Toshiba 46SV685D Review

Given the relentless push for super-slim edge-mounted LED-backlit LCD televisions by manufacturers and retailers alike in recent times, one could be forgiven for thinking that the local-dimming variant (theoretically superior in terms of picture quality) could soon be facing extinction. So you can imagine our relief when we received for review one such specimen in the form of Toshiba 46SV685D, the company’s first HDTV featuring LED backlighting technology.

Note: The specific model we reviewed was the Toshiba 46SV685DB (denoting the 3-pin-plug British version) which may be sold as Toshiba 46SV685D or Toshiba 46SV685 by high-street stores like John Lewis, Comet and Currys, or online retailers such as Amazon or Dixons. These terms may be used interchangeably throughout this review to refer to the same model.

Design

Because its LEDs are arranged in separately controllable clusters directly behind the screen, the Toshiba 46SV685D is inevitably bulkier and heavier than edge-mounted LED-backlit (and even most CCFL-backlit) LCD televisions. However, a number of swanky touches does elevate the TV above the ordinary.

Immediately noticeable is the reflective sheet of glass (dubbed “Full Crystal Panel” by Toshiba) that overlies the screen and the bezel, giving the illusion that these two elements are flush against one another. This single level of fascia is in turn framed by a thin strip of silver metal.

The outer part of the bezel transitions from grey to the glossy black of the inner portion. Upon closer inspection, the grey area is actually stippled with grids of minuscule squares, which then curves backwards behind a suspended layer of black to achieve the fade-to-black effect which Toshiba calls “Deep Lagoon“. An illuminated Toshiba logo (which can be switched off) and a matching swivelling pedestal stand (that is pre-attached within the shipping box) complete the lush appearance of the Toshiba 46SV685D.

Connections

Rear: 3 x HDMI, VGA, component, 2 x Scarts, aerial, LAN, digital & analogue audio outs

Side: CI slot, USB, HDMI, Svideo, comp, headphone	Control buttons & SD slot

Operation

The Toshiba 46SV685′s on-screen menu is well laid-out, responsive, and sprinkled with thoughtful touches. Every picture adjustment control we could ever want (and more) is available in the [Picture] submenu. One (minor) gripe though: we wished that the sliding adjustment bar would hold for longer instead of returning to its parent submenu (hence obscuring the centre of the screen where our measurement device is placed) after a couple of seconds.

[Picture] submenu

The [Advanced Picture Settings] submenu houses a comprehensive array of – as the name suggests – advanced picture adjustment controls.

[Advanced Picture Settings] submenu

Enabling [LED Backlight Control] switches on local dimming on the Toshiba 46SV685D to achieve the deepest blacks the set is capable of. [Black/White Level] modifies the shape of the gamma curve, whereas [Static Gamma] raises or lowers the gamma value. [Active Vision M200] controls Toshiba’s motion-compensated frame interpolation (MCFI) engine to reduce motion blur. [Film Stabilization] relates to the set’s film-mode deinterlacing: the “Standard” setting activates 3:2 (and some 2:2) cadence detection; while “Smooth” adds a whiff of 24p dejuddering to introduce a video-like effect to movies.

[Base Colour Adjustment] submenu	[Colour Temperature] submenu

Engaging [3D Colour Management] grants you access to the [Base Colour Adjustment] submenu where you can tweak the primary and secondary colours to your heart’s content. In the [Colour Temperature] submenu, you’ll find no less than 11 colour temperature presets, each equipped with its own independent RGB offset and gain controls for further greyscale finetuning.

[Noise Reduction] submenu	[Resolution +] submenu

The [Noise Reduction] submenu contains the [MPEG NR] and [DNR] options. The former utilises a spatial filter (intended to cut out MPEG noise) which can truncate the finer picture details; the latter uses a slightly more advanced temporal averaging approach which – while reasonably effective without softening the picture – can potentially bring about some low-grade motion smearing. Both of these options should be left off unless absolutely necessary.

[Resolution +] is Toshiba’s much-touted video processing which upscales standard-def content to fit on their HD panels, though to our eyes it’s simply another edge enhancement algorithm. Engaging [Resolution +] allows you to select from five levels of intensity. In the event that you wish to use [Resolution +] to beef up the sharpness of your SD images, we recommend sticking to the lowest setting of “1“, since ringing would become quite obvious at higher settings.

