REVIEWS
HEAD
TOSHIBA 3357 DB & PHILIPS 32W9631P
INTRO
Large screen TVs are the only way to go if
you’re looking for an authentic home cinema experience, but should you go big-screen,
widescreen or both? Rick Maybury has
some thoughts on the matter and looks
at two recent arrivals from Philips and Toshiba
COPY
Toshiba and home cinema TVs are synonymous
with one another. They were the first manufacturer on the UK market with a
Dolby Surround set back in 1990 and they’ve been at the forefront of this
technology ever since, consistently outselling every other brand. The 3357DB is
their third 33-inch surround-sound TV to date, replacing the 3339DB which
appeared in early 1994. On paper little has changed, core features, such as the
fully-featured Dolby Pro-Logic surround sound system, NICAM and fastext remain, and the price stays the same at just
under £1500. However, there has been some subtle cosmetic surgery. Unflattering
curves around the screen surround and cabinet have been ironed out, it looks a
lot better for the facelift.
For such a large TV the 3357DB has
surprisingly few gadgets, in spite of there being no shortage of room inside
the voluminous cabinet. Toshiba are pretty good in that respect, they tend not
to load their tellies with glitzy and often superfluous features, that do little
for AV performance. The welcome
spin-off is a selling price that remains within the bounds of reason.
The big 33-inch tube is the main selling
point. It’s so big it almost looks like a 16:9 display, the picture area is
significantly larger than any tube-based widescreen set. Seated on top of its
console it looks quite imposing, thankfully Toshiba have kept the cosmetics
simple, so it’s not overpowering and it should fit in easily with most decor
styles. The console houses the centre-front speaker, beneath that there’s
shelves for a VCR and satellite receiver. It comes with a pair of rear surround
speakers and it uses the built-in stereo speakers for the front channels,
though there are connections for outboard speakers.
AV connections are unusually comprehensive; altogether
there’s four AV inputs, handled by two SCARTs and a set of phonos with an
S-Video socket on the back, and a front mounted AV terminal, (composite and
S-Video plus stereo line-audio), for camcorder and video games hook-ups.
There’s also a separate AV output on the back panel and a headphone jack on the
front.
Tuning is semi-automatic and it involves a
fair amount of button-dabbing. It takes care of station naming, using teletext
data, but the final order has to be sorted manually. Once it’s up and running
the on-screen display system proffers the usual selection of picture
adjustments (contrast, brightness and colour), along with a few extras, such as
tint, sharpness and noise reductions. There are also four pre-set picture
‘styles’, that juggle the contrast, brightness and noise-reduction levels to
suite different types of programme material, and viewing conditions. A similar arrangement
is used on the stereo sound system, with manually adjustable bass and treble,
switchable bass boost, plus four equaliser presets or sound styles, optimised
for music and speech, etc.
The Dolby Pro-Logic processor has options for
‘phantom’ or Dolby 3 channel, though why anyone would want to compromise
surround sound output is unclear. Additionally there’s a 5-mode digital signal
processor (DSP) facility, for creating a range of spatial and surround effects
from non-Dolby and mono source material. They are: ‘hall’ which simulates a
concert hall, ‘theatre’ for approximating the acoustics of a cinema auditorium,
‘disco’ which re-creates a smaller, more confined space, ‘stadium’ for lots of
reverberation, and ‘pseudo’, which generates a synthetic surround effect from a
mono source.
The remaining features are all fairly
routine, they include a programmable on/off timer, fastext with four
page-number memory, time display and a 16:9 display mode, that expands anamorphically
compressed images to full screen width. The instruction book suggests that more
films will be broadcast in this format in the future; realistically the only
thing you can use it for in this country will be to watch foreign satellite
broadcasts or DIY widescreen movies, made using camcorders that have a 16:9
compression facility.
It’s a fact of life that big screens magnify
picture defects, and its predecessor, the 3339 received some mixed reviews in
that respect. Happily the 3357 we’ve been looking at was on top form. The image
is bright and well focused, geometry and colour registration were both very
good. Noise levels are commendably low, though it doesn’t pay to get too close
to large screens like this one as the line structure becomes apparent and the
picture can start to look a little soft.
Unfortunately big screens also exaggerate the effects of flicker. It’s
not too bad-- it tends to show up more in bright areas at the sides of the
screen -- but if you’re troubled by this phenomenon make sure you have a look
at sets with 100Hz displays. The tube has a good contrast range and with a
little fiddling around it’s normally possible to achieve a good colour balance
in a range of lighting conditions.
