Toshiba REGZA Cinema Series 52XV545U 52-Inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV

Review: Toshiba 52XV545

by Kevin Collins

While at CEDIA 2008 in Denver, I stopped by the Toshiba booth where they were touting their SRT (Super Resolution Technology) in both their new DVD players and their step-up LCD HDTV players.  SRT is supposed to upconvert and enhance 480i/p and 720p input signals for a more detailed picture for your DVDs, TV and other standard definition sources allowing them to be displayed in near High Definition picture quality.    I was quite interested in how this technology played out as my wife tends to watch a lot of standard definition broadcast TV and the picture quality of that on my existing Toshiba 52in HDTV leaves a lot to be desired.
 

Toshiba was very accommodating with a review sample and delivered their top of the line 52in model in November.  I immediately replaced my previous Toshiba 52in in the master bedroom with it as that is where my wife watches the most SDTV content.
 

Features:

The 52XV545 comes with many features, but the key features for my discerning taste are:

Native Mode: This allows you to put any displayed content in pixel accurate mode.  For instance, if you are watching a 1920X1080 ATSC, Satellite, Cable or HD DVD/Blu-ray program, you can eliminate over scanning of the program material and see the entire picture.  A feature of all current model Toshiba HDTV's is the ability to have unique settings for each input.  You want to make sure you do this for every input that comes from a HD source as Native Mode is never the default.  I actually prefer not having overscan turned on, so even for SD content, I turn native mode on.  Below is a portion of Stacey Spears resolution test pattern that I use all the time to see if I am getting full 1920X1080 resolution.  The strength of the test pattern is that it will do pixel / pixel off patterns for all resolutions which will allow you to determine if the display is actually displaying the full resolution of the source material. The camera introduced some moire patterns that are not on the screen, but the portion that I did take a picture of  illustrates pixel on/ pixel off in a vertical pattern.  The Toshiba did an excellent job in resolving 1920x1080 resolution patterns.

 

ClearFrame 120Hz Anti-Blur Technology:  While this dramatically eliminates blur on fast moving scenes, the critical component for me is the full support for 24FPS, which currently would come from a supporting HD DVD (HD-A20, HD-XA2, HD-A30 or HD-A35 player) or from a variety of the later model Blu-Ray players.  If you are a film enthusiast this is an essential feature to have if you plan on watching film based content from HD optical disc.  While the previous generation of Toshiba HDTV LCD panels supported 120hz, they did not support 24FPS properly (i.e. they would do 3:2 pull down to get to 60FPS and then double that to 120hz).  This model takes 24FPS and repeats the frame five times to 120FPS.  The result is judder free pan shots.  I like to use the pan shot of the Gotham skyline at night (in reality it is New York City) on the HD DVD version of Batman Begins to validate that 24FPS is being properly utilized.

ColorMaster Color Control and Color Temperature Control:  These two features combined are essential for an ISF calibrator to quickly correct the out of the box color temperature, primary and secondary colors and gray scale using a professional colorimeter.  The alternative is to try to get into the undocumented service mode menu and figure out how to calibrate the HDTV from there.  Needless to say, this I view this as an essential for any HDTV to have. 

Four HDMI inputs: I have a lot of different HDMI sources in the master bedroom (HD DVD, Blu-Ray and Windows Media Center Extender).  Having a fourth HDMI input on the side of the unit is a great feature to be able to plug in another portable or temporary HD source, like my HD camcorder. 

Top cheesy feature:  I love the backlit Toshiba logo on the front of the display, however if this bothers you Toshiba allows a menu option to turn it off.

 Out of the box:

The first thing that I do with ANY HDTV consumer display is turn off all the factory default settings.  Manufactures compete on the showroom floor for the brightest picture and that never translates into an accurate picture.  If you want Lightning McQueen to look like a dark red cherry or that nice black scene in Batman Begins to look like a veil of grey, leave the settings alone.  Like with most TVs, there wasn't one setting that I left on and I turned everything off. 

SRT:  With all the online hype surrounding Toshiba's SRT technology in this unit I was interested to see how it would perform.  Sadly, I was disappointed. With all the test material tried I really only noticed that there was edge enhancement occurring, giving the appearance that things were "sharper" when sitting more 2X screen lengths from the TV.  Since SDTV was one of the key SD source materials that I wanted to up convert, it was one of the first sources that I used to evaluate SRT.  I did notice from 2X screen lengths away that the ties in the episode of Frasier I was watching seemed to be "clearer", but when coming closer to the set, it was immediately obvious that there was simply edge enhancement  added to the picture.  When sitting at 1.5X screen lengths from the screen the "white lines" outside of all the solid materials was bothersome.  .  After viewing material with this artificial enhancement on, one will quickly realize that they will see more detail with it brought down to an appropriate level like with any television.  I also did viewing from a DVD player to the Toshiba with SRT turned on and then from a DVD player through a DVDO VP50 to the Toshiba with SRT turned off.  While this isn't a fair comparison, the DVDO did a much better job than the Toshiba in up converting, but its a $2K video processor.
 

