In DLP, Thomson said it would offer two RCA Scenium models based on TI's HD-2 'Mustang' high-definition DLP chips with 1280 by 720p resolution. Both include integrated ATSC tuners with QAM cable demodulation capability, built-in Web browsers, advanced picture and sound performance, DVI-HDCP digital input for uncompressed signals and a pair of two-way IEEE-1394 digital interfaces for compressed signals.

The DLP models include the 50W-inch 16:9 HDLP50W151 ($3,999 suggested retail, shipping in August), which was previously unveiled at January's CES, and the new 61W-inch 16:9 HDLP61W151 ($4,499, shipping in October), which Thomson bills as the industry's largest DLP rear projection set

The suggested retail prices suggest the prices of DLP's should be dropping.

http://www.twice.com/index.asp?layout=story_stocks&articleid=CA303928&display=sectionStory&verticalid=320&industry=News&pubdate=06/09/2003&STT=000&industryid=%industryid%

How will this match up to Sammy HLN617? Would you wait before you buy the Sammy? Thanks, Mikesan1

Based upon the RCA previous reliability track record I would rather have a Sammy.

It has so many more features than the 50" Sammy at the same price point that the Sammy virtually costs twice as much. It has an embedded ATSC/unencrypted-QAM tuner, 1394 connections with a Mitsubishi-NetCommand-like ability to control devices with standard interfaces, as well as DVI; it has Gemstar's Guide Plus. They are coming out with an 80 GB HD PVR which list for $450 (w/o tuner) which can be controlled by this set and programmed via it's builtin Guide, which is not based on poorly supported PSIP. It even has an RJ45 jack with an embedded web browser--a bell and a whistle, but potentially handy for quickly looking up things without having to run upstair to my office.

You have more than anecdotal evidence of the relative reliability of RCA versus Samsung?

-- Mike Scott

Consumer Reports consistently rates RCA as being one of the worst brands of television for reliability.

Ever since Thomson (a French Company) bought RCA and GE brands of electronics from GE corporation about twelve years ago the quality has been quite bad. My friend had an RCA TV that had a faulty power supply - it went back for service so many times that finally Circuit City (he had a performance warranty) gave him a new set. I have read many similar stories and confirmed it with the ratings in Consumer Reports. It appears Thomson in the past has cut corners to be competitive. Hopefully this is not the case with their new products, but I would not buy an RCA or GE television until I see a turnaround in the frequency of repair ratings in Consumer Reports.

I don't get Consumer Reports magazine, but subscribe to their online service (which I may stop doing). They're coverage of televisions is extremely poor. Of HDTVs, they rated a Zenith model best, and commented that it's HD performance wasn't as good as some of the others. Help me.

I found a graph from a March 2003 review of HD RPTVs of reliability, and they only showed results for four brands, not including either Samsung, RCA or Panasonic (they were Hitachi, Mitsubishi, Sony and Toshiba; Hitachis and Mitsubishis were greatly in the lead, with Hitachi edging Mitsubishi out, and Toshiba far in the rear).

I've read many of their reviews and as far as I'm concerned their opinion of electronics is useless. The review criteria are bizarre. It's almost they don't use these things. Also, they rarely have many peices of high- or near-high-end equipment in their reviews.

(There are some things I do respect their opinions of--among them, appliances, automobiles and automotive equipment).

Anything less plebeian?

It's not reliability testing, but their high-end sets have been well reviewed on features and performance. I've read very favorable reviews of a 50" XWX Scenium (same feature-set) in both Home Theater and Sound and Vision.

-- Mike Scott

The reliability rating are from subscribers responding to the annual survey. I have read in newsgroups horror stories about some of their sets, based upon a faulty design. It is quite possible they produce an excellent RPTV, but for an investment of this size I would not take the chance. Especially since this is new technology to them and they may need to work out the bugs.

Yeah, I know that CU's reliabity ratings are from user reports, which I think are probably quite accurate. I just can't find any in their online database for RCA (or Pioneer, or Panasonic, or Samsung, etc).

I hate to harp on this, but can someone, with a stack of the past few years woth of paper CU HD RPTV reviews tell me where RCA ranked in reliability? Not from memory--looking at the charts. I'm very interested in this product and I'd really like to know.

Another approach would be to plan on getting the extended service plan and not worry so much about the reliability. Not a bad idea for a purchase this large in any case.

Does anyone know the dimensions of this set? In particular, will it be tabletop and will the speakers be on the sides or bottom?

Michael, I did a search on Google newsgroups for the words "RCA RPTV PROBLEMS" from January 1 2000 to the present it found 226 hits. I did not have time to read them but it is safe to assume RCA has its share of problems. I suggest you read the results for the types and severity and judge if you think RCA is just as good as the other RPTVs. The following quote from one newsgroup may help you.

To be honest, I have not seen a single Thomson chassis for years that when it first came out was not plagued with engineering defects that had to be fixed with service bulletin after bulletin.

1993 Thomson introduces ctc175,176,177 series of chassis with on board tuner. They deny to servicers that the tuner grounds are a real problem for almost 1 year after reports start flowing in as every one is failing within 1.5 years. They later admit to knowingly selling a "inferior" reliability product and do cover almost all repair costs up until about 1999. Problem persisted through several "engineering" and "manufacturing" fixes through the life of the chassis. Latest ctc187 series chassis from 1997 are just now having a few solder connection problems.

1993/94 they came out with the infamous ctc170/ptk171 chassis which had so many problems they quickly dropped production. This was an exclusive Proscan chassis. Currently the BMOSD module is failing in mass and is on backorder an average of 18 months. They are offering about a 1/5th prorated amount if you call them, even on a really old tv set.

1997 They introduce the ctc195/197 series of chassis. Initial production units are plagued with bad flybacks. Bad software in the micro. Multiple "fixes" for engineering defects are issued on service bulletins. Most sets made before July 1998 must at least 5 of these service bulletins performed if they come in for service. Same year ctc185, super el-cheapo chassis design. Has power supply mod kit, early power supplies would self destruct at random, very expensive to repair on a now $149 19" tv set. Early units also had a very high flyback failure problem. Seems Thomson bought these off the same vendor as the early ctc195/197 chassis. While the flyback failure is not a good thing, at least the cost was around $45 for the part as most Sony flybacks are $130.

Current ctc195/197/203 chassis has a software bug in the tv-guide plus module which when it receives a certain code, locks out the audio until it is unplugged. No fix is planned as it only happens a couple of times a month at worst. They also are having a glue problem with the glue they are using on all the surface mount components (hundreds) where especially in humid environments the glue becomes conductive usually causing all kinds off oddball intermittent failures. Most of these cannot be repaired as they are too intermittent.

Thomson/GE/RCA/Proscan are these any worse than almost everything else? Probably not as several other manufactures for several years have had some really serious engineering oversights and manufacturing problems. Thomson does have on average the lowest priced repair parts, except for picture tube prices which runs about 1.5 times what you paid for the tv set new. Thomson does have one of the easiest to pull in RPTV units as the light box comes out and can be taken out of the tv set, making for an on average lower labor repair cost. Thomson does REQUIRE the use of a special computer interface in order to do almost every adjustment on all new chassis lines, making the service menu pretty well worthless as it is just a pass code to hook up the interface.

With the exception of the sound lockout problem and the chance of having a "lemon" intermittent failure that really is not repairable due to the excessive time between intermittent failures. They are not the worst tv you could buy.

It is likely that the picture blanking out problem will be resolved, typically 6 to 8 months for them to find the cause and issue a fix. But this is not going to help you right now.

I don't see much information about the dimensions, except that it's 16" deep and weighs less than 100 lbs. I believe that it is a table-top, given the picture on the right side of this (http://www.thomson.net/gb/06/c03/030522.htm) page. (It's got the DLP logo on the front on it, so I assume that its this set).

What drives my interest in this monitor is that it has 1394 connections and the capability to control and feed video to RCA's upcoming inexpensive (because it has no internal tuner) PVR and probably other AV/C compliant devices. From the manual for the current integrated Scenium sets:DTVLink® (Digital Television Link) Connectors

DTVLink is a compressed digital video input offering an IEEE-1394 type video connection from consumer devices such as satellite receivers, cable receivers, and digital recorders that meet the CEA specifications for DTVLink. DTVLink is better known to some as 1394 or FireWire for digital televisions. If your 1394 device has the DTVLink logo on it, it should work with this TV. Audio and video information is carried on a single wire. You can use either or both connectors to link your devices.

Since I want a DLP set, and I want 1394 A/V connectivity, this would seem to be my only choice at present. Samsung doesn't fit the bill, Mitsubishi doesn't seem interested in fielding a reasonably priced (or even reasonably sized) integrated DLP and it looks like Hitachi dropped 1394 from their offerings this year.

PaulGo --

I did a Google newsgroup search for the exact phrase "rca rptv" and got only 55 hits. There are no hits on the exact phrase "rca rptv problems" or "rca rptv problem". The shotgun search that you did was nearly meaningless--it matches all posts that contain all of the terms "rca", "rptv" and "problems", in any order. In many of these, the RCA device in question isn't the RPTV being referred to. In 21 of them, the word "problem" is preceded by the word "no" or "without" (search "rca rptv no-problems"). A search for "rca-rptv problem" (no quotes--means exact phrase "rca rptv" and the word "problem" in any order) turns up 15 matches and "rca-rptv problems" turns up an additional 4--these are quite probably reports of problems with RCA RPTVs.

Just for kicks, I did a search of "mitsubishi-rptv problem" and "mitsubishi-rptv problems" and got 55 and 39 hits, respectively. That's 94 altogether, 75 more than the equivalent search phrases with "rca-rptv". Thus for the Consumer Union's reliability leader. (Your search--"mitsubishi rptv problems"--turned up 329 hits). To Samsung's credit, my more specific searches turned up only 5 hits; Sony got 310; Pioneer, 124; Toshiba, 370 and Panasonic, 43.

I didn't have time to read them all, but I think it's safe to assume that pretty much every manufacturer has its share of problems ;).

If we're going to judge by newgroup chatter having a much higher probability of being discussions of problems with various RPTVs, RCA's not doing too badly compared to most other brands. Only Samsung seems is beating them, by this crude metric. But then, just how long has Samsung been a serious contender in the US RPTV market? As I recall, no more than 5 years ago, they were pretty de classe.

-- Mike Scott

Originally posted by PaulGo
.

......which Thomson bills as the industry's largest DLP rear projection set


http://www.twice.com/index.asp?layout=story&doc_id=119831&display=breakingNews

The Mits WD-65100 & 65000 are 65" DLP's.

The replacement TV that Mits gave me (WD-65100 with reported new light box design) is stunning, if pricey. I have not seen a rainbow yet :)

Thanx,

Joe

"RCA RPTV PROBLEMS" 315 HITS

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=RCA+RPTV+PROBLEMS

go to the direct view forum and do a search for rca,just about every 38310 model has a problem and needs to go to the shop for service

Jordan

"MITSUBISHI RPTV PROBLEMS" 267 hits;

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=mitsubishi+rptv+problems

"PIONEER RPTV PROBLEMS" 417 hits;

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=pioneer+rptv+problems

"TOSHIBA RPTV PROBLEMS" 490 hits (!);

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=toshiba+rptv+problems

"SONY RPTV PROBLEMS" 642 hits (!!).

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=sony+rptv+problems

Please--make a valid point or save it. And I don't much care about a direct-view set released 3 or 4 years ago. It was, after all, one of the first direct-view HDTVs ever made. The quality of one product from years back hardly predicts quality of upcoming ones. (If it did, all companies who screw up a single product might as well hang it up).

-- Mike Scott

I just did a search with Samsung + HDTV + problems and got 11,300 hits. The only problem is that only one of the first ten hits had anything to do with HDTV problems. Most of the ten first hits were for STB's and Internet retailers.

The one hit was a retailer who offers their customers a chance to review their purchases. The item was a Samsung HCM4215WX 42" HDTV-Ready Projection TV. One person loved the set and three others had total failure with strange smells of burning electronics.

This kind of search doesn't prove anything to me. I'm going to rely on a good dealer, the lemon law and voodoo. I'll take a pass on volunteering to do "beta" work for RCA.

My point was not to reach a judgment about Thomson (RCA) but to give Michael enough information to reach his own conclusion. I think the article I quoted speaks for itself in terms of RCA reliability. The conclusion I reached is I currently would not buy an RCA product since it appears they do not do enough quality testing before they release a product. But its your money take your choice. I found given the same set of facts people can reach different conclusions.

Please, Paul--lets restrict our discussion to the incident of problems found in their high-end RPTVs. No one has harped on those--just relatively old direct-views. The R&D for these product groups is almost certainly done by different divisions within the company. (For instance, I don't think that Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America makes Mitsubishi's direct-views).

It hasn't been proven to me that RCA high-end RPTVs are particularly worse than most other manufacturers'. I'll take what you've said into consideration, but the feature set of their high-end sets is uniquely rich, and they've been well reviewed (on performance, at least) by sources that I trust (Home Theater, Sound & Vision).

It's four or five months before I'll be seriously looking to buy. Who knows whether they'll even get this product to market on time? Who knows what other companies may come up with in the meantime? (For instance, it's unclear what features may or may not be in that 50" Panasonic LCD RPTV).

-- Mike Scott

Mike your correct in stating a case has not been made against specifically RCA RPTV's. I have nothing against RCA, in fact I almost bought the 38" RCA HDTV tube set. However I saw that about half the time I was looking at the set in Best Buy over a period of six months it was not working because it needed repairs. To me this indicated a lack of quality and before I buy another RCA product I would want to see some positive feedback from other users. RCA produced a LCOS TV (about a thousand units) but abandoned it. Panasonic may be stopping production on their DLP. Samsung had problems with their HLM model DLPs. I just would be hesitant buying a new product from a company like RCA until they worked out the bugs.

Originally posted by PaulGo

I just would be hesitant buying a new product from a company like RCA until they worked out the bugs.

I "try" not to buy a new product from "any company" until they have worked out the bugs.

I have a "like-new" Syquest One Gig drive with ten cartridges as my personal albatross. While still under it's one year warranty the drive was replaced two times. Syquest couldn't get the drives to work in the field and went bankrupt while I still had six months left on the warranty. Their competition bought them for pennies just to kill the technology.

I probably could have recovered some of my investment by selling it on E-Bay. I didn't, so now I'm thinking of having it bronzed and incorporated into my tomb stone. I keep it where I can always see it when ever I get ready to jump into the latest or greatest pond.

After all, it was the "best available on paper" at the time -- before CD-R took off.

An RCA press release on their DLP line.

http://www.rca.com/content/viewdetail/1,2811,EI700489-CI258,00.html

I'm glad Thomspson and SVA and others are pushing Sammy with new DLP models - this can only help all of us. And I've had RCA AV products (TV and VCR) in the past that were fine, but that was pre Thompson.

Here's what gives me pause (and I agree that google hit #s don't mean much here): Having followed the ill fated Thompson/RCA 38" Scenium direct view model for a bit - which was the first to tempt me into HDTV, I am not encouraged by the level of committment to product. That one was clearly rolled out with some problems and despite universal appeal to many based on the general characteristics (a good direct view size, great price point etc - see John Dvoraks HDTV column forum where he was ready to bite on that model), they pulled the model from the market. No one since has offered a direct view 38" widescreen HDTV. If they had a really good product there at that price point, they would be selling like hotcakes today.

I note the Sammy DLP's are beginning to sell big time (DVDOC on EBay has sold out the June allotment and is now taking orders on mid July deliveries). By comparison, the Thomspon unit's features, price, and gamma performance sound too good to be true. And of course, Thompson is introducing new models in just about every HDTV technology. That's a lot to keep track of. But with the features and price, a lot of people will probably buy them, and then we shall see, but I'm betting - like the 38" direct view - they are too good to be true. If you can wait, you may get a better deal from RCA or Sammy - if not, be wary of a brand new Scenium.

