Good colour, line doubling and progressive scan enhance picture quality

Soft images, some bleeding particularly of script

I have spent the last month studiously comparing this set with the 53 inch Tantus and Hitachi HDTV Ready sets. The Toshiba is ok, but the other two are stunners. The Tantus has great color saturation and excellent definition. It is about $1000 less than the Hitachi and and a few hundred less then the Toshiba. It has a better warranty as well. Better fit and finish than the raw MDF on the back of the Toshiba. I bought the Tantus!

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Tantus 53" HDTV Ready

Good picture

Dot crawl, other artifacts

Good TV for the money, 2250.00 plus shipping from Lee's Video in Washington State....can't come close to matching value....need's to be ISF'd right off the bat though...cable TV sucks, DVD gives good picture on it.

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Picture Quality,Value,Availablity,Styling

No HDTV Box-YET

Great TV for price. My opinion was that I needed a new TV and within five years, there'll be something better than even the best $10,000 TVs today and I'll need to upgrade anyway. Why spend more than $3000 for a TV that will be upgraded? It is a beautiful picture, especially with DVD. Don't waste your money on a Prog Scan DVD player yet though. This TV doesn't look any better than a high quality Component inputted DVD player does now.

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Pioneer Elite

I purchased this set about 3 weeks ago and while I admire its performance viewing DVD's, I have been less than enthralled with its performance watching regular TV. The line doubler gives a soft quality to the NTSC image which while initially pleasing (look ma, no lines) eventually wears thin. It tends to lend a pasty quality to faces and an inability to show sharp images. In addition, there is a fair amount of "pixel crawl". I have also been unimpressed with the set's convergence. Lines at the bottom and top of the screen are wavy, particularly at the edges, both right and left. And the user adjustable convergence menu has only nine points, so it is essentially worthless.
The service mode convergence is not much better as it does not allow convergence over all the lines. Out of the box the sharpness is jacked way up, causing very poor color rendition and lending a silvery quality to everything. This can be fixed by adjusting the set using the Avia DVD, and you can eventually end up with very good color.

Finally, the whole idea of HDTV ready (which this set is) kind of bothers me, since this set has the 4:3 aspect ratio, which HDTV is not. Since the convergence and line doubler issues cannot be resolved, I have decided to return the set and get a standard analog set. Once the dust settles (and the 16:9 sets become more available and affordable) I will re-investigate the HDTV issue.

This product is amazing! The progressive scan with line/frame doubler makes it worthwhile sitting virtually any distance from the set, the scan lines are just not visible.Had a bit of a problem using Video Essentials to calibrate the TV, there's so much automation built-in, particularly anti-blooming/voltage overload cicuitry, that it is difficult to make the TV do "bad things" so the set can be calibrated.
The resolution is so high that I have seen things in the broadcast signals I never knew were there, and it makes the experience of watching a really good broadcast (78 channels where I am) a pleasure.
A word about the anti-glare/high-contrast screen protector - it works as advertised, although I am using the set in a room with total light control.
This set, like most big rear projectors, is very sensitive to convergence settings, but the 9 point user settings for convergence take care of that nicely. How can they sell this marvel for so little money??

Large viewing area, great price, gorgeous color

None

Had the TW40x81 on order. Realized this set had the
additional features of the larger than 40" widescreen models at a much lower cost than the TW series. So, for about the same money as a TW40, I got a much larger picture. Found the settings easy with the Video Essentials DVD (from Amazon.com) and 9 point convergence a snap also. (I've got a service manual coming...) DVD's look fantastic - Bug's Life color is just sensational. So I'm hooked now and an SD5109 is coming also. I think this is the best price around and I've banished raster lines forever. Alright!

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First RPTV

Great Picture, great value.

Tuner a little slow and has poor reception on a few channels.

