Just bought a Toshiba 36ZP38

L

leedscj

Guest
Bought it from Costco £1292 inc vat & 3 year warranty. Very heavy, nightmare transporting it but is it worth it?
In a word, YES.
Picture quality through Sky + is very very good. I have noticed no problems with pixelation/geometry. There seems to be virtually no difference between the 100hz/natural/active/progressive settings. Do any users have any comments on that?
Also looks superb when playing the Xbox.
Sound quality is excellent with good bass and plenty of options to change to your personal taste.
Hope this helps anyone thinking of buying this television. Its a lot of money - I know I made the right choice
 
Congratulations.

Mine was delivered yesterday. Box sealed in Tosh tape. (No ex-demo then!?).

Just had an aborted assembly by JL´s sub contractors.

Backbone pannel of stand MISSING from box.

It says a lot about Quality Control at Toshiba.
 
Hi,

I'm struggling a bit with mine to get the picture settings spot on - can you tell me your contrast/brightness/color settings pls.

I tried the THX optimizer thing but always seem to end up with too much contrast & a fuzzy picture when i go back to TV/Sky
 
Yeah, ive used the following settings:
Contrast 47
Brightness 70
Colour 51
Tint 0
Sharpness -7
Scan 100hz
DNR Auto
Black Stretch Off (had to as my XBOX games were far too dark)
Colour Temp Normal

Im still unconvinced about the Scan mode...there seems to be no difference on Sky + (my tosh 330e dvd is on its way so this may be more noticeable)

Anyone else have any better settings?
 
I haven't tried the above settings yet, will give them a whirl over the weekend, but below are the settings i'm using at present. I find 100hz scan mode to flickery, prefer Natural scan mode:

Contrast 49
Brightness 53
Colour 45
Tint 0
Sharpness -10
Scan Natural
DNR off
Black Stretch Off
Colour Temp Normal


Dej
 
I'll also try your settings at the weekend...I dont have any probs at all with the 100hz setting - no flickering, ever....(through sky+)
 
Just received mine, paid £1350 from House of Fraser - this include a 5 year guarentee, so its a decent deal and its definately new.

The performance using a good DVD source is absolutely brilliant, but I confess some disappointment for all other sources. Using terrestial TV signal source, there is too much noise enhancement. Has anyone got really clean pictures from an analogue source?

I have switched off the black stretch feature as too much dark detail is lost, at least compared to other displays I have.

My TV also emits an annoying buzz. Its not too loud but can easily be heard 5 m away in a quiet room.

Anyone else got this buzz? I am slightly concerned it will get loader with age.

Cheers
Graham
 
No buzz here I'm afraid, so it's not a trait of the device.

I've had my Tosh for a couple of months now and I'm very pleased with it. Having said that, I was *very* disappointed with the picture when I first got it.

I don't know if these things need to be bedded in, but the picture is now top notch. I used the picture adjustments suggested elsewhere on the forums (try them from Picture mode 3 though).

As for the different scan modes; well I don't see any difference either, except for 'Progressive' which seems a bit flickery in white areas (I haven't tried any adjustments in this mode though).
 
Hi Cadire,

I have improved my terrestial antenna, which has led to a significant improvement in picture quality and I am tweaking the various controls to see if there is any further improvement to be had. I guess its a case of rubbish in rubish out.

I still find the digital artifacts produced by the TV quite annoying compared to normal analogue noise (terrestial broadcasts and poor DVDs only). Maybe after a week or so I'll get used to it and find it a little more acceptable.

I'll see if the 'buzz' goes. It can't be heard listening at normal volume unless there is a quiet passage, so I might just put up with it. I'll see.

Cheers
Graham
 
I had a very slight buzz on day one which could only be heard if the vol was very very low...It seems to have gone now. On the whole Im impressed with the pic quality although it just goes to show how poor sky is...
 
The Tosh is still buzzing quietly. Perhaps, I should clarify that the buzz can only be easily heard with the volume turned down or during quite passages. The buzz is loud enough to be easily heard 5m away with these conditions. I expect most TVs to produce a small amount of audible noise, indeed my Sony 29" (4:3) and Hitachi 27" and several 14" TV all produce some noise which can be heard if you put your ear very close to the TV. but I din't expect a TV with a SRP of £2k to produce this level of noise.

Or am I being too fussy? This is probably not the sort of noise one could here in a Typical shop when comparing brands, so maybe this is more common than I would have expected?

I don't want to swap the TV and find the next one does this as well.

Oh, does anyone know exactly what the black strech function does? The manual is rather vague to say the least. I have a background in video processing, so I can guess, but I am not sure.

Cheers
Graham
 
I think the black stretch makes the darks even darker. I had to turn this off as I couldnt see much when playing XBOX games...
 
Got my 36zp38b set-up now. JL´s subcontractors showed up the day after with another stand box. They got the missing back pannel and a few plugs out of it to make a complete stand. Good service.

Noise: :smashin: Very quiet operation, less noisy than a vcr playing.

:) Very good picture quality via component from sd330e; THOR red, white and yellow phono, which IMHO are the same as the red, green blue ones, only half price (£25 at Maplin).

Good quality via rgb scart - last night´s Midsomer Murders looked true to life. This is a onDigital Philips box.

Slight bending inwards at the middle (Vertical bars) on 4:3 mode.

