PERFORMANCE

With my own settings for the Toshiba locked down, I pulled out Mad Men: Season 2 on Blu-ray Disc to see what I missed when the AMC series screened last year (in standard-def on my cable system, and thus not worth watching). Viewing a scene from an episode where an ad man tries to explain "today's youth" to a group of skeptical clients, I was immediately sucked into the boardroom setting unfolding on the Toshiba's screen. Details like the grain of wood doors and furnishings came through crisply, and fine text in a media campaign chart sitting on an easel looked solid and almost legible. The textures of the actors' suits were also apparent, and the strong contrast between their white shirts and handkerchiefs and dark jackets added a good measure of clarity and pop to the picture.

Although the Toshiba's color looked natural after simply selecting the Movie preset, its color reproduction was more on the money following a few careful Color Temperature menu tweaks. This was very apparent when I watched another Mad Men scene, in which the office manager, Joan (Christina Hendricks), fires the willowy new secretary, Jane (Peyton List). The purple, red, and yellow colors in Jane's paisley scarf looked robust without coming across as overly vivid. And I could also detect subtle differences between the red hues of each woman's bright red lipstick, as well as their pale (Joan) and slightly tan (Jane) skin tones.

I've found that even good LCD TVs with a conventional fluorescent backlight can look great with a majority of programs but then fall apart to a degree when viewing really dark scenes. The 47ZV650U was no exception here. For example, in a scene where Don Draper (Jon Hamm) and his wife, Betty (January Jones), chat up party guests at the Stork Club, the picture looked punchy and there was a good amount of dark detail visible in a TV exec's black tuxedo. But when the action cut to the couple driving back to Westchester, there was little sense of depth to shadows in the car's dark interior.

Viewing a really gloomy movie like Watchmen more thoroughly drove this point home. In a scene where the Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) watches TV news from his couch, shadows in the troubled ex-superhero's apartment had a dark gray, as opposed to deep black, tone, and the same went for the letterbox bars lining the top and bottom of the image. My attempts to increase shadow depth by adjusting backlight, gamma, and even dynamic contrast settings didn't help much; they mostly either eliminated shadow detail or simply punched up the brightness level of image highlights.

The Toshiba's screen uniformity was on the whole excellent. Black-and-white movies showed no sign of tinting or uneven brightness. And the set's wide viewing angle let me sit anywhere within a 60º viewing arc from the screen's center without seeing color shifts or a decrease in contrast. One thing you do need to be concerned with on this TV is screen glare: Unlike most LCDs, which use a glare-resistant matte screen, the 47V650U is fronted by a glassy coating that reflects back light from lamps or nearby windows.

When I toggled the set's ClearScan 240 feature on and off, HD sports channels that I watched looked consistently solid and blur-free - the feature didn't appear to make much of a difference aside from making the picture look brighter. Enabling the TV's Standard Film Stabilization mode turns on 2:3 film pulldown processing for movie watching, and it also helps to reduce picture judder in film-based programs, whether from Blu-ray or other sources. When I switched on the Smooth Film Stabilization setting, however, movie images took on an unnatural, "video-like" appearance.

BOTTOM LINE

Toshiba's affordable 47ZV650U looks good, and it also delivers a very good-looking picture. The main thing that keeps me from fully singing its praises is black-level performance, which was only average for an LCD HDTV. But if you're in the market for a TV that does most things right, and does so at a reasonable price, the 47ZV650U should be high on your list of models to check out.

KEY FEATURES - 47-inch, 1080p-resolution screen - 120-Hz display with ClearScan 240-Hz effect - USB port with JPEG and DivX player - SD card slot - Dolby Volume program loudness leveling - IR output for pass-through device control - Inputs: 4 HDMI, 2 component-, 2 composite-, and 1 S-video; RF Ant/Cable; PC RGB; USB

Dimensions: - 46 3/8 x 31 1/4 x 13 in; 57 1/4 lb (with stand) - Price $1,500

TACP.TOSHIBA.COM