Tour & Design

Toshiba describes the design ethos of the SV670 as Deep Lagoon, with the idea being that the display looks like a pool of water. It's certainly attractive; the single glass panel that forms the front of the display goes from clear at the edges to black about half an inch in, and this transition gives the screen a floating, water-like look. The speakers are also hidden behind this panel, so the front is a single uninterrupted area.

*The front of the SV670 is a single piece of glass
*

**Back**

Because it was a prototype, the back of the SV670 that we looked at did not have the features that the final unit will have; there were no ports or other inputs on there.

The back of the model that we looked at was not complete, so there were no HDMI ports

**Sides**

The left side of the SV670 has no major features, but the right side is the home of the controls and the second set of ports. The SV670 is not a thin display; it is about 4 inches thick.

The left and right sides of the SV670

**Stand/Mount**

The sizable stand of the SV670 shares the same styling as the panel itself. The stand does not seem to allow the screen to rotate, and there were no mounting points for wall mounts on the prototype that we looked at. Toshiba did assure us that the final version would include mounting points for a standard VESA wall mount. 

The large rounded stand of the SV670

**Aesthetics**

As we mentioned above, the design of the SV670 is very attractive, and the clean, uncluttered look of the display will  appeal to those who like their TV to be a  centerpiece of their living room. It is  on the thick side, though;  other much thinner models (such as Samsung's 8 series) have been announced recently.

Performance Features

Display Size & Technology

The panel that the SV670 is built around is a 54.6 inch LCD panel, which uses LED backlights instead of the more common CCFL (Cold Cathode Florescent Light) backlights. LEDs use less electricity, but Toshiba did not release any details on the expected power draw of the system. The backlight is an array type, where the LEDs are behind the panel (other displays put the LEDs at the edge of the display). Having the LEDs behind the panel also allows for something called local dimming, where the display can turn down the brightness of LEDs that are behind darker parts of the display; Toshiba calls their version of this technology FocaLight. In theory, this makes for deeper blacks, as turning the backlight down means that less light will get through. One unanswered question is how these LEDs are controlled; it would be too complicated to control them all individually (there are usually at least hundreds of individual LEDs), so the display divides them up into zones, each one of which can be controlled. Toshiba did not release any information on how many zones there are on the SV670, claiming that they had not yet decided. Other displays that have local dimming usually have between 100 and 200 zones. 

A 55.6-inch LCD panel is at the heart of the SV670

Format & Resolution

The SV670 is a Full HD screen, so the panel has 1920 by 1080 pixels. This also means that it can display every pixel of a 1080p video signal without having to downscale or otherwise fiddle with the image. 

Brightness, Blacks & Contrast Ratio

Like most of the pre-production displays that we have looked at at the CES show, Toshiba has not revealed much in the way of details on the performance of the display. So, we have no figures for how bright and dark the screen can get beyond a few bits of marketing speak along the lines of 'significantly higher dynamic contrast'. But the local  dimming we described above should mean (if it works as described) that the display can achieve higher contrast ratios than other non-dimming screens.

Refresh Rate & Motion

Most of Toshiba's high end models have made the leap to offering 240Hz motion processing which they refer to as ClearScan 240. With this, the display tries to fill in the blanks between video frames (which are sent 60 times per second) by refreshing the screen 240 times a second. In theory, this should lead to smoother on-screen motion, and we've seen a considerable improvement in motion on the displays that we have tested that use 120Hz processing. We'll have to wait and see if Toshiba's ClearScan 240 is an improvement over this, though. 

Viewing Angle

It's hard to draw too many conclusions from our examination of this pre-production model, but we didn't see any big problems here: the contrast and color both remained strong up to a wide angle. 

Color

The SV670 does not support any of the extended color gamut settings that many other manufacturers are adding, but we did see strong, deep color from the model that we looked at.

Connectivity & Media

Audio & Video Ports

There are two locations for the ports on the SV670; the front and the back. Because of the pre-production nature of the model we looked at, we can't give a list of rear ports, as the ports were not installed. Toshiba did tell us that there will be three HDMI ports, for a total of 4. On the side panel there are, from the top, a USB port, a HDMI port, an SD Card slot and a composite video and analog video input.

The side ports on the SV670

Media & Other Connectivity

The SV670 bucks the trend for skipping memory card slots that we've seen on other devices by including an SD Card slot, which supports photos, video and music playback. The USB port also supports hard drives or other devices, and DiVX video can also be played back. Toshiba has announced plans to expand this further by adding DNLA support, which would mean that DLNA compatible devices (such as many PCs and media servers) could send media to the display over a wired or wireless network. They are also planning to build widget support and a Windows Media Center Extender into some of their displays, so they can play back live TV, video and music from Media Center PCs. However, the current lineup and the SV670 don't support these features; these devices won't be launched until later in the year. 

Placement

The side ports are reasonably well located; it is easy to reach around the side of the device to plug in a video cable , memory card or USB device. We'll have to wait to find out about the rear ports.

Audio

Toshiba is touting a new feature called Dolby Volume on the SV670, where the display monitors the audio level and adjusts the output volume to a comfortable level, boosting the volume during quiet parts and limiting it during the louder parts. Again because we were looking at a prototype version of the display, we were not able to test this feature, and Toshiba did not want to reveal the details of the speakers built into the SV670.

Controls, Menu & Remote

Remote

We were not able to test the remote that will come with the SV670, as it has not been finalized.

Controls

The controls are located above the ports on the right side of the display, in a recessed indentation. The buttons are large and well spaced, as well as being slightly offset, which should make them easy to find by touch.

The controls of the SV670 are located above the side ports

Menu

We were not able to access the on-screen menus on the pre-production model that we looked at. 

Conclusion

We don't know pricing for the SV670 yet, but we do know that it should be available in May. And it ha an interesting feature set; it's the first Toshiba set to use LED backlighting, and local dimming is a technique that has some promise. However, this display does lack the Widget and networking/streaming features that are de rigeur on most high-end sets this year; we won't see these features from Toshiba until later in the year. Many people may not care about this, but in an increasingly networked world, it might be worth waiting until the next round of releases from Toshiba that include these features to throw your money down.