LCD TV Reviews

Black: 0.039
White: 25.14
Full-On/Full-Off Contrast Ratio: 645:1

All of the measurements here, unless noted otherwise, were taken in the Movie mode, through an HDMI input, with the set adjusted as needed for the most accurate picture in a darkened room.

Our measured peak contrast ratio for the Toshiba is the worst of the group, and its black level is the highest—nearly five times that of the set with the darkest blacks (the Sony). This is consistent with the viewing results. The set produced a peak white level of 115 foot-lamberts in the factory Sports mode.

As delivered, the set performed best with its Color Temperature control set to 3. The Before Calibration color tracking in this setting isn’t too bad, but its Delta-E ranged from 5.7 to 8.5 between 30 and 100 IRE, which increased to 14 at 20 IRE. (Delta-E is a figure of merit that indicates how close the color temperature comes to the ideal white point of D6500. The lower the number, the better. Experts generally recommend a maximum of between 3 and 4 for results that are visibly indistinguishable from lower values.) After calibration, the Delta-E was under 1.9 from 30 IRE to 90 IRE, 2.8 at 100 IRE, and 4.9 at 20 IRE.

The set’s color gamut, as shown by the white triangle on the CIE chart, is about as close to the ideal Rec.709 HD color gamut (the black triangle) as it’s possible to get.

As shown in the accompanying Video Test Bench chart, the Toshiba passed all of our HD Video Test Bench challenges (which includes a single SD test: scaling from 480p to 1080p). It also passed the HD M:I:III Vatican wall and stairs tests (chapters 7 and 8).

We also tested for 1080i horizontal resolution through a component input—the only component test here. The Toshiba passed the 18.5-megahertz burst, but it did not pass the maximum 37.1-MHz burst.—TJN