Why no sets in the 42-46 inch range? All the other manufacturers offer something in that range, wonder why RCA isn't yet.

There were tons of problems -- here alone -- with the Samsung DLPs initially. In most cases, they made them right. I would be very hesitant to extrapolate from Thomson's relatively bad record with CRTs to assume their DLPs will be problematic. They might be, but they might not be. Perhaps the late entry was to ensure clean product? Let's wait and see.

As for why there are no small ones, it's because they are less profitable. The engines are essentially the same from 40" to 60" and yet you can add thousands of dollars in retail to the latter vs. the former. Samsung has that 43" model for quite some time now. If RCA is successful, they might follow suit. But perhaps they'll wait until the DMD and chipset are lower in price.

Mark

Bummer. Samsung has both the 43 and 46 inch models, but is missing a few key features (like a tuner).

I'll still be very interested to see the RCA's when they come out to see what the PQ is like. If they have strong PQ and don't run into a ton of problems then this ought to push Samsung and the others to add tuners, firewire, etc sooner rather than later.

On a related note I was also disappointed that Sony seems to be leaving the HD tuners out of their smaller GW3's -- only putting them in the 60 and 70's.

Everyone is working "big down" on the tuners. It has to do with the FCC mandate after all. You will eventually see tuners on all these sets, it's just going to take a few years.

Mark

What confuses me is that a few of the manufacturers seem to be adding the tuners to their CRT rear projection sets before their DLP/LCOS/LCD sets.

In the plasma realm, seems like the EDTV sets will have them before the HDTV sets.

You would think the more expensive sets would get them first.

I think ATSC tuners are coming to the HD sets in plasma first, not the ED sets.

Rogo, I think your points support the notion that one should be careful of any manufacturer's first effort at a new technology. Samsung is transitioning to a second/third generation of DLP, while this is RCA/Thompsons' first cut. Actually, I hope it is fabulous. But Samsung is clearly committed to moving forward on DLP and has the resources to do it, I would still like to see evidence that RCA will stick with it and fix problems that may arise - the CRT track record doesn't prove they won't, but it is not a good sign either.

On the issue of built in tuners, I note one of the web sellers now has advertised yet another new 61" Samsung DLP up (third or fourth quarter 2003) that has a built in tuner. But the retailer's price looks like more than the sum of an HLN 61 inch model plus a 160 or 165 STB. That doesn't sound like a great marketing ploy. I wonder if there's anything else there.

You cannot judge, jbach, the likely experience of a 2nd manufacturer by that of the first. For RCA, they benefit from the trouble of all those that have gone before. Or they botch the whole thing entirely. We really can't know until the set ships and people buy it. I'm not optimistic or pessimistic, just fair.

And, yes, the 61" DLP is coming with a tuner and it's relatively expensive. But in a year, the "tuner premium" will shrink a lot and in 3 years, the ATSC tuner vs. NTSC tuner gap will be miniscule or zero.

Mark

Originally posted by Jbach
I would still like to see evidence that RCA will stick with it and fix problems that may arise - the CRT track record doesn't prove they won't, but it is not a good sign either.


RCA did stop selling the 38310 but I don't think it was completely based on some of the early problems with the set. They built a relatively high end CRT with a curved screen just as the entire CRT industry was moving to Wega-like flat CRT's. Rather than fight the trend they overhauled their CRT line to focus on flat CRT's.

It looks like another company is joining the DLP bandwagon. In this weeks PC Week (6/30/03) they interviewed Ted Waitt CEO of Gateway - he stated that Gateway will be moving more into consumer electronics and they are working with TO to produce a DLP television.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1096647,00.asp

Gateway primarily rebrands consumer electronics products - which one is the interesting question.

I bet that Infocus light engine is going to be sweet! Much better than some other brands out there.

RCA also has a 3 panel LCos that doesn't seem to be getting much attention either

Gadget Freak: "RCA did stop selling the 38310 but I don't think it was completely based on some of the early problems with the set. They built a relatively high end CRT with a curved screen just as the entire CRT industry was moving to Wega-like flat CRT's. Rather than fight the trend they overhauled their CRT line to focus on flat CRT's."

Thanks GF. That may explain why no one, including RCA, has tried to go back to the 38" sweet spot - It may be a tough to do for reasonable cost in a direct view wide flat screen - I don't know. Still, I'd like to see the numbers on how that set was selling before being pulled. I wasn't all that put off by the curves given HD and the price, but I did hear about some problems, and when it became a white elephant, I stopped considering it.

Originally posted by Jbach
Gadget Freak: "RCA did stop selling the 38310 but I don't think it was completely based on some of the early problems with the set. They built a relatively high end CRT with a curved screen just as the entire CRT industry was moving to Wega-like flat CRT's. Rather than fight the trend they overhauled their CRT line to focus on flat CRT's."

Thanks GF. That may explain why no one, including RCA, has tried to go back to the 38" sweet spot - It may be a tough to do for reasonable cost in a direct view wide flat screen - I don't know. Still, I'd like to see the numbers on how that set was selling before being pulled. I wasn't all that put off by the curves given HD and the price, but I did hear about some problems, and when it became a white elephant, I stopped considering it.

I'm not sure how many they sold, but it went down as plasma and DLP started to come down in price. I think people look at CRT up until 36" and then they start looking at other technologies. That 38" CRT is a BEAST. I bought one even though I knew some were having problems. I got it pretty cheap and viewed it as a holdover until plasma or DLP came down in price and had the features I was looking for. I do NOT like changing equipment since it is a PITA to move it.

The comments about the industry moving toward flat screens came from an RCA rep. He acknowledged that many people walk into a Circuit City and go for the flat screen coolness factor. It is exacerbated by the fact that few stores have the sets set up properly so a lot of people buy more on aesthetics than picture quality.

Barrybud said:
<<,RCA also has a 3 panel LCos that doesn't seem to be getting much attention either>>

No they don't. They abandoned that product almost immediately upon shipping it.

-------

As for Gateway, I suspect TI will essentially do the R&D for their TV.

This post from a separate thread seems relevant to the discussion here. RCA/Thompson may have some aggressive pricing on DLP's coming out soon, but can it last, and more importantly, will THEY last? Maybe get 'em while they're hot.


GreyGhost00
Member

Registered: May 2003
Location: Northern Va. / DC
Posts: 62
CRT tube woes for RCA
Thomson (RCA) says they're closing two US tube plants, in advance of eventually moving operations to China.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/yho...11378A340D64%7D

An interesting quote from the story:

"Citigroup downgraded the stock to in-line, telling clients it expected that over time Thomson would have to exit or merge its home video/audio, TV components and broadband access businesses with Asian partners "in order to sustain profitability."

For some reason that link about Thomson didn't work but I traced the article down. This link works (for now)


http://www.marketwatch.com/news/yhoo/story.asp?guid=%7BB159BBAA-AC0E-4DC1-812F-11378A340D64%7D


It seems Philips stock is also having problems.

Samsung is killing everyone in the CE business.

Originally posted by rogo
You cannot judge, jbach, the likely experience of a 2nd manufacturer by that of the first. For RCA, they benefit from the trouble of all those that have gone before. Or they botch the whole thing entirely. We really can't know until the set ships and people buy it. I'm not optimistic or pessimistic, just fair.



I agree, you can bet RCA has been ripping apart samsung's dlps for the last year or more. They will be able to learn by samsung's mistakes. Also, I think dlp components are being made by another company with more experience in DLP. Regardless, more competitition will bring down the prices of these sets. Samsung cannot reasonably sell the same size dlp set without an hdtv tuner for the same price as RCA's set with a tuner. I am hoping Samsung's prices will go down once the RCAs are released.

Right now samsung basically has a monopoly on affordable rptv dlps. RCA's unit can be seen as a substitute good that is reasonably similar. With this competition prices are sure to drop. Also, prices are high because demand for these sets is so high. Once production catches up with demand the increased number of units on the market will force a price decrease to erode excess inventories.

I am waiting until RCA releases their dlp before I buy any dlp set. Any added competition is sure to bode well for me although badly for Samsung.

Originally posted by Akkula
I am waiting until RCA releases their dlp before I buy any dlp set. Any added competition is sure to bode well for me although badly for Samsung.
I'm taking the same approach. I'd really like to be have digital interconnects for both DVD and OTA HD. The RCA meets that requirement by having the tuner built-in. And rumor is that next year's Samsung models will have dual DVI connections. Not to mention the price break that comes from competition.
IIRC, RCA is buying the light engine for their sets from InFocus.

I just hope they fix little annoying design flaws that the samsung dlps have. Not being able to watch side by side POP when certain hi-def inputs is annoying as well as not supporting 480i to 1080i on some of their inputs (one only supports 480p to 1080i) This is a problem if you want to play xbox hi-def games and lower definition games. While these little annoyances are not deal breakers, rca would have a definate advantage if they fixed these issues with their dlp.

TV Authority is now advertising the RCA Scenium HDLP50W151 50" DLP as part of their DLP sets for sale. TV Authority does't show a price yet but the list price is $3999 and another dealer (from a Yahoo search) has it for sale for more than $1000 under list.

It appears Thomson (RCA) sales are declining.

"Thomson SA is in "active discussions" with Chinese investors that could lead to a merger with the French media giant's television unit, which includes its Americas headquarters in Carmel.

Thomson's worldwide TV market share has fallen to around seventh place from as high as No. 2 since a flood of inexpensive televisions entered stores two years ago when China was admitted to the World Trade Organization."

Complete article can be found at:

http://www.indystar.com/print/articles/8/065371-1918-105.html

and here is another interesting article about the downsizing of their US facilities.

http://www.indystar.com/print/articles/1/063521-5771-031.html

The best things about this TV may be that TI builds the DMD and Infocus is building the light engine. Those are the 2 main components and RCA dose not have a chance to screw them up. They are building the tuner but they actually seem to be pretty good at that.

On a side note consumer reports reliability ratings are some of the most inaccurate imaginable. Their ratings are done by reports from their readers. Naturally their readers buy what they recommend then a few years later the TV company gets killed because the people reporting the problems happen to own their TV's in a much greater percentage than other sets and therefor report more problems.

I worked at CC for about three years, you can't imagine how hard it is to get a person to understand that a $2500 36" zenith with an HD tuner built in is a ticking time bomb when their beloved consumer reports tells them it is the best.

i don't think you understand the percntage "Consumer Reports" uses for reliability-it is the proportion of those who own the item that report a problem in their mail survey. The only problem with the survey would relate to the kind of person that responds to such a survey (and the fact that the person is a subscriber), not the proportion of the magazine's subscribers who own such.

A REAL survey (or one that I'd pay attention to) would involve the service technicians who do repairs on multiple brands. I think these folks are best equipped to tell you who's making quality and who's pushing out high failure crap. I did my own small survey before rptv purchasing by calling about 10 repair centers and getting opinions from technicians. This doesn't give any idea about PQ ....different research from different source is required for that(isf guys who'll be honest...most will in private email where no toes are stepped on) AND any data you get is unscientific and purely anecdotal but you can spot trends pretty easily after the 3rd or 4th conversation. Plus it's cheaper than an extended warranty.

I'd certainly pay attention when one brand kept being mentioned. As you get to the higher end stuff it's not as valid tho. Samsung is a good example as they have made some low end junk in the past and now are settling into the high end with some very ground breaking components. Another example is hitachi....I bought a 28" monitor from them 15 years ago and it still looks fabulous...then bought a 36" 5 years ago and after 3 exchanges due to uncorrectable purity problems , got a refund and bought a Sony 35xbr48. Based on loving the xbr bought a Sony 57ws500 last year ....flickered(as they all do)....returned. Went through a pile of Tosh sets...returned. So I find out Hitachi is making some of the best rptv stuff so I have a 57s500 coming this morning. The circle is complete...lol. I guess the point of this ramble is brand loyalty is foolish with CE because all companies are making jewels and crap. Buy where there's a return policy and price is often a poor reason to purchase. Would I but RCA dlp?...only after it's been out a while and the comparisons show it to be a quality piece. If your going to need an extended warranty because what your buying is unproven then you should be adding that to your cost when comparing with a proven product. Even if the innards are name brand the QC can kill a product in the marketplace.

couldn't agree more.

I got the following off of the HDTV usernet group. Since the RCA DLP is a new set repair parts may be hard to get. (Posted 8/25/2003)

"I would be interested in knowing if anyone else has experienced difficulties in getting a RCA HDTV repaired, or for that matter, any brand of HDTV.

My RCA F38310 HDTV started giving me problems early July. The unit is covered under an RCA Consumer Electronics Products Service Contract, so I contacted a local authorized RCA service repair shop in the Washington DC area. Their technician arrived the same day, checked out the TV, informed me that he needed to order some parts and would be back when the parts arrived. After waiting for several weeks, I contacted the repair shop to get a status check and was informed that the parts were on back order.

Well, here it is near the end of August and the parts are still on back order! Someone from the repair shop called me today to apologize for the delay, but wanted me know the parts were still on back order and there was not even a projected availability date. I do not consider this good service, especially on a TV which cost over $3500 when new. I will probably not purchase another RCA product.

Frank Y"

And here is quote from another user in response to the above:

"I also have an RCA F38310. Last year my tuner burned out and it took three months for my dealer to get a replacement from Thompson. We had to get the district rep involved and supposedly the part was "robbed" from a complete set at Thompson. In retrospect, I would probably pay more for a Loewe or go plasma."

The reason parts for the 38310 are hard to get is that the tube and display were one of only two such beasts ever made and the set has been out of production for 18 months.

None of those lessons necessarily tell you *anything* about the RCA DLP.

This doesn't even get into the discussion about how different the parts / functions are for the innards of the respective displays.

The reason parts for the 38310 are hard to get is that the tube and display were one of only two such beasts ever made and the set has been out of production for 18 months.

Agreed, but to me this is part of the pattern of poor customer support by RCA. Neil (of TV Authority) still has not gotten a definitive answer about the 720P issue. I have read other reports about the poor RCA customer service where it takes many months to get a problem resolved. I guess my point is until RCA proves that hey have a set (DLP) that they will properly support and shows that their design will produce a good and trouble free picture I would be hesitant in spending that much money on an RCA set.

Paul: That is very fair. I would argue that the Scenium line is par of a planned reinvention of RCA in the U.S. But your point is very fair.

Originally posted by vcody
Does anyone know the dimensions of this set? In particular, will it be tabletop and will the speakers be on the sides or bottom?

The speakers are on the bottom.
It is a tabletop in that it cannot be placed on carpet. It requires a smooth surface because it has cooling vents on the bottom. So, it could be placed on a smooth floor, such as tile or wood. However, vertical viewing angle must be considered in this case.

I can almost bet my left leg that this RCA set will not hold up to the Sammy DLP. I was doing sales at a local A/V store that carried all the Scenium products and they stopped carrying them because they couldn't keep them from coming back for various reasons. They have recently brought back that line only because they are being given very low cost purchases but from the owner's lip's he told me don't buy it they wont be around long enough to make good on a ext. warranty. Also I know of several other stores Ultimate Elec. for one that stopped stocking RCA Scenium because the warranties were killing them in repair bills and the returns were so bad. I bought my Mits 55" because of so-called reliability and it smoked out last week under 90days of purchase so I'm returning and getting the 61" Sammy I wanted to get in the first place. On another note my brother-in-law has a 50" RCA SD RPTV(4:3) had it for 3 years and still works as good as the day he brought it home. Every company has lemon's it's just how many lemon's. My bet is RCA new DLP's will be very sour and they won't stay in it to save their neck's. Look next for RCA's Industry leading Plasma TV's at rock bottom prices that crash and burn like everything else they put out.

