Opinons on which widescreen RPTV (1 Viewer)

[MarshawnM]

Crew,

OK, I'm ready to go rear projection. I'm looking for at least 55 inches and of course 16x9. Cost? No more than $3500, the ex-wife may hear about it and drag me back into court! I see that the new Mits are due out soon, what is the word on them? I was thinking of Mits anyway since they have been doing the large TV thing for soooo long. Where can I get the best price on TV as well, certified dealers only please. Also, which are the brands I should not even consider. Thanks alot in advance.

Marshawn

 

[Jay Mitchosky]

Mits are great, but their colorimetry is tough to balance given their excessive red push. You can manually adjust for this however using a little attenuator. You can find info on that here or at Errol's HDTV.

Toshibas have been historically fantastic, and their more recent models have offered a very neutral color balance and highly detailed image. Unfortunately I have heard of a "ghosting" problem on the newest line that manifests itself as blue ringing, even when properly converged. A huge issue apparently (although I haven't seen this myself).

Pioneer's Elite line are among the best RPTVs out there, and are generally regarded as offering a mind-numbingly sharp picture that defies their 7" CRTs. Excellent colorimetry as well. Their Achilles' heel is generally considered to be a degree of white crush, where the brightest images can bloom uncontrollably thereby wiping out detail. The jury is out as to how much of an issue this really is - try and find an Elite owner who is unsatisfied with their image!

Zenith's (yes, Zenith) new 9" RPTVs are incredible. Amazing images in every respect. But are VERY pricey.

Panasonic has been doing good things as well, although I haven't seen much of their product.

In other words there's lots of options out there at various price points, but I don't think any of them are without their quirks. You'll be able to find lots of information here, fortunately. Good luck.

 

[MarshawnM]

Jay,

Thanks for your information! Now, if I have the Mitsu professionally calibrated will still see the issue with the red pushing? Pioneer's Elite are out of my price range at 55 inches widescreen I think (3,000 plus tax). I didn't look at the Elites since I "assumed" that they were out of my price range. I notice you didn't mention any thing about Sony. Silence speaks volumes. I'll keep looking, I tell you, this is the fun part! Thanks again!

Marshawn

 

[Kishu]

I think you have a tough choice since you have to choose lesser devil among other devils
Almost every set has issues..however I'd recommend Sony or Mits. I'd recommend the Tosh if you can return the set back in case you have a defective/poor set
The latest Mits sets can be tweaked to the max and thus are the most flexible TVs wrt HD & DVD viewing. The only weakeness is poor line doubler but from what I have read over hereusing a HD STB obviates use of line doubler for good NTSC display.
Sony HW series has made a stunning comeback from 2000. They are typically good out of the box with very few incidents of ringing. And you can also get Sears to do pricematch if you are lucky and walk away with a fine price.
Tosh sets, which are cheapest among the 2 have on average been plagued with quality control issues-like rining/ghosting issues. If you get a good set then you have a fine TV with excellent line doubler and good HD/DVD performance.
I have heard that the Pioneer sets are good too-but are typically priced above comparative brands-maybe I am wrong here..
Good luck hunting- I was tilting towards Tosh HX..and now I donot know which one to get
Cheers,
Kishore

 

[Scott Hayes]

I have a 46" mits (wt-46807). I love it, fantastic picture. The red push can easily be fixed with an attenuator. I believe the new models are supposed to be better when it comes to the red push problem. Bang for the buck, i dont think you can beat a mits. IMO

 

[JerryLA]

Marshawn,

I purchased a Pioneer Elite 510 online and got quite a deal. The picture is as good as I've seen. The price has come down quite a bit in the last 6 months. Go to a page like Bizrate.com and do a search. You can find the best prices on particular items. I bought mine from the LGD Superstore. I could not believe the great service I got from them. I ordered the set on Thursday and it was delivered to my house on the following Tuesday. Check it out.

Good luck.

Jerry

 

[Jay Mitchosky]

I notice you didn't mention any thing about Sony.

Ooops. I knew I forgot someone! The newer Sony widescreen sets are nice. Color balance I think is still off. The sets I've seen are kind of soft. But they've been reviewed well. For the money you would spend on a Sony I would suggest moving to Pioneer Elite.

 

[Matt Heebner]

I would just like to comment on a couple of issues mentioned regarding Mitsubishi TV's. First, the newer models coming out are totally capable of having the red push fixed from within the service menu now. It used to be a locked out feature, but that has been corrected. Also, there is a permanent fix for red push on older TV's involving a software correction...the I2C. Most ISF techs should already know about it, and how to do it. Fom what I understand it's very easy to do. This I2C can also fix numerous other problems that have popped up on MIts TV's. Check out The Hometheater Spot for more information.
I will chime in for the Mits as well. I own a 55" 55807 that I totally love. I think that Mits provides the best price/performance RPTV's out there. There is a wealth of information on them, and are highly tweakable to produce outstanding DVD/HD pictures. I will say that the internal line doulbler is not the best, and standard signals are not the greatest. But I dont think they are any worse (save the Pioneer Elite line) than any other RPTV out there.
MAtt

 

[MarshawnM]

All,

Thanks for the tons of information! I will have whichever TV I buy professionaly calibrated. Now, I'm hearing about the Mits 55909, 55908, and maybe a 55919 or 55918! Anyone got any infro on these? Should a wait a month or two for the new line up? My max is $3,000 on a TV. Thanks again!

