Need some quick clarification on Hitachi "Stretch Modes" and Tosh "Resolution" (1 Viewer)

Greetings

People do not see the resolution issue with the Toshiba until it is pointed out to them. It is subtle and affects DVD's the most. No impact on HDTV and little on cable.

Without comparing it to something without the problem or without a good frame of reference ... hard to know. Average person won't notice it as much especially on an uncalibrated tV set.

This feature was introduced last year. Toshibas have been popular since their inception. They are also priced right.

There are no perfect TV sets in this price range. Consider that a $75K US Runco FPTV has its own issues as well ... so perfection obviously isn't at the $75K point either ...

Regards

Dave......I told you I'd report back so here it goes.
I'm taking delivery of my new..........57hdx82 TODAY!
I wen't around on Sunday after narrowing down to the Hitachi or the Tosh and spent some time with the units (and some VERY unknowledgable salesman). Luckily we all have these forums to keep us on our game.
I did think the swx had a crisper picture.....especially on texting. I really really wanted to like the stretch mode and go with the hitachi (especially after reading so many great reviews) but I saw the light.
During regular (news, sitcoms...etc) broadcasting the stretch mode was't really that bad. I was lucky enough to see the swx and hdx side by side and had both remotes in my hand and put the same channel on. The tell tale sign was when I turned on ESPN and watched a hockey game for a while.....The HItachi looked absolutely TERRIBLE anytime the camera panned/moved quickly to follow a slap shot or following a golf ball was even worse. This probably isn't even a word but I wan't to say the swx picture was warbling and looked like a tripped out fish-eye lens effect. I instantly knew I could NEVER be able to watch that on any sporting event. The Toshiba's stretch mode is really quite impressive. It's so uniform and even. I also tried the stretch on a mits and it was better than the hitachi in my view by a small margin however.
Granted I'm not buying this set for it's stretch mode.....from what I saw I think that the Hitachi probably will have a crisper picture while viewing dvd's and hdtv(which looked terrific on the HItachi by the way). I just don't think that alot of 4:3 material that I watch will be going away for at least a year or two and I believe that I made the right purchase (FOR MY NEEDS) at this time. I plan on hanging on to this unit for 4-5 years and then what I really want (Elite plasma) should be in my budget by then.....hopefully.
I really wanted to buy local...especially with all the worry some issues of no color, clicking sounds and doa...etc. I laughed at most prices that I was given and started losing faith but the last place I hit up, Video only here in Seattle, made me pull the trigger. I brushed off three slime ball salesmen and eventually started talking to someone younger and more desperate (total assumption) for a sale. He had some pretty good lines, "Remember...you need to keep contrast on 100 for the first week or two to help speed up the burn-in process"...I was like "O.k?.....I'll remember that.....ha ha ha!. Also while stating that I thought a model of dvd player had the chroma bug he said, "Yeah...that's a good feature and helps the picture alot I've heard!"...Ha HA AH!!!!!!
Sorry this is so long but he eventually said if I make you a crazy deal will you buy today? I said try me and I walked out 20 minutes later and am taking delivery today. I understand the not giving price post and so if anyone wants to know what I paid E-mail me at [email protected] and I'll pm you back.
let's put it this way....with a 5 yr warranty he beat some other "Great Deals" by about $7-800! I really thought I'd have to try Onecall but I'm very happy paying a small bit more for the 30 day exchange option.
I had a hard time deciding on the 50 vs. 57 though. That was a tough one for me. The 50 looked MUCH better on a cable feed from my sitting distance (10.5-12') but I'm trusting the movie experience will be much greater on the 57" I just have always hated the huge boxes in peoples homes that I've seen. Oh well...
I'll let you know how everything goes with the new set!
once again....good luck!