I have had good luck with two RCA picture tube sets that were produced before they were taken over by Thomson. However, I will not buy another RCA TV until I read favorable frequency of repair reviews by Consumer Reports. They just seem to be cutting too many corners to try be competitive and it appears so far that the quality of their sets have been suffering. About 10 days ago I got the Samsung HLN617 and I love it. I am amazed by the outstanding picture quality on HD signals and the digital (non-HD) signals I get from Comcast are quite good. The analog signals are a mixed bag, but overall I have no regrets with this set.

I'm kinda lost here. I am planning on buying the 61inch model when it comes out, but I'm wondering why they put an IEEE-1394 connection on this tv? I thought that connection type was just for audio like a pre-amp to a dvd player. What does the 1394 connection do and do you use it in conjunction with a video connection like the DVI? Thanks in advance for the input. I am a new genX a/vphile.

IEEE-1394 is also called "Firewire" and it is used for the transmission of digital video. Most digital cameras have this connection, it is also used by some digital VCR's. I thinks some satellite receivers also have this connection. DVI is another form of passing the digital video signal.

Thanks for the info. I thought it was a digital audio link. When I get the tv I want to use the best connections for my dvd player. So is Firewire as good or better than DVI? Also did I read that press release wrong or does this TV have a built in HDTV tuner? That would be awesome!!! Thanks again

I don't know about any DVD players having a Firewire output. Some DVD players have a DVI output which I understand has an outstanding output (see DVD Players forum). Their appears to be a problem with the RCA DVI input in not accepting the native 720 progressive that the DLP chip uses. This will cause a loss of quality and you will probably will have the same quality as using component cables (which can be pretty good) but from what I have read not as good as the DVI using a 720P input. I am using the component inputs from my Sony 715 progressive player with my Samsung 61" DLP TV and I am very happy with the quality.

I am planning on buying Denon's new 5900 universal DVD player which is due out about the same time as this TV and it has universal standard Firewire and DVI (although DVI won't be active at it's release because of copywrite). I am also considering the Samsung but man would a built in web-brower and HDTV tuner be nice.

The HDTV tuner would be good for over the air and unscrambled cable. Most cable systems scramble their HDTV premium content so if you have cable it might not be that useful. I am not that familiar with the firewire specifications and the ability to do uncompressed one to one 720p mapping that DVI is capable of. Also be sure to check that the RCA is capable of 720p one to one mapping with firewire otherwise the the justification of getting the Denon would be negated.

Hmmmm I guess I'll inquire about that when it comes out. Thanks for the advice PaulGo.

It appears RCA is having financial difficulties and wants to downsize by buying out 1100 employees. It also appears that they have recognized they cannot effectively compete in the global television market and they are looking for a Chinese partner.

http://www.twice.com/index.asp?layout=story&doc_id=126082&display=breakingNews

I was on the TV Authority website yesterday and for the RCA DLP they now state the availability of the 50" as October and the 61" to be sometime in 2004.

It appears many online dealers already have the 61" unit in stock at around $3,700. Is this true? It will certainly work well with the upcoming DVR10 HD/DVR wouldn't it?

Many online dealers list products for sale months before they are even shipping from the manufacturer.

Until a reputable dealer lists the product in stock, it is safe to assume that it isn't.

Mark

I called one dealer, he said the 50" is in stock, and the 61" is a few weeks away.

The 50" RCA DLP is available at an area chain store for ~$3,199. I worked the salesman a bit and he offered it delivered at $2,910 plus tax.

Originally posted by rstaples312
The 50" RCA DLP is available at an area chain store for ~$xxxxx. I worked the salesman a bit and he offered it delivered at $xxxxx plus tax.

What area are you in (what store)? I'm not concerned about price, I'd just like to see one for giggles...

What area are you in (what store)? I'm not concerned about price, I'd just like to see one for giggles...

I live in Lexington, KY. I am reluctant to give the store name since the price mentioned was lower than their discount price. While I have no idea whether or not the price was all that good, vendors may get nervous about giving out prices like this. If you want to give me an Email address, I have no problem giving the store name.

Here is a link to the RCA DLP owners manual:

http://www.rca.com/documents/16146820_EN_702288_25.pdf

The list of included features is impressive. It remains to be seen if the actual implementation of the design is reliable and if it will produce a good quality picture. The DVI and component inputs cannot accept 720p for processing by the TV (The native format of the DLP light engine), but needs to convert it to 1080i and then reconvert it to 720p for the light engine. The TV has a built in tuner that is cable capable, but only for unscrambled signals. If your cable company scrambles and HDTV signal that is broadcast (such as premium channels) you still will need a HDTV cable box. If the cable box is capable of 720p output (such as for ABC and ESPN HD material) the RCA DLP will still have to convert it to 1080i before it can pass it to the light engine in 720p format. Therefore the extra processing can degrade the signal and cause a loss in resolution.

I don't understand, why would it not accept a 720p signal if the set native display is 720p?

Originally posted by jacmyoung
I don't understand, why would it not accept a 720p signal if the set native display is 720p?
They took a shortcut and re-used circuitry from their CRT lines, which are optimized for 1080i.

Originally posted by oxothuk
They took a shortcut and re-used circuitry from their CRT lines, which are optimized for 1080i. Just when I think RCA can't get any lower on my list, they pull some BS like this.

This is Bulldookey...don't waste your time or money on this set!

Actually, we should be clear about this... It does not accept 720p through the DVI or Component inputs. However, it does through the Firewire inputs and the ATSC tuner inputs. If you're going to use the internal ATSC tuner, you can 1:1 pixel map if the signal is 720p. If you're using DVHS, you can do the same thing through firewire. I'm not defending their crazy limitation, just trying to be clear on what exactly the limitation is.

After much research, including this AVS Forum, I finally made a decision on a HDTV. My considerations were balanced across cost, picture quality, "foot-print", screen size and reliability. I narrowed my choice to the Samsung 50" DLP and the RCA 50" DLP. I went to a local HH Gregg and had the 2 units set up next to each other. The RCA had a much brighter picture and the SD looked better. The Samsung's non-glare screen was preferable over the reflective RCA scree, but not a real factor for me considering the placement in my room. The foot-prints are similar, but I prefer the bottom speakers on the RCA versus the side speakers on the Samsung. From a price perspecive it was no contest, particularly when you factor in the ATSC tuner built into the RCA. In was also able to negotiate a free amplified indoor antenna and free delivery/setup. The only concern was reliability based on the numerous poor quality "posts" for RCA/Thomson. I resolved that quandry by purchasing a 5 year extended warranty directly from HHGregg (not RCA). This covers all parts (including the bulb), all labor and is an in-home service. After two days of viewing over-the-air signals (my cable co. is not yet HDTV compatible), I am very pleased with the unit. On a total cost of ownership, I believe that I am $1,000 ahead with this decision. I am not a real "videophile", but I do enjoy movies (DVDs) and live sporting events (the wide-screen, FOX coverage of the World Series was awesome).

Originally posted by buddster
Actually, we should be clear about this... It does not accept 720p through the DVI or Component inputs. However, it does through the Firewire inputs and the ATSC tuner inputs. If you're going to use the internal ATSC tuner, you can 1:1 pixel map if the signal is 720p. If you're using DVHS, you can do the same thing through firewire. I'm not defending their crazy limitation, just trying to be clear on what exactly the limitation is.

So if I use the RCA DVR10 digital recorder later with this set, there will not be the 720p issue, correct?

figaro, thanks for the report. I am seriously considering the 61" version mainly for its future HDTV/SDTV and QAM recording capability. I will remember to buy the extended service contract:)

The foot-prints are similar, but I prefer the bottom speakers on the RCA versus the side speakers on the Samsung.

Are you sure you compared the RCA to the Samsung DLP? All the Samsung DLP's have the speakers on the bottom. Anyway congratulation on the purchase of the set I hope you enjoy it. Most extended warranties exclude normal wear and tear items like bulbs. Make sure you have in writing that the bulb is included.

You're right. I looked at so many sets these past few weeks that I confused that layout with another set.

Can someone please list the retailers that carry the HDLP50w151 sets (and soon the HDLP61w151 sets). I am already aware that HHGregg and 6th Ave carries them, but they are too far away. I live in the Washington DC area and the BB, CC, Radio Shacks, and Myer-Emcos in my area dont seem to carry them (even though most carry the Sammy DLPs). Also, what are some reliable websites that sell these sets? Thanks for the help.

Originally posted by figaro
After much research, ...The foot-prints are similar, but I prefer the bottom speakers on the RCA versus the side speakers on the Samsung.

I wonder what set you had side by side with the RCA. The Samsung DLP sets do not have side mounted speakers. In fact there are two models (HLN567 & HLN467) with a bezel that is .67" wide.

You should be fine if your extended service contract has a clear "lemon law" provision.

I wonder what set ... :)

You're right, I was thinking of another set I had looked at that same evening. The HH Gregg service contract covers "lemons" and includes the bulb. Also, I called the RCA Tech Support line last night on q question regarding the built-in Web Browser and found them to be very "customer friendly". So far, this has been a good buying experience.

http://www.twice.com/index.asp?layout=story&doc_id=128122&display=breakingNews

The deal, expected to be consummated within the next 18 months, includes the formation of a new company, called TCL-Thomson Electronics, whereby Thomson will own 33 percent of the business and TCL 67 percent. Annual sales of the new company are expected to top $3.5 billion.


It appears that Thomson as a minority owner in this new business is basically saying they can't compete in the TV market without Chinese help. Since they are the minority owner I expect the new products to reflect the Chinese marketing decisions and perhaps they may discontinue some of their current product lines. I hope this merger will improve the quality of their products.

Additional news on Tomson's (RCA) financial condition - it doesn't look good.

In the first half, its consumer products, like televisions and DVD players, had a net loss of 81 million euros ($92.7 million).

To reverse the loss, Charles Dehelly, who took over as Thomson's chief executive a year ago, has announced 1,200 job cuts in the United States, closing factories in Indiana and Ohio, to shift production to China.

I watched MNF last night on my 50" RCA DLP and I did a comparison between the built in tuner and my STB (SIR-TS160) outputing 1080i into the TV via DVI.

I am not a videofile, but I couldn't see a difference between the straight 720p signal from the internal tuner and the 720p->1080i->720p signal from the STB.

spacehulk do you have any pictures of your set with a 1080i feed to it? I like the RCA's PQ over the Sammy, I just want alittle more reference pictures to compare the two.

Originally posted by Spacehulk
I watched MNF last night on my 50" RCA DLP and I did a comparison between the built in tuner and my STB (SIR-TS160) outputing 1080i into the TV via DVI.

I am not a videofile, but I couldn't see a difference between the straight 720p signal from the internal tuner and the 720p->1080i->720p signal from the STB.
That's RCA engineering for you.

Alton. M, I didn't take any pictures, I guess I'll have to wait until next monday. Oh, wait, I'm having a MNF party to show off my set (Eagles @ Packers), I guess it'll be a while before I can do that with MNF. Can you suggest another ABC show?

I'd be happy to E-mail pix to someone that can host the images, I think it would benefit potential owners if they could see it for themelves, plus it'd be interesting to see some of the videofiles on this board analyze the pix.

I have compared the Samsung 43" and 46" to the RCA 50" DLP over time. I personally would not buy the RCA. The reason? In my opinion the Samsung looks _tremendously_ better in a side by side comparison. DVDs even look much less clear on the RCA. The more I looked at the RCA, the less I liked about it. Just the reverse for the Samsung. The price of the RCA is tempting, but the picture quality is not.

Spacehulkj please email me some pictures when you get a chance? theres always RCA haters on this forum. but if you look closely theres a whole lot of more negative reviews on the sammys DLP's Than the RCA. I guess we all have our opinions

Alton, you are comparing a set (Samsung) that has been out for almost two year against the RCA that has only had a handful of sales. Many people have a tendency to like (as a means of justification of the purchase) what they purchase. When the RCA is out in sufficient quantities for over six months and the novelty of the set has worn off, I think we will have a better way to judge this set objectively. I have the Samung 61" DLP for about three months and I am very happy with the set. Does that make it the perfect set - absolutely not. But it has lived up to all my expectations.

In my opinion RCA made a major mistake by putting a highly reflective glass over the screen, thereby negating one of the major advantages of projection over tubes and plasmas. At the PC Richards store on 86th st in NYC , the reflections made viewing dark scenes extremely annoying. The Sammys got it right in this regard

All I'm saying is,"You woulld think after two years of manufacturing DLP"s, Sammy would have ironed out out some of these deficiencys".

Originally posted by Alton. M
All I'm saying is,"You woulld think after two years of manufacturing DLP"s, Sammy would have ironed out out some of these deficiencys".
They have and their effort is documented in this forum. The first Samsung DLP that I've heard about in the US was July 2002.

The lamented Panasonic DLP was here about a year before that.

I suggest that you check out Best Buy. I have heard that some 61" RCAs are headed there and they may not suffer from the highly reflective screen discussed in this forum.;)

Originally posted by davids2004
Can someone please list the retailers that carry the HDLP50w151 sets (and soon the HDLP61w151 sets). I am already aware that HHGregg and 6th Ave carries them, but they are too far away. I live in the Washington DC area and the BB, CC, Radio Shacks, and Myer-Emcos in my area dont seem to carry them (even though most carry the Sammy DLPs). Also, what are some reliable websites that sell these sets? Thanks for the help.

davids2004 and AltonM,

Any responses to this locating the RCA 50" DLP in the DC/VA area? I found one at a Radio Shack in Warrenton, VA. I drove 45 mins out there to see it and unfortunately, Radio Shack folks don't know how to properly display a TV... The set was placed right by the front door (I was told to prompt sales as you walk in the door). Unfortunately, all it did was wash out the screen with the sunlight coming in the plaeteglass windows. All I could see was my own reflection for the most part while they tried to demo it with Matrix (too dark!). That highly-reflective surface is a definite detractor.

Anyway, I don't want to cross the RCA off my "Future DLP TV" list just yet. I consider this as a poor environment and want to see it in an audiophile type location. (Tweeter, Myer-Emco, etc). I can't believe the DC Metro area doesn't have this thing available anywhere else! The RCA website is unhelpful as it only lists Radio Shack, WalMart and Sears as locations. Needless to say, WalMart and Sears don't know what I'm talking about when I ask if they carry DLP...

Samnmopp, if you have a grand Furniture store in your area, they carry them. Some of the stores have it connected to the PVR-10 high def recorder, running a 720p loop. pm me if you have any questions.

Rumors are that the RCA 61" DLPs are in short supply for awhile, so interested buyers should take advantage now or be prepared to wait a while.

Best Buy has the 61" RCA DLP. I saw it at 2 different locations. The first location it looked brighter than a 43" Samsung next to it but it looked grainy. I tried to get into the user menu but that button did not work on that set (both on the remote and on the television itself). At the 2nd location I compared the 50" Samsung to the 61" RCA and again the Samsung looked much better (including contrast and clarity). I've seen about 4 different 50" RCA DLPs and 2 61" DLPs and only one of them was not grainy. At that location the RCA rep had set that TV up and it did look good in both contrast, sharpness and blacks. On the new RCA 61" DLP, they did go with the non-glare screen. It had no more glare on it than the Samsung did. The first 61" I saw would have looked good had it not been for all the graininess. Looked much better on the Samsung and the Sony & Panasonic LCDs nearby.

I believe many Best Buys have the 61" according to sources.

The 50" may be in short supply until December.

If you are looking for a big DLP, give BB a holler.

Mark

Originally posted by rogo
I believe many Best Buys have the 61" according to sources.

The 50" may be in short supply until December.

If you are looking for a big DLP, give BB a holler.

Mark
I was in the East Palo Alto BB this afternoon and they didn't have one on display. I didn't ask if they had them in stock since I'm not looking to buy one.

In the for what it's worth department the December 2003 issue of Consumer Reports has the RCA tube sets as number one for repairs in the 20" to 25 " category, 30" to 32" category and the 34" to 36" category. (in the 36" category the RCA brand had over twice as many problems as any other set! It appears that the more features RCA puts into its set means more problems. So based upon this if you buy an RCA get a very long extended warranty.