[Expert Mode] submenu	[Preference] submenu

For users without the equipment or knowledge to measure light output from their TVs, the usual way to adjust colour and tint is to use colour filters but these can be unreliable due to light scatter and inherent inaccuracy. Fortunately the Toshiba 46SV685D provides us with an [Expert Mode] submenu where we can turn off individual or a combination of the red, green and blue colour guns, and then adjust the colour and tint using an appropriate test pattern.

When switching between 1080 content, we discovered that the Toshiba 46SV685D would default to “Wide” aspect ratio, making it necessary for us to change it to “Native” (which is critical to 1:1 pixel mapping without overscan for 1080 source) again and again. To get the “Native” aspect ratio to stick, turn off [Auto Format] in the [Preference] submenu.

Calibration

Greyscale

Out of the box, [Movie] mode – with its [Colour Temperature] setting changed from the default value of “2” to “3” – yielded the greyscale closest to D65 industry standard on the Toshiba 46SV685D:

Pre-calibration CCT in [Movie] mode & [Colour Temperature] “3″

Pre-calibration RGB tracking & delta errors

Of course, the RGB offset and gain controls that are available in the [Colour Temperature] submenu allowed us to improve the already respectable greyscale, and reduce delta errors (dEs) to below 4 from 20% stimulus onwards:

Post-calibration CCT in [Movie] mode & [Colour Temperature] “3″

Post-calibration RGB tracking & delta errors

Colours

Considering that the Toshiba 46SV685D HDTV offers a full-fledged – on paper at least – colour management system (CMS) that lets you adjust the hue, saturation and brightness of all 6 primary and secondary colours, one would expect to achieve near-perfect colours on the television set.

Unfortunately things were not so straightforward when it came to actually using the CMS. First off, the saturation and brightness controls were not fully independent of one another, meaning that altering one element would invariably affect the other.

And while we found the CMS controls quite good for mapping the secondary colours to reference coordinates, they were less effective on the primary colours due to limited range of the controls, and also an increase in noise and posterization visible in darker areas of real-world content. So we decided to leave the primary colours largely untouched.

Pre-calibration CIE chart	Post-calibration CIE chart

However, even given these CMS drawbacks, there wasn’t much to complain about the colours on the Toshiba 46SV685D after calibration. Other than a green primary that was slightly oversaturated and tilted towards blue, we attained generally accurate secondary colours, and very good colour decoding without any significant errors.

Benchmark Test Results

Dead pixels	None
Screen uniformity	Very good with [LED Backlight Control] on
Overscanning on HDMI	0% with [Picture Size] set to “Native”
Blacker than black	Passed
Black level	Awesome (<0.01 cd/m2 with [LED Backlight Control] on)
Black level retention	Virtually no fluctuation even with [LED Backlight Control] on
Primary chromaticities	Green oversaturated and tilted towards blue
Scaling	Above average
Video mode deinterlacing	Good; largely effective jaggies reduction
Film mode deinterlacing	Passed 3:2 in 480i (sluggish) & 1080i; and some 2:2 in 576i
Viewing angle	85°
Motion resolution	[Active Vision M200] engaged: 950; otherwise 300
Digital noise reduction	Acceptable at baseline
Sharpness	Defeatable edge enhancement
1080p/24 capability (PS3)	Accepts 1080p/24 video signal; no telecine judder with [Film Stabilization] set to “Standard“
Input lag (rel. to Samsung F96)	0-16ms in [Game Mode]; 47ms otherwise

Power Consumption

Default [Standard] mode	176 watts
Calibrated [Movie] mode	135 watts
Standby	<1 watt

Picture Performance

Black Level

No owner with a sane mind should switch [LED Backlight Control] off on the Toshiba 46SV685D, because if you’re not going to take advantage of its local-dimming LED backlight technology you might as well save your money and buy a much cheaper LCD TV.

Indeed, with [LED Backlight Control] engaged, calibrated black level on the Toshiba 46SV685D measured less than 0.01 cd/m², i.e. below the lowest specified limit of our light-measuring instrument. A subsidiary benefit of local dimming was that the baseline luminance was lowered so much that any blemishes in screen uniformity were completely obscured.

