FYR 60YB3, that’s what the user manual says. But who cares, I call it the STUDIO LINE 21 from BPL. I remember the day I walked into a television showroom, Mahalingam & Co, very happy to get rid of our 16 year old Beltek CTV. Personally I wanted to get a sony for its brand image. I told the shopkeeper my idea and that picture & sound quality are my main concern. “Just wait a moment” said the shopkeeper and he muted the scores of televisions that were running. He took a sleek remote and the kept B4U channel as he increased the volume … woofer – ON … 3d surround – ON were the display and what … I was really blown away !!! Believe it or not u get a theatre effect with this TV. “What’s this?” I enquired. “StudioLine21 1000 watts – 7 speakers”. From then I decided to believe in the best.
Two days later we decided to trade our Beltek at the Bpl Gallery and finally brought home the SL 21 for 18.5k grand. I opened the users manual, this is what I saw:
100 Programmes
Cable Ready (Hyper band)
Plug & Play
Program Naming & Index
Telephone Memory & Index
Zoom & Wide Picture
Video/Audio Status Memory (VSM/ASM)
3D Surround
Music Channels – 10 Programmes
Multi Level PP – 20 Programmes
PAL – VMT (AV NTSC)
2 Audio Video inputs – Front & Rear
Auto/Semi/Manual & Fine Tuning through RC & TV
Tuning Lock, Volume Lock & Child Lock
Programme Skip & Swap
ON & OFF Timer …
Ok I’ll stop with the manual. Coming to the design, I prefer fully black TV’s but this one is a silver one which I feel compromised for quality. The woofer is at the back and the 7 speakers are at the front. The remote is sleek and semi organic. I like it though some say it is very lengthy yet it is very slim. The picture quality (Quadra Point Focus) is best next to SONY and sound is better then the best. I bet U’ll never miss a dialogue on this TV, also u’ll hate hearing songs on any other TV coz u’ll miss the effect very much. I feel this is the best for average sized halls where u cant have home theatres but gives the same effect. The Plug and play enables the TV to automatically tune itself and also you have a an auto shutdown after the programmes are over. Also one can set timers using the interactive menu. It is almost a year now and there are no problems at all. I think that this TV would be a best buy in the 21” segment for those who love sound effect.