Television expert help needed

Ceffin · Post by **Ceffin** » July 17, 2004, 5:23 pm

Moms looking to either buy a 51inch Toshiba HDTV widescreen or a 52inch Hitachi HDTV widescreen - which would be the better buy? both are equally priced i believe, with hitachi being on sale 200 dollars less than normal at circuit city. Toshiba is being sold at best buy btw

Ransure · Post by **Ransure** » July 17, 2004, 5:52 pm

Im not really a fan of either Toshiba or Hitatchi, but of the two when I used to sell Toshiba TV's they did tend to be a bit more reliable....

How much is she looking to spend on a TV?... That might be a bit better to give you some recommendations.

Oh, and wherever you decide to buy it... ask the sales guy if you can have the sale price on it.... both best buy and circuit city publish thier sale price in the computer system at all times... so its just a matter of the salesperson being cool enough to write you up at the sales price.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » July 17, 2004, 6:51 pm

I bought a Toshiba HD RPTV in 2001 and it's done a fine job. The only issue I had with it was convergence but I think the newer rear screen projection TVs have autoconvergence so you don't have to do it yourself to get the perfect picture.

I did manage some burn-in by using the sidebars too much but that's because I had the contrast and brightness cranked up and was playing FFX on it for long periods of time along with other SD programming and leaving the TV on after I fell asleep. (this will happen no matter what brand you buy if you don't lower the contrast and brightness from the factory settings and use the black/grey sidebars for long periods of time)

The Toshiba has retired to my bedroom and I use a 1280X720 front projector with 110" screen in the living room now. It kicks ass in size and picture quality over all other screen types but you have to have the correct environment for one (no direct sunlight etc) The 10 foot screen is just like being at the movie theater though and jaw dropping when using it for playing games on the X-Box.

I can recommend Toshiba RPTVs. If their standards match what they were a few years ago, the picture quality compares to any brand out there.

Kylere · Post by **Kylere** » July 17, 2004, 8:37 pm

Toshira is better at blowing things up then handling fine tuning and accuracy, oh wait you said ToshiBa, nevermind.

Menelaos · Post by **Menelaos** » July 18, 2004, 3:00 am

I can't imagine an xbox display stretched to 110"....320x200 stretched to 110". Just horrid, I would imagine

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » July 18, 2004, 4:47 am

Menelaos wrote:I can't imagine an xbox display stretched to 110"....320x200 stretched to 110". Just horrid, I would imagine

It's 480i or 480p and looks great. On a 1280X720 projector, HD 720p source material is 1:1 pixel mapped. The PS2 on the big screen looks slightly fuzzy but every XBox game looks stunning and most can be played in 16:9 format so no sidebars required.

If it looked bad, I'd shrink the screen to 90" but there's no need to.

It's hard to find a properly setup 1280X720 projector to see for yourself as normal stores like Best Buy only have the crap 800X600 or 1024X768 4:3 lower end models and don't even demo those for the most part. It's rare to even find a high end store with a good projector setup that you can play around with.