46 47

TEST Passive 3D TV

sees some proportion of the image intended only for the other eye. The practical effect of this is the appearance of ghosting which can, in extreme cases, collapse the 3D effect (see our article in this issue on active vs passive 3D).

This TV was very nearly entirely immune to this problem. Searching hard with problematic scenes allowed me to detect the occasional imperfection. Barely. Just watching normally, there was no ghosting whatsoever in practice. That was the case with coloured objects over light backgrounds, and for fully white objects over full black backgrounds.

I pulled out a black-and-white 3D test pattern, which normally has crosstalk levels on active 3D TVs up around 20, 30 or 40%! With this TV it was... zero per cent! (Actually, I’d estimate perhaps 1% on some bits, but the test isn’t calibrated that low.) Just as impressively, there was no colour-shift, as there is with so many active 3D TVs.

As a result, the 3D effect was magnificent. The picture popped with gorgeous depth on all the Blu-ray material we threw at it. Even side-by-side footy matches from last year looked considerably more natural than they normally do with active 3D TVs, despite the effectively lower resolution.

But the limitation on the 3D performance was that you cannot sit too close to the screen. Because alternate lines are blanked for each eye during 3D mode, when you sit too close these blanked lines become visible in a manner somewhat like an old CRT TV viewed in close-up. While with many 3D TVs a viewing distance not a whole lot more than the TV’s diagonal is ideal, with this one, we found that at least two times that range worked best. This also had the advantage of minimising the visibility of jaggies on diagonals.

By default Blu-ray 3D was presented in the ‘Wide’ Picture Size, which resulted in a significant amount of overscanning. To get the whole picture, just change this to ‘Native’ (use the key on the remote underneath the aluminium sheath).

ConCluSionThe Toshiba RegzaA 47VL800A is a fine 3D TV, so long as you don’t mind that greater viewing distance, and it’s a respectable 2D TV as well. Perhaps it doesn’t have quite as many features — particularly with regard to on-line content — as some, but core functionality is highly effective, and if you have a recent Toshiba notebook, then that Media Controller functionality could be very useful indeed.Stephen Dawson

Toshiba is having it a bit of both ways. Entering the 3D TV market, it has gone both passive and active, the only company, we think, to do

so. This TV, the Toshiba Regza 47VL800A is passive, à la LG. It also appears to have decided that its passive model would be at a mid-level in its TV range, while the active TV would have higher level features.

Even so, you can’t really say that this passive model is particularly deficient on features.

EquipmEnTThe TV employs a thinnish LED edge-lit LCD panel offering, of course, full high definition resolution of 1920 x 1080.

The styling of this TV is interesting. At the moment, the predominant TV look involves plenty of gloss: glossily black bezel and a super-smooth sheet of glass at the front of the screen itself. This TV goes the opposite way. The screen surface appears to be somewhat

Passive 3D Toshibaour first of two Toshiba TV reviews this issue examines the company’s Vl800A passive 3D TV. less bells and whistles than the active Wl range-topper, but a good TV – with great 3D.

antireflective, in that rather than reflecting in a mirror-like way, it diffuses any light that is shining on it. This is neither better nor worse than the alternative, just different. Glossier screen surfaces have brighter, more coherent reflections, and which are consequently some-times more noticeable. This one softens it, but also spreads it around. The solution: eliminate sources of light that will reflect in the screen, regardless of the screen design.

The bezel, likewise, is against the trend. It has a matt black finish, looking like horizontally-brushed carbon — we like how it doesn’t call attention to itself. The bezel is 35mm wide on the sides and top.

This TV’s remote control cannot pass without being remarked upon. It is of the long, thin variety, oval in cross section, and is laid out about as well as any TV remote. What’s unusual is the 97mm long aluminium sheath over the lower part of the remote which can slide up and down to one of three positions. In the topmost it hides most of the control buttons, including the numeric keypad, but leaves exposed the arrow cluster, channel and volume buttons, input selection and the four colour-coded keys. At the next position — in which the bottom of the aluminium sheath aligns with the end of the remote — the numeric keypad, last channel, information and disc transport control keys are exposed

for use. The final position, which extends the total length of the unit somewhat, reveals three more rows of keys including picture aspect ratio and the 3D control key.