Dave......I told you I'd report back so here it goes.
I'm taking delivery of my new..........57hdx82 TODAY!
I wen't around on Sunday after narrowing down to the Hitachi or the Tosh and spent some time with the units (and some VERY unknowledgable salesman). Luckily we all have these forums to keep us on our game.
I did think the swx had a crisper picture.....especially on texting. I really really wanted to like the stretch mode and go with the hitachi (especially after reading so many great reviews) but I saw the light.
During regular (news, sitcoms...etc) broadcasting the stretch mode was't really that bad. I was lucky enough to see the swx and hdx side by side and had both remotes in my hand and put the same channel on. The tell tale sign was when I turned on ESPN and watched a hockey game for a while.....The HItachi looked absolutely TERRIBLE anytime the camera panned/moved quickly to follow a slap shot or following a golf ball was even worse. This probably isn't even a word but I wan't to say the swx picture was warbling and looked like a tripped out fish-eye lens effect. I instantly knew I could NEVER be able to watch that on any sporting event. The Toshiba's stretch mode is really quite impressive. It's so uniform and even. I also tried the stretch on a mits and it was better than the hitachi in my view by a small margin however.
Granted I'm not buying this set for it's stretch mode.....from what I saw I think that the Hitachi probably will have a crisper picture while viewing dvd's and hdtv(which looked terrific on the HItachi by the way). I just don't think that alot of 4:3 material that I watch will be going away for at least a year or two and I believe that I made the right purchase (FOR MY NEEDS) at this time. I plan on hanging on to this unit for 4-5 years and then what I really want (Elite plasma) should be in my budget by then.....hopefully.
I really wanted to buy local...especially with all the worry some issues of no color, clicking sounds and doa...etc. I laughed at most prices that I was given and started losing faith but the last place I hit up, Video only here in Seattle, made me pull the trigger. I brushed off three slime ball salesmen and eventually started talking to someone younger and more desperate (total assumption) for a sale. He had some pretty good lines, "Remember...you need to keep contrast on 100 for the first week or two to help speed up the burn-in process"...I was like "O.k?.....I'll remember that.....ha ha ha!. Also while stating that I thought a model of dvd player had the chroma bug he said, "Yeah...that's a good feature and helps the picture alot I've heard!"...Ha HA AH!!!!!!
Sorry this is so long but he eventually said if I make you a crazy deal will you buy today? I said try me and I walked out 20 minutes later and am taking delivery today. I understand the not giving price post and so if anyone wants to know what I paid E-mail me at [email protected] and I'll pm you back.
let's put it this way....with a 5 yr warranty he beat some other "Great Deals" by about $7-800! I really thought I'd have to try Onecall but I'm very happy paying a small bit more for the 30 day exchange option.
I had a hard time deciding on the 50 vs. 57 though. That was a tough one for me. The 50 looked MUCH better on a cable feed from my sitting distance (10.5-12') but I'm trusting the movie experience will be much greater on the 57" I just have always hated the huge boxes in peoples homes that I've seen. Oh well...
I'll let you know how everything goes with the new set!
once again....good luck!

Rain,I've looked at the same sets for the last 3 weeks. For what it's worth, I would give a slight edge to the Hitachi on DVD's and a big edge to the Tosh on cable and stretch modes. The Hi-def loops looked outstanding on both for a year or 2 down the road by the time we get some decent Hi-def. I'm sure you know this but Visions Electronics is offering 30 months of 0% interest financing and they carry Hitachi. Hope this helps.

Wayner

Michael TLV:

In your travels as an ISFer, would you feel it generally fair to say that Toshiba tends to have among the more accurate color decoders found on consumer televisions?

And aren't they easier displays than most to get to track their grayscales closely?

Of all the mass-market OEMs, my preference tends to be for Tosh. The Hitachis, on the other hand, as I understand, require some serious taming of that grayscale to get a good picture. But when the picture's dialed in, it dazzles. (I have an HTF friend who really seems to like her Hitachi.)

But, Rain, as has been pointed out to you, you are not going to find perfection in any one set. Each marque has its strengths and weaknesses. Too, even with the same make and model, there are unit-to-unit variations, due to manufacturing tolerances. For all you know, another Sony unit might exhibit more acceptable levels of edge-enhancement artifacting.