Earlier generations of local-dimming LED-backlit LCD televisions can suffer from circumferential flaring/ blooming/ halos around brighter objects on a dark background due to the limited number of dimming zones. It’s a testament to how much things have improved that we seldom noticed this phenomenon on the Toshiba 46SV685D HDTV (unless when viewed off-axis). Also, despite the necessarily dynamic nature of local dimming LED backlight, we saw practically no fluctuation in black level retention in test patterns and real-life material.

Motion Resolution

The [Active Vision M200] motion-compensated frame interpolation engine on the Toshiba 46SV685D LED-based LCD TV is – in actual fact – a combination of their existing 100Hz technology and a new backlight scanning system to create a pseudo-200Hz effect.

The result was a mixed bag to be honest. Although the Toshiba 46SV685D managed to achieve a motion resolution of 950 in our reference test pattern (Chapter 31 of the “FPD Benchmark Software For Professional“) with [Active Vision M200] engaged, we also witnessed some wierd shimmering and smudging in the 250 to 500-line regions. What this meant was that on certain content, the Toshiba 46SV685D would exhibit more motion blurring than competing 200Hz and even some 100Hz HDTVs.

Motion resolution test pattern. Red circles indicate areas of shimmering/ smudging.

Standard Definition

The Toshiba 46SV685D LED-backlit LCD television smoothened jagged edges quite effectively for video-based material, according to the rotating wheel, bouncing bars and waving flag patterns found in the HQV Benchmark test DVD.

With [Film Stabilization] engaged, the Toshiba 46SV685D successfully detected and processed 3:2 cadence albeit sluggishly (taking 1 to 2 seconds to lock on). The set failed the 2:2 pulldown tests in the PAL version of HQV Benchmark, but fared better with real-life material – it managed to completely remove the moiré from the red Coca Cola sign saying “Go Bridget Go” in the PAL DVD of Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason.

Even without enabling [Resolution +], the quality of upconversion/scaling was above average. Sufficiently sharp detail (either off-air or from DVDs) were captured, but we did observe some ringing around high-contrast edges. Engaging [Resolution +] would add appreciable crispness to standard-definition images, but unfortunately also aggravate the ringing… we certainly wouldn’t recommend going any higher than the lowest [Level] setting of “1“.

Although its standard-def video processing was competent rather than outstanding, the Toshiba 46SV685D’s exceptional black-level and contrast performance – together with natural-looking colours – made SD programmes immensely watchable as long as a sensible viewing distance was adopted.

High Definition

Blessed with local-dimming LED backlight, black-level performance on the Toshiba 46SV685D was typically superb, virtually matching the reference-level blacks seen on the now-discontinued Pioneer Kuro plasmas. Perhaps even more surprising and impressive was the clarity of shadow detail in the midst of such inky blacks.

In addition to injecting depth and dimensionality to the image on screen, the exemplary blacks and contrast also had a positive effect on the Toshiba 46SV685D’s palette. High-definition colours looked suitably rich yet natural, with flesh tones in daytime particularly convincing due to the accurate secondary colours, absence of red push, and D65 greyscale that were achieved through calibration. Measurement-wise green was oversaturated and off-hue, but foliage never really looked out of place… most people probably wouldn’t be able to spot the inaccurate green outside of a side-by-side comparison with a reference display anyway.

We watched some high-def broadcast of live football to check out the real-world benefits of [Active Vision M200], Toshiba’s pseudo-200Hz MCFI implementation on the 46SV685D. Although engaging [Active Vision M200] did improve the clarity and definition of moving objects (compared to when it’s off), in general we observed more motion blur than on true 200Hz systems (and even some 100Hz TVs). On the upside, we did not notice any significant interpolation artefacts.

The way the Toshiba 46SV685D HDTV handles 1080p/24 video signal is strongly linked to its [Film Stabilization] control. [Film Stabilization] “Standard” is the optimal setting, allowing for proper display of 24p material without telecine judder. The “Off” setting caused telecine judder to emerge, whereas the “Smooth” setting introduced a video-like effect to movies, though to be fair this was subtler than most other manufacturers’ implementations that we’ve seen thus far.

