Your Guide To LCD Television

Background of Toshiba

Toshiba Corporation, well known brand name for house appliances and electronic products manufacturer, founded by Hisashige Tanaka (aka Thomas Edison of Japan) in 1875. Tokyo Electric Works, the root company of Toshiba, grew to become Japan’s largest producers of heavy electrical machinery. The founder’s dream was developing technology that would benefit people everywhere.

In 1939, the company merged with another producer of heavy electrical machinery and was renamed to Tokyo Shibaura Electric Co. Ltd. In 1978, the company, which had become a leading, integrated electrical equipment manufacturer, was officially rename to “Toshiba”.

In year 2002, Toshiba successfully established a joint venture with Matsushita Electric Industrial (or Panasonic) to unify their LCD business. Later in 2006, Toshiba introduced new corporate brand tag line, “Toshiba Leading Innovation”, and in the same year, they announced the “REGZA” brand as the global brand for their LCD televisions business.

Toshiba REGZA Full HD LCD TV

Technology behind the REGZA

In year 2007, Toshiba delivered 13 new HDTVs to it REGZA line of LCD flat-panel TV. Screens size as large as 52 and 57-inches. The highlighted technologies that Toshiba hope to distinguish from competitors are PixelPure3G, DynaLight, ColorBurst, ClearFrame, and CE-Link. PixelPure3G is a 14-bit video processing designed to eliminate banding artifacts and offer artificially improved noise reduction to output video. For DynaLight, it is dynamic backlight adjustment feature designed to optimize the viewing contrast. ColorBurst, a wider color gamut, and ClearFrame is significant improvement to screen refresh rate to 120Hz, which is said to diminish motion blur without adding flicker or reducing brightness of the screen. For the CE-Link, it a HDMI-based control codes designed to better integrate TV and AV source using single remote control (standard feature offer by HDMI compliance equipments or devices).

Toshiba REGZA 42 inches 1080p LCD HD TV (By Tiger TV)

2007 Models Lineup

LX177 – Top of the lineup from Toshiba LCD TV, and is their flagship product series, Cinema Series. It come with all technologies like ColorBurst, CE-Link, ClearFrame with 120Hz refresh rate, PixelPure3G (14-bit video processor for enriched color) and DynaLight. The screen size range from 42 to 57 inches and come with HDMI 1.3 (Deep Color and xvYCC technology for enhanced color space). The four models are 42LX177, 46LX177, 52LX177 and 57LX177.

HL167 – Middle tier of REGZA series with full 1080p resolution, including pixel-for-pixel native resolution mode that enhance the screen color. The HL167 series lack of ClearFrame with 120Hz refresh rate compare to LX177 lineup.

HL67 – Entry-level lineup that offer 720p resolution, PixelPure3G and DynaLight features technologies. Screens size range from 26 to 42 inch.

Toshiba REGZA Series Lineup

What’s New to Toshiba 2008 Models Lineup?

Significant improvement of 2008 REGZA lineup in term of technologies are PixelPure 4G (4^th Generation of PixelPure technology). The digital video processing sticks to 14-bit codec as PixelPure 3G. 10-bit LCD panel combine with PixelPure 4G 14-bit internal digital video processing, which assure smoother, cleaner images with 4096 levels of gradation. Toshiba continue to use ColorBurst technology on it lineup, where ColorBurst Wide Color Gamut CCFL expands the number of available colors and improves the color accuracy. This significantly improves both color purity and color saturation. The ClearFrame technology from Toshiba sticks 120Hz (instead of like Sharp offer in 100Hz) to compensate blur of the fast moving pictures. Toshiba claim this anti-blur technology able to (virtually) eliminates motion blur without decreasing image brightness, or adding flicker. Images produce on LCD panel are crisp and clear regarding of the image motion. Behind the ClearFrame technology is Motion Vector Frame Interpolation (MVFI) technology that utilizing PixelPure 4G processor to creates new frames and inserting them between original frames thus to achieve 120 frames per second.

2008 Models Lineup

AV500 and CV510 – Appeal to budget conscious consumer market segment that look for entry level sets. CV510 series available in both 32 and 37 inches with 720p resolution. CV510 series enhanced picture quality with PixelPure 4G 14-bit internal digital video processor, and DynaLight Dynamic Back-Light Control for darker black color. Video scan rate at 60 frames per second (or 60Hz). Features Cinespeed LCD Panel with 8ms response speed and wide viewing angle. Also with TheaterWide Modes, ColorMaster Color Control, and Color Temperature Control features. (32CV510U – $899, Oct 2008) (37CV510U – $1099, Oct 2008) (42AV500U – $1099, Oct 2008) (37AV500U – $950, Oct 2008) (32AV500U – $750, Oct 2008) (Note: AV500 series come without PixelPure video processor, however, Toshiba replace it with 10-bit video processor. AV500 series still come with Cinespeed LCD Panel and DynaLight Dynamic Back-Light Control. AV500 available in screens size range from 22 to 42 inches)

RV530, XV540 and XF550 – Full HD version lineup with 1080p resolution, ClearFrame 120Hz Anti-Blur Technology, ColorBurst Wide Color Gamust CCFL and StableSound technology. RV530 available screens size from 32 to 52 inches. (37RV530U – $1199, Oct 2008) (42RV530U – $1299, Oct 2008) (46RV530U – $1799, Oct 2008) (52RV530U – $2399, Oct 2008) (Note: RV530 series contain features per XV540 except without the ColorBurst Wide Color Gamut CCFL technology)

XV540 – distinguishing the 1080p Full HD XV540 series from RV530 series is XV540 with ColorBurst Wide Color Gamut CCFL technology. The 14-bit PixelPure 4G Internal Digital Video Processing match with 10-bit LCD Panels able to pump out stunning 16384 levels of gradation digital color. (42XV540U – $1599, Oct 2008) (46XV540U – $1999, Oct 2008) (52XV540U – $2499, Oct 2008)

XF550 – Cinema Series of Toshiba REGZA lineup. All five technologies built into it, with additional SRS WOW technology. SRS WOW technology take the performance of the television’s existing speakers to a whole new level, offering the consumer superior sound quality with no additional speakers required. It consists of three separate sound expanding systems, which work together to extract “buried” highs and lows. The three systems are SRS 3D, TruBass, and FOCUS technologies. SRS 3D creates a 3-D sound field from just two speakers, thus giving the listener the feeling of hearing a multi-speaker surround sound system. TruBass produces a powerful, yet, low frequency sound by utilizing a process called psychoacoustics. From only two small speakers, TruBass will give the effect of an expensive sub-bass woofer that will leave the listener amazed by the quality of the sound. FOCUS was added to direct the energy from the speakers of the television set in a vertical direction up towards the listener’s ears. The addition of FOCUS means that there is virtually no loss of sound from the speaker’s position on the bottom panel near the floor, which achieves a clear, undistorted range of audio. (40XF550U – $2199, Oct 2008) (46XF550U – $2799, Oct 2008) (52XF550U – $3299, Oct 2008)

Toshiba REGZA Official Site

For more information on Toshiba REGZA LCD TV, please visit www.regza.com

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