Aaron Gould

Not really happy with my RPTV... what should I do?

Just under a year ago, I purchased a Toshiba 57" RPTV (57HDX82). At the time, I thought it was great! Normal 4:3 TV broadcasts looked great in stretch mode 1, and DVD's looked amazing. But then again, I graduated from 27" TV. I'm sure anything bigger looked better.

But here I am a year later, thinking -- should I really have bought this!?

Now, my TV was never calibrated. I understand that calibration helps, but I'm not sure it would alleviate my concerns. (If anyone thinks it would, please tell me to spend the cash so I can get out of this funk! )

There are two things that concern me:

1. The burn-in potential. I love video games, and (want to) play them a lot. Having to worry about this keeps me from fully enjoying my games. In other words, I don't want to play very long in fear of damaging the set. Many games (ie. expecially shooters) have elements on the screen in the same spot for the entire game, like ammo count, etc. (By the way, my contrast/brightness is around 45 because of this.)

2. Stretching 4:3 isn't ideal. I know the stretch modes aren't really that bad (especially when I can use stretch mode 2 during 4:3 letterbox broadcast), but 4:3 non-letterbox broadcasts will be around for at least a couple years. The stretch mode 1 on my set isn't as unnoticable to me then it was when I first got the set. I swap to normal mode, and it looks great. I now wish I could use it all the time, but I can't as the grey bars will burn-in. My Satellite to DVD use ratio is about 50:50 so both modes are of equal importance.

I'm wondering if I should just sell this thing at a loss and get a front projector, or smaller DLP set. I would appreciate any advice or ideas on this. Somebody please ease my concerns!

Jason Sanderson

Sell it to me


Seriously, I would wait for a while until the fight between LCD and DLP settles down and the technology improves. There is a wack of things that can go wrong with the new techs like stuck pixels and bad mirrors, so you would just be trading one worry for another.

Aaron Gould

Well I think I'm going to hold on to the TV for now. I do think I need to spend the cash and get it calibrated though. From what I understand, when properly calibrated, the chance of burn-in is greatly reduced. Obviously I still need to be responsible about it, but it would alleviate some concern.

And hey, maybe the picture quality improvement will keep me pleased for a while. I've never really seen a before and after comparison of non-calibrated and calibrated sets, so I don't know what I'm in for.

Since a projector can be had for $1000 USD now, I'll probably look into just adding one along-side the TV in the next year. Selling the TV would be taking too much of a financial hit at this time.

Maybe by the time I'm ready, a 16x9 native DLP unit will find its way under a thousand bucks.

ChrisWiggles

IMO, just get Avia/VE, and calibrate. Won't cost more than a few bucks for the disc, and is something you should have done when you bought the set. Burn in really won't be that huge of a problem even with most games, if you play in a darker room lighting setting, and calibrate to that. Stresses the tubes much less.

Plus, a good RPTV will often best a cheapo digital pj, except in size regards.

Properly calibrated sets will look WORLDS better, and seems to have the best effects on really crappy TVs, at least in my limited basic experience. Better sets will yield a better picture, but often they tend to be better out of the box, except for being hideously bright.