Console Gaming

[Game Mode] was necessary to achieve the lowest input lag on the Toshiba 46SV685D HDTV. Out of 10 consecutive runs, the 46SV685D’s input lag was measured to be on par with our resident Samsung F96 LED-based LCD television twice, and 16ms slower 8 times. Any other picture mode other than [Game] would produce an input lag of around 47ms vs the F96.

With [Game Mode] engaged, Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 felt fluid and responsive enough on the Toshiba 46SV685D to not hinder our online multiplayer experience. That said, whether or not your gaming performance is going to be affected by this amount of input lag depends on your own individual sensitivity, and the reflexes demanded by the particular game.

Note: Our resident Samsung LE52F96BD with [Game Mode] engaged has about 30ms of latent input lag vs a CRT.

Audio Performance

To be honest, most of the time we’re tempted to just skip writing about the acoustic performance of the HDTVs we review (because more often than not they sound dire), but the speaker system on the Toshiba 46SV685D deserves some commendation. Taking full advantage of the physical room afforded by the set’s hefty chassis, the Toshiba 46SV685D’s on-board speakers were extremely listenable, delivering respectable audio resolution, volume and low-end bass extension that would put most other flat panels to shame.

We did not hear any significant background noise from our Toshiba 46SV685D review sample both in use and in standby.

Conclusion

The 46SV685D is without doubt the best HDTV we’ve seen from Toshiba to date when it comes to picture and sound quality. The TV set is let down somewhat by subpar motion processing, limited viewing angles, inaccurate greens, and a relative lack of internet connectivity – its high price isn’t easy to swallow either – but these should not detract from the Toshiba 46SV685D’s ability to deliver class-leading blacks and contrast that few current flat screen displays (including plasmas) can match let alone top.

Philips 32PFL8404H Review

It has been quite some time since we last tested a HDTV from Philips, who has developed some truly unique (some may say quirky) picture-enhancing technologies such as their famous Ambilight bias lighting system. So when we were kindly offered a review sample of the 32PFL8404H from Direct TVs’ stock of Philips TVs, we simply couldn’t pass up the chance.

Note: The specific model we reviewed was the Philips 32PFL8404H/12, which may also be sold as Philips 32PFL8404 or Philips 32PFL8404H by retailers such as John Lewis, Comet, Currys, Amazon or Dixons. These terms may be used interchangeably throughout this article to refer to the same model.

Design

The LCD screen of the Philips 32PFL8404H is framed by a relatively thin, glossy black bezel which sports elegantly curved corners, and is fringed by an outer strip of translucent plastic. While understated, these refined lines still give the Philips 32PFL8404H flat-screen LCD television an undeniably stylish appearance.

Turning our attention to the rear, a pair of light panels (which constitutes Philips’ trademark Ambilight technology) is embedded at the sides of the panel. The Philips 32PFL8404H comes with a swivelling pedestal stand that is packaged separately inside the shipping box.

Connections

Rear: 3 x HDMI, VGA, component, 2 x Scarts, aerial, LAN, digital & analogue audio outs

Side: HDMI, USB, CI slot, headphone, Svideo, comp	Panel buttons & Ambilight

Operation

Pressing the [Home] button on the remote control summons a 3-column array of large icons which allow you to access your connected devices, and most importantly adjust the TV’s picture settings.

Main menu	Setup menu

After selecting the [Setup] icon, you are presented with a cascading on-screen user menu that can be a touch sluggish to navigate at times. Perhaps more of an issue is how the user menu occupies the entire screen for the most parts (though some parameters obscure only half the screen), making it somewhat difficult to tweak certain elements that require measuring/ eyeballing the underlying picture.

The Philips 32PFL8404H offers 5 picture presets: “Vivid“, “Natural“, “Cinema“, “Game” and “Standard“. Adjusting any of the options would save the values into the “Personal” settings for that particular input; selecting any of the 5 picture presets again would erase your settings, and reset them to the select preset.

[Picture] submenu

Located under the [Picture] > [Pixel Precise HD] submenu are a host of picture processing options, though most of these should be disabled during critical viewing. [HD Natural Motion] interpolates frames to reduce film-based judder, therefore making movies look like video. [100Hz Clear LCD] (which is greyed out unless [HD Natural Motion] is engaged) reduces motion blurring through scanning backlight and possibly frame interpolation.

