[f1nuts]

this is my first time at this sight, ... so any help, advice is greatly appreciated....since i now have a shiny new toshiba hd-a20 i could not wait to get it fired up , i bought the 42 inch 720p toshiba plasma a few months ago ..so good to go or so i thought !.....after initial set up via hdmi from player to plasma tv, i stuck in van helsing h/d for the kids and me to enjoy......to say the least was well dissapointed, everything that was dark in color or in the shadows , was supposed to be black, but was actually more of a burgandy dark brown-ish color ?...infact it stood out so much i could barely carry on watching it ....i went thru set up again , changed resolution etc etc...still the same, so bought another new hdmi cable also...no change ?....basically anything that is in darkness or shadow is patchy as hell and burgandy in color.....i am guessing this is not normal ! ( hoping ) as my old progresive sony playr was awesome and never flawed the picture in anyway , infact was near as damm it h/d on some movies...after hours of head scratching, i went to the tv adjustment, turned down the brightness and although certainly it makes the whole picture darker , it has now got black were it should be black !...was this just my mistake or is it something that needs to be sorted out eleswere.........do i need to head back to best buy and try another unit .........whilst i am here !....is it best to set at 720p for both tv and player ( tv 720p )...or do i go for the 1080i from the player as tv can handle that ???....thanks in advance , apologies if it is a long thread - but the wife will kill me if the picture does not improve !..

[powerlord]

Well I can tell you when I went and bought my DLP a few months ago I demo'd a few plasmas and found the pic to be not as crisp and I saw the same thing you did,the blacks were not as black as they were on the DLP's or the LCD's when trying to brighten up the picture.

[f1nuts]

thanks for your input.........certainly plasma , in this case my toshiba, seems to suffer a lot from poor dark or shades when it comes to color display ...clouds seem grainy and patchy that kind of thing, but dark colors especially poor...of course my main concern was whether it was the hd a20 being a bad one ...i have like i siad adjusted the brightness right down, which seems to have solved the problem, ..i am thinking the factory set picture display is set to its maximum when you first turn it on...and possibly being high def dvd player, it didnt need to be set so high....i re run the movie mentioned above, and boy what a difference the plasma really was outstanding, still some suffering in areas of shade/dark , but i think with a little tinker to display, the darks will be dark !....just really want someone to verify it is not the dvd player at fault, as i did not see any other playback issue ....i only have so many days to return the hd-a20 if it is a issue there ..........anyone point me in the direction of a calibration disc , ....... i do have to say ...hd rocks !!

[Bob_L]

Buy.com is selling the Digital Video Essentials HD DVD for under $15, which includes the appropriate setup and calibration screens.

[f1nuts]

thanks for the heads up .....