largely immune to reflections. However, backlighting with fluorescent tubes (rather than LEDs) makes the TV 8 cm thick (not counting the stand). LED-backlit models can be under 3 cm.
Remote Control: Samsung has provided a fairly basic remote for this TV. We had got used to the very attractive alternative features on the C7000 and the C8000, but no such luck: the old design is back and there's no backlighting for the buttons. |
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Media Player: good news: the media player is compatible with peripherals formatted as NTFS, which means you can read files bigger than 4 GB. The majority of HD video files we tried worked without any problems, whether they were encoded as AVC (x264) or encapsulated as MKV. On the other hand, M2TS and MTS files aren't supported, but subtitles are supported as long as they are separate from the video file. |
| RESPONSIVENESS: A DRAW |
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We used a camera that can capture 1000 frames per second to measure how long it took to display and clear moving objects on different coloured backgrounds. In both cases, the average response time is around 15 ms.
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To put that in context:
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| COLOURS: PVA WINS |
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PVA technology reproduces colours more accurately. Once both TVs are in Cinema mode and with a brightness of 200 cd/m², our equipment revealed that the Sony-Samsung panel did a better job of faithfully reproducing colour, with a deltaE of 2.2, compared to the 2.8 achieved by the AU Optronics equipment. DeltaE is a measure of the discrepancy between a set of ideal colours and those actually shown on screen; any defects are usually considered to be invisible when it falls below 3.0.
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 Score out of five for each TV |
| CONTRAST RATIO: PVA WINS |
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During our tests of the Samsung LE46C630 with its MVA panel and the LE40C630's PVA panel, we found a 50% improvement in favour of the latter.
A helpful reader let us test his 40'' MVA, and, although the gap is narrower, it's still there. In Cinema mode, we detected contrast ratios of 4200:1 and 2800:1 respectively for the PVA and MVA panels. That means that the PVA version produces blacks which are a third deeper than its MVA cousin. |
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 Score out of five for each TV |
| EVENNESS: A DRAW |
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We measure how even a display is by examining the brightness of a white test card in 28 locations. We measure the average discrepancy across the whole surface of the screen and scale this into a score out of five. In this case, there's no difference between the two technologies, with both scoring an excellent 4.8/5.
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 Score out of five for each TV |
| VIEWING ANGLES: PVA WINS |
 Score out of five for each TV |
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Last year, we started to measure the viewing angles of a screen by taking readings from various test cards at an angle of 45°. We compare these values with those facing the screen directly to see how different the colours look from the side. Once again, PVA technology demonstrates its superiority, producing much wider viewing angles than MVA. |
| RESULT: PVA AN EASY WINNER |
The difference in quality between the two panel technologies is very visible, but that doesn't mean that a TV which has an MVA panel instead of PVA is necessarily faulty. Remember that we still gave the MVA version of the C620 four stars, so, while it's not the best television, it's still a very good buy that will suit the majority of viewers. |
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The Samsung 40C630 with a PVA panel is excellent, and should really have scored five stars. However, the panel lottery means that the 40C630 can only get the four stars achieved by the versions with an AU Optronics MVA panel that some models contain. |
