Toshiba Regza 32RV530U 32" LCD HDTV

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Toshiba Regza 32RV530U 32" LCD HDTV

The cost of LCD HDTVs have dropped dramatically in recent times where it's now possible to find a moderately sized HDTV for just a few hundred dollars. With more budget brands now surfacing with their own LCD HDTVs that are even more competitively priced, it can be a bit challenging to find a LCD HDTV that is good and bargain-priced with the selection being so large. One of the LCDs we recently encountered at Phoronix was the Toshiba Regza 32RV530U. This TV is only 32" but it provides full 1080p, multiple HDMI inputs, and will cost you less than some of the other similarly equipped LCD HDTVs on the market.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=13245

[Joe Sixpack]

In my honest opinion, this TV is a waste of money to begin with, because going 1080p at only 32" is overkill. The screen is simply too small for you to see a significant difference between 1080p and 720p.

I should also note that a lot of TV newbies confuse video resolution with contrast ratio. I was in Sears a few weeks back, and some guy in there had his mind made up that the 32" Samsung TV wes 1080p because it looked noticeably better than the 32" Sony they had on display. The only difference was the Sony had a 2000:1 contrast ratio and the Samsung was listed as 8000:1. He, like a lot of other people, confused the brighter picture with "Having More HD"

[Ex-Cyber]

The thing that bugs me about contrast ratios is that there's a tendency (at least in stores) to only specify a "dynamic contrast ratio" which is some function of backlight dimming and the actual contrast ratio, and tells you absolutely nothing about what contrast it can really achieve in a given scene.

In my honest opinion, this TV is a waste of money to begin with, because going 1080p at only 32" is overkill. The screen is simply too small for you to see a significant difference between 1080p and 720p.

For normal viewing I agree, but if you want it to double as a monitor 1080p is nice to have.

[Joe Sixpack]

The thing that bugs me about contrast ratios is that there's a tendency (at least in stores) to only specify a "dynamic contrast ratio" which is some function of backlight dimming and the actual contrast ratio, and tells you absolutely nothing about what contrast it can really achieve in a given scene.

Tell me about it. The problem is even bigger than that, as a lot of TV manufactures won't even post the native contrast on their website. That very same Sony doesn't even list the response time - but makes the comment "very fast response time" under the features section.

[deruberhanyok]

I was surprised to see this reviewed on Phoronix. I've been using a 32RV530U as my monitor since April and I think it's pretty great.

The one thing I've found somewhat annoying is that certain color combinations result in somewhat murky text. For example, dark red on a black background. Did the unit reviewed experience this? I remember seeing a few people post a similar issue on AVSforum when the TVs were first released but haven't seen much of it since then, so I'm wondering if something was changed to fix it.

Also the native scan mode is great, but having to adjust the default underscan of a Radeon 4850 is annoying. I don't suppose, in the course of using the set, if a way was discovered to somehow get around that permanently (IE not having to run an aticonfig line every time new drivers are installed in linux, and not having to adjust an underscan slider in windows for every resolution)?