Toshiba's 46XV545U LCD HDTV reviewed: internal upscaling is a joke

by Darren Murph, posted Dec 18th 2008 at 11:27AM

Sympathizers were outraged that skeptics (read: us) didn't believe that Toshiba's Super Resolution Technology was anything worth writing home over, and hey, we hate to say we told you so. The outfit's 46XV545U was recently reviewed over at CNET, and critics found the internal upscaling technology to be more of a gimmick than anything. Sure, it artificially sharpened some SD content for the better, but all in all, the SRT system fell under the "bad," not the "good." Overall, the set offered up a decidedly decent experience from top to bottom, yielding a "Good" rating and three out of five stars. In other words, take your dollars elsewhere -- competition is fierce, and you're in no place to settle for less than the best in any given price range.

Filed under: Displays, Toshiba, LCD

Tags: 46XV545U, hdtv, lcd, lcd hdtv, lcd tv, LcdHdtv, LcdTv, review, reviewed, srt, super resolution, super resolution technology, super-resolution, SuperResolution, SuperResolutionTechnology, toshiba, upconvert, upconverting, upscale, upscaling, XDE

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

Truth Teller 3 @ Dec 18th 2008 12:21PM

Darren's selective quoting & vendetta against Toshiba continues
(and all over one single source/review).

Here's something you might have picked out as a general comment to the 1080p fanboys Darren -

"As do most LCD HDTVs available in 2008, the 46XV545U has a native resolution of 1080p. However, at this screen size it's very difficult to tell the difference between 1080p and lower resolutions."

As for Darren's claims about the SRT (which is not btw the 'spurs engine' Cell design), the article actually says this -

"SRT Super Upconversion is one of the main selling points of this TV, and when we switched it on, the differences were not subtle.
The main effect of SRT that we could discern was to introduce edge enhancement, much like a TV's Sharpness control. There are three SRT modes in addition to an Auto setting, and Mode 1 introduced the least EE (aside from Off) and Mode 3 the most.
The artificial edges can increase perceived sharpness, which can seem to make low-quality material look more detailed.
In the Toshiba's case, compared with the Off setting, engaging SRT did improve the apparent detail of many areas, such as the bricks behind the waving American flag and the bridge in the Detail test.
However, we believe that's mainly because of Off's general softness compared with the other displays in our lineup."

Hardly the "joke" Darren claims.

Overall they have some nice things to say about this HD TV from decent blacks to good deinterlacing to good pull-down as well as some good anti-judder settings.

That alone places it above certain other brand's performance - especially at this $1300 price-point.

It's a $1300 46" HD TV.
Considering the price/performance it's pretty good in fact.

It won't be my next HD TV
(Samsung are my preferred brand for that and I'll be buying bigger & spending a lot more than $1300 next time, unfortunately)
but once again Darren's kicking out at anything bearing the Toshiba label is far more his problem, not Toshiba's.

Low Ranked

JDS @ Dec 18th 2008 12:50PM

yo TT3, do you work for Toshiba?

or a better question is y do u care????

your post reads like you are in sales & marketing for Toshiba????

or is it that you have to much time & nothing to do?

this is right from the CNet review:

Toshiba is trying to corner the market on "turns your standard-def into high-def!" hype. One recent attempt was the XD-E500 DVD player, which trumpeted funky and ultimately disappointing "XDE" video processing in attempt to lure buyers. Now there's the more elaborate "SRT Super Upconversion" moniker, which promises that "all your DVDs and TV channels will be displayed in near High Definition picture quality." According to our tests of the 46-inch 46XV545U, that's "even less true than you might expect". Turning SRT on does make some standard-definition sources appear a bit sharper compared with leaving it off with this display, but "at the expense of artificially enhanced images that don't look much like high-definition" to us. Fortunately for its final score, the 46XV545U gets the basics mostly right.

http://reviews.cnet.com/flat-panel-tvs/toshiba-46xv545u/4505-6482_7-33248757.html

Highly Ranked

daaper @ Dec 18th 2008 1:26PM

What are you talking about? CNET clearly listed the SRT feature under the "bad".

CNET: "The bad: Inaccurate primary color of green and cyan; subpar uniformity; proprietary upconversion circuit introduces edge enhancement; lackluster design."

See? There it is right there, just like Darren said.

Truth Teller 3 @ Dec 18th 2008 12:21PM: "As for Darren's claims about the SRT (which is not btw the 'spurs engine' Cell design)"

First of all, nobody said anything about a "'spurs engine' Cell design". Second, that's not Darren's claim. CNET was the one who said it's gimmicky...which isn't exactly a glowing remark for the technology.

CNET: "The bottom line: Consider the midprice Toshiba 45XV545U for its decent overall picture quality, not its gimmicky standard-definition processing."