This is fairly pretty and seems reasonably classy, but if you need to access those controls (as I seem to require all the time), the sheath is largely a pain in operation.

pErformAnCEToshiba has provided the usual easy set-up and a sparse but surprisingly effective menu system to access the considerable range of functions available within the TV. Before I forget, the TV boasts Audyssey EQ, and it sounded decent enough. But most of our readers will prefer to enable the HDMI Audio Return Channel, whereby the TV’s sound is fed back down the HDMI cable to your AV receiver for its obviously greater audio capabilities. Note, this is the HDMI cable normally used to feed video from a Blu-ray player or PVR, via the receiver, to the TV. The ARC worked not just with broadcast television being received by the TV, but with sound from other functions provided by the unit, such as when watching YouTube.

The TV provides this ‘smart’ access under the ‘Toshiba Places’ menu item, along with Picasa web photos and Facebook. With YouTube, there’s a reasonable search facility, and fairly snappy performance. Some of the

Display technology: lcD panelscreen size: 119.3cmnative aspect ratio: 16:9native resolution: 1920 x 1080Brightness: 450 cd/square metrecontrast ratio: 7,000,000:1 (dynamic)inputs: 2 x composite video, 0 x s-video, 1 x component video, 1 x D-suB15 rgB, 4 x hDMi, 3 x stereo audio, 2 x usB, 1 x ethernet, 1 x aerialoutputs: 1 x optical digital audio, 1 x 3.5mm headphoneauDio: 2 x 20mm x 120mm speakers, 1 x 60mm woofer, 3 x 10WincluDeD accessories: table-top swivel stand, remote control, cables, 4 x passive 3D glasses

DiMensions Without/With stanD (whd): 1124 x 682 x 28.9mm/1124 x 749 x 287mmWeight Without/With stanD: 19.7/23kgWarranty: two years

contact: toshiba australiatel: 13 30 70

WeB: www.mytoshiba.com.au

• near-perfect crosstalk rejection on 3D

• solid 2D performance• Decent value for money

• half vertical resolution on 3D• no usB recorder support

VErDiCT

Toshiba Regza 47VL800A LCD TVprice: $2229

HD content looked particularly good. There are no TV catch-up services such as iView here, though these things may change, since the Places service is external to the TV itself.

The TV also provides multimedia support, both from USB devices plugged in, and over the network via DLNA. It also has a ‘Photo Frame’ function, in which a particular picture can be set to simply sit there being displayed by the TV. This can be imported from USB or from the network.

The DLNA function supported music, photos and video. The TV also works with the ‘Toshiba Media Controller’ which comes with recent Toshiba notebook computers. Basically this is a DLNA server and control function combined. It will actually work with any DLNA client — you can create playlists from the computer and then start and stop playback, skip tracks and so forth, also from the computer — but the TV seemed readier to allow this application to seize control of it from other functions, such as regular TV viewing.

One now relatively common feature in higher-end TVs that is missing from this one is recording to a connected USB hard-disk drive.

As a 2D TV, the VL800A looked pretty nice. By default, the brightness was automatically adjusted to the picture content. This resulted in a little brightness pumping under some circumstances, mostly to do with displaying menus and the like. In actual straight movie watching there were no such distractions.

The black levels were so good — especially in dark parts of the screen when it was bright elsewhere on screen — that I quizzed Toshiba about the particular form of backlighting. It seemed to me like an array of LED backlights able to be individually controlled.

It turns out that they use two banks of Edge LEDs, with 16 LEDs in each, and each LED individually controlled so as to provide light to only the portion of the screen requiring it.

Perhaps, but it still looked like array-style LED backlighting to me.

The colour was strong and rich. Pictures seemed nicely sharp, but thankfully there appeared to be no artificial sharpness enhancement being applied.

