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Toshiba Regza 32XV505DB 32in LCD TV

Author	John Archer
Published	16th Jun 2008
Manufacturer	Toshiba
Price	£479.90 (Exc VAT)
as reviewed	£551.88 (Inc VAT)
Latest Price	Click here

Design
Features
Image Quality
Sound Quality
Value
Overall

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Standard definition pictures on the 32XV505DB really don't look very hot at all, if I'm brutally honest, with the Active Vision LCD processing tending to leave one or two rough edges as it goes about translating standard def PAL content to the screen's Full HD pixel count. Common ailments include exaggerated MPEG noise, noticeably more motion blur than you tend to see with HD, and a slightly unstable, flickery look to proceedings that might, perhaps, have been stopped if the set had 100Hz processing.

Actually, once I'd noticed this flicker on standard definition, I also occasionally spotted it with HD, such as in the trees and the battlefield of the long-distance shots of the English Army about to charge Wallace and his motley Scottish crew in the first battle.

A similar thing happened with the TV's colour toning. It was during standard def viewing that I first became aware of some slightly strange colour toning issues, especially in low-quality digital feeds, and once I'd ‘tuned in' to the problem I also found slight colour problems with HD footage. For instance, some skin tones look slightly orange or salmony, while some greens tend to look rather washed out.

What's more, in standard def mode some skin tones can look a little patchy, as the MPEG blocking prevents the TV delivering the sort of ultra-smooth colour blends a Full HD TV might normally be expected to produce.

Obviously I tried to counter these blocking issues with the TV's MPEG noise reduction circuits, but in order to reduce the digital artefacts to the sort of level I was happy with, the processing had to soften the picture too much for comfort.

When it comes to audio, the 32XV505DB is in the same boat as the 32CV505DB. Which is to say that it sounds rather average, truth be told, as a wide soundstage and solid amount of bass are countered by an over-crowded mid-range, a slight lack of raw power, and even a tendency to suffer cabinet hums when pushed really hard.

Verdict

I'd thoroughly expected to find the 32XV505DB, with its Full HD pixel count, winning me over even more easily than the cheaper, HD Ready 32CV505DB. But for me, it's the CV model that's the more pleasing proposition overall - especially when you consider that the 32in market is more likely to still be watching predominantly standard def fare on their new TVs than the people buying the really big-screen stuff.

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Zhiming Wang said on 30th June 2008

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.

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 ... more

Ash said on 19th October 2008

I just ordered on from Amazon for £404. I plan to use it as a replacement for my 19" lcd monitor on my PC. Shall let you know how it is once I get it :)

Ben said on 2nd December 2008

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... more

skipper said on 2nd December 2008

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 ... more

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