Toshiba Regza 32XV505DB 32in LCD TV

Re: Using it as a monitor for a computer.

I have bought this screen from pixmania for ~800 euro. Unfortunately my main PC broke down and I am driving it through VGA using my laptop at 1280x768. The resolutions it supports are kind of funny - standard VGA 4:3 resolutions are supported, so are some oddball wide resolutions, but zooming/letterboxing are kind of funny - they're not supported for modes higher than the 5:4 1280x1024 resolution.

The highest I can drive it using VGA is 1400x1050, but the funny thing is that I cannot output 1280x720 by VGA - so I have to make do with the 16:9.6 aspect ratio 1280x768 resolution, so things are a little skewed. The response time is fairly good - not much ghosting and blurring but you can see a little lag (I am VERY sensitive to this, so most people might not notice at all!) Not quite 2ms lcd with RTC fast, but definitely speedy.

I have hooked up an older pc, and have used a DVI-HDMI cable on a nVidia 8800GTX to output exact scan 1080p60 onto the screen and it does look glorious, no overscan or interference or blurring. It does look quite amazing. One thing I found was that the DVI-HDMI cable does not work on an ATi Radeon 2400 Pro, it gives me a black screen no-matter what I do, but I think that is to do with the card itself having a special method of re-arranging its pinouts to work with a specialised ATi DVI-HDMI dongle - and as I don't have this dongle (may have thrown it out) nor do I have a HDMI-HDMI cable, your luck might be different. The nVidia card itself needed a bit of playing around with using a VGA cable before working properly with the HDMI-DVI cable, but now is working 100% of the time - even at bootup and the bios, so it should be grand.

One thing for using this as a TV or PC monitor/speakers is that the review was spot on in saying how the midrange of the sound is kind of muffled. There doesn't seem to be enough sharpness in the higher frequencies of the sound output and playing around with the in-menu settings can help, but I haven't tried playing around with the audio equalizer settings on the PC itself yet - so it may help a lot!

Anyhow, sorry if this is long and rambling. I hope it helped.

The quality and fantastic detail of this screen in my experience is second to none in this price range. As has already been pointed out this does mean that the imperfections of old programs become visible, but can be toned down by making some simple adjustments, conversely more recent films and quality programs look superb even in standard definition. The remote and associated on screen display are quite well thought out and easy to use, although some of the buttons are a little on the small side. At the end of the day the picture quality is as good as the program quality allows, and more importantly is able to make the best of High Definition programs which for me is the key factor in getting a full HD 1080p screen. I would advise getting a surround sound system to make the most of the sound quality, or you can simply add a sub woofer to the enhance the tv speakers which are otherwise limited by the size of the cabinet. I have used the screen as a monitor for my laptop and am very pleased with the result. When I next upgrade my laptop I'll get one with a Blu-Ray drive, and so get Hi Def movie playback as a bonus. Overall this tv has met my needs and is as future proof as possible whilst still working seemlessly with my existing equipment.

I got this TV about 8 weeks ago and having same problem has Zhiming Wang. My graphics card is a. Sapphier HD 3870 X2 card. I am using HDMI cable with a vga to dvi adapter. I can get the HDMI on but can not go above 800X600 resoltion. Also i can not play games as soon as games come on it changes to blue screen. Im using at the moment RGB cable using a DVI adapter on PC to TV. but i can only have my highest resolution is 1360X768 and can play games but i want 1080p which my card has HDMI and 1080p built in so thats my sauce of HDMI and 1080p. I am going to wright to Toshiba and see what they say.

So Zhiming Wang dont thinks its just you because its does it to me as well and i have also read another review saying the same thing.