Toshiba REGZA 52HL167 LCD HDTV

The latest crop of LCD panels is especially interesting because many employ new technologies, like LED backlighting or a 120-Hertz refresh rate, designed to improve performance issues that plagued older LCD TVs. Consequently, most LCD manufacturers have also released a step-down line that removes these top-shelf features and, by doing so, knocks several hundred dollars off the price. The 52HL167 falls into this category: It lacks some of the high-performance features, but it costs $500 less and retains many features that consumers crave: a 1920 x 1080 resolution, three HDMI inputs, an excellent assortment of picture controls, and an attractive gloss-black cabinet that measures just five inches deep.

The 52HL167 is fitted with Toshiba’s REGZA Premium LCD CineSpeed Panel. This panel offers response times that are among the best in the industry (8 ms or less), giving you plenty of power for even the most demanding home theater enthusiast. The 52HL167 also incorporates PixelPure 3rd Generation Digital Video Processing. Using 333 MHz 14-bit picture processing, PixelPure 3G can create 4096 steps of gradation (between the whitest white and blackest black) for a smooth, natural-looking picture without image banding.

DynaLight Dynamic Backlight Control monitors the brightness level of each video frame, and automatically adjusts the backlight intensity based on the image content. Precise signal analysis affords 256 levels of backlight intensity. This creates dynamic contrast up to 5 times that of the original panel contrast, resulting in a deeper black level that increases detail and depth, even in low light environments. And to get TV signals to this extraordinary LCD panel, there’s a built-in NTSC/ATSC/QAM digital tuner to capture over-the-air and cable standard and high definition broadcasts as well as unencrypted digital cable programming.

Like all of Toshiba’s TV models, the 52HL167 offers very user-friendly features and advanced functionality that make operation a breeze. It comes preprogrammed to operate up to four components, including a TV, DVD player, VCR, cable box, and two other audio or video components of your home theater.

The 52HL167 has many inputs and outputs so you’ll have plenty of hook-up options. The easy front A/V/S-Video inputs will let you effortlessly plug in your camcorder or video game. There are also three HDMI (1080p) inputs, rear A/V, S-Video, ColorStream HD component video inputs, plus audio outputs (including optical digital) so you can be sure to get the highest quality connection allowable for your equipment. There’s even a PC input (15 pin D-sub) so you can use the 52HL167 as a computer monitor.

This TV is also stacked with convenient features like Channel Browser for easily scanning through the last 32 channels you have viewed, with screen images for the last five channels displayed, by channel, by favorites, and by input, at the touch of a button; and Favorite Browser–within Channel Browser–for previewing your preset favorite channels via thumbnails along the bottom of the screen.

The key to Toshiba’s fixed pixel picture quality is PixelPure 3G, the third generation of this technology combines eight different digital video processing circuits to create a consistently clearer, deeper, and more accurate picture. Another important aspect of this TV is that it’s an LCD projector, which works like a flashlight to create an image. The white light is separated into red, green, and blue beams, which are fed separately through the panels, recombined to create the full color image, then enlarged to fill the screen. Full high definition 1080p (1920 x 1080 pixel) native resolution assures finely detailed images. This LCD projector is lightweight, but still provides rich colors and sharp contrast for a huge, high-quality image.

The HD Dynamic Contrast feature of the 52HL167 increases contrast and color saturation to create deep, rich images. Its intelligent circuitry analyzes both the dark and bright areas of the picture, and separately optimizes the dynamic range in each area of the picture. The six TheaterWide screen modes are ideal for HDTV signals and enhanced DVDs, allowing you to crop the screen image just the way you like it.

Quality images may be what you desire most, but the audio features on this TV aren’t anything to sneeze at either. Toshiba’s 52HL167 creates a dramatically improved home theater sound with a 20-watt total power output delivered through a new SoundStrip Speaker System, a new speaker technology using a thin-line speaker design with enhanced dynamic range. This eliminates the big round speakers, without losing any of the big home theater sound. SRS WOW technology creates a more enveloping sound with enhanced bass and better dialogue reproduction.

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