THOMSON SCENIUM 44" RP TV - Any Good?

[Rizel23]

Found this at a good price today, does anyone know what it performs like, looked OK in store when ajusting seombasic settings. Cheers, Rizel

[data]

Originally posted by Rizel23
Found this at a good price today, does anyone know what it performs like, looked OK in store when ajusting seombasic settings. Cheers, Rizel

I've a 44JW610 and I'm satisfied with it. Nice picture, good sound.
Only thing not so good is DVM. Switch it of and the picture is very good but on some horizontal lines you'll see flimmering.

[Bristol Pete]

On 12/2/2003 I spent about an hour and a half demoing The 44" RPTV THOMSON 611 without the built in deck. It blew me away, after also demoing the Sony PX2 and the Tosh Pw23p.

Using Comet, I took a selection of DVD's to test, including Black Hawk Down for contrast, Jurrassic Park for the greens, Episode 2 for the digital image and Swordfish for its unbelievable picture quality.
Using a budget sony deck with a dodgy cheap scart lead the image was simply stunning.
The scene in Jurrasic Park where Sam Neill and co compare dinosaur evasive movement to flocking birds looked FANTASTIC. Lush and green, razor sharp blades of grass, no smearing and yet it looked thouroughly cinematic. BHD looked crisp and the Ridley scott colour pallette looked awesome, Episode 2 looked superb as you would expect. Swordfish, which to me has one of the best DVD transfers ever, looked simply 3D, sharp and crystal clear.

The operation menu was intuitive, easy to use and to me it actually made a difference. It has Thomsons own progressive scan 50hz option and this the made DVD look even better, and this is how Thomson recommend you view DVD. (suggested on the scenium website)
You can also switch to 100 hz.
It has superb sound to boot, two RGB scarts, and plethora of options. The only downside is the lack of component video in, but I hear its very similar to RGB, which looks good to me.

No evidence of halo effect as vaunted in another new av mag on the market and to be honest, with subjectivity being the key word here, to me, for the price and the picture, its a stonkng RP TV.

I hope this helps,

I will be getting mine in March.





Captain Benefit.

[data]

Originally posted by Captain Benefit
It has Thomsons own progressive scan 50hz option and this the made DVD look even better, and this is how Thomson recommend you view DVD. (suggested on the scenium website)
You can also switch to 100 hz.

So you've used a DVD-Player and disk that uses progressive scan? Is it a PAL DVD or NTSC?

[i]I will be getting mine in March.

If you have it, can you tell something about your experiences in this article? I am very interesed in how you've configured your set!

[Bristol Pete]

No, using a regular DVD deck, I simply activated it in the advanced picture menu, and then disabled the 100hz processing.

I pressume that it is Thomsons own version of Prog Scan as I understand that you need component video in as well as as prog scan enabled DVD player.

In my eyes it made the picture look even better.

However, you may be able to clarify this is I think you own a scenium do you not?

Thanks,

Captain Benefit.

[data]

Originally posted by Captain Benefit
No, using a regular DVD deck, I simply activated it in the advanced picture menu, and then disabled the 100hz processing.

Doing this the picture semms to be very good but is flickering very hard. As far as I understand this mode is for PAL60!

[i]However, you may be able to clarify this is I think you own a scenium do you not?

Yes, I own the 44JW610S. I'll make some test with it and tell you the results!

[Bristol Pete]

mmm, its interesting that you state it flickers more in the prog scan mode. I can only deduce that this is because it is 50hz only.

As I said, I spent about 1 hour ish with the set and I am not sure if that time frame would of allowed me to see any real niggles. However, it did allow me to make up my mind in this purchase as it had the best, most vividly colourful pictures that I have seen on an RP yet. (IMO of course)

The only thing that does concern me is the fact that the only review I have read regarding this range of televisions is that it is prone to halo effects. However, this was the model with the built in DVD player so maybe this was part of the problem. On a stand alone DVD connected via RGB, I did not see evidence of a halo effect. I intend to purchase the set without the DVD player built in.

One point I would make is that the reviewer used a copy of Minority Report, which due to the use of dark and light colour and lens flare/brightness, could test even the greatest TV sets to the limit, if that makes sense.

Let me konw your findings.

Thanks Data.

Captain Benefit.

[data]

Originally posted by Captain Benefit
mmm, its interesting that you state it flickers more in the prog scan mode. I can only deduce that this is because it is 50hz only.
As I said, I spent about 1 hour ish with the set and I am not sure if that time frame would of allowed me to see any real niggles.

Interesting. On the set I've seen in the stores and on my own you won't have a chance not to see that flickering. It is on the whole screen. Maybe that's a german thing with the PAL50? Do you use PAL60?

However, it did allow me to make up my mind in this purchase as it had the best, most vividly colourful pictures that I have seen on an RP yet. (IMO of course)

Don't missunderstand me. I also think that the picture quality is fantastic. For about 3 month I owned a Thomson 42WH18P. Overall picture quality of this set was worse, it's benefit was the non-reflective surface. But in those 3 months 4 sets got different defects.

The only thing that does concern me is the fact that the only review I have read regarding this range of televisions is that it is prone to halo effects. However, this was the model with the built in DVD player so maybe this was part of the problem. On a stand alone DVD connected via RGB, I did not see evidence of a halo effect. I intend to purchase the set without the DVD player built in.
One point I would make is that the reviewer used a copy of Minority Report, which due to the use of dark and light colour and lens flare/brightness, could test even the greatest TV sets to the limit, if that makes sense.

What exactly is ment with the halo effects? Light circles or lines in dark scenes when something very light appears? Yes, that definitely appears. But I've never seen an RPT without that effect.

Let me konw your findings.

Yes, I will.

[Bristol Pete]

Data,

I think I use PAL50 for region 2. For NTSC disks, I intend to use a pure NTSC signal as my DVD player can output this via RGB. I would not use a psuedo pal or pal 60. Although I would look for an NTSC picture option on the menu of the television set as there are two NTSC signals.

You mention the screen being quite reflective. Is this a problem? I intend to locate my set in a dedicated AV room, and thus, it will be quite dark. I will have a window to my rear which will have both blinds and black out curtains up to combat the light. I actually quite like the nature of the screen as it looks better than the matte screens that Toshiba use.

As far as I understand, Halo effect is like a glow around figures or objects. Remember the Ready break advert when the children used to glow? As before, I do not think that it is as bad as they make out but I do understand that scarifices have to be made when buying a RPTV with a 44" picture. I once read that RPTV pictures are equivalent to a top CRT TV, although i was surprised at the varying picture quality from all makes.

Tell me, does the glow that you mention spoil your viewig pleasure. Is it that bad????

Thanks,

Captain Benefit.

[chris]

I think you will find that, all RP's suffer from the halo affect......
I own the tosh 42pw23 and i can only see the halo around bright screen logos.........it is prob there on some others things, if i was to look close enough.....but i sit around 8' away from the set and cannot detect them from there.

I hope you enjoy your new TV.

[data]

Captain Benefit,

no, the reflective screen isn't a big problem because the light intensity of the Thomson set is very high. In my living room one side completely is fit out with windows, but there's no problem to use the set on sunny days.

The halo-effect as described by you is definitly visible but IMO no big problem.

Last weekend I've done some tests with 50Hz progressive. Using it with PAL-DVDs doesn't show the havy flickering I've described in this threas, but using it with digital TV oder ASTRA is no good.
But I cannot see that the picture will go better with this option so I've disabled it again.