My 51wh36p first impressions.

cjking

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My set finally arrived on Saturday, six weeks after I ordered it from Argos.

Tip #1: Unless you have very high ceilings, you will not be able to lift the box off the top of the TV inside. If you want to preserve the box, you will need to remove it outdoors, or tilt the TV onto it's face/back inside.

(Mine came into the living-room through patio doors from the garden - if yours has to be carried through narrow spaces then removing the protection of the box first could be a bad idea.)

Tip #2: After you've lifted the box off, the TV is left standing on foam inserts in a cardboard tray. It takes two people to lift it out, and although the set is not that heavy, it may not be a job for women.

(My wife is quite strong, but she said it was to heavy. I can't help feeling that it was the size of the set rather than the weight that intimidated her.)

My furniture is arranged so that I watch from only seven feet, which is probably a lot closer than Toshiba intended, and much closer than most people would sit to a set of this size. Frequently when I was configuring the settings I noticed that problems I was trying to get rid of, such as graininess and 50hz flicker in progressive mode, were not a problem or were greatly reduced if I simply watched from about double the distance instead.

Tip #3: When there are problems, picture quality can usually be greatly improved by simply watching from further away (although this might defeat the objective of buying a big screen in the first place.)

I started off watching ordinary TV, which I get from analog cable at the moment, though I hope to be upgraded to Sky digital soon. The picture quality was pretty terrible and for the first few hours I thought I was going to have to return the set. Once Saturday afternoon sport was over, I was able to experiment with the settings, and picture quality was greatly improved.

Tip #4: These rear-projection sets are very sensitive to the settings, having contrast and brightness to high or convergence even slightly out messes up the picture far more than you'd imagine. Spend a lot of time getting these right.

The built-in settings I had started off watching with were contrast 100 and brightness 50 - after experimentation I've settled on contrast 25 and brightness 40 at the moment, though this can sometimes be a little to dark. I'm awaiting the arrival of my DVE disk, I hope that will help me find the optimum settings. Although the convergence didn't seem far out, I'm fairly sure that the small improvements I made had a big impact in reducing cable TV graininess.

Turning down the contrast and brightness and doing the convergence improved the cable picture until it was acceptable. I also found that at my close viewing distance I could see scan lines in all modes except progressive, so I use progressive mode all the time. Before I turned down brightness and contrast, progressive mode was unusable because of 50hz flicker, flicker became a non-issue after turning them down.

Next I tested the set with a DVD, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." As far as I'm concerned, the picture quality was as good as I remember it being in the cinema - it was unbelievably good. It was at this stage that I knew I had done the right thing, realised my home cinema dream, by buying this set. CRT projection was last on my list of technologies when I set out to buy a new set. Having seen this one, I now no longer believe that plasma, LCD, LCD projection or DLP projection are capable of the same picture quality, even if you exclude dark scenes where they are known to be at a disadavantage. I believe that what this set can do with a DVD source cannot be matched by any other technology.

I did notice in one or two scenes that my external deinterlacer did a slightly better job than the internal one.

Tip #4: The internal progressive scan gives you most of the benefits of progressive scan. If you are tempted to buy a progressive scan DVD player, there's probably no point unless you buy a very expensive one with a chip you know will do a better job than the Toshiba's, even then you will not see any difference most of the time. (It's quite trivial for a DVD player to generate a progressive scan picture so the capability can be used for marketing purposes, doing it well, better than the Toshiba, is a much bigger challenge.)

I had intended to feed all my video signals through my external Iscan Pro deinterlacer, however two issues have forced me to take it out of the loop for the time being. The new Toshiba SD330 DVD player I had bought especially for its component inputs generates slight interference when connected via the Iscan. (It is fine when connected directly to the TV, and my old player via S-video doesn't have a problem going via the Iscan, so it looks like I've wasted my money buying the new player.) The other issue is that the VCR tuner I was going to use to send cable TV through the Iscan is producing a very poor picture compared to the TV, the TV tuner is simply better. Also the TVs noise reduction can't be used on the progessive scan input from the Iscan. The bottom line is that using the TVs built-in tuner gives me a much better picture than the VCR.

I bought some expensive cables so that my SVHS VCR could be connected to everything else to record. That was a mistake. On a screen this big, watching as close as I am, and having seen the quality of picture I can get from DVD, the quality even from a perfect SuperVHS recording is so poor there is simply no way I am ever going to watch videotape again.

Tip #5: Although the set can be viewable in bright light if you turn up contrast and brightness, if you turn them down to optimise picture quality you may need to darken the room. (This may not apply so much if you are watching from a more sensible distance than me.) (Incidentally, I think the ISF web site does say that TV is meant to be watched in dim surroundings, and that the correct response to bright light is to darken the room, not brighten the TV.)

Bottom Line: My extreme set-up where I sit very close to the screen makes it very difficult to get good picture quality, however I have achieved it with DVD, proving that the problem is getting a quality signal to the set, and not shortcomings of the set itself.
 
Be sure to post some pictures if you can.

I had the same experience as you do when i received my 57WH36P from Germany, it was delivered in 7 days to Sweden as we don't even have Toshiba in our poor country.

