The Toshiba REGZA 47ZV635D is an LCD TV with smarts as well as good looks. Its Metabrain chipset and the features it powers – Resolution+, Active Vision M200HD, Dynamic Contrast and Dolby Volume – each claim to improve picture or audio quality in some way. But does it do the business? Read our Toshiba REGZA 47ZV635D review and find out .
The most touted feature on the Toshiba REGZA 47ZV635D is Resolution+, the aim of which is to scrub up standard definition content into something more presentable at Full HD resolution. Ironically, we found the feature tended to actually worsen DVD and standard-def television, as the artefacts and noise inherent to these sources were made more obvious by the sharpened edges and increased contrast.
Resolution+ does work wonders with high definition content however, as there are far fewer artefacts to contend with – the resulting picture is sharp and crisp, as if your Blu-ray player was told to tuck in its shirt and pull up its socks. And with four HDMI inputs and the ability to play files directly from USB storage devices, this TV is equipped to pull HD content from wherever you find it.
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Sports and action films reproduce particularly well on the Toshiba REGZA 47ZV635D thanks to Active Vision M200HD, which intelligently inserts additional frames into a 100Hz signal to approximate a 200Hz picture. Don’t feel cheated though, as Active Vision works surprisingly well: ghosting effects were almost entirely removed from a fast-moving game of football. In fact, Active Vision does a good job of enhancing the intricacies of any moving scene – the Cheshire Cat’s fine hairs were exceptionally well defined in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland trailer with the feature switched on.
Colours are rich and vibrant, with darker tones especially well represented thanks to the Dynamic Contrast and Auto View features. The darker areas in BBC Three’s Being Human were noticeably richer in detail – as if the show wasn’t scary enough.
If you don’t already have a separate audio system, you will be disappointed by the Toshiba REGZA 47ZV635D’s built-in 20W speakers. Clarity is fine but audio lacks punch and feels very flat, although we were able to improve matters somewhat by switching on Cinema Surround and Dynamic Bass boost. Dolby Volume, another feature under the Metabrain umbrella, was equally underwhelming: it’s intended to minimise the sometimes startling change in volume that occurs when going to an ad break or switching to an action-packed scene in a film, but we had to max out this feature to notice any discernible difference.
Equally over-hyped are the Toshiba REGZA 47ZV635D’s environmental features. Eco Panel’s claims of a 30 per cent power reduction thanks to purer materials are welcome, but touting the Full Power Down feature – which is simply a large power button on the side of the set – is a bit rich. If this was implemented as a button available on the remote itself, then the feature would be far more useful.
