January 16, 2009 We saw more than a few "me too" LCD TVs at CES 2009, so we have to give it to Toshiba for the laundry list of features in their flagship Regza SV670 series, including a few that no-one else has bothered to think of including in a TV - like Dolby Volume, which promises to sort the age-old problem of volume inconsistencies between advertising and programming, or between channels.
Toshiba's Super Resolution Technology has been renamed Resolution+, and is on board the SV670. Resolution+ is the technology behind the upscaling DVD players the company threw it's weight behind after HD-DVD bit the bullet last February. With more and more low-resolution content being streamed and downloaded from the Internet, Resolution+ promises to take any SD or 720p signal and make it fit a Full HD screen without the artifacts.
ClearScan 240 uses 120Hz technology with a new backlight scanning technique, that uses "human persistance of vision" to reduce motion blur to the extent of a full 240Hz frame rate, without the cost.
FocaLight LED backlighting differs from the simple edge LEDs of the past by creating a matrix of hundreds of LED zones, which can be controlled individually to create a far higher dynamic contrast ratio.
AutoView combines an ambient light sensor and a feed of the incoming video to automatically set most available TV parameters - including color balance - in a way that's both fool proof and able to handle just about any environment - even if it's constantly changing.
InstaPort technology will perform all necessary HDCP handshaking as soon as the TV is powered on or a device is connected, meaning that when it comes time to switch HDMI inputs, your content will appear near instantly as opposed to the several seconds it can take with current TVs.
You can connect a flash drive or hard drive to the USB port to listen to MP3s and view JPEG pictures, MPEG-1/2, or DivX video. There's also an SD card slot to view pictures directly from your camera.
All this functionality has been housed in unique design inspired by water. The bezel features a gradient effect that Toshiba has called Deep Lagoon, which mimicks the way sand gradually fades into the water at the beach, and is set behind a sheet of anti-reflective glass that reaches across the entire front of the TV - a design that was inspired by infinity pools, and Toshiba has dubbed Infinity Flush Front.
The SV670-series Regza TVs will be available in May this year, in 46-inch and 55-inch sizes.
