picture quality, video features, price

could be too big for some rooms

I compared this TV to Sony's and others brands, and they seemed of similar picture quality and (based on the several reviews I read) are of similar quality. But Toshiba's were a lot cheaper. I also compared to the Toshiba 42H81, which I liked too, but I couldn't find it for a cheaper price, so I figured that bigger is better (I have quite a large living room, see below if you do not).

This TV is big! I bought it at Sam's club, which does not offer shipping. It is nicely boxed, except that the box is one inch too big to fit in the rear doors of a standard van or in the rear door of a Chevy suburban! I rented a moving truck with a rear truck elevator which, in hindsight, would have been a good idea even if I could have fit it in our suburban, because the truck elevator eliminates the need to lift the box more than one inch off the ground.

Another byproduct of its large size is that, especially with standard television signals (such as most of those from direct TV or from cable TV), signal flaws are too obvious if you say to close to the TV. A salesman advised me that viewers of a 50 inch TV would prefer to sit at least 12 feet away, and viewers of a 42 inch would prefer to sit at least eight feet away, and my experience with the 50 inch suggests that his advice was pretty accurate. I was also pleasantly surprised that the satellite TV signals shown on the display models I saw at Sam's club and best buy appeared very similar in quality to the direct TV signals as I see them on this TV in my house (they could have been showing DVD's which would have showed off the display model quite a bit more, see below).

This TV is easy to view from side angles, but the picture appears darker from vertical angles (e.g., when a standard to view the TV from 10 or 15 feet away; I am a little over six feet tall). If you plan to view the TV while sitting or lying on a couch, chair, or even on the floor, the stand provided is the optimal height. But if you will do much viewing while standing closer than 20 feet, I would follow another reviewer's suggestion to place the TV and its stand about six or eight inches off the floor.

I mainly watch direct TV, which offers three methods of connecting to a television set (supposedly in increasing order of quality according to the various manufacturers): (1) modulating the signal onto a cable TV channel, (2) RCA type cables, (3) or S-video cables. I worried a lot about how to do the best wiring in my house, but it turned out not to matter. The difference among these three is trivial compared to how much the signal from a DVD player betters even the best signal from direct TV, and to how much the direct TV signal betters (analog) cable TV signals.

The pictures from DVD movies (I've watched "Pearl Harbor" and "the score" so far) are stunning -- like photographs. The pictures from direct TV or cable TV are good although, if it were not for the special video and audio features of this TV, I would only slightly prefer watching those signals on this TV versus my old 27 inch Mitsubishi. I mainly watch sports and, thanks to larger and sharper images, I have noticed some interesting things in the backgrounds of some of the football stadiums, and that a number of the NFL coaches have crooked teeth. The added benefits of this TV for watching direct TV sports is the better sound and the various viewing modes. Many of the sports broadcasts have added so much stuff to the top and bottom of their (4:3) picture, thanks to prefer to watch those broadcasts in widescreen mode with the top and bottom of the 4:3 picture chopped off. And viewing two games in the pop mode (essentially, 2 25 inch TVs side-by-side) is beautiful (in this mode, another flaws of standard density signals are visible). For these reasons, and the already evident trend of TV shows being broadcast in widescreen format (although no sporting events that I have yet seen), it seems to me that a widescreen is the only way to go to enjoy the best features of this TV.

I have had no troubles with this TV, with one minor exception. At one point, I had trouble with closed captions appearing when I did not want them, even though (I think) I was following the instructions for turning the captions off. I worked around this by setting the closed captioning to cc channel 4, which had no closed captions so none were displayed).

has a nice picture when its not going on and off buy itself.

This tv goes off by itself and won't let you turn it back on with remote or by pushing the power button on tv until it feels like going back on itself. Sounds crazy but true. Toshiba I call a dozen times and they are completly useless and of no help. I have checked and I am not the only one experiencing this problem with these sets. They need to recall all these sets and I guess this wont happen until they get their ass sued.

This review is for the Toshiba 50HX81 rear projection tv.
Do not buy this tv or you will be sorry. bought one two weeks ago and right away is started shutting off and on by itself. After having tv for 5 days the store I purchased in replaced with another because I had a lemon. Guess what the replaced tv does exactly same thing. These tv's have an intermittence problem.

has a nice picture when its not going on and off buy itself.

This tv goes off by itself and won't let you turn it back on with remote or by pushing the power button on tv untill it feels like going back on itself. Sounds crazy but true. Toshiba I call a dozen times and they are completly useless and of no help. I have checked and I am not the only one experiencing this problem with these sets. They need to recall all these sets and I guess this wont happen until they get their ass sued.

This review is for the Toshiba 50HX81 rear projection tv.
Do not buy this tv or you will be sorry. bought one two weeks ago and right away is started shutting on and off buy itself. After having tv for 5 days the store I purchased in replaced with another because I had a lemon. Guess what the replaced tv does exactly same thing. These tv's have an intermittence problem.