Anyway, i have the new DVE disc and calibrated the brightness and contrast, well below 50.

I did the user convergence and the picture was a bit better i wasn't satisfied still.

As i had experience from RPTVs from owning one before, a Pioneer SD-T5000, i knew i could get much better picture.

I went into the servicemenu and did the 56-point convergence to perfection and the picture was much better, still not happy with the focus as i thought the picture was a bit out of focus.

After a few days of reluctancy of opening the TV to adjust the mechanical focus on the CRT guns i was convinced one late night i couldn't stand thinking that i could get better picture, i was convinced.

I opened up the TV after warming it up for 2 hours to get the GUNS warm, everything went very smooth.

I started with the RED CRT doing the rope-trick posted by Demon in this forum.

I turned on the big grid in the servicemenu, while i watched the grid when i was adjusting the CRT-GUN i noticed the extremely sharp grid i was getting.

It was like WHOA!!

It was razor sharp, tweaked it to the best sharpness in the center of the screen.

Went along with the GREEN CRT, same experience here as before, WHOA!!

Then came the last GUN, the BLUE one, that one was tough to tweak as it was so soft, here you had to tweak for the sharpest grid in the dimmest grid or sort of if you understand.

The BLUE is much dimmer and is harder to tweak.

Alright.

I assembled it together again and exited the servicemenu, turned the TV off and the on again after 10 minutes.

Now, the picture was incredible, razorsharp, everything look like incredible and i was so happy.

The picture was better than my set i had before, a Sony 32".

All i can say is that RPTVs as "cjking" says is that they are very sensitive and needs to be tweaked after delivery, it's a must.

I can't understand why Toshiba doesn't offer this service to U.K customers....

This is not like a regular TV you just turn on and watch and be happy, it needs to be tweaked.

Why i tweaked the picture for the sharpest picturegrid in the center is because that's where the action in movies are, it's very your eyes are to 90% of the time.

Some ISF engineer in USA told me to maximize in the center as he always do that, some people tells you to have even focus sharpness all over the screen, i think it depends on what you want.

I like to have it where i watch.

However i still have issues with the geometry that i will solve one day when i got time over....

Otherwise a great TV, best you can buy today and it really is producing a better picture than £5000 plasmas do.
 
Some very useful information and a great review (wanna get some pics up too?)

I am also getting this set and quite ironically have the same seating distance as you (well 7-8ft). I was gonna get a plasma screen but thought 'why pay more for less screen and have somthing that looks like paper when I can have a behemoth!!' lol I know people each to his own.

Anyway I am ordering this set from argos too due to having a few hundred pounds worth of vouchers for there (been saving), I am ordering it this saturday they said that they have had a delay from their supplier and that they will have stock of it from the third of may and quote up to three weeks for delivery but it may be delivered as soon as a week apparently so I have my fingers crossed.

When I get mine I will let everyone know of my first impressions and what it is like for movies and games on all consoles inc. the nes for a laugh probally look awful blown up to that size everyone will have to bear with me though as im not that technically minded as most on here especially in the rptv side of things cos this will be my first rptv. Jumping up from my goodmans 32" widescreen to not a 42" but a 51" toshiba I think I may notice the difference ever so slightly

I asked toshiba themselves about playing consoles on a rptv and they reccommended against it but it should be ok for about 1hr 30mins at a time (am I allowed to repeat what they said in an e-mail?) and if it is a game like the getaway where there are no static images or ssx3 where you can turn the static images off or splinter cell i think you can just play them for as long as you like as they have no static images or you can turn them off so over the next couple of weeks I'll see what games for each system can be played with no static images and post a thread with a list of these certain games on here

thanks again for that review cjking it was great and very helpful, is it easy to converge a set? i have seen the manual for this set and it says somthing bout lineing the thing up with a cross how long do you have to let the set 'settle' for before fiddleing with this brightness/contrast etc...??? I am having mine at low contrast due to games anyway so I'd probally have mine set as low as yours for safty

tris
 
The user level convergence is easy to do, mine seems to stay done. (Apparently other people had to re-do theirs everyday for a few days/weeks before the set settles down.)

Since my last post was so long, maybe I should summarise the results of comparing this set with my old 29" 4:3 Toshiba CRT TV.

For DVDs the new set is the ultimate in picture quality, I don't believe my old TV, or any other model in the world is better.

For analog cable, the old set had good picture quality, the picture is worse on the big set because you can see all the faults that were to small to see previously. If you sit further away the faults start to disappear. I can just about put up with the picture quality for sport and everyday TV, but I wouldn't watch TV movies now. I've joined a DVD rental service, I'll get my movies from there.

For digital satellite - I don't know yet how good it will look, I should be getting this in place of cable within the next month or two.

For VCR the old set was acceptable, the new set shows up the flaws in the picture and the picture and is not worth watching at all. I won't bother taping anything in future - at some stage I will get a DVD recorder so I have the facility to offload Sky+ recordings. (Though I don't really tend to make recordings to keep anyway.)

