SETUP
Among the Toshiba's picture presets, the Movie 1 and Movie 2 options provided the most accurate color as well as a contrast setting suitable for viewing in a dark room. I started with Movie 1 (the less bright of the two) and immediately turned off both the Clearframe 240-Hz motion processing and the Film Stabilization feature, both of which imparted the "soap-opera effect" characteristic of programs shot on video to all film-based content, no matter what settings were selected (though the e. ect was subtle with Film Stabilization set to Standard). I also turned off the Dynamic Contrast feature, which reduced the set's ability to delineate subtle dark shadow details, and Resolution +, which artificially enhanced the edges of objects. I left off the Toshiba's Digital NR and MPEG NR settings.

In Movie 1, the grayscale ran blue compared with the industry standard 6,500-K color temperature. (See Test Bench for details.) But the multitude of picture controls, including an 11-step color temperature selector and a 10-point White Balance adjustment, allowed me to fine-tune it. I also tapped the ColorMaster controls in the Advanced Picture Settings to bring down the set's slightly oversaturated reds, which tended to make Caucasian faces look unnaturally pink.

2D PERFORMANCE
Once adjusted, the Toshiba delivered outstanding color and detail. I popped in a Blu-ray of Iron Man 2 and was immediately taken in by a close-up exchange between Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) and his dying father in a shadowy, run-down Moscow apartment. Their faces, lit by a nearby table lamp, exhibited perfectly natural skin tones. And there was tremendous detail visible in the old man's fine eyebrows and gray whiskers, and in Vanko's long, stringy hair. A subsequent aerial shot of the Malibu cliff side headquarters of Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) further proved that the Toshiba was hitting its mark by accurately reproducing the green trees, sun-bathed cliffs, hazy sky, and brown scrub-brush mountains so familiar to Californians.

Later in the movie, when Stark and Rhodey (Don Cheadle) are standing in an arboretum at night, I no- ticed how nicely the Toshiba captured details in both the building's dark facade and the shadowy foliage behind them. Nonetheless, the 55WX800U came up short on black-level performance as compared with the late- generation plasma and local-dimming LED HDTVs I've reviewed recently. The black letterbox bars didn't really get close to matching the depth of the screen's black surround. Scenes with a wide contrast range - such as a rooftop shot where Tony finally kisses his assistant, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), against the backdrop of a dark night sky and the bright city lights - suffered somewhat for the lack of a deep, solid black. Even with all the set's black-enhancing modes active and the settings tweaked to extract the darkest black, it still left me wanting more.