:( The only snag is the DIRTY SCREEN effect. Noticable on panning shots, as in Cast Away, when Tom Hanks first surveys the island. Also on football, if you look for it, and any panning shot with a light background, DIY property programmes (walls), home video etc. PLUS a slight 1inch lighter streak right in the middle, under the same conditions.

Auto-switch formats is another problem area. It works from the ondigital Phillips box if the AV (TV/dtv) on its remote is pressed.
The TV then alternates between the default mode you choose (4:3, 14:9 etc) and wide (true 16:9). Also on 2.40:1 dvds it can be fooled. Spirit kept flicking from wide to 4:3 for a few seconds. Switch auto-format to off to avoid this, but back on to watch extras on other dvds, as these alternate betwwen wide and 4:3 - if you like the right proportions.

I will give it a few more days, to see if I get used to it.
 
Well after some careful deliberation I have returned my Tosh. Because of the slight mechanical buzz, it was going back anyway, but after many hours of trying to get a really good picture and not succeeding I have given up. The digital artifacts generated from all but the most perfect of source are too much to live with. I could not get the colour balance, contrast and brightness quality as good as my old Sony 4:3 set. The picture always seemed a little dark and lifeless even with dark stretch disabled.. And I really tried hard to get it right

I have now had an opportunity to compare more closely the Tosh with the 36" Sony TVs - the FS76 and 36NX200. After 2 mins of comparisons of what was ostensibly the same feed the Sony looked better than the Tosh. After 1 hour of careful observation I was convinced of the Sony's ability to deal with a variety of sources better than the Tosh. Freeview on the 36NX200 was much better than I expected and orders of magnitude better than the analogue equivalent on the Tosh. Maybe the Tosh would look better using an external Freeview encoder, but I couldn't test this. A properly integrated internal encoder should always be better than an external device though.

My observations seem to be contrary to the few reviews I have read, with the the Tosh performing weakly even on the Tosh DVD demo disk, with classic dirty window digital atrifacting appearing far too often.

So I have ordered the Sony NX200 and hope that is better than the Tosh when it arrives.

Cheers
Graham
 
leedscj, in the costco leeds branch, was this tv at the far left side on the Shelving??,

looks like a stunner of a set.
 
prog scan removes scan lines. i have a 32zd26 and the scan lines in the other modes are shocking... but standard. i notice them on all TVs, now i have been watching my tosh on prog scan.
 
Sorry to hear some members are having probs with their 36zp38b.

Had mine for a couple weeks now and no probs at all, no buzzing and perfect picture from Freeview and stunning through component on progressive from DVD, analogue TV is not so good but I'm not bothered about that.

Bought mine from John Lewis they delivered but I installed with the kind help of Steve my neighbour.
 
Eddiea, I got mine from JL as well.

Does anyone else have a dirty screen effect? It looks like the TV needs dusting, but this is on the inside. I also suffer a slight discolouration, ie yellowish ovalish blob on top right hand corner, where the 14:9 bar would be in this mode, that slightly yellows/darkens the picture.
 
Just taken delivery of one these too, and while it's mostly lovely, I also have noticed the dirty screen efffect. It's most obvious on lighter pictures, especially from the digital tv box.

Another concern is an inch wide bar running down the centre of the screen that seems slightly lighter than the rest of the picture. Again this isn't noticable all the time, but was quite visible on the football last night. The green seems to bring it out.

Are these the sort of problems that would warrant a replacement? I don't think I could live it like this.

On a positive note, the progressive scan from the gamecube is quite astonishing. I was expecting it to be good, but it really suprised me.

Simon
 
Just booked a engineer call for mine. I also have the inch wide light stripe down the middle, likewise i only notice it when watching football. Second problem is a slight upwards curve in the geometry in the top right corner, only noticeable when widescreen black bars are on or Sky EPG.

However i am generally very happy with the TV - picture from DVD via component is awesome. Picture from Sky Digibox is very good on the premium channels but can be poor on other channels but i guess thats down to the size and quality of TV showing up poor Sky broadcasts. Football on ITV via Sky digital is unwatchable - Sky Sports 1 is much better. Who's fault is that? ITV?

I hope the engineer can do something - i have a fear of a never ending cycle of replacement sets!
 
Well, let us know what the engineer says about the bar down the middle, it is annoying. It surely can't be on all the sets though?
 
I am generally happy with the telly.

I also do not want a running succession of replacements. I dread getting a buzzing one. The engineers that set the telly up would say the Dirty Screen is within normal parameters. Would a Tosh own engineer be able to adjust?

For those that prefer the Sony picture, set the Tosh colour temp to cool and pump up brightness.

I also like the digital sound from the X-box. 3/2 which is Tosh speak for 5.1. Simpsons Hit&Run, one of the few Widescreen games is awesome.
 
rvd48, yes, thats exactly where it was... I had to get my mates taxi to get it gome!
 
Simongwynne - the engineer is coming on friday so i'll post an update...

but - the stripe down the middle most visible when watching football has almost disappeared now on mine. Do the CRT's need a bit of time to settle down? Mine is about a month old. Os yours still visible?

If i didn't have the slight geometry issue i think i'd be cancelling the call.
 
The line down the middle is still there, but it is possibly getting better. If I look out for it I can usually spot it, but mostly it's not visible.

There does seem to be slight discolouration on both sides as if speakers where near, but once again it's not usually visible.

All in all it's a great TV.
 

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