Below are some examples of what I was referring to watching DVD test content from Joe Kane's Digital Video Essential DVD disc.

Below DVD playback without SRT turned off:
 

Below DVD playback with SRT turned on to its minimum level:
 

 

There are different levels of SRT that you can apply to the picture, but at the end of the day, I turned it off. 

I was curious how a good up converting DVD player would compare, so I used the well regarded Toshiba HD-A35 HD DVD player to view the same content.  In my opinion, it did better than the SRT technology in the display.

Regza Link: This feature is based on HDMI-CEC and requires an HDMI-CEC compatible display device.  I was hoping that even with my Toshiba HD-A35 HD DVD player that I could get this to work in manner that I would only use one remote.  I was able to get parts of it to work, but I eventually gave up on it, maybe I'm too technical to figure something so easy out? 

Tuner support:  Call me cheap, but I have an ATSC antenna on the top of my house, primarily to get the local stations in HD as cable and satellite compress the signal, so the best picture quality is from my antenna.  The Toshiba supports ATSC, NTSC (defunct in June 2009 now) and QAM.  What is missing from previous Toshiba HDTV LCD models is the largely unused digital cable card slot.

Input labeling: Another feature of the Toshiba is the ability to disable inputs.   I really like being able to do this, so that my wife or guests can only select active inputs.  While Toshiba provides for a default list of input labels, I would much prefer to be able to make up my own input labels.  Toshiba does this for naming stations, so it would be swell to have that same feature for inputs.  I would love to be able to distinguish inputs between my HD DVD and Blu-Ray player, whereas right now the closest input label I have is DVD. 

Performance:

Sharpness control:  I've calibrated a lot of HDTV's in the past three years.  I've seen problems between different model years and model lines where the sharpness control would not work properly.  The previous model worked perfectly.  I could set sharpness to zero and I would have no edge enhancement (i.e. halo effects around solid lines).  With this particular model if I set sharpness to zero, I introduced artifacts.  After some experimenting, I  wound up going with a setting of 24, but still had edge enhancement on my horizontal lines but not on my vertical lines.  Reference the test pattern below (compliments of Stacey Spears) that I use to set the sharpness control.  You will notice the edge enhancement on the horizontal line but nothing on the vertical line.  This is a good example of why you want to use a test pattern to set sharpness.
 

Contrast Ratio: Outside of some of the new LCD panels that incorporate LED backlighting, there have been none that have impressed me with contrast ratio.  The 52XV545 was no exception to this rule.  Using a Minolta CS-100 I was able to measure the on / off contrast ratio at 1654:1.  This was done by bringing the backlight control down to 30, which provided some attempt at saving blacks in movies.  Our master bedroom doesn't have sunlight flowing into it because we have black out blinds on the window, (not to provide a light controlled environment, but to let us sleep in longer).  If you were going to have this set in a non-light controlled environment, then it would most likely be necessary to increase the backlight to a higher number.  Having the backlight set to 100 will almost give the viewer sunburn as it is so bright!

De-interlacing/ 3:2 pull down: It used to be that the majority of HDTV's could not do a decent job of de-interlacing and required a separate video processor to handle things properly.  Using a test pattern generated by Stacy Spears that I religiously use, the Toshiba was able to detect 3:2 content and de-interlace it without any moir patterns.  While Stacey has test patterns for a lot of exotic types of content (i.e. anime, etc). I focused on content that would be coming from a DVD player that doesn't have 24FPS capability.  The Toshiba did a good job in this area. 

Viewing Angle: For non-black scenes, the viewing angle on this was very good.  I could go to almost 90 degrees off center without seeing any distortion.  For dark scenes, I could only go about 30 degrees off center before I would see the screen light up.  This is light years better than Toshiba's previous models where even on non-dark scenes I couldn't go more than 40 degrees off center without people faces going white.

Gamma:  I appreciated having the static gamma setting on the display.  It was also there in the previous model and I set it to -4 to get a very slow ramp out of black.  Using the pluge pattern on Joe Kane's Digital Video Essential High Definition HD DVD disc, I was able to see how the ramp from black occurred and settled on the -4 setting.

Light uniformity: I don't know if it was this particular set, but this particular unit had noticeably bad light uniformity problems.  The previous generation that I have didn't have the same level of problems.  To give you an example of this I took the following measurements: Center: .015f/l, top left edge .062, top right edge, .035.  As you can see, the varying amount of light output for what should be totally black was all over the place and is very noticeable when watching content that contains dark scenes.  However, this was never noticeable on other types of content (i.e. news, sports, etc.).

