The Sceptre handled upconversion poorly, too, managing only a score of 2 out of 5 on our DVD Phantom of the Opera clips. The picture looked extremely oversaturated and bright, and skin tones seemed very off. The TV performed better in our Blu-ray Disc tests (though not much better), with an average score of about 3 out of 5 on both our Mission Impossible III clip and our Dark Knight clips. One of our jurors pointed out that contrast was an issue, especially in the Dark Knight clip that displayed lots of black tones.

One last important thing to note: If you don't take the time to calibrate this TV, the picture doesn't look very good. I spent a couple of hours with the E420BV-F120 after doing an 'All Reset', and the picture is grainy, noisy, and quite frankly unbearable to watch. Luckily you can fix some of this with calibration, but you still won't be able to stop the leaking light or the weak off-axis viewing (moving even slightly to the side turns the picture dark and contrastless).

Two 10-watt speakers are located on the bottom of the E420BV-F120. The speakers are decently loud and full, and several audio presets are available to get you started, including standard, soft, and dynamic. The soft mode is best for ambient noise but not talking, while the dynamic mode is best for talking but not ambient noise. The set has a simulated surround-sound mode, but we found little difference between that and the standard audio mode. Fortunately, the standard audio has a decent amount of depth, so it's no huge loss.

The Sceptre E420BV-F120 has several problems: The light leakage is extremely noticeable, the picture quality is mediocre at best, and the set has no Internet-connected TV options to speak of. While the lack of Internet options and the mediocre picture quality are expected in a cheap set (there's really no excuse for the light leakage), the fact remains that you can do better for less money.