Toshiba's press conference revealed many new models of LCD TVs—in fact, the company admitted that its product cycle is now closer to six months than one year in order to get new technology to market sooner and to remain cost-competitive for the key holiday selling season. Among the new sets in the upscale REGZA line is the XV series, which sports a "double-skin" cabinet with a cool 3D look and Pixel Pure 4G processing. Also new is Super Resolution Technology (SRT), which is said to upscale standard-def material to HD resolution far better than what is available in most TVs. Another new feature is AutoView, which dynamically adjusts all settings according to an ambient light sensor and detects film-based content.

With the format war behind it, Toshiba is now concentrating on improving the look of standard-definition content on high-def displays. A new upscaling-enhancement technology called SRT (Super Resolution Technology) is now available in some of Toshiba's latest LCD TVs, including the top-of-the-line Cinema Series.

Toshiba's big announcement was the introduction into the US market of its Cell TV, first seen in a "soft launch" last year. This flagship sits at the pinnacle of a new lineup that includes 10 series of LCD TVs, seven of which are LED illuminated. Thanks to the incredibly powerful Cell processor in its outboard box, the Cell TV has it all, including LED local dimming with 512 zones (five times as many as most current local dimmers), 3D capabilities (including real-time conversion of 2D to 3D) using active-shutter glasses, 480Hz refresh rate (actually 240Hz with backlight scanning), WirelessHD 60GHz (wireless HDMI) and 802.11n WiFi connectivity, VoIP video-phone capability, and Super Resolution+ and Net Resolution+ video processing, which upscale SD images and clean up low-res Web video, respectively.

The top of the Toshiba heap is the SV670 series in 46- and 55-inch flavors. This one has LED backlighting with local dimming and a cool "Infinity Flush" design that features a continuous sheet of glass across the entire front face. It's beautiful <I>and</I> unobtrusive dark gray, a combo I definitely like.