The Toshiba 46 SV 685 D TV is a Full HD, 46-inch LCD TV, available since summer 2009 and currently selling from about 2,000 GBP online.

Florian Friedrich, tested on December 30, 2009

Barely any local-dimming artefacts.
High contrast ratio.
Excellent motion clarity.
Accurate 24p reproduction (even with 60-hertz signals).

Slight green tint.
Picture looks too soft with 576i/p signals.
Mediocre user-friendliness for DVB-C reception.

Toshiba's local dimming technology delivers a contrast-rich, consistent image ― and all for a fair price. On the other hand, the overly soft picture from 576i/p signals is a disappointment, and DVB-C reception suffers from some awkward operation.

Most important connections:

4x 2x 1x 1x

Multimedia

If you update the media player's software to the latest version, the TV can play back video, music, and photos via USB, SD-card, or a PC network (using the DLNA standard).

Other Features

The Toshiba 46 SV 685 D offers numerous picture-adjustment options, making it an attractive product even for expert users. You can, for example, switch off each of the primary colours red, green, and blue separately, or fine-tune the colour temperature, secondary colours, gamma, or ambient-light sensor across a wide adjustment range. The TV also provides detailed information ― resolution, frame rate, HDMI colour space ― about the current video signal.

Operation

Although the handset is comfortable to hold, the remote control's 'Menu' button and picture-format button are too small.

The Toshiba's menu looks bare and basic, but offers intuitive operation. With digital cable reception, however, we noticed a lack of sorting in the channel list, meaning users cannot opt, for example, to display only the free-to-air channels. The Toshiba's power consumption also lags behind that of many LCD competitors ― at 180 watts for maximum light output, it draws significantly more power than some of its contemporaries. It's certainly not winning any awards for being eco-friendly.

Picture Quality of Standard-Definition Signals

If you select the “Movie” preset and deactivate the noise filter, the Toshiba produces a decent picture for both analogue and digital reception. The analogue TV picture exhibits a fine-grained noise, and details fail to match the results on our reference TV, the Pioneer KRP-500. Overall, however, the picture looks vivid and contrast-rich.

Criticism goes to the glass panel covering the LCD screen ― this leads to visible glare. Letterbox-format broadcasts reveal another shortcoming: If, for example, you select the “Movie” format, the picture is seven percent too wide.

And unlike on the Samsung UE 46 B 7000, there's no automatic format switching to guarantee a full-screen, undistorted picture with 4:3 and letterbox broadcasts. Also disappointing was the Toshiba's soft-looking picture with 576i/p signals. Even worse, the TV crops too much of the picture's edges ― the solution is to have your DVD player or set-top box up-scale the images before relaying them to the 46 SV 685 D.

With its 200-hertz motion-enhancement technology, the Toshiba displays accurate, sharp pictures during fast motion in both TV programs and films. But even 200-hertz technology cannot completely eliminate blur in fast camera pans.

Picture Quality of High-Definition Signals

The Toshiba 46 SV 685 D's CIE diagram (pictured) reveals a green tint.

Blu-ray film fans should switch off the “Auto Format” setting, which falls short of perfect on this Toshiba anyway. If you don't, you'll have to select the “Native” picture format manually every time, which quickly becomes irritating. In our viewing test, the 46 SV 685 D impressed with deep blacks, high contrast, and a uniform picture showing few artefacts. Cloud-like patches around bright objects only appear if you view the picture from the side.

Although the picture's dynamics aren't the absolute best, the in-picture contrast is high enough — at 5,000:1 — to give dark indoor scenes decent depth. In dark scenes, the Toshiba dramatically reduces the screen's brightness; on the one hand, this leads to superb blacks; on the other hand, it can make bright text against a dark background look feeble.

Bright scenes make clear the effect of the cool colour temperature, which we measured at 7,100 Kelvin. The result is that the picture shows greenish colouration, especially in skin tones and in black-and-white films. The user can, however, combat this shortcoming using the colour-temperature controls (increase the red, turn down the green). The “Film Stabilization” menu is crucial for accurate 24p reproduction ― in the “Standard” mode, the TV produces authentic 24p video, even if you input the signal at 60 hertz. The “Smooth” mode subtly smooths out film pictures, and switching the setting to “Off” produces an irregular judder.

Sound Quality

The Toshiba has analogue and digital audio outputs, as well as a separate subwoofer connection.

The speakers don't point towards the viewers, but enjoy support from Dolby Volume and an Audyssey equaliser. The sound suffers from slight discolouration, but is pleasant and conveys decent bass, especially at low volume.

Picture Mode: Movie

Contrast: 98

Brightness: 1

Colour: 2

Tint: 0

Sharpness: -5

Colour Temperature: 2

Active Backlight Control: On

Static Gamma: -10

MPEG NR: Off

DNR: Off

Resolution+: Off

Active Vision M200: On

Film Stabilization: Standard

Picture Size: Native

* 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.