JB

Rain:

No worry. The stretch modes are for 4:3 material, yes. But does the Hitachi support zooming (and zoomng in progressive mode?) some TVs do not, which would be a problem for non-anamoprhic discs unless you have a scaler or a DVD player with a built-in scaler.

Have you considered Mits? They're quite popular, and the red-push problem can even be tamed without an ISF calibration (though updating the firmware is a better overall fix than an attenuator on the red cable.)

Greetings Jack

With respect to colour decoders in Toshiba units, if we were completely locked out of service mode parameters, the Toshiba would definitely have one of the better ones out there.

With current generations of sets, Hitachi, Panasonic, Mits, Sony all allow direct access to the colour decoder while Pioneer and Toshiba do not. As a result the Toshiba currently falls to the bottom 5 of this list.

The best grayscale tracking that I have and continue to see belongs to Mitsubishi sets. Toshibas are typically +/- 300-400K while most Mits' are +/- 200 or better. Have found that Panasonic tracks slightly better than Toshiba now too, but worse than mits. Hitachi's track slightly worse than Toshiba ... +/-500 range similar to Pioneers.

Bear in mind that in most cases, the differences are barely noticable by the human eye anyway.

Samsung ... that is another story ... +/- 1000 sometimes.

All this is for RPTV's ...

I was starting to like Hitachi sets until just recently. I am trying to track down a pastel colour issue with some of the new sets ... something akin to downconverting the colour from 16 million to 256 ... makes image depth completely vanish.

Regards

Rain,

The bad stretch on Hitachis only applys to the variable stretch for making a 4/3 picture fill a 16/9 screen--it's almost nauseating.

I had an Hitachi UWX for 2-3 weeks before swapping for my current Sony. In addition to the stretch, it had a "posterized" look to most fleshtones (made faces look like they were painted with flat latex paint, with no subtlety whatsoever) especially on ntsc stuff, not as bad on HD or progressive scan dvd. Color depth and subtlety was downright lousy compared to the Sony. It's grayscale had a very pronounced green tinge at the low end that I never could get rid of.
According to the AVIA color decoder evaluation pattern, it had +20% red push and -15% Green push. Note that this color decoder "push" is a separate issue from grayscale.

The Sony had a little green in the low end of the gray scale which I got rid of by turning down the G-Cut item in the service menu. By doing the AXIS mod I was able to get the color decoder to less than 3% push on all colors. This allows more vivid overall color without faces looking oversaturated and unnatural. Grayscale is easily adjustable in the service menu via the Cut and Drive settings, but really can't be done accurately without some pretty sophisticated test equipment. I was able to get rid of the green tint just by eyeball, but haven't tried to go any further with it.


I had seen the ghosting on the Hitachis in the stores, didn't see it on the one I had at home. Didn't see it on the Sony until it became an issue of note over at Home Theater Spot. Obsessed about it for several weeks, but now after seeing it on so many other sets I honestly don't notice it any more except on very overcompressed channels on DirecTV--or it may just not be as bad as the set has aged.

I have not had a Toshiba in my home and don't feel that I can fairly evaluate a set that I've only seen in stores, so I can't comment on it. I did consider Toshiba but didn't like the menu system or the slow channel changing, neither of which have any effect on picture quality.

What I can say from my own experience is that between Hitachi and Sony I'll take the Sony.

Damn, I was ready to get a Hitachi 57SWX20B until I read this thread.
Rain & Dave, I know what you are going through, this whole decision process is driving me nuts.
What stretch mode were you guys using on the Hitachi? it has six aspect modes:
1) 4:3 standard with grey bars
2) 4:3 expanded
3) 4:3 zoom 1
4) 4:3 zoom 2
5) 16:9 standard
6) 16:9 zoom

Rain, when you are talking about a sets ability to play a DVD in its OAR, are you talking about anamorphic discs or non-anamorphic letterboxed discs? because I would also like to know how the Hitachi handles non-anamorphic letterboxed discs played on a progressive scan dvd player without the scaling feature on the player.