I've checked the BB website and it does not show up there. There are not any on display at the BB in my area either. I just bought the 50" and am very happy with it but was VERY interested in the 61". I'd like to see one anyway. On a side note, the product specifications from RCA still call for the reflective screen on the 61" and not a anti-reflective screen. Are you sure you saw the 61" DLP model and not some other HDTV from RCA? I only ask because it seems that your information conflicts with information I have gathered from other sources about availability not being until mid December at the earliest. I'd just like to see one.

I had a chance to look at the 50" last night. I really liked the unit and I am seriously thinking about blowing my budget and buying one. Expected delivery is 2 weeks.

The OTA HD tuner worked great and was able to bring in locals that his STB (mdl?) could not. SD satellite feeds were ok from about 9' and back. HD, DVD looked awesome.

I noticed something however that bothered me, in some of the dark colored scenes of Monsters INc. I noted what looked like "blocks" of color that were of a different shade than the "block" next to it. The shades would shift. Is this screen door?

I don't think I have ever seen a rainbow on a DLP and did not see anything like that on the RCA. To be honest I'm really not sure what I'm looking for!

The 720P issue seems signifigant to some. I am not sure that I would notice it. Then again, in a couple years I might.

I do like the fact you can controll the front panel blue lite intensity, and the projection lamp intensity.

Remote was ok.

The sales guy is really not wanting to move much on the price. I will have to spend some time bearing down on him to get the $900 off of MSRP that I am looking for. Not a bad looking stand either.

Originally posted by caddy
I do like the fact you can controll the front panel blue lite intensity, and the projection lamp intensity.
Can someone confirm that you can adjust the projection lamp intensity? I've always thought this would be a great idea...DLPs typically have very bright whites but only so-so black levels and black detail...but if you could turn down the lamp a bit and tweak the gamma curve accordingly, you could darken the black level and increase black detail (via the gamma curve) while sacrificing a little of the max brightness, which is fine by me. I've also wondered if a neutral density filter in the light path would accomplish the same.

Man, sounds like RCA did some things right...if they would just fix the bloody 720p input problem and the reflective screen, I'd buy one!

Originally posted by caddy
I noticed something however that bothered me, in some of the dark colored scenes of Monsters INc. I noted what looked like "blocks" of color that were of a different shade than the "block" next to it. The shades would shift. Is this screen door?


What you saw is not the "screen door". Did your grandmother have a screen door on any of the doors of her house? The screen of that kind of door is what "screen door" refers too.

When DLP, LCD, LCoS chips or plasma panels are manufactured there is a space between each pixel. The LCoS chips have the finest black lines between pixels. After LCoS, then DLP, LCD and plasma have black lines that increase in width. The pattern of those black lines make up something that looks like a screen door.

With the current models of these technologies you shouldn't be aware of the screen door from a normal viewing distance.

What you saw was a failure to process the image correctly when it was transfered to DVD or it was a failure of the DVD player and/or TV to process the image correctly when it was displayed.

Originally posted by htwaits
What you saw was a failure to process the image correctly when it was transfered to DVD or it was a failure of the DVD player and/or TV to process the image correctly when it was displayed.
Or, it was simple MPEG-2 color banding, part of the MPEG compression algorithm due to limited (15-bit) color depth. This is present to some degree on all MPEG recordings, but is especially noticeable on newer digital displays due to their extreme level of detail.

Originally posted by Brian Miller
Or, it was simple MPEG-2 color banding, part of the MPEG compression algorithm due to limited (15-bit) color depth. This is present to some degree on all MPEG recordings, but is especially noticeable on newer digital displays due to their extreme level of detail.
... and details what can happen when an image is compressed as part of transfering it to a DVD where a lot of the available space is being used for "extra" features.

Digital HDTV shows all whether you want it to or not. :(

Superbit rocks! :cool:

Originally posted by Brian Miller
Can someone confirm that you can adjust the projection lamp intensity? I've always thought this would be a great idea...DLPs typically have very bright whites but only so-so black levels and black detail...but if you could turn down the lamp a bit and tweak the gamma curve accordingly, you could darken the black level and increase black detail (via the gamma curve) while sacrificing a little of the max brightness, which is fine by me. I've also wondered if a neutral density filter in the light path would accomplish the same.

Man, sounds like RCA did some things right...if they would just fix the bloody 720p input problem and the reflective screen, I'd buy one!


The set has two lamp level settings. I think they were "bright" and "lamp save" or something like that.

Originally posted by caddy
The set has two lamp level settings. I think they were "bright" and "lamp save" or something like that.

Yes, it is brighter picture vs longer life. A subtle difference but I go with the brighter picture.

I saw the 61" RCA DLP at the Pentagon City Best Buy. It definitely has a non-reflective screen. The menu is very user friendly. I don't know what wattage bulb the RCA has but it did not appear as bright as the Samsung 50" which was next to it. The picture was pretty good with no apparent distortion. I played around with the picture controls for about ten minutes but the colors did not seem as vivid as the Samsung. The only thing that really bothered me was the flesh tones - it appeared to have "noise" in it. This should not happen with a digital signal but it is similar to an analog signal that is slightly weak. Again playing around with the controls did not solve this problem and the Samsung (and other digital projections sets) did not exhibit this problem. The set is priced at $100 less than the 50" Samsung. Would I buy the RCA - probably not but it makes the Samsung appear overpriced, so hopefully Samsung will lower their price.

I think one probelm to be expected with the RCA 61" is the brightness vs. even their own 50". From what I've figured out, te 61" uses the same bulb with the 50" and the 61". Bigger TV with more screena rea and same wattage bulb has to mean less bright picture to some degree. I have the 50" and am VERY happy with the PQ and brightness. Some are concerned about the reflective screen on the 50" but it really is a matter of preference. I think it gives the 50" RCA a brighter and sharper looking picture than the 50" Sammy. However, I don't have huge reflection issues in my viewing area. I do get some on very dark scenes but otherwise it isn't very noticeable at all.

From what I understand, The 61" you are seeing at BB is a made for BB model. It doesn't have the Scenium brand label on it, only the RCA label. The Scenium version has the same reflective screen as the 50". Don't know if there are any differences other than the screen between the two models. The reflective screen also enhances picture contrast and sharpness.

That was confirmed for me yesterday. The 61" RCA label will ship with a non-reflective screen, and the Scenium will have the reflective protective screen. It wasn't clear if its just that they don't put the extra protective screen on the RCA (that's what makes it shiny)

They would not say whether the 50" will be changed to a less reflective screen in the future.

In fact, they were defending that contrast point made by RBenson. But IMHO, the reflections make it so hard to see the screen that the higher contrast doesn't matter. In any case it's not clear that RCA considers this to be a problem.

They did suggest that the 61" delays are due to problems with cutting and applying the large screen. Very time consuming and tricky to get right.

It sounds like RCA has been paying attention to this site. I wonder if they will make the 50" in two screen versions. It also makes you wonder if they are trying to fix the 720p issue. It may not have a huge role in overall PQ, but it is clear that many people do not like that issue. If they do these two things, I will more than likely buy the RCA. I have not been able to see an RCA in person in New Orleans. BB and CC have not had the sets as of yet. I wonder when they will be commonly available? Are there only two people on the site that have the RCA DLP?

make that three! I love my RCA DLP:D

Another 50" DLP owner. The only bad thing so far is the slow tuner(s), but the guide is quick and I use it for cable. The High Def broadcasts are great and amazing. The DVR10 Works well, but only records digital sources. The interesting phenomenon for me is watching okay-to-poor content just because the picture is great. This probably a subject for a new thread. I'm waiting for the new Digital Cable box to be released into the area within the next few weeks.

I was looking at the RCA 50" vs the Samsung for my Parents. They have a very open house, with many windows.. so the highly reflective screen on the RCA would be a big problem. The slow tuner was also kind of annoying.. It was much slower than I am used to with my MyHD card.

I liked the firewire support. But, according to the salesguy it does not support HAVI for all the cool firewire integration - like with Mitsubishis.

The ethernet port is also interesting. They didn't have it available for demo in the store. The web browsing feature is not a big deal for me. The marketing info mentioned displaying JPEG images over the LAN, any other nice LAN tricks?? It would be really cool to access HD files captured with a MyHD card over the LAN, or DVD VOB files on a file server.

Originally posted by tji
I was looking at the RCA 50" vs the Samsung for my Parents.

I see you are in Mtn View. Where oh where did you see the RCA DLP. I am in SJ and have not been able to find any local RCA dealers.

I live in Mountain View, but I am out visiting my parents in Grand Rapids, Michigan. They carry the RCA set at a regional retailer out here, ABC Warehouse.

I saw the list of retailers for the RCA in a thread here, and I don't think any of them had stores in the Bay Area.

I just got off the phone with TVAuthority. They told me that they are not expecting any 50" RCA DLPs until January. I was also told that the workers at TVAuthority do think that the RCA unit accepts 720 via the component and DVI inputs. Is this a dead issue? Do we have an absolute answer on this? It looks like I will be waiting until after the 1st of the year to purchase. Hopefully this will allow for a second run on the RCA fixing some of the issues that have been brought up here on the forum, and perhaps more options about what TV to get.

I thought that no 720P inputs was confirmed.. As far as I know, the only way to do pure 720P is by getting the MPEG2 stream to the internal decoder. Either by getting channels off-the-air with an antenna, or getting the stream from an external source via firewire.


The store I saw it at also had the DVR10 external hard drive with RCA's demo material on it. I was a bit surprised that the demo material was in 1080i. Why would they not encode it at 720P for a native 720P set?!?

Originally posted by GabeNO
I was also told that the workers at TVAuthority do think that the RCA unit accepts 720 via the component and DVI inputs. Is this a dead issue? Do we have an absolute answer on this?
The issue was beat to death HERE (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=2862188#post2862188) .

I pointed you to a new owner's test. If you read the entire thread the issue gets a complete work out. One contributer never denied being a RCA rep and never challenged the set's inability to accept 720p through DVI or Component. He did make a lot of arguments that hoped to convince others that it wasn't important.

You will have to find your own "absolutes". ;)

I performed a test on a 50" RCA DLP with a PC and a Mac connected to the DVI port. I think it pretty much summed up the fact that a 720p signal won't be accepted. You can see it here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=326095

Originally posted by amstel78
I performed a test on a 50" RCA DLP with a PC and a Mac connected to the DVI port. I think it pretty much summed up the fact that a 720p signal won't be accepted. You can see it here:

Like amstel78, others did the same thing with PCs and Samsung HD-931 DVD players. If you read the whole thread that I posted above you can find several reports.

Thanks. It appears that many times information must be confirmed and sources of information from retailers of these units can clearly be misleading or wrong. I wonder if they will try to fix this problem in upcoming runs of the RCA. You would think that this and the screen would issues that they would like to resolve.

Originally posted by GabeNO
Thanks. It appears that many times information must be confirmed and sources of information from retailers of these units can clearly be misleading or wrong. I wonder if they will try to fix this problem in upcoming runs of the RCA. You would think that this and the screen would issues that they would like to resolve. According to their "stelth" rep the next model will have a full digital path and support 720p. Of course, that's if they are still doing DLP then.

Based on some reports you can get a 61" RCA DLP with non-glare or glare screens. They are supposed to be building one for BB that has the non-glare screen.

I haven't heard about a RCA DLP in our area yet.

I sat and watched the 61in. RCA next to a 50in. Sammy at BB today, and let me tell you there is a big difference in the 2 sets Sammy was sublime,
RCA nothing to write home about. Some of the CRT's looked better.
the 50 in Sammy was clearly best looking set of them all.

Surprises me that I continue to be one of the seemingly few owners of the RCA DLP 50. I continue to be fairly satisfied (not totally) because of screen glare and the 720p issue. To restate my findings what I said in another post, a 720p signal from xbox gets an unusable signal through the component inputs.

Bad compression artifacts with HDTV on RCA DLP
Help!!! I have had my rca hdlp50w151 for 10 days now and i'm getting very bad artifacts watching HDTV...the artifacts appear to be compression type pixelization &/or "mosquitos buzzing" during motion & scene transistions...it is especially bad on the pbs demo loops & on CBS football..the jet game yesterday was horrendous..don't get me wrong when the picture is still or slow moving the hi-def picture literally is stunning and is as good as any hi-def picture I've ever seen but these artifacts make the whole experience a big let down. I get the same results using the internal tuner on either OTA or digital cable or my samsung ota tuner..unfortunately i bought the tv from pc richards who don't allow returns on big screen tv's so im hoping maybe the tv is broken and can be repaired..anybody else having problems like this with rca dlp?..maybe its inherent to dlps?...maybe rca will have a firmware revision?..haven't calibrated set yet..digital video essentials should be arriving soon..anybody think this will help?.....i'm grasping at straws....dvd's look great..oddly the regular CBS prime time shows aren't nearly as bad...although i bought it for football...monday night football ota from new haven CT also had same artifacts

Originally posted by jph1207
Bad compression artifacts with HDTV on RCA DLP

I don't think OTA HDTV is compressed. :(

Well, it's all compressed. The HD feed starts at 1.5 gigabits... Most networks have an interim feed of 45 megabits... Then you get 15-19 megabits from your affiliate in most cases...

And there are tons of motion artifacts in too much HDTV.

But those will hit all HDTVs, not just this one.

Originally posted by rogo
Well, it's all compressed. The HD feed starts at 1.5 gigabits... Most networks have an interim feed of 45 megabits... Then you get 15-19 megabits from your affiliate in most cases...

Is that why the people with those giant satalite dishes like their signal so much?

Is it correct to say that OTA is(may be) less compressed than Dish, DirectTV, or cable?

I have seen the same thing on the Monday Night Football Games. For whatever reason, my RCA 50" seems to like a 1080i input better than a 720p input. I have assumed thus far that this is a source issue as I have seen the same thing on other 720p set using other technologies like LCD. I am amazed at the DVD upconverted from 480p and the 1080i converted as well. I have not seen a 720p signal displayed from anything other than OTA yet though. I am going to have my buddy bring his X-box over to see what that looks like (hooked up through component of course). For me the 720p issue is simply not one. I would be just fine with a 1080i DVI output converted from any source as I see what this looks like from OTA singals.

"Is that why the people with those giant satalite dishes like their signal so much?"

Well, that's usually for non-HDTV stuff. But, yes, they get either a clean analog or a much-less-compressed digital. Much nicer.

"Is it correct to say that OTA is(may be) less compressed than Dish, DirectTV, or cable?"

Yeah. Even the non-HD digital OTA is much, much less compressed. The HDTV is very variable depending on city, channel, etc. CBS uses all 19 megabits for you, while ABC does not (using a sub-channel; but also 720p so it's not apples to apples.)

Mark

The 720p signal from ABC Monday Night Football on my Samsung HLN617 (61") looks outstanding. There are other threads on 720p vs 1080i. The conclusion of most people is that 720p presents a better image on moving objects such as sports events. I have a reference to a Department of Defense white paper on the subject in the other thread that explains why a progressive picture gives you less errors and produces a superior picture. Of course the ideal would be a 1080p picture.

Here is a link to the DOD article
http://www.atd.net/HDTV_faq.html

and here is a link to the AVS thread on the advantages of 720p

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?threadid=174228

just got digital i/o cable today with the HD box..i know the 720p not working thru the dvi input has been discussed but it also does not work thru video 3 or 4 either..the SA4200HD cable box lets you set the output to 480i, 480p, 720p, & 1080i...my rca dlp will not display the 720p at all thru the comonent inputs..all other formats work fine...when i switch box to 720p the screen just goes blank?...i guess this native 720p tv can't display 720 at all....i know it will accept an OTA 720p signal but i guess it just converts that to 1080i & then back to 720p?..it seems this tv does that on all inputs not just DVI!!!

