Few people know this, but every now and then a digital TV gets lonely. Sometimes, when they find just the right component (usually through a digital dating service), they fall in love and get married. While a flat-panel TV often feels most fulfilled with a digital TV tuner, there are those whose tastes run a little on the wild side. These rebel sets choose to spend the rest of their lives committed to a compatible DVD player—literally joined at the hip or, more accurately, the side. This issue’s Digital TV Deathmatch pits three digital TV/DVD player combos against one another in our own “DTV Dating Game.”
Video Performance – Toshiba SDP7000 To say the Toshiba SDP7000 crushes the competition when it comes to picture quality would be an understatement. Despite the absence of a color temperature adjustment, this TV has the best blacks and the most accurate color. It is not surprising then, that the SDP7000 has the best detail in the dark areas of the image as well as the greatest sensation of depth. Video from DVDs is gorgeous with excellent edge definition even with movement. The icing on the digital cake is the high-resolution of the superb on-screen graphics.
Winner: Toshiba
Audio Performance – Toshiba SDP7000
Although the SDP7000’s
internal amplifier is rated at a minimal 3 watts per channel, the sound quality
from its “titanium” speaker package bests the other two more powerful sets.
The SDP7000’s five-band equalizer isn’t necessary since even in the “flat”
setting the audio is balanced and neutral in tone. The set’s only fault is that
its soundfield is very personal in nature (read: confined)—but this is only an
issue if you’re expecting to fill a large room with sound.
Winner:
Toshiba
Features – Toshiba SDP7000
There’s no separate color temperature
adjustment, but there are three picture presets (“clear,” “optimum,” and “soft”)
with a fourth “user” setting. The audio section of the SDP7000 includes a five
band equalizer as well as four present EQ settings (“flat,” “music,” “movie,”
and “sports”) and a separate “user” setting. When inserting a DVD, the TV
automatically switches to the DVD input, although sometimes during brief black
scenes the set will switch out of the DVD input until an active video scene
begins again.
Winner: (tie) Mintek & LG
Look and Feel – Toshiba SDP7000
Not having a disc eject button on
the remote is a no-no, as is the stand’s lack of horizontal swivel capabilities.
(Vertical pivoting of 3 degrees forward and 10 degrees backward is also
disappointing.) There’s a convenient, small carrying handle on the back, and the
TV’s base is sturdy but rather small. Unlike the other sets, the cable
connections are labeled above the connections so they’re easy to read even when
every cable jack is occupied. If you run the cabling properly, the
bottom-mounted wires will be minimally visible, but wires attached to the
side-mounted A/V connections will be plainly visible.
Winner: LG
Toshiba
SDP7000, $999.99
www.tacp.toshiba.com; 800.316.0920
RATING: EXCELLENT
Video Performance – LG KU-17WDVD
The brightness of the LG
KU-17WDVD’s screen is good and has almost no hot spotting. Unfortunately, the
gray scale tracking is the poorest of the three, and the grays in the image
continues to appear slightly purple no matter how the picture settings
(including the individual RGB controls) are adjusted. When playing a DVD, the
edge definition is not as sharp as on the Toshiba set—but better than the
Mintek—especially with lateral movement in the picture. On-screen graphics,
however, are good and the set exhibits the best overall color palette when used
with a PC.
Winner: Toshiba
Look and Feel – LG KU-17WDVD
The most outstanding aspect of the
KU-17WDVD is its classy, metallic remote control. This fine example of the
remote control maker’s art features an intuitive layout of large, easy-to-press
buttons. A sliding cover hides the less-used controls, while the convenient DVD
eject button is out in the open near the top of the remote. There’s a small
carrying handle on the back of the set and a cover to conceal the connecting
cables. The side-mounted DVD controls are marginally easier to get to than the
other two set’s top-mounted controls.
Winner: LG
Features – LG KU-17WDVD
Several nice features help the KU-17WDVD
give the Mintek DTV-233 (see next page) a run for its money. The KU-17WDVD is
the only model to include PIP, or picture-in-picture (plus POP and side-by-side
dual screens) capability in addition to individual control of the “red,”
“green,” and “blue” picture settings. Like the Toshiba SDP7000, the KU-17WDVD
has a five-band audio EQ and automatically selects the DVD input when a disc is
inserted in the side-mounted slot. Of the three, the KU-17WDVD‘s stand has the
most swivel and tilt range. The presence of an eject button for the DVD player
on the remote is a mandatory feature since the chassis-mounted disc
controls were near impossible to find and operate unless you’re leaning over the
TV.
Winner: (tie) Mintek & LG
Audio Performance – LG KU-17WDVD
Here’s a quick, succinct
description of the KU-17WDVD’s audio performance: decent clock radio
sound. With its five-band equalizer set flat, the bass response is weak and
thin. On the preprogrammed “music” setting, the bass gets a little tubby and
bloated. Even after adjusting the EQ for best output, the sound is acceptable
but not great; in other words, although the KU-17WDVD plays CDs, you probably
won’t utilize that aspect.
Winner: Toshiba
LG KU-17WDVD, $1,199.95
www.lgusa.com;
800.243.0000
RATING: SOLID
Features – Mintek DTV-233
Even though the instruction manual is 48-pages
long, it offers very basic guidance and a tortured translation from whichever
foreign language it was originally written in. This is a shame since the feature
package (even after excluding the 23-inch diagonal screen size advantage in the
interest of fairness) is excellent. There’s no PIP capability, but the Mintek
does feature three preset color temperature settings plus a built-in
MMC/SD/Memory Stick reader with a USB input for flash memory drives that allow
you to view JPEG images on the screen. The remote also offers an eject button
for the slot-loading DVD/CD player.
Winner: (tie) Mintek & LG
Video Performance – Mintek DTV-233
The best overall image quality
on the Mintek DTV-233 is achieved with the “cool” color temperature setting,
although gray images still have a tendency to look a little green. The
brightness is uneven with some rather noticeable hot spotting or bright spots.
Color transitions exhibit moderate gradations, especially when watching DVDs.
NTSC images from the built-in tuner are very soft, and the low-resolution
on-screen graphics give the Mintek a “low-tech” appearance when making picture
and sound adjustments.
Winner: Toshiba
Look and Feel – Mintek DTV-233
Mintek benefits from the fact that
it’s a relatively unknown name; the expectations of superior quality, therefore,
are not high. It is a pleasure to note that the Mintek looks good and feels
solid. The stable tabletop stand has average swivel capabilities (+/- 5 degrees
horizontal and +/- 10 degrees vertical), but it does provide a convenient tray
at the bottom for the remote to rest on. Except for the PC and headphone
connections, which are on the bottom of the set, the remaining connections are
easily accessible from the back.
Winner: LG
Audio Performance – Mintek DTV-233
With only bass, treble and
balance controls, the Mintek set falls behind the other two, which have
multi-band equalizers. The sound, however, has a strong, natural bass response
accompanied by a slightly bright treble. The most notable aspect of the audio is
the sensation that there is a large soundstage, probably due to the wide
distance between the side-mounted speakers—one benefit of the larger screen
size.
Winner: Toshiba
Mintek DTV-233, $1,499.99
www.mintekdigital.com,
866.709.9500
RATING: SOLID