Marshawn

 

[Jeff Robertson]

I would be interested in more info on the new line from SONY as well, seeing as how I just purchased the KP-51HW40. It looks beautiful on the display floor, but I'm concerned how good the specs will hold up once it is delivered. I hear the convergence is something I can expect to be out-of-whack right off the bat. Any truth to this? I also understand it is important to reduce the brightness right away and stick to viewing fully-expanded images for the break-in period. I plan to use Video Essentials via DVD the moment the unit is settled in place.

 

[Jeremy Hegna]

Marshawn,
I jsut bought the Mits 65819, and although I'm an RPTV rookie...I just don't see how it could get any better. I love the picture and my ISF guy set it up something sweet. In fact, he told me that he could make the Platinum Plus look as good as the Diamond series. Since he didn't sell TVs...he mentioned that they "down play" each lower model on the floor, so folks will be tempted to spend the money on the Diamonds....the picture is out of this world. Hometheaterspot has a wealth of info on tweaking the Mits TVs....this is great for any folks that want to get the best out of their set.
And, as you mentioned, Mits sells more RPTVs than anyone. They also guarantee that when a standard HD connector comes into play, they will retrofit all other HD Mits TVs with the connector....that's cool
Jeremy

 

[Steve Schaffer]

Jeff,
I've had a KP57HW40 since mid October.
Picture was quite good out of the box with just an eyeball adjustment.
On ANY rptv the first thing you want to do out of the box is reduce contrast to less than 50%, more like 30-40%, and brightness to 50-60%. Avoid using the "normal" mode for 4/3 viewing (the one that puts gray bars on the side) more than about 20% of the time.
My set's convergence was good as delivered. I may do a manual convergence in the future but so far the flash-focus feature's been working as advertised, though it hasn't really drifted noticeably anyway.
If you check over at Home Theater Spot you'll find some useful tweaks for the HW40s. Red push, for example, can be totally corrected with a few button presses in the service menu, no need for external attenuators or reprogramming with a laptop. SVM can also be easily defeated, though it's already off in PRO mode.
Sony's new line of widescreen sets has a much improved DRC system, and the set will display 480p natively, no conversion to 540p as with Toshiba.
This is my 4th rptv, and second widescreen hd-ready model, and I am very satisfied with it.

 

[Jeff Robertson]

Steve,

Thanks for the response on the SONY.

You mean these sets have an issue with red push also? I thought the Mitsubishi's were the only ones that suffered from this.

I've heard little about SVM- why is it preferred to have it defeated?

 

[Tino D'Voe]

Any opinions on Hitachi?

 

[Dave Reichert]

And, as you mentioned, Mits sells more RPTVs than anyone.

Actually, Mitsubishi, Hitachi, and Sony each average about an 18% market share in RPTV's. They leapfrog every year pretty much though and there's no definitive leader in the market share. Might be a little different number for HD's though, I'm assuming the numbers I received from a Hitachi sales rep were including all RPTV's.

 

[Steve Schaffer]

Jeff,
Red push is present on virtually all tvs, to varying degrees. Your present set probably has it, and you don't even know it's there. The AVIA calibration dvd has a test pattern that allows one to determine just how much red push your set has. Most sets have anywhere from 10 to 15% red push, the Mits seem to have significantly more.
I've done the AVIA test on 2 Sonys and 2 Hitachis, all had about 10-15% red push.
All this means is that the color decoder makes reds a bit more intense than the other colors. This makes it easier to avoid greenish fleshtones. On most sets you just turn down color until reds in the color bar test patterns are the same intensity as other colors. This de-emphasizes non-reds a tiny bit but not enough to really make the non-reds look washed out. If there's too much red push, then other colors do lose enough intensity to be sorta detrimental.
Eliminating red push does help, even if it's only 15% or so, so it is desirable if it can be done fairly easily, but at a level of 10-15% red push is not really a make or break issue until you get really fussy about color accuracy.
Correcting red push on the new Sonys is fairly easy compared to the procedures necessary on the Mits sets, and Sony has less of it in the first place.
RE Hitachis: Had one for 2 weeks, was constantly tweaking trying to get good ntsc pictures without green tint in low brightness areas. Swapped for the Sony and am much happier. Line doubling and stretch modes are better on the Sony, cable and satellite look a lot better. Even without the green issue, which is correctable on the Hitachi, I much prefer the Sony.

 

[Jeff Robertson]

Thanks again, Steve.

Still trying to figure about what this SVM is for.

 

[Steve Schaffer]

SVM=Scan Velocity Modulation. This makes the electron beam that excites the phosphors on the inside of the crt surface linger a tiny bit longer on brighter parts of the image. The result is that bright lines are a tiny bit wider than dark ones. The intent of it is to make the picture look a bit sharper. It can actually be helpful on mediocre cable signals as it sorta does sharpen up the soft image of poor signals.
It's artificial edge enhancement is detrimental to high quality pictures like HD and DVD.
The Sony HW40 series has 4 picture modes: Vivid, Standard, Movie, and Pro. The SVM on the set has 3 levels as well as off. As delivered, SVM is off in Pro, lowest level in Movie, a bit stronger in Standard, and high in Vivid. It can be adjusted to any level in any mode independently for each input source in the service menu. Some sets require you to disconnect wires inside the set to eliminate SVM.