Originally posted by jph1207
i know it will accept an OTA 720p signal but i guess it just converts that to 1080i & then back to 720p?..it seems this tv does that on all inputs not just DVI!!!
That's what we have been saying. :)

Originally posted by htwaits
Based on some reports you can get a 61" RCA DLP with non-glare or glare screens. They are supposed to be building one for BB that has the non-glare screen.


Has there been any word of them offering the non-glare screen on the 50" model? I am interested in this set for my parents. But, they have a very bright environment, which would make the current 50" unusable.

I saw the RCA beside a 43" Samsung in a bright showroom.. the difference in glare and reflection was huge.

If I could get the 50" RCA with a non-glare screen, I would go for it.

It seems odd that anyone who has a RCA DLP has not had any problems with them and likes them. Then on the other end of the spectrum the Samsung DLP owners are always complaining about the picture color, etc., yet the RCA is always put down.

Originally posted by refjr
It seems odd that anyone who has a RCA DLP has not had any problems with them and likes them. Then on the other end of the spectrum the Samsung DLP owners are always complaining about the picture color, etc., yet the RCA is always put down.
Do you have any idea how many forum members have new RCA DLP sets and have reported anything about them? My impression is that it is a number less than 10.

RCA still doesn't have any sets in stores in large sectors of the country.

Samsung has been selling their DLP sets for over a year and very large numbers of people have them. I have no idea how many forum members have the Samsung but it's a big number.

Give RCA a chance. They will sell more sets as time goes by. ;)

It seems odd that anyone who has a RCA DLP has not had any problems with them and likes them. Then on the other end of the spectrum the Samsung DLP owners are always complaining about the picture color, etc., yet the RCA is always put down.

Most of the people who would complain have not or will not buy the set because of the lack of 720p inputs. However, I have read complaints about the reflections, picture quality and slow tuner response on the RCA DLP.

Originally posted by jph1207
Bad compression artifacts with HDTV on RCA DLP
Help!!! I have had my rca hdlp50w151 for 10 days now and i'm getting very bad artifacts watching HDTV...the artifacts appear to be compression type pixelization &/or "mosquitos buzzing" during motion & scene transistions...it is especially bad on the pbs demo loops & on CBS football..the jet game yesterday was horrendous..don't get me wrong when the picture is still or slow moving the hi-def picture literally is stunning and is as good as any hi-def picture I've ever seen but these artifacts make the whole experience a big let down. I get the same results using the internal tuner on either OTA or digital cable or my samsung ota tuner..unfortunately i bought the tv from pc richards who don't allow returns on big screen tv's so im hoping maybe the tv is broken and can be repaired..anybody else having problems like this with rca dlp?..maybe its inherent to dlps?...maybe rca will have a firmware revision?..haven't calibrated set yet..digital video essentials should be arriving soon..anybody think this will help?.....i'm grasping at straws....dvd's look great..oddly the regular CBS prime time shows aren't nearly as bad...although i bought it for football...monday night football ota from new haven CT also had same artifacts

Your problem is your SOURCE. Many OTA programs are digital, but not HD. CBS has only one HD game per week. MNF is HD. Many local games are up-converted with low bit-rate, so blocking, etc. is intrinsic to the way it is sent. In the end, it is 'rubbish in, rubbish out'.

Most CBS Prime-time is HD.

Cheers,
The BIG DOG

i AM talking about pixelization in HD..i know CBS only has one game a week..this past week it was the jet/colt game and i had bad artifacts in it..i also get the artifacts on MNF on abc (ota from connecticut)...so its not upconverted or SD sources that i have the problem with..it is HD

tji asked:
"Has there been any word of them offering the non-glare screen on the 50" model? I am interested in this set for my parents. But, they have a very bright environment, which would make the current 50" unusable."

I talked with someone from RCA who says that they are offering a non-glare screen on the RCA branded 61" that is coming out. But the Scenium is still the reflective screen. That would suggest that something's going on. But, I asked about the 50" and he had no information on that as it relates to non-glare screens.

I feel the same way as you regarding the screen reflection.

I just drove by Gallery Furniture this morning. Their electronic display was advertising the Scenium for $3499. Don't know if they actually have any on display, but for those wanting to check it out in the Houston area, this may be your best bet.

I was in Best Buy (Greenville, SC) yesterday and they had the 61" RCA DLP on display next to a Sammy 50" DLP. But they had a terrible signal fed to the RCA (at least compared to the signal to the Sammy). Several salesmen wanted to sell me on the RCA. I pointed out the picture was blurry. I couldn't read the credits on a music video it was so bad. I asked them to swap the cables with the Sammy. The salesmen kept disappearing each time I made this request. So I tried to judge based on color alone. I thought the colors on both looked the same.

The RCA stands very tall too. There's a lot more under the screen than the Sammy's.

I would love know if anyone else has been able to make a side by side comparison (hopefully with equal quality signals).

Why can't Best Buy get it right?

I would love know if anyone else has been able to make a side by side comparison (hopefully with equal quality signals).

See my post on the previous page. I was able to do a comparison at Best Buy.

Thanks Paul.

Your visit to BB sounded similar. Now I'm wondering if the differences I saw were not because of bad signals but actual differences in the sets. Could 2 different BB's have the 2 same sets together and screw up both of the RCA's?

The Sammy is pulling ahead on my short list.

Originally posted by My Account
Thanks Paul.

Your visit to BB sounded similar. Now I'm wondering if the differences I saw were not because of bad signals but actual differences in the sets. Could 2 different BB's have the 2 same sets together and screw up both of the RCA's?

The Sammy is pulling ahead on my short list.

I saw the 61" DLP at BB in Houston today. Gotta say I witnessed similar problems. They have a nice line of TVs setting all beside each other--Panny 50" LCD, GWIII 50", Sammy DLP 50", and RCA 61" on the same loop. The RCA was very dim(although it was closer to the store lights than the rest) and the yellows had a green tint to them (so did the Sammy incidentally). There was even ghosting all over the place--something was seriously wrong with this set or with the connection. Of course, if you turned around you could see a set with convergence so bad it looked like it could have been in 3D--why would they even bother turning it on. So, yes BB could be screwing up all the sets.

Doesn't the RCA have a user selectable power saving mode to reduce brightness. Obviously, next to other sets without this feature, it would look dim, but in actual use, it should be valuable for evening viewing when a lot of these sets are actually too bright.

Fry's in Las Vegas has the Samsung HLN507W, the 50" RCA DLP, the 50" Panasonic LCD all lined up with the same HD feed. Just around the corner they had the 60" GW111 also with the same feed. To my eye the two DLP sets were very similar. The Samsung was dimmer and cooler and the RCA was a bit brighter and warmer. I checked the settings on the Samsung and it was set on custom, not dynamic mode. Both sets had pleasing pictures without obvious flaws.

The Panasonic picture, although vibrant with color was not as clear as either DLP set. It was much softer. I did not directly compare the Sony as it was not in line with the other sets. The feed was bright outdoor travelogues and not suitable for judging black level performance or for the presence of rainbows.

I own a Samsung HLM507W with upgraded firmware to 302 so I was just casually browsing and not critically evaluating these sets. But I was surprised at the quality of the picture on the RCA after reading some of the negative comments on this thread. This was the first RCA DLP set I have seen.

although there a number of issues with my new rca dlp (720p issue the most annoying)..i challenge anyone with any tv to beat the hi-def picture quality with this tv!!..i calibrated set with digital video essentials and the hi-def picture quality is literally stunning..i had a party yesterday and was able to show many people the kc oakland football game as well as the ranger game (& pbs demo loop) in hidef and they were all amazed...people who dont usually get excited about pictire quality (my wife & sister for starters) were thoroughly impressed...the brightness of this set in daylight is fantastic & although it has a hi-glare glass screen which is a negative to alot of people..i feel this screen enhances the vividness & crispness of the picture as long as you dont have it directly opposite a window...as long as the reliability of this set holds up it will be the smartest hitech purchase ive made (my tivo is a close second:)....i know alot about all the tv technologies (i actually had a hitachi 50v500 on ordere but it got delayed another month so i took the chance on the rca dlp) and have watched them all for many hours and this rca dlp has as good a picture as any of them...

It was good to hear from "jph1207" about the picture quality of the RCA DLP. I've had mine for about a month and am very pleased with the picture quality, built-in HD tuner and web browser. I am curious about the calibration process that "jph1207" utilized with "digital video essentials". Can someone advise me on how to go about doing this? Is it a guidebook on calibration, is it something I can do myself?

Originally posted by figaro
I am curious about the calibration process that "jph1207" utilized with "digital video essentials". Can someone advise me on how to go about doing this? Is it a guidebook on calibration, is it something I can do myself?
It's a DVD disk calibration and you can get it at Amazon.

hey figaro..i got the digital video essentials disk from overstock.com for $12.89 including shipping...there is $5 off coupon in a thread here..just search on the word "essential"....the disk helped alot in getting the black level/contrast/color relationship better..picture quality is excellent now...i had the brightness (black level) up too high....after cal my settings were contrast 85 color 43 tint 61 blacklevel 33 (although i raise this sometimes to around 43) and sharpness 40

hey figaro..do you have the wireless keyboard yet?..i cant find it anywhere & browsing with the remote is painfull!!!

I have had my RCA for about a month now and it has been extremely good in all areas. I only post this for the same reason as the post above - the HD quality is stunning. I have calibrated with Avia, and am running DVD's through the Sammy DVI-DVD player upscaled to 1080i. Really great viewing experience as well.

SD looks as good as could be expected, I can tune the pic. settings enough for it that it is highly respectable - most people at the house are blown away by just the cable feed. Tune into any HD feed (or even the Sammy DVD) and it is really an experience, which is what I hoped for.

I actually had an Hitatchi 50V500 in the house for about 2 weeks before getting the RCA DLP. Reason: very poor blacks that were driving me nuts (very nice set otherwise). For purists, the color reproduction may be a bit overdone on the RCA (the Hitatchi did have a more natural reproduction, great with "pastel" type colors), but the overall light output on the RCA makes it more enjoyable for every day use IMO.

I did do a close comparison to the Samsung DLP as well - I do not think this is a better set. I am not concerned with all of the "RCA catches on fire and explodes" points that people have posted regarding reliablity, from all research I have done they seem to have their act together. Am I wrong about Samsung vs. RCA... maybe but I cannot say that I really care - the everyday viewing on the RCA is excellent.

Xbox games look great and I haven't had any issues with the 720p scaling (although it was kinda stupid for them to cut the corner on it). The internal HD OTA tuner works fine, the web browser is a neat add on.... etc etc.

The one complaint... yep, the high glare screen. Every so often your eye will catch (and worse focus on) something that is sitting as a reflection off the surface. It can be minimized but yes it is there. Of course, as any of you photo guys know, gloss = dmax... dmax = deeper blacks and colors. There is something to be said for it. It also tricks the eye into apparent sharpness and depth, which is why I think the HD programming just jumps off the set.

But, the family loves it for everyday viewing; I love it when watching upscaled 1080i DVD's; and it is really stunning when watching an HD program on PBS, HBO etc. Good product, I am happy with their market position (although in the minority from this forums majority).

Any questions let me know!

I would like to know if there is another source for the keyboard. They are on backorder from RCA with no date for delivery given. Any keyboard comments from RCA owners?

Originally posted by jph1207
hey figaro..i got the digital video essentials disk from overstock.com for $12.89 including shipping...there is $5 off coupon in a thread here..just search on the word "essential"....the disk helped alot in getting the black level/contrast/color relationship better..picture quality is excellent now...i had the brightness (black level) up too high....after cal my settings were contrast 85 color 43 tint 61 blacklevel 33 (although i raise this sometimes to around 43) and sharpness 40


JPH,

Mostly in agreement with your assessment of this TV. I have had my RCA DLP since August 12th. The screen glare can is sometimes very bothersome. Matrix is unwatchable during the day.

I tried your calibration settings. I think I like it. Should I expect my set to look like yours with the same settings. HTWAITS ? thanks,

Originally posted by truaudiophile
I would like to know if there is another source for the keyboard. They are on backorder from RCA with no date for delivery given. Any keyboard comments from RCA owners?

In case you are wandering, I was, I found an Ultimate TV keyboard for $9. It looks almost like the keyboard for this TV. I didn't gt it do do anything except change the channel.

Last time I tried using the remote to surf I got stuck in AOL and couldn't leave. The resolution used for the web browser looks terrible. Hope people don't expect much in this area.

Originally posted by gitarzan
HTWAITS ? thanks,
You're welcome.

i wonder why the resolution on the web browser is so low?..this is upseting since its kind of a cool feature..but if the resolution sucks i'll probably end up not using it...i really can't evaluate its benifit w/o the wireless keyboard...any clues how to get one?

Life is good here in Milwaukee, WI.

I got the 61 inch DLP TV with the Built in Tuner from Best Buy about two weeks ago. I came across the board just today.

I have to say, I know nothing about the 720 vs. 1080 thing. All I know is I really enjoy the picture on this TV.

I upgraded from a Sony CRT 53 inch, which I gave to my dad since he didn't have a big screen.

I am very happy with quality of the picture and very happy with the menus.

I AM NOT happy with what I am calling the "ease of use" factor.

I am still trying to understand all the bells and whistles and I must admit, though I thought myself knowledgeable in this area, it is stretching my limits.

I just ordered the Video Essentials and will see if that helps. I bought the TV from BEst Buy when they had a sale, so i got it for just under 4 G's. I am happy (though I don't know if I got taken) I just have to learn more and see if I can get more ease of use out of this thing.

We were originally looking for an LCD TV, but when I looked at all the choices, the DLP seemed like the best picture for the money, and it rivals the Plasma pictures I have seen.

Again, I am very happy with the quality of the picture and sound is good too.

DVDs look great, the MNF signal looks great, and the HD channels look fantastic. I am happy with everything, so far.

How do I go about getting a OTA antenna? I want to try that out. So far, I have been using the cable signal from Time Warner cable. I just want to try that out.

I tried hooking my laptop up to the tv, and was disappointed, but I wasn't going to use it for that, so I didn't care. I may not even have been doing that right.

A question for you guys. I am looking to buy some home theatre speakers/receivers packages. Money IS an object, and I plan to buy them from Best Buy (not for any loyalty, but I have a gift card and I need to use it!) What chould I be looking for in that respect? I have a friend who has a THX receiver, and he thinks it is amazing. Do I need this? I have heard good and bad things. What brands should I look for, and do you have any other points to consider? sorry for the long post.

SirCharls

Originally posted by SirCharls
Life is good here in Milwaukee, WI.


How do I go about getting a OTA antenna? I want to try that out. So far, I have been using the cable signal from Time Warner cable. I just want to try that out.


A question for you guys. I am looking to buy some home theatre speakers/receivers packages. Money IS an object, and I plan to buy them from Best Buy (not for any loyalty, but I have a gift card and I need to use it!) What chould I be looking for in that respect? I have a friend who has a THX receiver, and he thinks it is amazing. Do I need this? I have heard good and bad things. What brands should I look for, and do you have any other points to consider? sorry for the long post.

SirCharls

Congratulations on your new purchase.

I'd recommend going to the HD hardware forum for information regarding antennas and trying the audio forums for information on speakers/receiver packages. These are the type of questions that must have been answered quite a few times already so check out previous post or maybe use the search function.

Happy watching with your new set.

Jim

I have a cable modem now connected to my Scenium. It works fine and I can still view the TV programming in a PIP type mode with the web browser. The optional wireless keyboard that RCA offers (KBR755TA1) for $49 will not be available till mid-December. Does anyone out there know if I could just use one of the Web TV (aka MSN TV) keyboards. I can get a new or refurbished one at Amazon.com. The specs look similar.

Also, thanks for the information regarding calibration. The recent posts in this Forum have been very useful.

SirCharls,

As to OTA HD antenna there are no special requirements. If your locale provides OTA HD programming then any antenna that will work with SDTV will work for HD. Just find out where the transmission towers are in your area and buy a TV antenna from Home Depot or where-ever suitable for the distance from your home to the transmission tower.

