Pages | 1 | 2 | 3 |    

Indeed, the wider than ordinary dark gray bezel on the left and right side of the screen reminds you of curtains in those grand old movie palaces with names like Orpheum and Rialto.

To reinforce the illusion, at the bottom, a small “stage” juts out. Once you stop imagining Bernhardt or Barrymore trodding the boards, you realize that this silver grilled outcropping contains the down-facing bass speaker and a pair of front facing units that are tuned to reproduce voices.

If you tilt your head at just the right angle, you'll discover a faint “BANG & OLUFSEN” revealed in the grille. Other than that, the only ornamentation on the front is a Power light on the upper right corner.

When you first set the TV down, you may be disconcerted by the fact that it rocks on its stand. This feature allows you to swivel the TV back or forwards about 15 degrees, which gives you some flexibility on how high you set it.

Be advised though that even when it is fully upright, it still leans back a few degrees. To achieve an optimum viewing angle, you should place the TV slightly below where you sit so you will be looking down at the screen. B & O does offer optional floor stands or a wall mount.

The connection panel on the back reflects the company's continental heritage. The unit I reviewed came with three SCART connections, which are 21 pin all-purpose audiovisual inputs popular in Europe. Beyond those, the panel is a bit sparse with only one HDMI input, one Component, one Composite and a VGA. Hidden behind a removable door on the left side of the TV, a small convenience panel includes a headphone jack and a set of Composite inputs.

Bang & Olufsen intentionally kept the BeoVision 8 lean to meet a certain entry level price point to its product line. If you do wish to integrate it into other B & O audio and video components, the connection panel includes Power Link and Master Link sockets. (The optional system module with the third SCART and Master Link is $350.)

To feel comfortable with the heavy metal-encased Beo4 remote takes a little practice and patience. Luckily it is the same model as the one that came with the BeoVision 7-40 that I reviewed last year.

Therefore I was not surprised to find that some of the buttons that you commonly find on remotes, like Mute, were missing. That's not to say that the functions are not available. They are, just not in the typical spot. For example, to mute the audio, you press the Volume rocker button in the middle.

The universal remote is designed to handle a number of tasks associated with linking to other equipment. In fact, it comes pre-programmed to control a range of set-top boxes from different cable and satellite companies.

The BeoVision 8 is the easiest TV that I have ever adjusted for two reasons. First, Bang & Olufsen calibrates each TV at the factory and their default settings were pretty spot on. Second, the Picture menu only provides the basic Brightness, Contrast, and Color controls. (If the video source is an NTSC signal, the Tint control is also activated in the Picture menu.)

Simply, when setting up this TV, there is not much to change because the picture comes out of the box looking good. And even if you did want to fiddle, there is not much to fiddle with. This TV is not designed for the video grease monkey who wishes to get under the hood and tweak every possible adjustment.

The manual indicates that the TVs are preset at the factory to neutral values, which to my eye translates to what you might see if you adjusted other HDTVs to their Cinema or Movie default. The Brightness does not assault your retinas, the Color is subdued, and the Contrast is, as they say, neutral.

If you want more pizzazz in your picture, you can put the pedal to the metal. But even at their highest settings, I found that Brightness and Contrast were still below the gaudy, god-awful Vivid defaults on other TVs – thank goodness. If you really need to push the Across the Universe DVD to psychedelic levels, you could ramp Color beyond the cosmos.