any opinions on the Toshiba - 46HX83? (1 Viewer)

[Rob Michaw]

Does anyone own it or has anyone done extensive viewing/testing on it? Any obvious problems I should be aware of?

Thanks.

 

[WadeB]

I've had the 46h83 since September. Not sure what the "X" adds. Looks great with DVDs, and in HDTV. Sattelite looks ok depending on the station. My only real complaint is that it pushes quite red. Hoping to have it ISF calibrated soon though.

The brand new issue of Home Theater Magazine has a review of the 46hx83, and for what its worth, they liked it fairly well. After calibration, it tracked 6500 very closely, but they did mention that the color decoder wasnt the best, but not the worst either.

 

[ChadM]

I just got mine a couple of weeks ago. I ran throught the basic calibration stuff with DVE last night and the result was pleasing. I plan giving the set some critical viewing tonight and maybe running the calibration again this weekend.

Ditto what Wade said "looks great with DVD", Satellite Ok to quite good. And yes it pushes red.

Wade, have you done any DIY calibration? How did your settings come out?

 

[Michael TLV]

Greetings

Bear in mind that just because a review sample of a TV tracked well wrt grayscale, there is no guarantee that every unit does the same.

Regards

 

[WadeB]

Michael, the reveiw sample set only tracked well after ISF calibration. It was way off prior to that according to the chart. Don't worry, we still need you guys to put things right!

Chad, the only calibration I've done so far is using THX Optimode. I wanted to put some time on the set before buying and using Avia. I do hope to get an ISF guy out here though sometime in the near future. I'm sitting here wathcing CBS's SEC game in HD and it really looks great.

My setting are very different for each source, Directv, DVD, and HDTV.

 

[Rob Michaw]

For those of you who would be reading these posts to help with potential purchases, I decided against this set. I was looking at this set amongst others brands.

I found a problem with this and other Toshiba sets of this model year (apparently from what I have read, every of their sets this year has it). I changed the contrast and brightness to different levels, and even set it according to the Avia disc. I even tried out the same model at three different stores. On white backgrounds and light backgrounds, there is a faint white line that runs from top to bottom almost in the middle of the set. I had read about this line on other forums, so I decided to take a look myself. It is there, and it was quite bothersome to me. I saw it in snowy scenes, beach scenes, pale blue skies etc. I definitely saw it in grey fields using Avia. Then when I switched off HD and DVD inputs to regular cable, a hockey game showed it terribly. In fact, there were a couple of other people in the store looking at the sets while I was doing this, and they ended up seeing the line too and deciding against this brand (at least for the time being). I spoke to a couple of people who didn't care about it as well...so if you are someone like me who picks apart everything, it might be a deal breaker. If you aren't terribly detail oriented, it might not bother you at all.

Hope this info might help somebody save themselves "finding" the line after their purchase and getting buyers remorse.

 

[Chris Sherman]

I'd get the Sony 46WT510 over the Toshiba. Read the revies of both at Cnet.com . As mentioned the color decoder of the Toshiba is not up to par without professional calibration. My Sony looked great right out of the box, I highly recommend it over the Toshiba.http://reviews.cnet.com/Toshiba_46H8...?tag=pdtl-list

 

[JohnnyG]

As mentioned the color decoder of the Toshiba is not up to par without professional calibration.

The colour decoder isn't the problem...the overly red factory grey scale is.

 

[Chris Sherman]

Kevin Miller , who did the review for Cnet. actually said the grey scale tracked better than average and clearly states it's the color decoder that's "gone downhill". Read the article for yourself. Kevin is a longtime ISF certified technician , so I stand by his assesment of the sets performance.

 

[JohnnyG]

Don't believe either of us...take a look at an AVIA Colour Decoder Check pattern for yourself. There is moderate red push - not much worse than others and better than some.

The good news is that there are new parameters that you can play with in the service menu to help with this. They don't seem to be colour decoder adjustments in the 'traditional' sense (gain and axis), but they do have a similar effect on the image.

 

[JohnnyG]

Some comments from the review:

- Regarding the remote, saying it "remains one of our all-time favorites" is rather odd considering it's new this year, although pretty similar in layout to the previous unit.

- It does not convert ALL incoming signals to either 1080i or 540p. You only have this choice with 480p input. Any 480i is displayed only as 1080i. The menu choice for this is still active with a 480i input, so it makes it look like you actually have a choice, when you don't.

- Regarding the Touch Focus automatic convergence system, it works extrememly well once set-up properly. And it's not really shipping that throws it off either, it's likely just poor calibration from the factory. Once I do a complete geometry/convergence and save this to Touch Focus, I can (and have) ship a set thousands of miles and although it's likely out of convergence when first turned on, pressing Touch Focus after the set warms up always restores convergence almost perfectly.