Just like OTA SDTV you can have ghosting (multipath) issues and may need to rotate the antenna to pickup the various HDTV signals.

I got to see the RCA 50" today. My impressions are based at looking at the tv in a furniture store with furntiture store lightining. They had a 43" Samsung next to it but on the opposite side of the cornor and higher.

As far as the glare was concerned, in ark scenes it was very evident. The beige couch right in front of the tv really stood out when the screen was black, but not much more than the glare you get from and ordinary crt tv. When the screen was full of lighter colors the glare really as noticable.

As far as picture it looked better than the Samsung and seemed to have better blacks. Ootb it was defintely on the orange side. I didn't have the time to play around with it so I only saw the dish network Hidef demo on it.

Originally posted by SteveRM
I got to see the RCA 50" today. .
It's almost impossible to get a good idea of what a set can do in the type of store, or most any store, that you were in.

One of the first things you need to know is what is being fed to the sets and what connections and User Menu options are being used.

Were the sets you were looking at placed at eye level? Brightness drops off rapidly if the set (DLP or LCD) is either too high or too low.

All that only helps a little. A good "refund for any reason at no charge" policy for at least 30 days will allow you to evaluate at home.

There is a lot of information here. Have you checked out the "popular" thread?

At the top of the list of threads is one called "Popular Threads ** Look here B4 starting a thread" (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=323602).

In there you will find links to all kinds of information that new members are interested in. Under Samsung there is a "Unofficial Samsung HLN" thread that will provide you with a wealth of information.

You are in one of the big RCA threads but there is another one listed too.

Good luck.

I am a new owner of an RCA HDLP50W151, and the picture is very good, albeit almost too bright, even with the bulb in the "longer life" setting. The major issue for me is "rainbow" artifacts, which seem pervasive, even though I never had a problem with my old Davis DLP front projector, or Sammys in store displays. The screen "glows" when on, and there is no signal, which suggests poor black levels - but with content, it seems pretty good. The protective-screen glare is a pain, but can be controlled with careful backlighting, and other room-light control.

jfbundy:

By any chance, are you watching the RCA DLP in a dark room??

to JimP: I watch my RCA HDLP50 in a fairly dim room, with carefully-controlled backlighting. Screen glare can be minimized, but I sure wish RCA had spent a few extra bucks on a low-reflective screen. Samsung, Hitachi, Panasonic, and Sony all have gone to this extra trouble, and it really makes a difference. There is nothing, however, I can do about the "rainbow" effects...

John

jfbundy

I guess you've already tried the power saver(or whatever they're calling it) which would reduce the bulb brightness.

I got to see the RCA 50" Scenium today for the 1st time. The store had HDNet and a modest DVD with Finding Nemo routed to the set. I was very impressed with the PQ. For SD material it was better than the Samsung's I've seen at the Tweeter Stores. I also like that it has the extra features of FireWire, ATSC/QAM, and multiple lamp levels over the Samsung. BUT, I'm still waiting for a true TV, one that doesn't require a settop box for viewing digital cable.

irfoton
PS Are the Scenium and the sets at BB the same?

I hooked a PC up to my RCA DLP through the DVI input. I haven't been able to get the horizontal and vertical width right. At 800x600 60 hertz (1080i) I lose half the width of the task bar on all four sides. The TV has configuration for centering the picture but nothing to control the size. I haven't been able to change size at all through the software controls. Any ideas on this? thanks,

I think you are SOL Tarzan. I have the Panny 50lc13 and I have the overscan as well. Everyone has that for that matter. You may try "Powerstrip" but I think that will lose the 1:1 pixel map thing. Hmm, just noted you are using 800x600, well when I use that on my panny I get the full image, however, since the TV has a native 720, when I use the 1280x720 resolution which offers the best picture, however, the overscan issue comes into play. I am still looking for a full screen PC image in HD clarity, 720p for instance 1280x720. When I find it that will be my upgrade over the Panny. Good Luck!

Originally posted by gitarzan
I hooked a PC up to my RCA DLP through the DVI input. I haven't been able to get the horizontal and vertical width right. At 800x600 60 hertz (1080i) I lose half the width of the task bar on all four sides. The TV has configuration for centering the picture but nothing to control the size. I haven't been able to change size at all through the software controls. Any ideas on this? thanks,
You may have serious problems getting the RCA DLP to work with your PC. Pre-release there was a lot of discussion about the way RCA designed the DVI input (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=288235).

The DVI port can't accept the set's native resolution so it's out as far as HTPC applications are concerned. That probably means a lot fewer people trying to figure out how to get around over scan problems just using it for a PC monitor.

You might find someone to help in the Home Theater Computers (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=26) forum.

DVI probably will not map correctly to the RCA since the DVI input does not support 720p which is the native screen resolution. I hope you can get something that works to your satisfaction.

As suggested here, I installed powerstrip, fumbled around with it a couple of hours. Satisfied with results, no, not really. To bad, the sharpness is better than I expected.

A review of the RCA P61310 61" RPTV. This is not the DLP model but it seems RCA is still non-responsive when it comes to service. (From epinions)

"Do Not Buy this TV for any Reason
by honestopenion, Oct 26 '03
Pros: Good picture for 6 months
Cons: SERVICE, SERVICE, SERVICE, SERVICE, SERVICE!!!!
We had our RCA TV only 6 months. Repair person took apart the TV in the basement, 3 months later, 61 phone calls to RCA and service center, 2 potential small claim court claims, 2 days off work, the TV is still apart in the basement. 5 calls to Thomson Electronics (they make RCA) in Europe, they will buy-back the TV due to inability to repair it (RCA is a lemon). Do yourself a favor and DO NOT BUY AN RCA TV-IT IS GREAT UNTIL IT BREAKS. Look at other comments about RCA TV's and they are all the same!!!!"

Here is a quote from a dealer on the RCA DLP (from ecoustics.com)

"Our display 61" RCA has a hum also, but we run it all day. And yes, the RCA dlp is really a junk tv. we've had so many problems with both of them (1st one stopped working after 2 weeks) both of them seem to have a strobe of light flicker on it up and down. the rainbow effect is very noticeable, not on our 50" Samsung dlp though."

Talk about the kiss of death...

Does anyone know what the latest version of firmware is for these sets. I am only asking because it seems to make a differance for some Sammy DLP owners. How would you be able to check the verions?
Thanks

I've just browsed through the first page of this thread, and the last couple of posts. I don't know If Michael Scott is still contributing to this thread - but just an fyi to any potential RCA owner:

I have seen two RCA dlp's at two stores, both 50" jobs. The movie playing on the first one I saw was "HULK". The scene was a scene with Nick Nolte, and he was in shadows - well, there was no transition, it went from Nolte's face to black, it was horrible.

The second time I saw it, it was playing a program that was playing through all the TV's on display. The best TV by far was the Sammy DLP 50", there were two CRT RP's that were close (Hitachi and Sony, store does not carry Toshiba) and then the RCA, again looked absolutely awful.

I asked the salesman about the RCA, he has had it on display for two months now, and he refuses to sell it. He says that he wouldn't recommend the set to anyone, and would offer up the Sammy DLP in second (both 50" sets were listed for the same price).

I ended buying the 61" DLP Sammy from him, as he gave me really good deal. I noticed when I was in today the RCA set wasn't even on.

Look, if you want to buy a cheap DLP, offer the guys 50% off the selling price, and maybe you can live with it. For me, this is a major investment, and I want a picture I am totally happy with, and the Sammy DLP does it for me.

RCA is the lowest of the low, if you're going to by RCA, you may as well set yourself up with a Bose 'Theatre in a box' set up, and have it installed by 'Bubba' in your double wide, as this set is about as low as you can go for quality, period IMO from what I have seen now and in the past.

But hey, if you like RCA, then good for you, just make sure you get a good price when you buy it.

just becuase you saw 2 badly set up tvs in a showroom doesnt mean the model is a piece of junk...ive had my 50" rca dlp for a month now and as ive said before the hi-def picture is literally the best ive ever seen and the digital cable sd pictures are more than adequate...granted im nervous about rca reliability but the tv is in no way a piece of junk...most reviews ive read were positive and the negative ones all seem to be coming from rca bashers

Originally posted by jph1207
just becuase you saw 2 badly set up tvs in a showroom doesnt mean the model is a piece of junk...ive had my 50" rca dlp for a month now and as ive said before the hi-def picture is literally the best ive ever seen and the digital cable sd pictures are more than adequate...granted im nervous about rca reliability but the tv is in no way a piece of junk...most reviews ive read were positive and the negative ones all seem to be coming from rca bashers
I don't want to "bash" your keyboard, but I think the shift key may be defective. :D

not sure what you mean about my keyboard?... basher is a word.."one who hurls verbal abuse at"...not sure what else was wrong..anyway i love my rca..believe it or not i watched a couple of movies recently on HBOHD and they really were spectacular...very impressive considering i too had a samsung dlp on order but it was going to take too long to get..i also had the hitachi lcd on ordere but it too was backordered..so i made an amazing deal on the rca..took the extended warranty & took the plunge...so far so good...and the cabinet styling is also beautiful!!

unless you mean im just nuts for liking my rca..trust me im just as surprised as anyone but the hi-def & dvd picture quality is excellent...i know alot about tv technology & am widely considered among my coworkers and friends as an "expert" and i am not exagerating how good the hidef quality is...web browser, firewire, digital cable tuner etc..all nice but mainly bells & whistles...stretch modes suck, pip is useless, no 720p is ridiculous etc etc..but when i watch monday night football in hi-def...MY RCA RULES!!!

Originally posted by jph1207
unless you mean im just nuts for liking my rca....MY RCA RULES!!!
I was just using an imagined keyboard failure (to do caps) to tease you about referring to those who find fault with the TV you love as "bashers". :)

I was in BestBuy again today and I looked at the again at the RCA 61" DLP. In comparison to the Samsung 50' unit the Samsung had darker blacks. I spent about 15 minutes trying to adjust the RCA playing with the contrast and brightness controls but the dark areas appeared to be slightly washed out compared to the Samsung. Possibly it was just this RCA set or perhaps it needed a professional calibration but I noticed a significant difference between the Samsung and the RCA (with a non-reflective screen).

Originally posted by jph1207

just becuase you saw 2 badly set up tvs in a showroom doesnt mean the model is a piece of junk...ive had my 50" rca dlp for a month now and as ive said before the hi-def picture is literally the best ive ever seen and the digital cable sd pictures are more than adequate...granted im nervous about rca reliability but the tv is in no way a piece of junk...most reviews ive read were positive and the negative ones all seem to be coming from rca bashers

Believe it or not, I'm not an RCA Basher. I just report in what I see. Why would a salesman (I'm talking a 14 year top salesman here, not some young kid) steer me away from the RCA after I myself mentioned the pic to him. He said the chip is not the same as Sammy's, Sammy has a patent agreement with TI, and the RCA uses a completely different technology. Granted, he could be an RCA hater, and I take everything I hear with a grain of salt. For instance, one mid-high end store (chain) here in Canada absolutely hates DLP period. But guess what, they only carrry LCD & CRT, so go figure. My 'guy' also mentioned that the Japanese tried to make a DLP, but because they could not have access to the TI technology (or it could be Sammys DVIe, I'm not sure here) their sets couldn't cut it, that's why all the Japanese sets, at least for now, are LCD, and no DLP's.

What I saw on the RCA was horrible, and I don't mean not good, I mean horrible. It was set up out of the box, as was the Sammy DLP. And since I saw the RCA's at two different stores, not just one, I have to conclude it was the T.V.

Now, if you like your RCA, I say great, good for you!! I am very happy for you. I hope you have many years of enjoyment out of your set, and I'm sure you will. Myself, based on what I have seen (9 different Sammy's at 4 different stores, 2 RCA Selenim 50" at 2 different stores) it is a no brainer, the Sammy wins. In fact, I liked the RCA CRT RPTV for $1400.00 (cdn) a lot better then the RCA DLP for $5400 cdn.

As for the subject line "Kpt krunch is crazy", it should read "Kpt krunch is Krazy" :)

Originally posted by Kpt_Krunch
...Why would a salesman (I'm talking a 14 year top salesman here, not some young kid) steer me away from the RCA after I myself mentioned the pic to him. He said the chip is not the same as Sammy's, Sammy has a patent agreement with TI, and the RCA uses a completely different technology.

As for the subject line "Kpt krunch is crazy", it should read "Kpt krunch is Krazy" :)
Kpt krunch is Krazy if he ever listens to his "14 year top salesman" again. He is full of crap -- creative crap, but crap non-the-less.

The chip is the same in all the DLP (second generation) set (both RP and FP) being built today.

I have a lot of issues with the RCA DLP but there has to be another reason for the big difference in PQ. Seeing the same set look bad is two stores is not hard to do around here no matter who built them. :)

After reading the last few negative post, I would like to add my comment to offer some degree of balance.

I saw the RCA 61" DLP at the local Best Buy store and the difference in picture quality between it and the Samsung 50"er next to it on a HD signal was essentially non existent. Both looked very good.

I think these sets has some problems when they first came out,(so did Samsung) but from what I can tell, whatever those problems were have been remedied.

"Re: Kpt krunch is crazy"

He in not Krazy but he is stating what he heard and saw. I have also seen posts by salesman bashing the Samsung as poorly made. However, in fact I see Samsung standing behind their products and trying to fix the defects a lot more than RCA. RCA seems to have a habit of abandoning their customers unless threated with legal / class action. Samsung with its replacement of the main circuit board program and its other actions seems to be going the extra mile to keep its customer satisfied and it has a much better track record (at least with the DLPs). As to picture quality I can only report what I saw between the RCA and Samsung DLP. Do I dislike RCA - absolutely not. The make some excellent professional products. When a company comes out with a new product (especially one that you are making a sizeable investment) you need to look at the companies track record of taking care of its customers.

Originally posted by PaulGo
"Re: Kpt krunch is crazy"

He in not Krazy ...
I agree. :)

My two big issues with the RCA DLP is that RCA cut some design corners (no 720p input or all digital path) and their support track record.

kpt krunch isnt just reporting what he saw..he is stating an extreme opinion as fact based on what he saw...does this quote sound like someone just "stating what he saw".......

"RCA is the lowest of the low, if you're going to by RCA, you may as well set yourself up with a Bose 'Theatre in a box' set up, and have it installed by 'Bubba' in your double wide, as this set is about as low as you can go for quality, period IMO from what I have seen now and in the past. "

by the way the rca does indeed have the 2nd generation mustang2 chip as does the samsung

by the way kpt...i dont think you're krazy at all...just a figure of speech...plus i want to believe my tv will continue to work for years like it does now....and like many others since ive only had sony, toshiba, hitachi etc in the past im certainly nervous about rca's track record...but for $[Price Removed] i figured why not (since the sammy dlp was not in stock anywhere)

Hey JP et al, I was at the store again today to check delivery on my Samsung (and cherry pic the DVD "Pirates of the Carribbean") and had them turn the RCA DLP back on again. This time I really looked at it, spoke with my guy again too. I must have misunderstood him as he did in fact say today it has the same chip as the Sammy. He did say RCA builds it 'cheaper', and he himself doesn't trust it. But I think he has something against RCA anyway.

I think the reason why the picture on the sets I saw look so bad was the covering on over the screen. Where the Sammy has no covering, hence no reflection, the RCA had a plexiglass like covering. Are the ones sold in the US the same way? This really is bad, when the tv is off it is almost like looking into a mirror, literally.

I don't mind being called "Krazy", I am definitely misinformed sometimes, this is why I like posting here. There are a lot of knowledgeable people that can set me straight :). I would rather have the facts, both good and bad, then just taking the word of a few salesmen, that have their own agendas for these things.

