Toshiba 46HM84 Review and Questions... (1 Viewer)

[MichaelPR]

So I was going to wait until the summer time to make my DLP purcahse but I got so damn anxious I just couldn't wait anymore. After weeks of research and instore observations of various TVs: LCD, DLP, LCoS. and Plasma. I finally settled on DLP technology. At first I was dead set on the Samsung series but then I did some online research. It appears that the Samsung has a great deal of problems related with it. I then started reading up on the Toshiba models. I finally found a few to check out and they just blew the Samsungs out of the water.

I ordered from Crutchfield as I really like their customer service and they had a reasonable deal on the TV as opposed to all my local retailers. I also did not have to pay any tax! The TV took 5 days to get here (got here Friday). I have to say I was a little annoyed with the delivery guy. First off Crutchfields website states that the delivery guys will actually place the TV where you want it and remove all the packaging. Well this did not happen. I even told the guy I thought he was supposed to take the packaging and he said, "That's not my job". Oh well I finally managed to get the TV on to its stand with the help of a friend.

After spending all weekend with the TV all I have to say is WOW. The thing looked great in stores. And it looked pretty darn good out of the box. I immediately through on some Star Wars before calibrating. The image quality really popped. I could tell that it did need to be calibrated. I immediately through on Avia and calibrated my component input for my dvd player. I found it extremely difficult to calibrate Contrast and Sharpness. I had read on the AVS forum of many members with their Toshibas calibrated to Contrast levels of 70-75. This just did not look right at all on the TV. The black levels did not look at all like they did on my 27" Sony Wega. The Contrast set that high made my DVDs look very unfilm like. So I set mine down to about 35. The next setting that gave me difficult was Sharpness. I saw no difference using this test on the Avia disc. I did however notice a difference when sharpness was jacked all the way up on a paused image from a DVD. I found that it appears for both TV and DVDs the best possible picture is achieved with 0 Sharpness.

Color and Hue were both extremely easy to set on Avia. But the only thing I am noticing about this set that bothers me is that there is a slight red push that I can just not get rid of. Does anyone with this TV know what I am talking about and how to correct it? It is not severe at all but there has to be away around this. Also all Calibrating was done in Film mode for the component input.

Now enough about the setup. After all that garbage was out of the way I got to some DVD watching. First let me say EXCELLENT. This is my first purchase above 27" and I am not disappointed. I watched The Fifth Element Superbit witch really shows this TV off nicely. Shrek 2 and The Incredibles also look incredible. Shrek 2 looked almost as if the TV were a window looking into a fully 3 Dimensional world. I was extremely impressed.

I would also like to note that I have read of many people complaining about Rainbows. Well I have BARELY noticed them. I watched Raging Bull last night which is a place I'd felt I would have seen Rainbows and I saw none. I did watch some of 24 season 3 today and found that I did see a rainbow or two at first then none. I did not find this effect to be annoying and I only saw it when I looked away from the TV. But I would say make sure that you are not prone to the RBE before purchasing a DLP. I would reccomend DLP over all the current technologies out there right now. The price, size of the unit, and picture quality speak for themselves. I also found black levels on DLP to be superior to LCD but comparable to Plasma. I also found the SDE on LCDs to be extremely annoying.

Now a few final questions in closing:

1) Is there anyway for me to solve that slight red push?
2) Is my contrast set too low at 35? Many say they have it set at 70?
3) Is sharpness set accurately when I set it to 0?
4) What can ISF do to improve this TV? And who does quality work in the Rockland, Westchester area? And what is the price to have these units calibrated? I'm not looking to have it lined or anything of that nature that would void warranty.

Thanks again and I hope I helped someone who was looking into this TV.

 

[Michael TLV]

Greetings

An ISF calibration will get you a more accurate grayscale which translates into better colour accuracy. It won't fix the red pushon your set though ... A toshiba secret and they are not talking.

You will never get as good blacks on the DLP as on the 27" tube set. Nature of the beast. Digital sets at this price point have this weakness. Suggest you watch with ambient light in the room to improve the blacks.

ISF for RP set is $275 ... contact Gregg Loewen at Lion A/V through the links on this site.

Take sharpness to the point where it does not add edge halos ... but not to the point where things get too soft. Sometimes sharpness is a placebo.

I have the 44" Tosh dlp and I have my contrast at 40 ... and the unit ... as expected is properly calibrated.

You should have been at this big box store yesterday when I calibrated 4 digital RP sets all in one row ... 3 LCD and 1 DLP ... when it was done, the three LCD units all looked pretty much the same ... two sonys and one Hitachi ... while the Toshiba 52 dlp looked considerably worse ... due to the lack of sufficient service menu adjustments to really tweak out the set.

Regards