While the 37AV615DB handled the brighter cartoon colours of Spiderman quite well, the gloomier world of Gotham City did reveal a weakness in image quality. Darker areas tend to lose detail, and the figure of Batman prowling through the shadows in Batman Begins sometimes became a bit of a murky blur. Sharper contrast would help to display detail in low light scenes more effectively.
Sonically, less than ideal for media centre use
Although the audio quality is adequate for watching television and listening to dialogue, the built-in speakers are a little disappointing, There’s also a virtual surroundsound option that adds a bit of depth – though no real sense of movement – to the sound effects in films.
However, the speakers didn’t do too well when we fired up iTunes on our Mac Mini. Their 20W output provides a reasonable level of volume, but the multilayered harmonies on a few old Queen tracks revealed a rather thin sound, especially on the higher frequencies. We’d recommend a set of external speakers if you plan to use the 37AV615DB with a media-centre computer.
Verdict
There’s room for improvement on this model – most notably the detail and contrast on darker scenes – but the bottom line is that it provides a good standard-definition image on a big widescreen display, at a competitive price. Home cinema buffs will obviously prefer a Full HD set, but if all you want to do is to watch The Apprentice and the occasional DVD on a nice big screen, then you’ll find that the Regza 37AV615DB makes a good upgrade from a bulky old CRT. ®
More HD TV Reviews...
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Sony Bravia KDL-37S5500 |
LG 42LF7700 Freesat TV |
Philips Ambilight 42PFL9803H/10 |
Toshiba Regza 37AV615DB
COMMENTS
Shock as TheRegister gets hands on gear that's fell off the back of a wagon
"However, it did survive being dropped off the back of the van when it was delivered to us"
- Ello ello ello, what do we 'ave 'ere them? Dodgy gear? fell off the back of a wagon did it sir?
1080P LG 37" bought for £489 ...
before xmas08 from Dixons online (gasp!) ... got £10 random discount voucher and free delivery.
Cracking TV, excellent DVI monitor @ 1080P, nuff said
Isnt most broadcast HDTV 720p/1080i?
If so on a 37" I think I'd rather watch the usual crap at 720p than 1080i.
Either that or have a TV that will work at its best with the most all round resolution for its screen size.
lol
I have had 2 of them with in a month both had same problem, sound would go off when watching a channel and you would get a high pitch noise would come from tv, then all tv etc would lock up, only way to fix it was to unplug it from mains.
apart from that its a good starter tv, has almost all you want.
I am now looking for a different make of tv, as the toshiba have all been sent back and a full refund given.
Resolution and Aspect Ratio - not the same thing
"Freeview channels displayed correctly, but the signal from our Sky+ box was initially displayed at its standard 576p resolution, which left it with big black borders on either side of the image."
For a start, if it's a standard Sky+ (not HD) box, it'll be 576i not 576p.
Secondly, 576 is the number of vertical, not horizontal pixels, so that wouldn't affect black bars on the sides of the image anyway.
Thirdly, the SD resolution doesn't tell you the aspect ratio in itself. An SD PAL signal is usually encoded as 720 x 576 but the signal contains an Active Format Descriptor (AFD) which tells the TV how to present the video on screen. So basically a 16:9 widescreen programme in SD PAL may have the same 720 pixel horizontal resolution as a 4:3 programme - it's just that the pixels are effectively wider in the widescreen version.
So marksi is right. If the TV puts black bars either side of the image, it's doing it so that you can enjoy your favourite TV characters without fat heads.
