Excellent picture quality, even with cable. Interlaced DVD is beautiful. Tuns of feauures. Very heavy, even for two large men.

One of the more expensive 36 inch TVs.

The weight is usually a pretty good indication of the quality of the set. It tells you that the set has a large power transformer and good quality shielding. This TV is HEAVY.
This set had the best picture in the store. I paid almost retail but it can probably be bought for $1600 if you shop around. It has an outstanding picture, bright and clear. You can save money by not buying an expensive progressive DVD player to get a great picture, 480 interlaced DVD looks very impressive. If you can afford it and love to watch movies and broadcast TV, I highly recommend this set.

I haven't tried the 15 pin monitor inputs with my PC. That's a cool feature but 800x600 is max resolution so I don't expect much. I didn't buy it for this anyway.

The first set they delivered had a damaged case and the picture was bad. The box it came in however didn't have a dent so I'm sure it was dropped and damaged before it was placed in the box. It was no problem getting it replaced. I just wish people wouldn’t use us consumers to hide their mistakes.

I am happy with this TV every time I turn it on.

I also have a Mitsubishi 73 inch TV that will require a progressive DVD player to optain the same quality picture. I'll know the answer to that for sure when I receive the Panasonic H1000 DVD player :). And that's all I intend to use the mits for, movies.

BEAUTIFUL pictures from a good source, loads of connections, HD capable, stock speaks actually sound pretty good though I don't use them

Expensive

This is an excellent direct-view digital television. I got mine from a local best buy when they were running the promotion which included the HD set-top box and elliptical dish. Provided you have a good source, the picture you get is sensational. My cable looks like crap but it's certainly not the fault of the tv. I watch direct tv through s-video(beautiful) and direct tv HD programming via the HD set-top box through the VGA input(truly amazing). The only HD programs I can get through Direct TV are HBO HD and the demo loop and I've watched the demo loop many times over just to see the picture. I can't wait for more HD programming! DVDs through the component hook up is amazing as well. As someone mentioned earlier, my set appeared to have near perfect calibration from the manufacurer as well. The tweaks I made with Video Essentials had no real validity to them. The set is expensive but any tv of this caliber with similar abilities is. I wanted a somewhat big picture but didn't want a huge, clunky projection tv taking up so much space in the living room so this fit my needs perfectly. If you are in the market for this kind of experience, you can't go wrong with this set.

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none

Could someone please post a serious review and let people know the ups AND downs of this unit?

This forum seems to be a place where many people go to reaffirm their decisions. Five stars means the product is perfect. Do you people mean to say that this unit is perfect in every way? No wonder Clinton got elected twice. Is there anyone out there that can think for themselves?

I know there are a certain number of buyers that will look for affirmation, and I try to discount there optimism. They're the one's who write glowing reviews 30 minutes after they plug their units in. You see them when you go shopping, they're the ones with a little too much knowledge for the general public. Fine, but it seems like this forum was intended as a place to get CRITICAL information from actual users. No one wants to judge you if you could have made a better decision, we would like to learn from what you've been through. If we all use this forum as such, then its going to help everyone make informed decisions. I know every product has good points, but we can read all this glowing review stuff from an advertisement.

Specifically, I like the idea of having a large (not extra-large) future-ready television that can double as an adequate computer montior.

How does this TV perform when using DVD, DVD Progressive Scan, VCR tapes, normal TV antena, Cable, and HDTV reception?

What features should this TV have for its price range?

I noticed in the store, that you can't adjust the color levels other than to the preset warm, normal, etc. and that this TV had a greener tint to it than the Sony Tube HDTV sitting right next to it. Would you like to adjust that color level to your taste? Do you need to?

I don't know all the terminology, but the picture in the store was distorted (vertically stretched). The salesman said he had compensated for that distorion as much as the TV would allow, but the Moon in the HDTV feed was not round at all. Were you guys able to correct this? If so, how?

When you run the computer through this monitor, how fast or slow is it to respond to games? Does the resolution work well enough to acutally use this product as a computer monitor? I have a GeForce DDR card with S-Video out on my computer to drive this unit, what are your experiences?

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None, just been shopping and get conflicting information. So I came here to get some feedback from actual owners.

Picture Quality

No internal line double, component imputs are not progresssive scan

I've owned this television for half a year now, and while I believe it to be a very solid television, I'd personally stay away from it and go with something else, such as the Hitachi 36sdx88b. There are a number of unforgivable faults with this set such as the lack of an internal line doubler, and the fact that the component imputs will not accept progressive scan signals. (I find this to be rather ridiculous considering that the television his really a large computer monitor and fundamentally a progressive scan monitor.) Don't be deceived by sites that claim this TV can accept signals from a progressive scan DVD player, it can't. While the set has enough inputs in the back for everybody and their sister, many of them are pretty useless. Seriously, who is going to drop two grand on a TV set and then hook up a DVD player through composite inputs, or hook speakers to the back of their TV rather than to a receiver? If you ask me, RCA should have dropped all the usless imputs on the back of the TV and put more effort into making the component imputs progressive scan compatible. Having said all of this, there is no denying that this set presents a very nice picture and looks fantastic with Dreamcast hooked up to it with the VGA box. However, you can get all of this a more for about the same price with the superior Hitachi 36sdx88b. (If I could do it all over again I would have gone with the Hitachi.) However, the Hitachi isn't sold at very many places and may be very hard to find. (At least RCA has the presence of mind to make their television relatively easy for consumers to purchase.)

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Hitachi 36sdx88b

Picture Quality

No internal line double, component imputs are not progresssive scan

I've owned this television for half a year now, and while I believe it to be a very solid television, I'd personally stay away from it and go with something else, such as the Hitachi 36sdx88b. There are a number of unforgivable faults with this set such as the lack of an internal line doubler, and the fact that the component imputs will not accept progressive scan signals. (I find this to be rather ridiculous considering that the television his really a large computer monitor and fundamentally a progressive scan monitor.) Don't be deceived by sites that claim this TV can accept signals from a progressive scan DVD player, it can't. While the set has enough inputs in the back for everybody and their sister, many of them are pretty useless. Seriously, who is going to drop two grand on a TV set and then hook up a DVD player through composite inputs, or hook speakers to the back of their TV rather than to a receiver? If you ask me, RCA should have dropped all the usless imputs on the back of the TV and put more effort into making the component imputs progressive scan compatible. Having said all of this, there is no denying that this set presents a very nice picture and looks fantastic with Dreamcast hooked up to it with the VGA box. However, you can get all of this a more for about the same price with the superior Hitachi 36sdx88b. (If I could do it all over again I would have gone with the Hitachi.) However, the Hitachi isn't sold at very many places and may be very hard to find. (At least RCA has the presence of mind to make their television relatively easy for consumers to purchase.)

Similar Products Used:

Hitachi 36sdx88b