The TV purports to have a function which I took initially to be a motion interpolation system to reduce or eliminate judder. Called ‘ClearScan 200Hz’, the manual says that it ‘eliminates motion blur’. If it did, it didn’t seem to do so with the 1080p/24 content from Blu-ray. I spent a lot of time with the fly-over Chicago scene from The Fugitive Blu-ray, and none of the three settings (one of which was ‘Off’) seemed any different to the others. I wouldn’t count this as a loss, though, since most such circuits do more harm than good.

Moving to 3D, the results were, well, interesting, but in the end fundamentally impressive. My main bugbear with many 3D TVs is excessive crosstalk, in which each eye

Toshiba Regza 47VL800A LED-LCD 3D TVPrice: $2229

Energy useToshiba specifies the TV’s energy rating at seven stars, and 317kWh per year. Our measurements pretty much confirmed those figures (311kWh per year, which is close enough). My goodness, you get a lot of picture for very little power these days. The average power consumption was just under 85W. Two years ago a typical 47-incher used 160W, and four years ago, a 46-inch Sony LCD used 255W.

Despite the reduced power consumption, picture brightness remains seemingly untouched. If you’re contemplating switching off at the power point when the TV is not in use in order to save power, it’s hardly worth it. Rated at 0.3W in standby mode, sitting in that state for a year it will cost you well under a dollar in power.

Addendum: I felt compelled to revisit this review after going back to an active 3D LCD TV and very much missing the passive system in this one. It’s the flicker, you see. With the active one, depending on the picture, the flicker is either clearly visible, or just below the level of consciousness, yet still vaguely disquieting. For 3D today, I’d pick passive over active. SD

We test this hugely powerful subwoofer!

MK SOUND SB1250

REVIEWED

SHOW REPORT BRISTOL 2012Jul/Aug 2012 $7.95 AVHUB.COM.AU

We test this hugely powerful subwoofer!

MK SOUND SB1250

BRISTOL 2012

THE ITALIAN JOBSingle-ended Class-A valve design improved by user bias calibration

Manley ChinookPhono Preamp

Usher Audio S-520Bookshelf Speakers

Unison Research S6Integrated Amplifi er

D’Agostino MomentumMonobloc Power Amps

B.M.C. BCCD1 & DAC1 CD Player & DAC/Pre

MK Sound SB1250Subwoofer

HF July12_001 Cover_R.indd 1 15/06/2012 11:33:26 AM

SHOW REPORT

THE ITALIAN JOBTHE ITALIAN JOBSinglSingle-e-ended Clasended Clasended Clasimproved by user bias calibration

Aug/Sep 2012

AustrAliA’s No.1 AV Guide Aug/Sep 2012

AustrAliA’s A’s ANo.1 AV Guide

$8.95 #25/7

NZ$10.99 (inc. G

ST)

avhub.com.au

Details inside p11

SPOTIFY is here! But is it hi-fi?

SPeaker PackS from cambridge, krix & NHT

Foxtel via internet better than cable?

Top TVs On TrialFull reVIewS

Loewe • Panasonic VT50 & ST50 • Samsung plasma & LED • Sony HX850

cHrIS

TOPH

er

NOlaN

TIm

BurTO

N leN

wISemaN Ja

meS

camerO

N

INTerVIe

wS

WE’VE ALL GONE DIGITAL $8.95 #25/7

NZ$10.99 (inc. G

ST)

avhub.com.au

TopTopFull re

Loewe • Panasonic VT50 & ST50 • Samsung plasma & LED • Sony HX850

SPeaker PackPackP Sfrom cambridge, krix & NHT

Foxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internetFoxtel via internet

TopTop TVs TVs On TrialOn TrialFull reVIewS

Loewe • Panasonic VT50 & ST50 • Samsung plasma & LED • Sony HX850Loewe • Panasonic VT50 & ST50 • Samsung plasma & LED • Sony HX850

TOUCH US PINCH US

NOW AVAILABLE ON ZINIO

for iPad, Android & PC/Mac

SOUND+IMAGEAUSTRALIAN HI-FIGEARECAMERAPRO PHOTOAUSTRALIAN INCAR ENTERTAINMENT

Find the special three-issue ZINIO SUBSCRIPTION RATES

at AVHub.com.au and www.zinio.com/soundandimage