RCA F38310 38" integrated CRT advice (1 Viewer)

[MikeMcGrew]

I am hoping that someone will take a little time and offer up any advice or experiences pertaining to this particular set. I have a chance to get this for $1179.00 at a local CC and it seems like a pretty decent bedroom set. Granted, I am a newbie when it comes to display devices/tvs but HD circuitry and an integtrated HD tuner (for Direct TV) in a 38" picture tube seems like a good deal to me. It is really going to be my girlfriend's set. She is set on a CRT because of space constraints and she likes the 16x9 aspect ratio. The Sony 34" is a out of our price range and the size of this set seems right to her. I guess my question is, is there anything I should know about this set before I buy it? I would rather have a flat screen but glare isn't much of a problem in this location so please, any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank You. MM

 

[MikeMcGrew]

You know what, nevermind. I have just read all of the past posts on this set and it is pretty clear that it is a dog. I knew the price was too good to be true. I would have removed this post all together if I knew how to do so. Sorry. MM

 

[Jesse Skeen]

I was thinking about getting one of these until I heard how unreliable they are- It also only shows gray bars on the sides of 4x3 material (whatever widescreen TV I get HAS to show BLACK on the sides- no ifs ands or buts!) so that pretty much sealed it for me. Is anyone else going to make one this size or bigger though? The only other ones I've seen are 35 inches, which is too small for me as I have a 40-inch 4x3 Mitsubishi right now. (I know there's a 38-inch Loewe but those are way too expensive!!)

 

[Grant H]

I have the RCA and am very happy with it. Got it for around $1400 or $1500 in October I think. It may have already been less than that actually.
I have the last generation of these sets which seems to have gotten rid of most of the problems earlier models had. Mine has a moire problem I believe, but I'm supposed to be getting that fixed Thursday.

For the price, I'd say go for it, but take CC up on the extended warranty to be on the safe side. With the low price of the TV, it makes for a sound investment. The picture quality is unbelievable when watching movies in progressive scan. Nothing beats a big, high-quality CRT.

As for the grey sidebars, they're grey instead of black because the grey is supposed to be better for more even burn in if you watch a lot of 4:3 TV. It would have been nice if they'd let you customize the color of the bars, but you get used to them eventually.
The set does lock in "Full" when it gets a progessive signal, so you might want to have a scaling DVD player for 4:3 material, that or you'll have to switch to Interlaced to preserve proper aspect ratio.

 

[John Sully]

I've owned a couple of RCA sets and will never buy another RCA set. They have severe reliability problems. Never again.

 

[Grant H]

My parents have had a 35" RCA (later they started calling them 36") for 7 years or more with no problems.

Of course back then RCA's may have been more reliable than today.
Afterall, if you go way back I believe RCA and Hitachi were in cahoots, back when Hitachi was really solid stuff.