Thread: Ordered Toshiba Regza Cinema Series 55SV670u today

I'll take some this weekend.

If you stand 9 feet way, then make side steps away from center, it takes about 3 and the color takes a slight hit. Then its pretty steady, and then drops off a little more. We have 3 viewing positions:

Wifes chair is is center, im 5 ft from her to the left, and then there is another seat 5ft the other way from her. Viewing from the two side seats is just fine, and no difference is noticed from one of them to the center. You do need to sit somewhat center, because the vertical is more of an issue than horizontal. To be honest, it does not seem any different from a good Sony RPLCD I had, so I don't really understand what Cnet makes a big deal outta it in their reviews.

Cool. Are you getting this one calibrated?? Do you know if Gregg has worked on one of these before?

It's def gonna get calibrated in Feb/Mar after we move. I dunno if he has or not, and I'm not sure if he or one of his partners would do the Alabama calibration.

I'm still shocked how sharp the pic is, and I guess maybe the antijudder is part of it. I went from a 50" to a 55", and all 3 OTA programs we have watched tonight (CSI NY, Vampire Diaries and NCIS LA) are more sharp and more 3D.

Well, on Thu night, a few things I have to record are off the Dish HD lils, and they do look worse. The compression is just more evident. I really wish the HD race had not turned into a compression game.

Ok, so its not all dish channels because Max looks great and so does History, might bust be my local Fox station (OTA is not so hot either).

When the screen goes black in between channel changes or during watching movie and scene changes, it looks exactly like it does when its off. The thing is dark as hell, and sidebars and letterbox are dark too. At the end of a movie I could see the blooming that has been discussed with these sets as the credits scrolled. Basically, the area around the letters is a tad lighter than the outer parts of the screen, and if there is a gap in credits it goes completely black again. To me, it's not a bother, and something I do not notice in normal viewing. When watching a letterbox movie, I have not noticed an blooming at the top or bottom.

My only complaints are that the color is not quite perfect (fleshtones) and you can tell the Ansi CR is not as high as the Plasma, which was confirmed in a shootout. The on/off beats the plasma easy. My plasma, in a dark room with a black screen, was easily picked out.

At this point, if I had to choose, I keep the Regza and still let the 85u go. Only thing this Regza need is for Gregg to tweak it and get everything right.

Ok, more thoughts:

So, the colors need some work. I've gotten them better, but I knew going in that most reviews stated you need a calibration to get the proper potential of this set.

Blacks - In a dark room style environment, you can def tell it does not have the ansi CR of the plasma, but it's not a huge deal. What you do see is, items in a brighter screen that are black (ball cap, sign) are just that, BLACK. I can see why the reviewers say "inky" blacks. I'm still amazed with the side bars, letterbox, black screen in between commercials, or a black screen commercial with just a little writing in the middle. Areas near the writing are a little lighter because of the design, but the rest is as black as when the tv is off. The local dimming works awesome when it has a dedicated black area, and can shut down. Nice during movies because I do not have to see letterbox bars glowing a little (they were not bad on the plasma but in dark scenes they showed up a bit more).

Video-In programs with a good picture to begin with, the set looks great. (Blu-rays, some History programming, and CBSHD OTA football and dramas)

Feeds that were not so good, well, look worse. One could attribute that to the extra screen size, and it goes to crap in, crap out. I guess the larger you go, the more you really see what channels are cutting corners.

Once again, if I still had the choice of picking one, I'd keep the Regza. While the colors are lacking (I cannot fairly evaluate it all until this one is calibrated), the local dimmed blacks are nuts, and 240hz did fine on HD football, the film based processing is awesome, and the PQ with a good feed looks excellent. As with every technology, they have their tradeoffs and none are yet perfect. If I could take the good parts of this tv and the good parts of the Panny, then you would have the king.

We had 5 people over last night and I checked PQ from all positions. The outer two had a slight loss of picture, where it almost looks like it begins to fade or washout, but it was slight. Flesh tones take it the worse, but the center 3 positions were fine, and this is at 10ft or so. Another relief is not worrying about IR or Burn in, even though I know its remote, but now I watch SD stuff in 4:3 instead of stretching.

If you sat 6-7 feet from this thing, it'd be a 2-3 seater only.

Here are a couple of pics:

The first is the R. Lee Ermey History Show, and the second is trying to show you how black the screen can get, in the middle of a channel change. The screen is almost as reflective as a plasma, but unlike the plasma, it does not effect day time viewing. The biggest thing, is the blacks are still black, where the plasma had green blacks during the day as a result of the glass. The "one sheet of glass" design (it's plastic) on the Regza is also nice looking. No dust to buildup around the screen.

Dunno how well this one will turn out, but I'm trying to give an example of what I was talking about with regards to black areas. The officers sunglasses are just really black when you are watching, as well as the black stripe on his arm. There are many scenes where I just go "damn thats black".

Once again, this does not compete with plasma in dark scenes, but in lighter scenes with black items, it seems to do better.

Watching neck car right now, and the motion is just fine. Once again, the 55" is more sharp on the OTA HD channel than the 50" Plasma was.

The black areas in between driver names at the top, in the scrolling area, are very black.