[PC Mode] in the [Picture] submenu of the Philips 32PFL8404H LCD TV is the equivalent of [Game Mode] on other televisions: engaging it would reduce input lag (particularly important for reflex-dependent video games) by doing away with any superfluous video processing.

[Custom Tint] submenu

The [Custom Tint] submenu on the Philips 32PFL8404H HDTV allows you to tweak the white balance for greyscale calibration, although the option to set blue bias/ cut remains absent (just like previous Philips HDTVs we’ve tested to date). You start off by selecting one of the “Normal“, “Warm” or “Cool” presets to give you the base values, and then take it from there. Be careful: accidentally navigating to the presets again would erase your current settings, and restore them to the original base values.

[Ambilight] submenu

By default the Ambilight on the Philips 32PFL8404H changes colour and intensity according to the on-screen content, but the [Custom Colour] option under the [Ambilight] submenu lets you maintain the colour and brightness at a constant level as per SMPTE’s recommendations on ambient lighting. The [Palette] and [Saturation] options affect the Ambilight’s hue and saturation respectively (and so can be used to bring the Ambilight’s colour closer to 6500K grey), whereas the [Brightness] option allows you to adjust the level to within 10% of the on-screen peak-white for optimal viewing.

Calibration

Greyscale

Out of the box, [Cinema] mode – with its default [Tint] setting of “Warm” – yielded the greyscale closest to D65 industry standard on the Philips 32PFL8404H:

Pre-calibration CCT in [Cinema] mode & “Warm” [Tint]

Pre-calibration RGB tracking & delta errors

Using the white balance controls (minus blue bias) in the [Custom Tint] submenu, we calibrated the greyscale on the Philips 32PFL8404H LCD television:

Post-calibration CCT with [Custom Tint]

Post-calibration RGB tracking & delta errors

A satisfactory result was obtained, with delta errors curbed below 4 from 20% stimulus onwards.

Colour

Because the Philips 32PFL8404H is not equipped with a Colour Management System (CMS), we only have a limited number of controls at our disposal to tweak the colours on the television. [Colour] affects the saturation and intensity for all colours; [Hue] is greyed out for non-NTSC source; and [Colour Enhancement] alters the colour gamut slightly by skewing green towards blue.

CIE chart with ref. to Rec. 709	CIE with [Colour Enhancement] engaged

Even without [Colour Enhancement] engaged, green primary remained slightly tilted towards blue, but by and large the primary and secondary colour points were not far off their respective reference coordinates for Rec. 709, the high-definition colour space standard. Colour decoding was very good without any discernible push.

Benchmark Test Results

Dead pixels	None
Screen uniformity	Very good
Overscanning on HDMI	0% with [Picture Format] set to “Unscaled”
Blacker than black	Passed
Black level	Very good (0.09 cd/m2 calibrated)
Black level retention	Stable if [Dyn Contrast], [Dyn Backlight] & [Light Sensor] off
Primary chromaticities	Green slightly skewed towards blue
Scaling	Above average
Video mode deinterlacing	Good; largely effective jaggies reduction
Film mode deinterlacing	Passed 3:2 in 480i (sluggish) & 1080i; failed 2:2 in 576i
Viewing angle	100°
Motion resolution	[100Hz Clear LCD] engaged: 550; otherwise 300
Digital noise reduction	Acceptable at baseline, but less effective than other HDTVs
Sharpness	Defeatable edge enhancement
1080p/24 capability (PS3)	Accepts 1080p/24 video signal; no telecine judder
Input lag (rel. to Samsung F96)	On par over VGA or in [PC Mode]

Power Consumption

Calibrated [Personal Mode] with Ambilight	74 watts
Calibrated without Ambilight	71 watts
Standby	<1 watt

Picture Performance

Black Level

This is where we found the biggest area of improvement compared to older Philips flat-screen HDTVs that we’ve reviewed before. Even without engaging any dynamic dimming gimmickry such as [Dynamic Contrast] or [Dynamic Backlight], calibrated black level on the Philips 32PFL8404H was measured at a very respectable 0.09 cd/m². While not as deep as those found on the latest Samsung and Sony offerings, the blacks on the Philips 32PFL8404H LCD TV are more than adequate in furnishing depth and contrast to the image on screen (especially with the help of Ambilight which improves perceived contrast).

