Hotspotting on RPTVs (1 Viewer)

[Ergin Guney]

I will be finally (I hope) switching to a rear-projection TV shortly, after years of watching only direct-view sets. There is however one primary concern in my mind about RPTVs:
Hotspotting...
By this I mean, of course, the way a "band of brightness" seems to sit in the middle of the picture, and moves around as you move around.
Hotspotting along the horizontal axis seems to be much less of a concern on recent RPTV models. The brightness changes little on the picture from left to right no matter from which horizontal angle you're looking at the screen. However, vertical hotspotting is something that is still very noticeable and highly distracting to me on any RPTV I look at. If you've tried squatting and then standing up (and repeating this--at the risk of looking silly ) in front of an RPTV, I'm sure you know what I mean about how a horizontal band of brightness seems to move up and down the screen as you do this. What's worse is that, even as you are looking at the screen from what seems to be the optimum vertical angle, the hotspotting is still an issue because in almost all cases the effective height of that horizontal band of brightness is less than the total height of the screen. So you end up looking at a picture with a slight dark band at the very top and at the very bottom, even when you are watching from the ideal viewing height.
Since this hotspotting issue has become the only snag between me and the purchase of an RPTV, I've decided to consult the opinion of the good folk of this forum. So here are the questions I'd like to ask anyone here who owns and uses an RPTV:

• Since I happen to be in the unfortunate position of not having any friends or relatives at all who use an RPTV (sadly, I'm the most home-theater-savvy of all my acquaintances...), all my experience of RPTVs is limited what I'm able to see in retail showrooms and the rare trade show. I'm having difficulty in taking these examples as a reference because I doubt that any of these sets are properly calibrated. My first question is: Does a well-set-up RPTV at your home exhibit any hotspotting comparable to what you see at a store? (Or is it the lighting or settings at the store that make it more noticeable there?)
• If hotspotting exists at home too, how do you cope with it? Does one grow accustomed to it in time? (Or does it forever remain a gripe that you live with?)
• Does setting the brightness and contrast to optimum levels reduce the hotspotting? By how much? Is the reduction just an impression of an improvement due to a reduced peak brightness level, or does the uniformity of the picture truly improve when the settings are calibrated?

Thanks in advance to all those who respond.

 

[Allan Jayne]

I have an RPTV and changing the brightness and contrast did not help.
But for most program material without large expanses of solid color, the hotspotting did not seem obtrusive. It must have been that I just got used to it.
Video hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/video.htm

 

[Ergin Guney]

Allan,

Thanks for the response. It sounds more or less like what I expected...

Any others with an opinion about this?