Bought this TV 8 months ago, sight-unseen based on past experience with Toshiba products and price. First thing out of my mouth when I turned it on..."Wow!". Simply a great picture. I didn't see another T.V. within $1500 that had a picture anywhere close. I've read other reviews posted here saying the picture wasn't sharp, images where soft, complaints about the line-doubler, etc. Personally, I don't have a problem with any of those things. My picture is sharper than my 32" standard T.V. What I do have a problem with is being able to count the number of pixels on a big screen from 10 feet away, which is exactly what you can do with any other projection T.V. anywhere near the same $ ball-park. Watching DVD's on this T.V. through the component video-ins is fantastic, the color reproduction is awesome.
The only problems I have had is with reception on 3 of my cable stations, which may be just coax problem, its minor enough, that I haven't even bothered pulling the T.V. out to inspect. In contrast, the reception I get on most other stations is awesome...so I'm really not sure what's going on there.
In summary, I couldn't be much happier with what my $2109 got me, and hopefully, with it being HDTV ready, it won't be obsolete for several years to come. Value is definately 5* and I would give it 4 1/2* overall (1/2 markdown for tuner) but considering it maybe a source or connection problem, I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and go 5 there as well.

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First projection TV owned.

Its big,Nice simulated surround sound

Blurry picture even with DVD,Slow tuner,regular tv signal bad

Tried this set for a week and could not stand the blurry picture.It was even blurry with DVD player hooked up through colorstream component inputs.Had Toshiba tech out to the house to service it and he went through all the service menu stuff but picture was still blurry.Closeups of people were ok but when camera is panned back and several people are on screen the faces become blurry.The tech told me that it was the line doubler and that you either like it or you dont.I fall into the second category.I traded Toshiba for RCA MM36100 because I fell in love with the one my brother bought in Jan 2000.

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RCA MM36100

Great Picture, Good Price, HDTV Ready, Built in Line Doubler, Lots of Inputs & good remote

SLOW channel changes and Video input changes. Hard to find one in stock.

This is a Great TV, i was lucky enough to find one in stock over the internet. It was very easy to move around and it only took 2 people to carry it up 16 stairs. The picture out of the box isn't that bad and once you turn the contrast down and tweak it a little it looks great. DVD with the component input looks AWESOME!

I would recommend this set to anyone, but RPTV's in general take longer to get good picture than regular TV's...but it's worth it!

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Sony 53XBR300

Perfect picture,on screen menus super easy,hard to beat price for hdtv ready tv.And that slim border that disappears in the dark!!

None so far

Wow! Just fabulous. This is my first giant screen tv and being a perfectionist but a neophyte in electronics, I had to rely on my excellent two eyes and ears and personal research to satisfy my quest for the perfect picture! So I shopped around and looked at different models and found most tv shown in stores to be deceiving. I had to rely and trust comments found on the internet and especially on this site. Well It'a all true!
The picture is as clear if not better than my 32"tv. I have it connected to a DSS dish and I don't see any lines at all standing at 15 feet.No flicker, no lines, no shadows, the tones are rich and natural, the edges of faces real sharp, none of that black line around the edges of a face to contrast with the background. Just nice sharp ear lobes!! I love the slim mat border around the screen, it becomes invisible at night giving the impression of a real theater experience. I also found that connecting with Monster cables significantly improved the reception. That was worth the price. Also I found that the picture went from good to better to outstanding in the first 3 days. It's like the tv had to warm up or adjust itself to its new environment.With my dvd I wish I had a 61" but with dss I am glad I stayed with 55" considering I am siiting 14-15'away. I wish I could be more technical about it but what counts is what you see and trust me this a great set.I also was worried about buying a 55" tv set over the internet, not knowing who you dealt with but I must plug Adi from Electroline Wholesale electronics (1-800-449-8889) for a great after sale service. My TV was delivered to me in a terrible condition, the bottom of the box being ripped apart (the owners manual sitting on the floor of the delivery truck!!). I suspected the delivery guys dropped the tv!! I called back Adi, explained the situation and i received my new undamaged set 3 days later, no questions asked and with thousand apologies. The price of $2734 shipping included was also hard to beat.I knew he had that "rich, calm, reassuring radio dj like" voice, but that service beats any regular store around here anyway. Thanks!

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