Toshiba Rear Projection

[IMF]

I have just recently purchased a Toshiba rear projection TV 40PW03B. I seem to have a pinkish hue, shall we say on the right side of the screen. Now on colour pictures it is almost unnoticeable but on a black and white transmission, its unmistakeable, almost a pastel shade. God I sound like an interior designer, I'll be on Changing Rooms next!
The first thing I've thought of was magnetic staining from my nearby Wharfedale Valdus 400 floorstanders, at least 12-15" away from the set. But! The other side of the screen is fine and the TV seemed this way out of the box. I've always been very careful not to move speakers when the set is switched on. I also have a Paradigm CC-350 centre speaker on top of the set but to my knowledge it is very well shielded. I had the same speakers the same distance away from my Philips 32" CRT Widescreen set for nearly three years and suffered no problems. Also if it were stained due to magnetic fields, I would expect to see maybe some other colours of the rainbow other than a pale pink! Any ideas? I also just see the same model in a John Lewis in the West End. It seemed to be suffering from the same problem even more so. With the pinkish colour on both sides!

Also riddle me this, 1:85:1 NTSC Laserdisc's do not fill the entire screen (as they did on my old widescreen) but PAL 1:85:1 disc's do? I blew the dust off of my Pioneer CLD-515 manual and it said that NTSC letterbox pictures would not always fill the screen due to the NTSC-PAL conversion? Well my old Philips set only accepted PAL and NTSC 4.43. The Toshiba accepts raw NTSC 3.58 as well, so what is it converting? Its just a tad annoying when you go for a larger screen and you black bars even on 1:85:1!
DVD's are unaffected by this by the way??? Is this because of the RGB or S-Video input I use for DVD or what?

[clarkemp]

I have the 40wh08b and I have exactly the same problem with the pink tinge on the right hand side of the screen. I too noticed it when watching a black and white movie.
The sales guy at Digital Direct where I bought it from said this was normal.

[clarkemp]

Sometimes if you watch carefully you can see a slight pink hue on the left of the screen too. Not as bad as on the right hand side.

It is most noticable when watching scenes with a lot of a single colour backgrounds like grass or desert sand.

Another thing I have noticed when watching black and white, if you view the screen at an angle from the right hand side the whole of the screen gets a pink hue.

Does anyone know how to fix this or is it normal.

[JohnS]

My 56who8 has it too on the right and left, it is only visible on very black scenes. I suspect it is something to do with internal reflections and consequently too be considered a side effect of tosh rear projection. :(

[clarkemp]

One obvious question for me is, is there anyone out there who has a 40wh08b who does not have this pink ting. Can you swap it for a green ting which the old projection systems used to suffer from.
Is it that the set need a minor adjustment.
Is it more pink on the right because the red projector is on the right hand side of the set.

Guys,

I also see this pinkish tinge (staining) on my 40WH08B. I also thought this must be something to do with magnetic interference. I moved my set to every conceivable location in my lounge...and put up with watching it using just its internal speakers so that I could not put any kind of standard hi-fi speaker anywhere near it.... The problem did not go away.

I rejected my last set partly based on this.
I do not think it is acceptable to be told that this is another "side effect of rear projection". If it is...then it should be well documented and if this is the case why doesn't it appear on ALL sets rather than just some ?

I guess I will follow this up with Tosh/dealer. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one.... This is a great looking set but I'm absolutely sick with its "minor" faults

I found that one good test is to switch the colour off in the colour menu. The red staining can be seen easily..this is how I intend to demonstrate it to an engineer and will then wait for the inevitable banal excuse... ;0)

Cheers
Daz

[IMF]

LISTEN UP PEOPLE!!! YOU MAY FIND THIS INTERESTING REGARDING THESE PESKY FAULTS THAT THE TOSHIBA RP TV'S SEEM TO EXHIBIT!!!!!!

On the advice of Toshiba, I called in the engineer from the place of purchase, in my case Courts!
When he arrived he hadnt even seen one of these tv's (40PW03B). Boy was I impressed. So I hurried him out of my home asap! After shall we say some serious no nonsense e-mailing to Customer Services, I managed to obtain the services of an actual Toshiba techie! Its seems that the service people that Courts have their contract with arent even trained on these RP tv's, yet?

Now on to the good part! The guy from Toshiba was a very nice man who simply accessed the hidden service menu's and went to work. His only other equipment was a tester that pumped test images into the tv rather like those on a test disc, like video Essentials.
The pink colouration was solved first by reducing the saturation. He first turned the colour right down to give a black and white image showing the problem more so. There is a trade off on this that if you reduce the red (pink) too much the image starts to go green, which someone else has mentioned in this article as being a problem on older sets. The green gun is fixed, whereas the red and blue guns are lined up with it. So he just got it to a fine line where he took as much red out before it turned green and hey presto! Problem solved!
Next was convergence! I've have written to other publications (not HCC) that told me that my 'pink' problem was due to magnetic staining. The chap from Toshiba that RP sets do not suffer from magnetic staining as CRT sets do but instead what happens is that magnetic staining can throw out your convergence completely!!! So nothing to do with your 'pink' problem!!!
Convergence was a hoot! You know the 9 points of the screen we users get to set the convergence??? In the service menu theres over 100 points and you can set them in NTSC as well as PAL, seperately! He did this for me after I told him of my collecetion of NTSC Laserdiscs and R1 DVDs. He also found that the PAL was out of whack more than the NTSC, which explained why I notice the pictures on R2 DVDs were more poorly converged than R1 ones.
So after about a couple of hours my Toshiba 40PW03B is giving great pictures! That other publication I mentioned also told me that most RP sets are great out of the box with deafault settings but it just isnt true. If you want the best from your RP set get it calibrated by a qualified technician and you can reap the results. Any US publicatiuon will tell you that and they have been living with Rear Projection sets for years!!!
Also the people I purchased it from just wanted to take it away at first, you just cant do that. Any vibraton and bumping around on the back of a van would most likely disturb all the convergence settings, so any work done on the bench would prove futile after the set been delivered. Which brings me to a second point if your set is taken away for repair, are your people going to set it up again for you when its returned???? I'm still waiting for the answer to that one from Courts UK!!!