Motion Resolution

The highest motion resolution on the Philips 32PFL8404H HDTV was achieved when we activated [100Hz Clear LCD], reaching about 550 according to our reference test pattern (Chapter 31 of the “FPD Benchmark Software For Professional“). Disabling [100Hz Clear LCD] would drop motion resolution to 300 which is the level expected from a vanilla LCD panel.

Standard Definition

To be honest, after witnessing the standard-def masterclass served up by the latest Samsungs, all else looked a bit ordinary really. Nevertheless, thanks to some decent video processing and image contrast, SD programmes were still quite watchable on the Philips 32PFL8404H LCD television.

For video-based material, the Philips 32PFL8404H cleaned up jaggies effectively (as judged from the rotating wheel, bouncing bars and waving flag HQV Benchmark test patterns). For film-based content, the Philips 32PFL8404H successfully detected 3:2 cadence over 480i (albeit sluggishly), but failed to lock onto 2:2 cadence over 576i most of the time. Scaling/ upconversion was above average, but nothing spectacular. And whilst still largely acceptable, the 32PFL8404H’s noise reduction algorithm wasn’t as effective as other TVs in removing crawling noise from low-quality images.

Note: These SD processing findings hold true with [PC Mode] engaged as well.

High Definition

HD images looked lush and convincing on the Philips 32PFL8404H HDTV, thanks to respectable black-level performance, calibrated near-D65 greyscale and well-saturated colour palette. And although we still question the practicality of fitting 1920×1080 pixels on a 32-inch screen (because theoretically our human eyes would find it difficult to differentiate between a full HD resolution and a HD-ready resolution of 1366×768 on this screen size), the end result is an exquisitely sharp and alluringly seamless picture.

Engaging [HD Natural Motion] – even at its “Minimum” setting – would cause 24p movies to look like camcorder-shot videos. This is a real shame, because if you want to avoid this undesirable (to our eyes anyway) video-like effect, then you wouldn’t be able to take advantage of the higher motion resolution provided by [100Hz Clear LCD] (which is greyed out unless [HD Natural Motion] is enabled).

Of course, video-based content, for example fast-action sports, benefited immensely from [100Hz Clear LCD]. When watching the live FA Cup football broadcast on ITV HD, the running players and the moving ball simply held their definition and clarity better with [100Hz Clear LCD] engaged, made all the more impressive by the absence of any significant interpolation artefacts.

Curiously, the Philips 32PFL8404H exhibited some patches of strobing within the single-pixel height stripped regions in both the “HD Video Resolution Loss Test” and “Film Resolution Loss Test” on HD HQV Benchmark disc, indicating a slight loss of resolution (though it’s debatable whether this can be appreciated on a 32-inch screen). Enabling [PC Mode] immediately cleared up these patches of strobing, suggesting that the culprit was one of the video processing elements are disabled by [PC Mode].

Engaging [PC Mode] closed off access to [HD Natural Motion] and [100Hz Clear LCD], but surprisingly the Philips 32PFL8404H HDTV was still able to handle 1080p/24 video signals properly without any hint of telecine judder. We therefore recommend using [PC Mode] for all viewing bar video-based material that would benefit from [100Hz Clear LCD] such as sport programmes.

HD Console Gaming

With [PC Mode] engaged, input lag on the Philips 32PFL8404H was measured to be on par with our resident Samsung F96 LED-backlit LCD TV, which was perfectly fine for high-def console gaming. Disabling [PC Mode] and turning on various picture-processing options (in particular [HD Natural Motion]) would bump up input lag significantly (up to 200ms vs. the F96), making reflex-dependent video games such as Modern Warfare 2 nigh-on unplayable.

Note: Our resident Samsung LE52F96BD with [Game Mode] engaged has about 30ms of latent input lag vs a CRT.

Conclusion

The Philips 32PFL8404H LCD HDTV represents a vast improvement over other Philips flat-screen TV we’ve tested previously, not least because of its deeper blacks and reduced input lag in [PC Mode]. While relatively expensive, the 32PFL8404H offers sufficiently good picture quality – not to mention an Ambilight bias lighting system that is unique to Philips – that should appeal to viewers looking for a viable alternative to the swarm of Samsungs and Sonys out there.