Gray scale:  Like every consumer HDTV that comes out of the box, the color is always off the charts.   As stated before, this is more to compete in the showroom as if a manufacturer were to do something different, the general public would never buy their HDTV as it would seem dim and dull compared to competing models on display.  However, if a discerning viewer wants to see accurate color, then it is critical to have the set calibrated.  Normally I use a Minolta CS-200, but for this review I had the opportunity to try a new contact meter and software from SpectraCal.  I also used Joe Kane's HD DVD Digital Video Essentials for the IRE, primary and secondary color test patterns.  Below is out of the box color temperature with the color temperature set to ÒwarmÓ and the backlight brought down to 30.  As you can see, the color temperature runs very ÒblueÓ, even at the ÒwarmestÓ setting.
 

Using the B and G drive settings on the display, I was able to get the color temperature in an acceptable range outside of the 10IRE and 20IRE test patterns.
 

Using the ColorMaster Color Control, which by default is turned off, I was also able to largely correct the widely oversaturated primary green that was on the display.  Below are the primary and secondary color settings with the ColorMaster Color Control turned off.
 

Using the ColorMaster Color Control I was able to get the primaries and secondary's in an acceptable range.  I can't stress enough how nice it was to have all those calibration features available in the main menu.  However, in doing this and then going back and watching real content I noticed something that there was something dramatically wrong with the processing as severe banding and other artifacts appeared on the screen.  At the end of the day the artifacts outweighed the color accuracy and I had to turn the color master control off.  This did not happen in the previous Toshiba HDTV model that I had. 

Conclusions:  Outside of the Pioneer Plasma Kuro Elite (not made any more as Pioneer has pulled out of the television business entirely), I would have a difficult time having a flat panel as my primary viewing display.  I am a firm believer in a dedicated, light controlled room where a projector is used, but I am considered a fanatic when it comes to this kind of stuff, so I am off the spectrum of anyone considered normal, except for a some of the good folks here on Home Theater Forum.  If the ColorMaster controls worked without introducing artifacts, I would have no hesitation in immediately recommending this display to any friend that wanted the best value for the money assuming that they were going to pay to have it professionally calibrated.   My only other hesitation is around the black level performance and the issues with light uniformity, but these issues are inherent across the majority of fluorescent backlit LCD panels on the market today.  It is my understanding that the next generation of Toshiba HDTV top end LCD panels will have LED backlit panels and also have the Cell processor chip that is in the PS3 and I look forward to seeing what that can do for contrast ratio and up converting standard SD content.  While I was doing this review, I noticed that the street price on the 52XV545 was south of $1700 here in the Seattle area, which was an amazing deal for what the buyer gets with this display. 

Specifications:

Screen size: 52"

Pixel resolution: 1920x1080

1:1 mode at 1080i/p? Yes

Accept 1080p? Yes (60, 24)

Display 1080p/24 at: 120Hz

Refresh rate: 120Hz

Response time: 8ms or less

Video inputs: 4 HDMI (1.3), 2 component, 1 S-video, 2 composite, 1 VGA, 1 RF

Other connections: 1 IR out, 1 optical digital audio out

Dimensions (WxHxD): 49.4" x 33.1" x 12.9 (w/stand), 49.4" x 31.1" x 4.0" (w/o stand)

Weight: 82.7 lbs (w/stand); N/A (w/o stand)

Warranty: 1 year, parts & labor

Price: $2600

Review System:

Sources:

Toshiba HD-A35 HD DVD player

Panasonic DMP-BD30 Blu-ray Player

Test/Setup Discs:

Digital Video Essentials (DVD)

Digital Video Essentials High Definition (HD DVD)

Spears & Munsil (HD DVD, unpublished)

Calibration Equipment:

Minolta CS-200

Minolta CS-100

Spectracal CalMAN professional

Settings:  While taking settings and using them on another display, I do like to at least provide settings that illustrate what I was doing on the display.  Below are the key settings that I wound up using.  It should be noted that all of these settings are specific to each input, which is a very good thing.  However, it does mean that you need to change the settings for every input. The ones with and * require the use of test patterns to be able to properly set:

Contrast *: 80

Backlight: 30 – this is in a dimly lit room.  If you were in a brighter room, you would want to set it higher.  It was producing 24.81fl at that setting though.

Dynalight: Off

Brightness *: 55

Sharpness *: 24

SRT Upconversion: Off

Dynamic Contrast: Off

Static Gamma *: -4

Color Temperature: Warm

ClearFrame: On

Film Stabilization: Standard (smooth was too video like for my tastes on 24FPS film content)

Picture Size: Native

Auto Aspect Ratio: Off

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