Just one other thing. DO NOT TRY THIS YOURSELF WITH SOME HIDDEN SERVICE MENU CODE FROM THE INTERNET. You could seriously damage your set!!!! BEWARE!!!!!!!!!!!

[IMF]

Just another thing guys and gals!

You WILL notice a slight pinkish tinge to the right and a blueish to the left when viewed at angles, as this is the way the guns are posistioned. So I'm told!

[Russ]

I have seen a pink tinge (as described above) on LCD rear projection too when viewed at 90 degrees to the screen.Puzzle that !
Russ

[damjanb]

> You WILL notice a slight pinkish tinge
> to the right and a blueish to the left
> when viewed at angles, as this is the
> way the guns are posistioned.
>
Actually, the guns are positioned the
other way around: red on the left and
blue on the right (with green in the
middle). This makes the red gun shine
off-center/sideways on the right side
of the picture, and the blue one shines
sideways on the left side.

[damjanb]

> he took as much red out before it
> turned green
>
I think I understand now how this problem
("color of gray", gray-scale tracking) is
handled. If the Toshibas show pink/red staining in dark scenes, as some people
mentioned, then the engineer presumably
increased the value which tells the red
gun when to cut off (so it shuts down
sooner as brightness decreses;
if light scenes were stained too, he would
decrease the value which tells it how hard
to drive itself.

Too bad the sort of service you got isn't
easily or widely available.

[damjanb]

> 1:85:1 NTSC Laserdisc's do not fill
> the entire screen (as they did on my
> old widescreen) but PAL 1:85:1 disc's
> do?
Neither should, actually, because such
films are wider than your screens:
1.85 > 1.78 = 16:9
Your TV sets eat a little off the sides
of the picture (overscan); RPTVs do less
of that, but this doesn't explain the
difference you see.
If your LD player manual says that
> NTSC letterbox pictures would not always
> fill the screen due to the NTSC-PAL
> conversion?
the difference must be due to the lesser
number of scanning lines on NTSC discs:
the player only converts the color
information but leaves the scanning lines
as they are. It is then up to the TV to
display them correctly, spacing them a
little further apart so as not to squash
the picture vertically. The TV doesn't
seem to do this well - maybe the bar at
the bottom is thicker?
(The player is not to blame: if it doesn't
convert from 525 do 625 lines, which is
hard to do well, it can't just add the
missing number of black lines - which
would at first sight explain your problem -
because that would squeeze the picture
vertically).

> DVD's are unaffected by this by the way???
> Is this because of the RGB or S-Video
> input I use for DVD or what?
Shouldn't be, because it only has to do
with the way the color gets to the TV.
A more likely explanation is that your
player outputs standard (3.58) NTSC,
which your TV handles well. If you can
set the player to output 4.43, you should
see the same difference.

There has been a MASSIVE amount of info on these particualar TV's on this forum and it is always worthwhile doing a search to see what comes up.

It is now starting to become apparent that Toshiba have listened to the complaints levellled at a number of their RP sets and are taking steps to remedy the faults. I would also say that they have been keeping a close eye on what has been said on this forum so it proves that manufactureres DO listen.

[IMF]

I have to agree whole heartedly that this service isnt widley availablt but it damm well should be!
The benefits are phenomenal! It isnt asking a lot either, just a knowledge of how to access the service menu and how to use it!

Following your success story with Tosh-i've sent them an e-mail today to see if they will sort out my convergence problem-hope they can do for me what they did for you, will let you know!

[clarkemp]

I gave toshiba a ring about coming to sort my red ting out. Tosh told me to talk to the retailer I bought it from. I rang Digital Direct who gave me the third degree on who had told me about the problem and how it was fixed. They seemed reluctant to send an engineer out as they seem to think this red ting is normal. I stuck to my guns and now they are apparently sending me a service letter in the post. Whatever that is.

:confused:

[clarkemp]

Its a pitty the colour gun adjustment isnt available on the user menu. I would have thought colour saturation and convergence must be the main problems with rear projection.

[clarkemp]

Question.
In the service menu, does a user friendly menu come up that allows you to select colour saturation. Is the colour adjustment straight forward. Can you adjust the colour without affecting anything else.

Is it really the case that you can damage your set it you get it wrong or would you really have to go out of your way to damage things.

[IMF]

Please remember that I was told by Toshiba in the first place that I would have more success with an engineer to access the service menu but that I would HAVE to contact the retailer I bought it from and arrange a visit from their technical people. It was only after their 'engineer' visited and knew nothing at all about RP TV's that I took matters further and it was the retailer themselves arranged for a chap from Toshiba to visit me.
Plus to answer another query the service menu, to me at least, did not look user friendly AT ALL! Thats why I stress that although you may be able to find out the hidden access code for your remote, you run serious risk of damaging your TV! BEWARE!

[IMF]

If anyones interested theres a couple of articles on setting up the US version of the Toshiba RP TV's
http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_7_1/toshiba-tw40x81-dtv-3-2000.html

and
http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_4_3/toshibatw40tv.html

As far as damaging your set by playing around with the service menu is concerned, I have read some horror stories on the web. Such as a guy that lost all his A/V inuputs permanantly! Invalidated the warrenty and had to have the set returned to the factory to be reset!