Truth Teller 3 @ Dec 18th 2008 12:21PM: "Overall they have some nice things to say about this HD TV from decent blacks to good deinterlacing to good pull-down as well as some good anti-judder settings."

And so did Darren, if you'd even bothered to read what he wrote. The only thing he really knocked was the same thing CNET did: the SRT. The rest he said was a "decent experience", which is exactly what a 3 of 5 means...not bad, but not great. Good black, but bad color accuracy. Good de-judder mode, but bad uniformity. Sounds like an average tv to me...

You talk about Darren cherry-picking, but I would say that it's you doing it. I know you dislike pretty much anything Darren writes, but I would say he was much closer to the tone of the review than you are.

Low Ranked

Truth Teller 3 @ Dec 18th 2008 2:11PM

Give over guys.

Anything a with a Toshiba tag gets slammed by Darren.

Neutral

daaper @ Dec 18th 2008 2:54PM

Just did a "Toshiba" search and looked through some of his articles. Gonna have to disagree with you on that one. Most of his articles were praising them on just about everything. The only ones I could find slamming them were the ones saying that this SRT upconversion was the best thing ever and we're starting to see now, it isn't.

Maybe you should have a look back too. I think your memory maybe be tainted red...

Neutral

Gus @ Dec 18th 2008 6:18PM

Sorry daaper, you can stop the sucking now, DM smashes Toshiba at every opportunity he gets, to say any different is a joke, he knows , we know it, your crawling for no good reason.

Low Ranked

daaper @ Dec 18th 2008 7:06PM

So to all you who are complaining about Darren's article, you would honestly take this tv over all the Samsung LCDs and Panny plasmas that are easily in this price range?

Samsung PN50A650
Samsung PN50A550
Panasonic TH-50PF11UK
Samsung LN46A550 (this one's actually quite a bit cheaper)
Panasonic TH-46PZ85U (as is this one)

If you can honestly say you'd take this tv over the ones above, then I guess I have nothing more to say. Even if Darren has been toshiba-biased in the past (and I'm not saying he has), that doesn't mean he's wrong about this. The review wasn't that great and I agree with Darren that there are better sets in this price range. This thing was supposed to break from the pack because of its SRT feature and apparently it didn't...CNET's words, not Darren's. All he was doing was passing along the info.

Highest Ranked

Gus @ Dec 18th 2008 8:18PM

Your missing the point daaper, TT3 said he wouldn't buy it, the issue is not about this TV, the issue is about DM hanging Toshiba out to dry regardless if the product is good or bad at every opportunity. He has had a personal vendetta against Toshiba that shines through unashamedly in all his unbalanced Toshiba articles.
Hey, it gets a response, and it drives traffic to the site, so he's done his job, but it is most definitely one eyed and very biased journalism that harks back to the format war and the obvious hard on he has for blu ray and sony.
You must be relatively new here daaper, there has been an ongoing "dialogue" with Darren Murphy and a number of readers here regarding Toshiba and DM's love of belting them over anything and everything for a very LONG time.

Lowest Ranked

chumley @ Dec 18th 2008 12:50PM

I don't understand why Toshiba is confusing the marketplace with incremental upscaling enhancements like this "SRT", the "XDE" dvd player, etc. Just give us the real deal with the spurs engine. Whenever they do get around to offering the spurs engine, people may not even bother to look at it because they've seen/heard that these other technologies don't have much benefit. It could turn out to be kind of like the boy who cried wolf.

Lowest Ranked

chumley @ Dec 18th 2008 1:02PM

On 2nd thought, how do we know that SRT is not using the spurs engine (i.e. the cell-based technology)? I can't find any definitive info on that. They do clearly state that the "Toshiba HD quad core processor" in the Qosimo laptops is cell based, but I don't see any reference to "SRT".

Highest Ranked

Carl @ Dec 18th 2008 1:16PM

It's not the SpursEngine - a Japanese tech site broke out the silicon for the solution and it was non-SPURS. The SpursEngine will be making its first debut in TVs in 2009, and it'll come with all the additional tiling of streams and everything else as well.

Honestly reading the independent reviews of this particular TV on the AV forums of the net, it doesn't seem that bad at all, and some people quite like the SRT. I don't think it's the be-all end-all, but I do agree that this Engadget write-up seems unduly harsh, especially considering that at the end of the day it's based solely on one reviewers opinions, rather than any sort of aggregate.

Neutral

Truth Teller 3 @ Dec 18th 2008 2:10PM

Toshiba isn't confusing anyone.

All HD TVs upscale, they have to to make an SD image fill the screen
(which is partly what is so absurd about Darren's traditional dig at Toshiba and anything they do regarding upscaling).

