The Loewe Art 47 SL Full HD+ / 100 CI+ DR+ TV is a Full HD, 47-inch LCD TV. Available since November 2008, the TV is currently priced at 3,155 GBP.

Florian Friedrich, tested on December 28, 2009

HDTV double tuner.
Great sound.
Excellent colours.
Accurate 24p reproduction, low motion-blur.
Built-in hard-disk recorder (also allows time-shift TV).

Low contrast means picture lacks depth.
Unconventional operation.
Films in 576i and 1080i suffer from line-flicker.

Let’s start with the bad news: The Loewe’s low contrast ratio seriously limits its home-cinema suitability. And now the good news: if you’re looking for high-quality picture and sound in a bright living room, this exclusive Loewe is just the ticket — and is sure to draw some jealous looks!

Most important connections:

3x 1x 2x 1x

Multimedia

The USB input is conveniently located on the side of the unit.

Unlike other aspects of the Loewe’s feature set, multimedia is a bit lacking — the TV can play back MP3 music and JPEG photos from a USB stick, but that’s it.

Other Features

This signal indicator on the speaker bar is irritating in the dark home cinema.

As is typical for premium German manufacturer Loewe, this LCD TV is available in numerous different configurations (see box below). For our test, we ordered the DR+ variant of the 47-inch Art 47 SL. This includes a double tuner for analogue and digital cable and an integrated, 250-gigabyte, hard-disk recorder that allows you to record almost 80 hours of TV. On top of that, we also ordered another double tuner for satellite TV (DVB-S).

The digital tuners not only receive HDTV, but can also handle pay-TV channels using the latest encryption standard, CI+. You can also record HDTV broadcasts, but these take up twice as much space as standard-definition material.

The things we liked best were the numerous nifty details that other LCD TVs generally don’t offer. This includes, for example, the PALplus decoder for optimum analogue reception, which improves the sharpness of widescreen broadcasts. There’s also lip-sync delay, which allows you to delay the picture or sound by up to 100 milliseconds in order to achieve perfect synchronisation.

Operation

The Loewe’s remote control is attractive and well built.

Here, in general, Loewe remains true to its philosophy, offering a unique degree of user-friendliness thanks to an extensive range of functions. The disadvantage is that it takes the user a certain amount of time to get the hang of all these functions and to be able to use them at speed. We love the sexy menu design and couldn’t get enough of the beautiful, high-definition typeface. The rolling-menu design, however, isn’t as clear as classical menus. Confusingly, the “Menu” button brings up different menus depending on the context.

A look at the back of the Loewe reveals connections galore. The vertical socket arrangement saves space, allowing neater wall mounting.

We also found the channel navigation illogical: The “OK” button calls up the TV-channel list, but you have to press the “Assist” button to access the list of radio stations. What’s more, some important functions — accessing recorded TV programmes, for example — can only be accessed via multi-function buttons. This seems to be the price you pay for having a TV with such a huge list of features.

The user manual picks up a few much-needed plus points: All explanations are detailed and clear, and if you want to study it in electronic form, a copy is also presented within the TV’s menu system.

Recordings

We’ve no complaints about the built-in recorder: You can, for example, set timer recordings manually or with the help of the Electronic Program Guide (EPG). And since you can set lead-in and lead-out times, the days of incomplete recordings are past. The double tuner makes it possible to watch one channel while recording another.

Even video-editing functions are provided, along with four quality settings (bit rates) for recording analogue programs. With digital reception, on the other hand, the material is always stored in its original quality. The TV’s recording capabilities also allow you to pause and rewind (“time shift”) live TV.

Picture Quality of TV Signals

The two presets “Eco-Standard” and “Premium Mode”, which differ in terms of power consumption and overall brightness, both deliver a decent, balanced, TV picture. But the “Normal” colour-temperature setting is too bluish; “Soft” is much better, and we also advise switching off the noise filter. Compared to our reference TV, the Pioneer KRP-500 plasma, the Loewe exhibits strong noise and weaker fine-detail reproduction. With digital reception, however, fine details resolve well. With HDTV via satellite, you should reduce the sharpness setting and select the “16:9 PC” picture format, since this is free of picture-cropping (overscan). Then, the picture quality gives you not even the slightest cause for complaint.

Its very bright pictures (up to 450 candelas per square meter) mean this 47-inch LCD is ideally suited to bright rooms. To keep the power consumption within sensible limits (100 to 200 watts), you should only set the backlight as high as is necessary. The “Automatic dimming” deals with this itself; the contrast control allows manual adjustment.

Picture Quality of Standard-Definition Signals

With 576i signals via Scart-RGB or HDMI, the Art 47 SL always delivers a detail-rich picture — so long as you turn down the sharpness control. In films, however, line flicker appears repeatedly — for example, as the camera flies over the mountaintops in the second film of the “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy. On the plus side, however, the menu can display a readout of the vertical and horizontal resolution of HDMI signals, as well as their frame rate. The DMM motion enhancement does a great job in video-based material — this becomes clear, for example, in fast camera pans. Fast-moving objects sometimes even look better than on current Sony TVs with 200-hertz Motionflow — until now, Sony’s technology was the best we’d seen. For films, however, we recommend turning the technology off, since it removes the characteristic cinema-style judder. With DMM deactivated, the chic LCD TV delivers sharpness that’ll compete with modern plasma competitors; the picture is clear, shows no blur, and exhibits typical movie judder.

Picture Quality of High-Definition Signals

In darker images, the Loewe takes on a blue-violet tint.

Using Blu-ray test discs, we confirmed excellent detail sharpness on the Loewe — both for 1080/60p and for 24p. Blacker-than-black content failed to display on the test candidate, but in practice this only affects brightness adjustment with certain test patterns. We found it much more irritating that the sharpness control only varies in five large steps — you can forget about fine tweaks here. The inverse-telecine function works superbly — it removes 3:2-pulldown judder from films arriving as 60-hertz signals (for example, from an early Blu-ray player), reproducing an accurate 24p look.

Bright pictures show phenomenal colours and sharpness — easily rivalling those of our reference Pioneer plasma. Black-and-white films, skin tones, and saturated colours all look natural. But, as is typical with an LCD TV, the brightness and contrast are weaker in side-on viewing, although the picture’s colours remain consistent. Perhaps the biggest weakness of this high-end model lies in its flat blacks and limited contrast ratio, which reduce the picture’s depth. You get the best results from the Loewe in only slightly darkened rooms — that is, in the typical living-room environment. And, in the right conditions, it really is a force to be reckoned with.

Sound Quality

The Loewe’s sound is far superior to that of most competitors. The speakers impress with profound bass and excellent treble, but the quiet crackling of the hard disks is sometimes audible.

Make the following adjustments after selecting the “Eco-Standard” preset:

AV Mode: Personal settings (HD Digital)

Contrast: 7

Colour Intensity: 10

Colour Temperature: Soft

Brightness: 10

Sharpness: 1

DNC: Off

Image+ Active: Off

Picture Format: 16:9 PC

DMM: Off

* These settings apply to realistic playback of HDTV/Blu-ray material through the HDMI interface in a darkened environment. Manufacturing and HDMI playback device deviations may necessitate slight adjustment.