The large cabinet helps create a substantial
sound from the main stereo speakers, and for once it’s quite well balanced,
with a solid mid-range and adequate reserves of bass and treble. The Dolby Pro-Logic
decoder works well too, resolution is fine and it manages to sort out quieter,
more detailed effects and direct them to the correct channel without any
problems. The rear channel speakers have to be pushed quite hard in order for
them to make their presence felt, and loud bass-heavy effects from the back
channel can sound a little muted.
Although not substantially different from its
predecessor the 3357 is a much tidier-looking package, it works well, and the
price remains competitive.
DATA STREAM
TOSHIBA 3357DB
Price £1500
Features 33-inch
(80cm) screen, 100-channels, Dolby Pro-Logic, NICAM, fastext, 5-mode DSP,
built-in sub-woofer, supplied stand with centre -front speaker, on/off timer
Sockets 2
x SCART AV, line audio & composite video in/out (phono & S-Video),
front, centre and rear speakers (spring terminals) front AV inputs (phono &
S-Video), headphone (minijack)
Pros: it’s big, bright and loud, a real home
cinema performer
Cons: it’s big...
HC Rating
88%
Toshiba UK Ltd, telephone (01276) 62222
PHILIPS 32W9631P
Philips are taking no chances with the
32W9631P widescreen 32-inch TV. The
extensive range of picture and sound facilities
includes a 100Hz flicker-free display, Dolby Pro-Logic, digital surround and
NICAM. A set-top PAL Plus decoder is available as an optional extra. However,
this set and it’s slightly more compact stablemate, the 28W9361, can generate a
correctly proportioned widescreen image from a PAL Plus broadcast using a
system of their own devising, called
Widescreen Plus. We’ll look at how it works in a moment, first the guided tour.
The impressively dark Blackline tube is
housed inside a neatly sculptured cabinet that manages somehow to make the set
appear smaller than it is, seen from the front at least. By the way, this is
the first cabinet we’ve come across with a bonnet; a section of the back panel opens
up, giving some access to the innards. The speaker grilles are set a little way
behind the screen surround, and angled outwards, to help spread the stereo
soundstage. Philips proudly boast this set has nine on-board speakers, that’s true,
even allowing for the fact that some are used as tweeters, but that figure
includes the narrowest speakers you’re ever likely to see, the cones on the
four mid-range units used for the main right and left channels are barely an
inch wide...
Around the back there’s three SCART AV
sockets, plus stereo audio line out, and a set of spring terminals for the
front stereo and rear surround speakers, but no separate centre channel output.
The front panel has a hinged flap that conceals a set of AV connectors,
including an S-Video socket, headphone jack, plus a set of basic channel change
and menu controls, that would just about keep the TV up and running if anything
happened to the remote handset. Talking of which; it’s an unusual design, with
an LCD panel showing which of the nine other Philips devices (VCRs, disc
players etc. ) it can control, has been selected. A hinged flap covering the
bottom third of the handset folds back, so it can stand upright.
The on-screen displays are very impressive; the
main menu smoothly materialises on the left side of the picture and subsequent
selections gracefully rise from the bottom of the screen; items are selected
using a simple 4-way cursor button. Auto tuning is a little slow, but it gets
there, and in most cases there should be no need to fiddle around with it
afterwards. The numerous picture and sound adjustments cover a lot of ground,
in fact it’s sometimes difficult to find the ideal settings, but the display
and control systems are exceptionally easy to use.
Heading up the list of convenience features
is multi-mode picture in picture and a super-quick fastext system with a
400-page memory. The TV has full multi-standard capability, multi-format
display (16:9, 4:3, Superwide continuous zoom and that Widescreen Plus system
we mentioned earlier. There’s a couple of oddities, like picture tilt, which tips
the picture one way or another, and a memo facility, that allows users to leave
simple text messages for each another.