Low Ranked

chumley @ Dec 18th 2008 5:49PM

They're not confusing anyone??? We know that SpursEngine is coming down the pipe, but in the interim they keep introducing minor upscaling tweaks (XDE, SRT), and then they market them as if they are something new and different. They give only vague descriptions of what these "new" upscalers do, and they don't clearly say if they are SpursEngine based or not. That's sure confusing to me. Some people are going to start thinking is just all marketing crap. IMHO, they should have waited until SpursEngine was ready before dreaming up some new marketing name.

Highest Ranked

Truth Teller 3 @ Dec 18th 2008 8:22PM

chumley

What's to be confused about? Seriously.

Every CE corp strings a load of silly acronyms on their products when they tweak or change their stuff.
Are you seriously trying to tell us that the buying public are just itching to buy spurs engined HD TVs and might be misled by these sets?!

You know the spurs engine TVs are coming but they just have not got here yet
(and no-one said or implied that they have....except maybe those bashing improved upscaling),
your own impatience is hardly the same as honest confusion.

Highest Ranked

cbr @ Dec 18th 2008 2:22PM

UltimateAVMag.com was much more appreciative of SRT upscaling in their review.

http://www.ultimateavmag.com/flatpaneldisplays/toshiba_52xv545u_lcd_tv/index.html

Highly Ranked

WebDev511 @ Dec 18th 2008 3:21PM

Darren, I don't see any reference in the review that implies that upscaling is a joke. The summary suggests that the set be judged on overall picture quality and not "its gimmicky standard-definition processing", so translating that into "internal upscaling is a joke" is quite a stretch.

Highly Ranked

squiggleslash @ Dec 18th 2008 3:43PM

Oh, look, a Darren Murph article slamming Toshiba over their attempts to make decent upscalers. What a surprise.

Could EHD at least try to get someone who isn't obsessed with Toshiba (in a creepy, needs a court order type way) to cover the Toshiba stories?

Neutral

Darren @ Dec 18th 2008 5:09PM

Oh, look. A reader who doesn't realize that this review wasn't written by me, but by someone on CNET. Don't shoot the messenger.

Highly Ranked

chumley @ Dec 18th 2008 6:05PM

Darren, your article does have more of a negative spin than the cnet source. "internal upscaling is a joke" is a pretty strong statement, and you dreamed up those words yourself.

Highly Ranked

squiggleslash @ Dec 18th 2008 6:12PM

I wasn't referring to the review Daz, I was referring to your write-up. Like I said, EHD needs someone with a somewhat less hysterically anti-Toshiba position to deal with Toshiba stories.

Neutral

Dave @ Dec 18th 2008 4:04PM

Why would anyone expect quality from Toshiba anyways lol...

Low Ranked

DrXym @ Dec 18th 2008 4:05PM

This isn't surprising. You can't magic extra detail out of thin air. The best you can do is interpolate and attempt to infer extra detail between frames. Algorithms that do this have been around for a while and they produce modest improvements over a regular scaler. The review makes it sound worse than that, as if its just a glorified edge enhancement mode.

I don't suppose image processing is a bad feature to have in any consumer kit, after all you can always turn it off. It's also worth bearing in mind that some of the image enhancement modes in other TVs such as Samsung's DNIe really aren't anything to write home about either.

Neutral

dan @ Jan 3rd 2009 7:06AM

Why did this get downranked? It is completely true; upscaling is never going to turn SD into HD because there is just not enough information in the original picture. There is a limit to how much 'better' you can make the image look, and most of the processing done is going to be based around de-fuzzing the edges of things. You can't magic extra detail out of nowhere unless you completely make it up.

Highest Ranked

Ed @ Dec 18th 2008 7:05PM

I've asked before and I'll ask again; Can Engadget not find somebody to do write ups who isn't insanely biased against one of the leading names in the CE industry?

Highest Ranked

Gus @ Dec 18th 2008 8:23PM

Never going to happen, every time DM leads an anti Toshiba article, and let's face it that's fairly often, there's a flood of posts.
I would think one of his roles would be to search the net looking for anything to do with Tosh so that the flaming can begin, remember, more posts=more advertising $$$

Neutral

THJ @ Jan 3rd 2009 12:21PM

You fahgs actually track what Darren writes and comment about his fanboyism? What a bunch of nut-hangers.

Even if you are talking smack, the fact that you are coming back for more makes you like an abused prostitute with DM as your pimp.

Utter Fail

Highly Ranked

Leon @ Dec 18th 2008 10:20PM

I purchased the Cinema Series 52XV545 with SRT shortly after it debuted at CEDIA. I must say that I do not regret it at all. My SD channels never looked this good. Overall it is a great value. This is coming from someone who has had his share of HDTVs over the years. It is certainly better then my Full 1080P Sony BRAVIA. Some people are hating on Toshiba just a little too much. I guess anything to generate a reaction. We might even see an HD DVD article soon...