Originally posted by Kpt_Krunch
He did say RCA builds it 'cheaper', and he himself doesn't trust it.
RCA seems to have designed it cheaper in some areas (no digital path for 720p) that we know about. The light engine, which they buy from Infocus, is an important exception. I have no idea about whether they build it cheaper. For that, time will certainly tell. :)

That high gloss screen can actually be a benefit if you have some control of the light sources in your viewing room. There seem to be two screen options in the US. The other is just labeled "RCA" and is supposed to be sold by BB. It's screen is anti-glare like the Samsung.

The big question is how hard will you have to fight to get repairs done. Again, I don't have facts, only the sad stories I've heard from others.

JimP stated:
I saw the RCA 61" DLP at the local Best Buy store and the difference in picture quality between it and the Samsung 50"er next to it on a HD signal was essentially non existent. Both looked very good.

Did you see any difference in black levels? I could not get the RCA to produce as dark of a black level while keeping detail as the Samsung.

I also truly like my RCA DLP 50 and I find the lower bulb setting is more than bright enough so we keep it set there. I like it, my family likes it, and I've looked and looked and had family and friends look for rainbows and no one has seen one. I've been told that not everyone will see rainbows in a DLP but only those whose eyes and brains are transmitting differently than most of us. That may be urban legend, but out of the 35 or so individuals who have visited the house since we brought it in none have seen a rainbow.

The only thing I've not yet done is hook an Ethernet connection and check for firmware updates.

I also thoroughly enjoy the RCA 50" DLP I purchased from HHGregg here in Fort Wayne, IN about 2 months ago. I watched my first MNF game last night and I was very pleased. ESPN-HD college basketball(UNC/U of I in particular) has been amazing, even through the Comcast digital cable component video feed up-converted to 1080i - as we all know by now, the TV won't accept 720P. The channel tuning is a bit slow, but it doesn't bother me. I don't hear the fan, but I did have a friend notice it the other day - he was the first person out of 30 or so who have seen it. There seems to be a lot of complaints on this site, but for the money, I don't think there's a better TV out there.

I have yet to find a Firmware update. I had my Ethernet cable connected for the first few weeks I owned the TV, but it is currently not connected. The web browsed doesn't offer much fuctionalty and without the keyboard, it's pretty much useless - then again, that's what my PC is for.

Originally posted by PaulGo
JimP stated:


Did you see any difference in black levels? I could not get the RCA to produce as dark of a black level while keeping detail as the Samsung.

Hey PaulGo

If there was a difference in black levels or detail in the blacks, it didn't stand out. It could very well have been the program material didn't show much of anything where this would stand out.

I downloaded the .pdf file for the RCA dlp and snooped on page 66 of the owners manual (page 68 of the pdf file) and found an explaination of "Contrast Expand" it reads as follows: "Contrast Expand" makes the picture appear brighter by deepening the black parts of the picture. This also helps to maintain a more consistent black level from one scene to the next. The options are off, low, and high.

I would think that a combination of "Contrast Expand", brightness and contrast should provide the tools needed to get a dark black without crushing the next shade or two above black. Now the question has to be would you actually prefer a picture that has a slight amount of black crush to give the picture more snap. But that's for you to decide. I'd be glad that its where you can get to it without going into a service menu.

Let us know how this turns out.

I just got an RCA 61" DLP and it's different than what I expected. There's no black bezel (it's grey) and the screen is anti-glare (not mirror-finish shiny). Is this a new version or something?

Originally posted by pongoloid
I just got an RCA 61" DLP and it's different than what I expected. There's no black bezel (it's grey) and the screen is anti-glare (not mirror-finish shiny). Is this a new version or something?
Let my guess. You bought it at BB. RCA has a model just for Best Buy with the non-glare screen (probably cheaper) and the gray bezel. I don't know what else is different, but the set you have is not the RCA Scenium line of TV sets.

Old Pirate,
I would pass on the Ethernet connection until they do a firmware upgrade. My TV has crashed hard twice while using the browser. I mean NOTHING works except for the front power button. I have experienced smaller crashes when loading a page with too much info or one that is not compatible with the browser, in which the browser simply closes. What ever you do DO NOT push and hold the FAV button on the keyboard.
I am now also experiencing problems with the recording of new content to the DVR10.
The Set looks good and works fine, but not so good with the accessories.

Does anyone know what CPU is in these sets or how much memory they have to handle a browser?

Web browsing is asking a lot from a TV given the wild nature of the Internet and the rapid change in the structure of web pages and web sites.

Of course, if they can maintain it with Internet loaded firmware it should stabilize sometime in the future. I'm still waiting for Windows to stabilize. ;)

Convergence, where for art thou Convergence!

Considering the nature of the web, I can't quite see how an intergrated browser that doesn't have firewall, popup blockers and virus protection that could be updated to be kept current from new attacks, could ever work.

Thanks Truaudiofile....I'll keep watching here until someone mentions a source code update.

The web browswer is something I doubt I would ever use.

I think I may have mentioned part of this information in another thread. The on screen setup shows the device name as 'Wi nCE' (with the space). The RCA faq is difficult to read due to the low resolution. I can not tell what the resolution is on the channel banner as the info button is not enabled. My software version is A8.1A/B8.11 and I haven't seen it change since early August. The RCA FAQ when you open the web browser says it is unlikely there will ever be software updates. Why even bother to tell me that. I think anyone buying this TV for the web browser will be disappointed. Oh, be careful about going to AOL if you don't have the keyboard. It is hard to leave.

I have had my PC hooked up through the DVI connection. It would like nice but I can not find a screen resolution that fits on the screen and am not hopeful that I will. And yes 1080i but no 720p. I am quite disappointed with this aspect of this TV.

Originally posted by gitarzan
My software version is A8.1A/B8.11 and I haven't seen it change since early August. .

I mean I have never seen it change since I bought the TV.

Everyone should keep their eyes open for a firmware upgrade. Any of the FAV buttons causes the TV to crash hard. Lamp off and blinking power button kind of crash. This is certainly not acceptable for a new television and cause for future legal problems if if does not get fixed.
The keyboard has a font button to change the text and make the tv much more readable for all those crazy web pages you may go to. If I get time, I may try to DL the IR codes into my pronto for users. Let me hear from owners that would find this useful.

MORE RCA problems....

Turned on the set today and no picture. "unusable signal" as RCA puts it.
I have cable on Coax A and my Antenna on Coax B. Neither tuner was pulling in anything to form a picture. Remote control operation was also sluggish. Menu and display still worked.
Pulled the plug for a minute and started there. It seemed the TV returned to normal operation. I keep looking for the Microsoft sticker on the back... haven't found it yet :)

You know what is pathetic and funny. I tried the browser on Hotmail. Nada.
Tried it on this thread and it shut down.

I think the boys at Thompson have some more work to do.

Truaudiophile, sorry to hear of your problems. The big question with Thomson is their unwillingness to acknowledge a problem and fix it or procrastinate and try to sweep it under the rug. Usually all manufactures have some problems with a new design (e.g. Samsung with their DLP) but the biggest problem I have seen with RCA is their unwillingness to resolve these problems.

Question to this group:

Since based upon what I have read I have been bashing RCA customer service, has anyone had some favorable stories to tell about RCA customer service?

Hi:

RCA support for me is mediocre at best. Dealer hasn't a clue to deal with some questions I have, not able to get help from service rep, and phone call to Thomson was a dry well. The guy that I talked to kept putting me on hold to consult with another "expert" but none of my questions were answered. I am supposed to call back Tuesday to see if anybody can answer my questions.

So that begs the question: What are my problems?

1. I cannot arbitrarily add channel (s) that have not been picked up the setup scan for channels. I can remove them, but only by drilling down to the "parental controls" options and unchecking each channel, one by one.

2. I have XM music receiver and I have been able to hook up the audio from that device to the audio input of my previous (Sony) TV. When I do that with the RCA, I get no video OR audio. I have tried all the inputs front and back; all I get is the "unusable signal" screen on the TV. If I hook any video source, such as video from one of my DVD players (turned on) to S video or video in (to the input that I have the XM audio connected to), I do get audio. Remove the video connection or turn the DVD player off, and "unusable signal" is the greeting. Say what? Silliness. I should be able to hook up an audio source so I can listen to audio from the TV without having to have live video connected to the same input.

The tech at Thomsen said to try going to audio options in the menu and setting "Fixed/Variable out" to variable out, speakers off or fixed out, speakers off. Gimme a break. All that does is shut off the internal TV speakers. I had to explain that to him! His suggestion after that was to unplug the TV for an hour, plug it back in, and then try again. I would guess that his next suggestion would be to reformat drive C....

3. I have two firewire devices, a Canon GL1 minidv camcorder, and a JVC minidv/VCR recorder. When I hook these devices up via firewire, they both are recognized, and I CAN CONTROL FORWARD, REVERSE, PAUSE, STOP, etc. with the TV CONTROLLER. This tells me that these devices are being "seen" by the TV. However I get NO audio or video (playback) from either device to the TV. Now, I understand that one cannot RECORD digital signals to devices unless the devices have some sort of copy protection in their firmware (the entertainment industry strikes again). However, I would think that I could at least play back video/audio through these devices to the TV. No joy. The technician at Thomson did not have a clue; once again he was going to refer this problem to an "expert." "Firewire" or 1394 standards allow video and audio to and from firewire devices.

4. Has anybody tried to run a computer with a video card that has DVI-D output to the TV? I await an answer so I don't have to waste money on such a video card if it will not output to the RCA TV with the correct formats, such as 1280x1024 or 1024x768. Why, o' why, Mr. Thomson, did you remove the standard RGB 15 pin video input from your HDTV receivers???

All in all I selected the RCA because for me, it blew away all the other TV's in the dealership re PQ; I spent two days browsing around the store looking at the various sets. The only other set I was considering was the Samsung DLP 43, and it was very good. But the price was the same for the RCA which has the bigger screen and the built in HDTV tuner. And I am aware that each person has his own view as to what he/she thinks is best video quality. The "rainbow" and reflective screen are non-issues for me.

Any help from TV gurus in RCA land out there can lend me some help?

Postscript: The video from ABC true HDTV 16x9, 720P and the video from PBS and CBS true HDTV, 16x9, 1080I are stunning!!! BTW, this is probably the case with ALL HDTV sets, such as the Samsungs, etc.

Thanks,

Frank

Originally posted by fbiba
Any help from TV gurus in RCA land out there can lend me some help?
Frank
So far I've read here that Internet connections lead to hard lockups, and now firewire won't accept inputs. By design, connecting a HTPC via DVI at 720p is impossible so that cuts out 1 x 1 pixel mapping.

Sounds like RCA has some work ahead of them to make their DLP computer friendly. :rolleyes:

So far RCA's support is living up to expectations. I hope you don't need any parts replaced. I've read that you can expect to wait a long time.

The InFocus light engine must be doing a great job with OTA HD signals which are displayed without an analog conversion. I wonder how good PQ would be if you could feed the DLP it's native resolution via DVI and avoid going into and then back out of analog?

Originally posted by fbiba
2. I have XM music receiver and I have been able to hook up the audio from that device to the audio input of my previous (Sony) TV. When I do that with the RCA, I get no video OR audio. I have tried all the inputs front and back; all I get is the "unusable signal" screen on the TV. If I hook any video source, such as video from one of my DVD players (turned on) to S video or video in (to the input that I have the XM audio connected to), I do get audio. Remove the video connection or turn the DVD player off, and "unusable signal" is the greeting. Say what? Silliness. I should be able to hook up an audio source so I can listen to audio from the TV without having to have live video connected to the same input.

Most TVs that I've owned work this way. Newer TV's use the video signal to determine if the input is used. What you can try is to cut the end off of a video cable and plug it into the video input on the TV.

I'm sorry that your last TV had this "functionality" but this is not an issue/problem on the RCA.

Guys,

To say I'm "extremely" disappointed with the new RCA DLP is an understatement. I just sold my Samsung HLN-507 on ebay in anticipation for the new 61" RCA DLP at Best Buy and what a mistake I think I made!

The store has the RCA 61" on display right next to their Samsung 50" HLN-5065W. They're both approximately the same price. But, the quality of the RCA is pure grainy and does not come CLOSE to the Samsung's. It's not just a case of the Samsung being 50" vs. RCA's 61". I can understand how any 50" dlp would look a little better than it's 61" counterpart. But, the difference is not funny! The RCA looks horrible in comparison. :(

I wanted this set so much and now I'm bummed out because I've already committed to selling my Samsung 50" which blows the RCA out of the water! I don't get it. Quite frankly, I've tried to find a reason to ignore the difference but can't. I think the RCA looks soooo grainy by itself and has nowhere near the clarity that the Samsung has.

Any comments? I'm very upset and frustrated. I wanted to buy this RCA and now feel screwed royally.

I'm sorry to ask this question when you are upset but did you sell your Samsung before you ever saw the RCA?

What kind of a return policy is BB offering. You might want to go ahead and try it at home if you can return it in 30 days at no cost. BB, in my experience, is one of the worst places to evaluate any TV.

Another possibility is buy it from someone else and get the glass (glare) screen. If you can control your lighting to keep it from glaring the PQ should be better.

Thanks HT.

Yes, I put my tv up for sale on ebay and have just sold it...well, I have a buyer I should say.

I haven't bought the RCA yet and yes, BB does have a very liberal return policy. But the bottom line is the picture quality is POOR. It's not just a question of getting a glass (glare) screen. The overall picture quality of the RCA 61" is grainy. It's not a matter of lighting or contrast adjustments. I wish that was the problem.

I'm shocked that there are RCA 61" dlp owners out there that are complacent or "satisfied" with a less than mediocre picture quality. This is what troubles me more than anything. I'd bet that if consumers didn't settle for poor quality, RCA would do a better job at making quality products instead of the crap I see now.

Skatze

I'm somewhat surprised with your statement that you think it looks grainy.

The one that I saw at our local BB store didn't look grainy. It compares favorably to the Samsungs around it.

If I were you, I'd go back and see if I could figure out if its an adjustment on the set or maybe something screwed up on the signal feed.

Skatze

I was in another BestBuy in my area (Gaithersburg, MD), this is the third RCA DLP I viewed at different BestBuys. The RCA was right next to the Samsung and at all three locations I came away with the same opinion - that the RCA interjects more noise in the picture that the Samsung with the same signal. The 50" Samsung had a picture quality that had no noise while the RCA picture looked (in terms of noise) as if it were an analog signal that was not receiving a strong signal. The following is subjective since I have a Samsung 61" DLP and I am used to the colors it produces but the colors on the RCA did not seem as vivid to me (even after playing around with the controls). The noise issue bother me the most since on a digital signal this should not happen at all. A weak digital signal should cause pixelization not noise.

Does anybody here have the 50" Rca dlp,running on the samsung HD931? Just wanted to know how PQ is, and if audio syncs up

We purchased our 50" RCA Dec 17th and finally had it delivered this past Saturday. I was working all day but my husband and some friends spent several hours trying to get the system hooked up and working. Nothing worked. After several hours the store sent out one of their technicians to assist and shortly after he arrived he decided that we'd bought the first "lemon".

When we turn the power on the lights in the front turn blue for approx 15 sec. but there is no sound of a fan in the back, and the bulb doesn't turn on. Then after the first 15 seconds we can hear a click in the back right of the TV and at the same time the lights go out in the front.

On Monday the store tech contacted RCA to get an RMA number so that we could return the TV and have it replaced with a new one from the store. I'm not really happy with the solution the Tech has come up with (perhaps at RCA's request). He's arranged with RCA to have one of RCA's tech's (Authorized DLP tech) come to our house- supposed to be tomorrow (Wed) to look at the TV and see if it's a small problem that can be fixed in our home, rather than either sending the TV to RCA or totally replacing it (which could take a week or two since the availability of this model is Nil for the next while).

The tech from the store set up a conference call with my husband and the tech people at RCA. During this conversation my husband was told that they've never had any problems with the RCA 50" DLP and that the specialized tech has never had to go out on a call due to the lack of problems.