Widescreen Plus employs a technique known as
line interpolation. It’s used when the screen is showing a 4:3 letterboxed
picture and kicks in automatically during a PAL Plus broadcast. Most other widescreen
TVs electronically enlarge a letter-box image to fill the screen, which has a noticeable
effect on resolution, exaggerating the effects of line structure. Widescreen
Plus works by inserting digitally generated lines, after every third TV line,
and stretching the picture to return it to the correct proportions. This echoes
the way PAL Plus works, except in that case additional lines containing extra
picture information are transmitted along with the TV signal, they’re hidden in
the back borders at the top and bottom of the picture. This TV synthesises the extra
lines, so there’s no more detail, but it looks a lot better than normal stretch
or zoom modes.
On-screen performance is generally very good
but all of the widescreen modes show some evidence of digital processing,
either as artefacts, or an unusual texture. Picture sharpness varies quite a
lot, from near perfect in the 4:3 display mode, to a bit ragged around the
edges on some of the zoom settings. Colour fidelity is fine all of the time. The
tuner is very sensitive, noise levels and reception errors are well below
average.
The titchy speakers do their best and the back-mounted
sub-woofer helps beef up the sound. It’s actually better than a lot of stereo sets
we could name and the big cabinet helps improve the dynamics. The Dolby
Pro-Logic decoder is very good too, but centre front output is a bit feeble,
and loud effects on the front stereo channels are not especially well focused. Rear
channel output is okay though, and unlike a lot of DPL sets, it isn’t drowned
out through lack of power.
Despite the slightly heavy-handed digital
processing this is a immensely likeable set. Widescreen Plus is a genuine
improvement in the display of letterboxed 4:3 material, and provided you’re not
expecting too much, surround sound performance is quite respectable, for a TV.
DATA STREAM
PHILIPS 32W9631P, £1850
Price £1850
Features 32-inch
(78cm) 16:9 screen, 100Hz display, 4:3/Superwide/continuous zoom/16:9 &
Widescreen Plus viewing modes, Dolby Pro-Logic, NICAM, fastext with 400-page
memory, picture-in-picture, 5-mode DSP,
NTSC playback via SCART, auto installation, sleep timer, supplied with
rear-surround speakers
Sockets 3
x SCART AV, line audio output, front and rear speakers (spring terminals) front
AV inputs (phono & S-Video), headphone (minijack)
Pros:
Widescreen Plus is a definite step forward, and the on-screen display
system has to be worth a couple of extra brownie points
Cons: The picture has digital processing
stamped all over it and a centre-front speaker output would have been welcome
HC Rating
90%
Philips Consumer Electronics, telephone 0181-689 4444
BOX COPY 1
BIG SCREEN ALTERNATIVES
Toshiba are one of only a handful of companies
making sets with tubes larger than 32-inches. The cheapest to date is the
Goodmans 3375, which is remarkable value for money at just £700, though it has
to be said it is quite basic, and picture performance is nothing to write home
about. Ferguson do three 33-inchers, (D78N, T78N and TD78DPL) costing between £1000
and £1800 but if that’s still not big enough for you then there are a few even larger
sets on the market. Sony have a 34-inch model, the KV-S3432. Picture quality is excellent and it’s well
worth considering, though at £2000 it’s quite an investment. Ferguson, Grundig
and Mitsubishi all have home cinema TVs with 37-inch screens, this is currently
the largest size of picture tube built for the domestic TV market. They’re made
in relatively small numbers, which explains why these monsters cost so much.
Ferguson’s T94N is the cheapest at just under £1800, Grundig have two, the ST95
is a relative bargain at £2200 and the M95 costs £2800. Mitsubishi’s CT37C2STX will set you back a
cool £2900.
BOX COPY 2
IS BIGGER BETTER?
Should you buy the largest widescreen set you
can afford, or get a smaller one and sit closer to it? It’s fair to say that
letterboxed movies and programmes, blown up to fill the screen on a small 16:9
set, looks a lot sharper than they would on 28 to 32-inch models. The image is
brighter with better contrast, TV lines that make up the picture are closer
together, reducing the amount of grain in the image, but the downside is that geometric
defects also show up a lot more clearly. This is especially true of any stretching
or zooming that may be used to expand the picture. Furthermore 4:3 pictures floating
around on small 16:9 screens look pathetically small. The sound systems on
smaller sets tend to be less involving. The stereo speakers are set closer
together and normally produce a fairly narrow soundstage. Most smaller widescreen
sets are fitted with stereo-wide sound modes to compensate. Sub 28-inch wide-screens
are okay if space and funds are really tight, but in answer to the original question,
bigger is most definitely better!
---end---
Ó R. Maybury 1996 2901
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