Neutral

0c5e463f @ Dec 19th 2008 10:08AM

Warning: Undercover Black Deeds in Japanese Corporations

by David Schneider, email: david_lawyer@walla.com

Japanese companies are famous for their high-quality service provided worldwide. Any partner of a Japanese company expects a discreet and trustworthy business way. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look as it seems.

In our case, Japanese corporations’ representatives working in Russia and the CIS have elaborated an excellent fraud scheme including money-laundering, kickback clients and employees, asset misappropriation etc.
The scheme runs as follows:

1. Toshiba Corporation serving as a cover generally doesn’t sign official distribution contracts in Russia and the CIS. Russian nationals such as Mr. Vadim Danilov (Toshiba fake official trader) are hired by the corporation. In addition, all transactions are based on pledging Toshiba managers’ word of honor.

2. An “official” supplier – NAC Trading Ltd. - delivering appliances to Media Markt Saturn, located in Moscow, doesn’t have any procuration from Toshiba Corporation.

3. Defective appliances covered by an insurance company are sent to Russia from a warehouse Kouvola, Finland as new ones via a fake Toshiba trader.

4. Toshiba Corporation issues invoices on official blanks in which written payment requisites of third parties (Nana Europe OY) responsible for payment transfers to Toshiba Corporation and MCLOGI (Mitsubishi Corporation LT, Inc.).

5. It is strongly recommended by the Japanese companies to make all payments using off-shore banks since Toshiba prefers not to be responsible for anything if its Russian clients have any claims and complaints.

6. So, there is a bundle: Toshiba Corporation (Supplier) represented by Mr. Natsume – MCLOGI (delivering service) represented by Mr. Baba – Nana Europe OY (Toshiba “agent” in Finland supplying appliances to Russia) represented by Mr. Ogawa – NAC Trading Ltd. (Nana Europe branch in Russia responsible for financial flows in Russia), at a final stage RCAS (a private company of Mr. Baba and Mr. Natsume) located in Estonia transfers the cleaned funds from off-shore banks to Toshiba and MCLOGI.

To sum-up, it has been shown that the Japanese corporations use fraud schemes and transactions to snatch large sums and frame up hired managers and Russian big companies.

Neutral

0c5e463f @ Dec 19th 2008 10:11AM

Warning: Undercover Black Deeds in Japanese Corporations

by David Schneider, email: david_lawyer@walla.com

Japanese companies are famous for their high-quality service provided worldwide. Any partner of a Japanese company expects a discreet and trustworthy business way. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look as it seems.
In our case, Japanese corporations’ representatives working in Russia and the CIS have elaborated an excellent fraud scheme including money-laundering, kickback clients and employees, asset misappropriation etc.
The scheme runs as follows:
1. Toshiba Corporation serving as a cover generally doesn’t sign official distribution contracts in Russia and the CIS. Russian nationals such as Mr. Vadim Danilov (Toshiba fake official trader) are hired by the corporation. In addition, all transactions are based on pledging Toshiba managers’ word of honor.
2. An “official” supplier – NAC Trading Ltd. - delivering appliances to Media Markt Saturn, located in Moscow, doesn’t have any procuration from Toshiba Corporation.
3. Defective appliances covered by an insurance company are sent to Russia from a warehouse Kouvola, Finland as new ones via a fake Toshiba trader.

4. Toshiba Corporation issues invoices on official blanks in which written payment requisites of third parties (Nana Europe OY) responsible for payment transfers to Toshiba Corporation and MCLOGI (Mitsubishi Corporation LT, Inc.).
5. It is strongly recommended by the Japanese companies to make all payments using off-shore banks since Toshiba prefers not to be responsible for anything if its Russian clients have any claims and complaints.
6. So, there is a bundle: Toshiba Corporation (Supplier) represented by Mr. Natsume – MCLOGI (delivering service) represented by Mr. Baba – Nana Europe OY (Toshiba “agent” in Finland supplying appliances to Russia) represented by Mr. Ogawa – NAC Trading Ltd. (Nana Europe branch in Russia responsible for financial flows in Russia), at a final stage RCAS (a private company of Mr. Baba and Mr. Natsume) located in Estonia transfers the cleaned funds from off-shore banks to Toshiba and MCLOGI.
To sum-up, it has been shown that the Japanese corporations use fraud schemes and transactions to snatch large sums and frame up hired managers and Russian big companies.

Highly Ranked

Lundmark @ Jan 3rd 2009 8:58AM

Alright, I am pretty new around here. But here's my question to you commenters:

Darren sure bashes Toshiba, but isn't it true that this company embarrased itself when it tried to convince people to buy oldschool DVDs when it lost the HD format war? And here we go again... Now Toshiba tries to convince people they don't have to buy Bluray because its new SRT TVtech does wonders for SD content.

I mean, this is clearly bullshit.

Lastly, this particular set is both ugly and overpriced when one takes into consideration that it doesn't do what it suppose to do: converting DVDs to magical HD discs.

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