Although I'm satisfied I have the right set for me, people for whom everyday TV is relatively more important, and a big screen for movies and sport relatively less important, would probably be better of with the 42wh36p if watching from as close as I am.
 
hi, have you noticed any pinkish tint down the right edge of the screen?
 
Originally posted by weyland-yutani
hi, have you noticed any pinkish tint down the right edge of the screen?

These models dont suffer from this......it seems that only the PW23 does.
 
thanks. i wish i'd known this earlier, i wouldn't have bothered with the PW23. so the 42WH36P should be ok, aswell?
 
I think your greyscale is not good, try adjusting the RCUT, BCUT and GCUT.

I had a little red in white scenes which i got rid of by adjusting the RCUT a bit down.....

Now i got perfect white.
 
thanks lizzard bit its gone back now. i'm trying to fing a decent store that sells the 42wh36p now. comet and argos have stopped listing them:( i can't go any bigger that 42" as my front room can't accomodate it.
 
afraid due to a cashflow problem im gonna be going for a lcd projector sorry everyone guess i wont have to worry bout screen burn though (hmmmm games)
 
Having used a LCD projector in the past I have two pieces of advice.

#1: You need to be able to make the room completely dark - I installed black-out roller blinds in mine.

#2: It's not an alternative to a TV, you still need a TV for everyday viewing, use the LCD only for special occaisions (watching movies, a football match etc.) It's not practical to spend all your TV watching time in a dark room.

Is an LCD projector really going to be much cheaper? The Sanyo Z2 which seems to be the one to get is about £1100, I think, a screen is going to be a few hundred (OK anything from £80 to £6000 depending what you get) by which time you've almost spend as much as a 51WH36P would cost.

Having said that, if games are important, then *WH36P is probably not the right kind of set.
 
My DVE disk arrived today. I'm really pleased with the changes I've made, though it didn't help much with setting the contrast. My settings are:-

Contrast: 30
Brightness: 50
Colour: 40
Sharpness: -20
Colour Temperature: Warm

I could have set contrast anywhere between 25 and 50+, I left it low because experience tells me that gives the best picture quality.

I was already ecstatic about DVD picture quality, but seeing the high quality video clips on this CD (recorded in 1080p and downconverted) took picture quality to an even higher level. My wife had complained about focus on another DVD and I was wondering if I needed to open up the set and tinker with it. The DVE disk video was pin-sharp and crystal clear - I doubt I even need to do service level convergence on my set.

The DVE disk also pointed out that when I re-arranged my living room for the new TV, I had swapped the cables for the left and right rear channels.

My set does have three things I'd like to fix, though I would rather live with them than be without the set for even a day.

1. I get a buzz/hum when I turn it on, sounds a bit like a noisy fan, though I didn't think these sets had fans. It goes away after a while.
2. The bottom right hand corner is a bit higher than the left - it doesn't really bother me though.
3. The overscan on the left and right needs to be reduced - DVE shows it is about 7.5% and says it should be 2.5% all round.
 
Originally posted by cjking
Having said that, if games are important, then *WH36P is probably not the right kind of set.

Why so?:confused:
 
Well I could be wrong - I don't play games and don't own a console, so take what I say with a pinch of salt.

But LCD and DLP rearpros (especially Samsungs) have Computer inputs (VGA and sometimes DVI) and I think plasmas can also take a VGA. Also they can have a higher resolution (e.g. 1280x720) which is irrelevant for Video but could be useful from Computers. With the exception of Plasmas, you don't have to worry about screen burn.

Having said that, all these sets are also much more expensive. And now that I've seen what a CRT rear-pro is capable of, I don't believe these other sets are capable of the same video picture quality.

An equivalent size set to a Tosh rear-pro would cost £500 to £1500 more for the same size screen, which is a lot to pay extra for better computer compatibility (and worse video.)
 
LCD is much worse as they don't have true blacks and you "always" see the pixels.

CRT is the obvious choice if you demand the best picture quality, only negative thing is that they are sensitive to burn-ins and that they are often more heavy than either LCD/DLP RPTVs.
 
agreed with both your statements i dont know if i would tell much difference with pq having not owned either before i havent got any blackout blinds but i have extremely thick curtains a horrid brown colour but they black the room out enough for projector use cos you cant see much when there closed which saves a bit on cash and i have a 80" or 90" ( cant remember which ) screen that rolls up from the floor coming for 50 from a mate that works in a gameshop which is quite good to start off with i guess i'd sacrifice pq for video to gain beig able to play games safely for a few hours i'd also be sacrificeing the amount of time i would have it on but i wouldnt have used it for tv anyway it would only be used for films and games 50/50 and i dont have to change my room round now either and wont have to upgrade to get a smaller or bigger screen and can take it round my mates if i like im not bothered bout using it during the day as i mainly watch play in the evenings after my daughter has gone to bed and its nice and quiet (bliss lol) im not putting rptv's down one bit dont get me wrong i still think there great but i do like my games a lot and like playing them for a good 3-hrs+ at a time i have ordered a projector which should arrive this coming week sometime i'll be posting a thread with setup pics on the lcd projectors thread i'll let you know in here when i have made that thread other wise keep an eye out for me in the projectors thread for my progress if you like your very welcome

tris
 

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