After reading some of the posts on this forum I'm finding it hard to believe that the tech people from RCA in Toronto Canada have never had to go out on calls to make in house repairs. Perhaps this is because it's a relatively new model and the availability has only just started to pick up in the last couple of months ... meaning very few people in this large city have this TV as of yet. what do you think?

My preference would be that they totally replace the set. I'm not happy starting out with a lemon. :( But I'm willing to see what they think the actual problem is, how easy or hard it is to repair, and what kind of service we get overall from the company.

So far I'm very pleased with the response from store we bought the RCA from- they reduced the price by $800 on Friday when we found it on sale for just under $700 less at another store, and they sent out a tech the day we purchased the TV- when we all hoped that we were only having trouble setting it up, and then they got in touch with RCA right away to try to resolve the problem. I'm also pleased with RCA's response and their attempt to send out their own tech as quickly as possible in order to assess what the problem is. I say try at this point because the tech isn't due to arrive until tomorrow and I certainly hope that one does!

I'll post and let everyone know what happens with our "Lemon" TV. I hope that I'll be able to report that I'm happy with the service and the solution to our problem. I'm very disappointed that our new very expensive TV didn't work right out of the box! Anyone come across or hear about a problem like this before?

I didn't have a chance to see the Samsung and the RCA side by side or even in the same store for a direct comparison. I saw each model in different stores- saw the sammy a week after I purchased our RCA. I found both sets to have exceptional pq compared to the other models that were in each of the two stores. We really liked the sharpness and colour quality of the RCA.

My husband just called the 1-888 number for RCA (we think the service tech that's coming is from an authorized service co. not from RCA now that we think about it. :)) just to ask RCA if they have dealt with this kind of problem before. We spoke with a few people in the Oklahoma sp? office. They said they've never heard of a problem like ours, and hadn't heard of any problems with the RCA scenium 50" DLP. When we gave them the serial number of our TV they were able to see when we purchased it and they told my husband that they would be tracking what happened with our TV and that our file was being passed on to the manager so he/she could keep track of the status of our repair. They also said we'd hear from them again in 24 to 48 hours in order for them to follow up on the status of our repair. Given the remarks that I've heard on this forum about RCA/Thompson's customer service I'll be interested to see if they really do follow up with us directly. RCA told us that the tech will test the lamp, and then the power supply and then run a diagnostic test on the TV. Depending on the problem the TV might be repaired in place, at the service depot or possible be sent back to RCA or completely replaced.

I'll let you know what happens- stay tuned!

Originally posted by dragonden
I'll let you know what happens- stay tuned!
I don't know what store policies are in Canada but I wouldn't buy from a store that needed the manufacturers approval to exchange a set that was dead out of the box or even in the first 30 days.

I don't believe a word of RCA's "we've never had a problem" with the 50" DLP. I think that response is a recording. :)

I'm sure a lot of people are interested in what happens to you.

Dragonden - What a fiasco! If I were you I would demand the store replace the unit immediately. The dealer should work out the issues with RCA on their own time! If not I would return it for the cheaper unit from the competion. You sound so nice...I would be BITTER!

I just wanted to give my impressions of the RCA 50" DLP after nearly three months of ownership and quite a bit of use. The purchase followed nearly six months of extremely intense shopping for an HDTV, with many hours of comparisons happening almost every weekend at a number of stores. My degree is in television engineering so I am familiar with most measurements of picture quality, and the choice was not an easy one and ultimately came down to the Samsung vs. the RCA (at the time the GWIII had not made an appearance and the black levels of the GWII were too high, and the grey scale tracking at lower IRE levels was too blue for my taste).

After three months I have not tired of the set, and remain as pleased with the quality as I was on day one. Each brand and set has its own particular strengths and weaknesses, and in this case the RCA's weaknesses were more than offset by its strengths. The chief benefit, to me, is an extremely "natural" picture especially when fed either HD material or DVD material through component inputs. The picture doesn't have an overly "processed" look. Grain levels might be very slighly higher than some other brands, but ultimately, to me, this has a very flattering effect on film in particular. Black levels are more than adequate, and helped immensely by the addition of a bias light in back of the screen during lights-out conditions.

The internal HDTV tuner has been a delight, pulling in three networks from over 35 miles away with an amplified Radio Shack antenna on the 1st floor.

I bought an extended warranty with the set for protection, but so far reliability has been flawless. If anyone has direct questions about the set as my ownership continues, please don't hesitate to ask and I will try to assist as best I can.

What you describe is exactly what my RCA has given me after a full month.

Sorry Dragonden, I think I got the first lemon. The picture is fantastic, when it works. Last night the channels were really slow to change and I could not get the guide to work. I tried some HDTV channels that normally work- nothing. So I did what any microsoft owner would do, turn it off and wait. Turn in back on again with my fingers crossed. I still had the same problem. I did it again, but this time i unplugged the set for 2 minutes and the problems went away.
Does anyone have a spare rabbit's foot i could hang off the back?

Hi folks, I've been lurking on this board prior to my HDTV purchase, I want to thank many of you for educating me on some of the issues pertaining to making the right choice in a HDTV.

I decided on the RCA 61"DLP. I've had it for a month and love it.

Now, with all due respect, for a bunch of seemingly well educated individuals I see a lot of biased, unfounded slams on the RCA brand. There may be some justification from previous models, but one cannot judge new technology based on biased opinions from the past.

I too looked at the 61" RCA right next to the Samsung 50" and that is why I bought the RCA, the picture is stunning and features vs. the Samsung were a "no contest". My room is far less than perfect with 2 windows and a patio door emitting light in to the room, yet the picture still looks wonderful. No reflective glare on this model.

Currently I'm recieving a cable feed and am able to pick up HD feeds without a cable box. Novel idea. 1080i looks unbelievable as does 720p. OTA HD signals are also flawless. I ran video essentials on the set as soon as I got it and there was some tuning needed from out of the box.

XBOX looks good and so does DVD. I guess the 720p conversion thing is working to my satisfaction.

So far, trouble free and amazed by the picture quality. All of my HD owner friends come over and say WOW when they see this picture.

Originally posted by kito2112
Hi folks, I've been lurking on this board prior to my HDTV purchase, I want to thank many of you for educating me on some of the issues pertaining to making the right choice in a HDTV.
...

Now, with all due respect, for a bunch of seemingly well educated individuals I see a lot of biased, unfounded slams on the RCA brand.

Now, with all due respect, it's interesting that you were able to select a perfect HDTV because you got so much good information here. After one month of ownership and no need to rely on the "famous" RCA service capability, you have also become an expert on "biased, unfounded slams".

I wish you the very best luck with your new HDTV. The one I saw today looked as great as the Samsung DLP and the Philips LCoS that it was sitting between. That's part of the battle. :)

Kudos to kito2112!

I too am a happy new owner of the RCA, abeit the 50 inch model. I too spent a good deal of time (three days) looking at the Samsung 43 and the RCA 50, and I *personally* prefer the RCA. In my opinion I can look at all the TV's in a dealership, and NOT ONE is identical to another, even within the same brand. I also was fortunate to see the RCA and the Samsungs side by side, same programming, etc. I agree with you in that I thought that the RCA looked a *little* bit better, i. e., sharper and with a little more brilliant color. I did NOT see any degree of graininess that was better or worse on the Samsungs vs the RCA's.

I cannot say that there was "no contest" in comparing the Samsungs vs. the RCA's; I thought that they were nearly equal in all respects. It was a tough decision for me, especially knowing that people love the Samsung, and it has been out longer than the RCA. I kinda went against part of one of my major rules: "Never eat yellow snow or buy the first version of a new product."

I have a major regret though; I wish I could have brought BOTH the RCA and the Samsung home....

Good for you on Video Essentials. I keep seeing on these forums that one should tweak the settings on a new TV. I just received Video Essentials and Avia a couple of days ago, and I purchased the service manual for my TV from Thomson. I plan to tweak the TV next week; I am a little "nervious" about getting into the service menus, but I have done this on other equipment. I tread lightly. Do me a favor. Tell me here what you settings are after tweaking.

Congrats on your new RCA, and congrats to all those out there with the Samsungs. I think BOTH of our groups will be happy with our purchases.

Frank

ps: If you have OTA I hope your PBS station has HD; One of the sub channels for our PBS is broadcasting CONTINUOUSLY HD or wide screen! I just say an HD production on trips to Athens and surrounding areas and another program in widescreen, DNA (not in HD) on PBS. Both were breathtaking!

"Castaway" on ABC HD last night: I cranked up the volume on the TV (I don't have surround sound setup (yet). I shut the lights off in my study and sat back to watch: when the explosion occurred on the plane, I was almost blown out of the chair, and I honestly think that for me the picture was better than when I saw it in the theater (I am sure my appraisal is purely subjective). The audio was quite good for a straight TV set.

HD rules!

fbiba: I would really appreciate it if you could share your calibration experience once you get the Thompson sevice manuals, I would be very interested in that, as well as if they publish circuit diagrams or at least some block diagrams in the manual; I don't know the level of detail to expect.

Wasn't Castaway on ABC just absolutely stunning!! Seeing movies in Hi-Def like that really makes me long for hi-def DVDs. Surprising, isn't it, when the networks are actually able to deliver a superior viewing experience, with the high bit rates that are available on their over-the-air transmissions. The detail on Hanks' face in some of those close-ups was amazing, and NO macroblocking or mosquito noise on the sand... I swear I was seeing clear down to the film grain with no defects visible at all.

I'd like to give my observation on the RCA DLP. I thought it was a 65 inch model, but if it is a 61, you'll forgive me. I'm merely calling it as I see it. I do own a Samsung HLM507W, an early adopter from October 2002.

At Best Buy, they had the 65 inch (or 61 whatever) DLP a few feet from a Samsung HLN5065W. Both TVs were displaying an HD loop from Discovery HD Theater on component inputs.

Quite honestly, I think the RCA has the superior picture in practically all regards. Specifically:

1.) Brightness - The RCA managed to have greater overall brightness without crushing the whites. The picture really *pops*, the Sammy almost foggy by comparison.

2.) Shadow detail - No contest, the RCA clearly superior, rendering significantly more detail, revealing every fold, every crease in a dark business man's suit. The Samsung DLP in a comparative sense, the darks looked cloudy.

3.) Color - Again, the RCA had the Samsung beat, with significantly more natural flesh tones, accurate reds, and overall accurate color balance. The recent Samsungs appear to me to have taken a giant leap backward in the sense of unnatural, fluorescent neon greens to the extreme. Something is wrong here...they were not like this before, and the greens on my Samsung DLP bear no resemblance to the present.

4.) Sharpness and Clarity - Sounding like a broken record, but the RCA was sharper corner to corner. The clarity, well I won't exaggerate and call it amazing because it came with a price, grainy and brutally unforgiving of digital artifacts in the source, compression or motion. It WAS grainy, but the screen dimension and thus magnification IS larger than the Sammy. The Sammy was completely absent of the grain, but in comparison (only) to the sharpness of the RCA, it looks cloudy, foggy, and also unfortunately, green tinted (by any standard).

6.) The RCA did have a problem remaining sync'd to the source, the picture would be stable, and then jitter and roll before going to black, thereafter returning to normal. But this occurrence repeated again and again, for what it's worth.

7.) The RCA cabinet and bezel is not as attractive or svelte as the Samsung, but beauty after-all, is in the eye of the beholder.

8.) Features - RCA has built in tuners QAM, I seem to recall HDMI, it clearly offered more.

9.) As if shadow detail, color and clarity were not enough, this 65 (or 61 whatever) was marked $100 lower than the 50 inch Sammy.

I'll probably take some arrows for this, but I'm gonna call it the way I see it. Whether I saw enough to recommend the RCA over the Samsung would have to depend on other factors, but driving home it did have me briefly entertaining thoughts of putting the Sammy on Ebay. There was some relieve upon arriving home and switching the Sammy on, to find it absent of the neon green tint, and the doubts that perhaps I had this too, and just didn't notice it. While not the case, I can say that the shadow detail of the RCA at Best Buy still beats the shadow detail on my personal Samsung, although not the sharpness, most certainly due to the superior quality of my DVI input source from a Sony HD200 DirecTV satellite tuner, compared to the split/multiple/simultaneous component feeds at Best Buy.

Let me just conclude by expressing my opinion, that based on what I saw, the RCA was very impressive. If you own one, I would not be second guessing your decision if it's working well for you. It's certainly not going to be shamed by the Samsung, except for the grain, and lack of smoothness compared to the comparatively soft Samsung image. There are enough positives to make tolerable the one or two negatives I could find.

And incidentally, I tweaked the Sammy user menu from the controls on the side for all it was worth, but no amount of it was going to equal the color balance of the RCA. The RCA, I don't know how to tweak it, didn't find the remote. The colors were not perfect, saturation was too high, but the tonality was at once more vivid and natural.

Sorry, but that's the way I saw it. Shields up.

Originally posted by Tom Roper
Sorry, but that's the way I saw it. Shields up.
I saw a 50" Scenium today between a HLN5065 and the 55" Philips LCoS.

The store had the HLN5065 on sale for the week at the same price as the RCA. I stood directly in front of the RCA at 9' or 10'. The feed was component HD with some gorgeous insects eating each other.

As far as PQ I could be happy with all three of them. I thought dithering was easier to see from my viewing distance on the Philips and RCA sets but it was very hard to check all three sets before the scene would change.

I'm not comfortable with the Philips LCoS stability after what happened to the Toshiba LCoS sets.

I'm not sure I could give up 720p via DVI for DVD movies with the RCA.

I did discover that I have been making assumptions that are unfounded. According to the description cards Sony, RCA, and Philips cover labor for only 90 days. Samsung covers labor for a year. With the apparent failure rate for these sets it makes an extended warranty even more important.

It will be interesting to see if RCA announces 720p through DVI or HDCP this week. I don't think the current RCA sets have HDCP.

I thought the Scenium looked better than the BB non-glare model that I saw two weeks ago. Today it had the best "high-lights" which gave it more punch than the HLN5065 and the Philips.

There was at least one Fry's salesman who was into user adjustments. He made some changes to the Philips while I was there. I'm not sure they were for the better.

One caveat for all three sets. The source material I saw today was about as good as you can get to show the strengths of all three sets.

There were no green meadows or forests to show the extreme greens the Samsung is capable of creating. Also, there was no opportunity to see my DVD test scenes. I wonder how the RCA would look doing those scenes using analog input vs. the Samsung doing them at 720p via DVI. There were no pans to speak of either.

Good Guys is a bit higher end in our area and have the capability of setting up for customer DVD tests. They have carried RCA during the past year but don't any longer. BB and Fry's are not conducive to any kind of testing.

Other than what I saw with my eyes, I know so little about the RCA, and nothing about the Phillips. But I think I'm reading from you, and possibly heard it somewhere else that the RCA doesn't do 720p? Odd, since it's a native 1280x720 resolution panel. But if true, maybe there's some explanation there for the grainy image of the RCA, a conversion to what? 1080i? That makes no sense to me since it has to be down-rez'd and re-scaled for that to work. And then, what...it's interlaced too? Hard to see how they could get the clarity I saw doing that, but again...where's the grain coming from? Seems unlikely it could be so bright and clear if it was simply poor signal-to-noise ratio in the component analog input. The set I saw had a non glare screen. Is there also a reflective version?

I've been watching some good HD stuff on my Sammy this evening. It doesn't remotely have that strong green push that was making me sick on the two 5065's at Best Buy. That's a good thing for me, but it got me to wondering, that if I actually went for an RCA, if that grainy image that didn't bother me in comparison to the fluorescent greens of the Sammy at Best Buy, might take on a whole new life of irritation and remorse if it was in my own living room.

It's clear to me RCA got the colors right, and most impressively, the shadow detail. But the grain...I dunno. The texture of the picture did sort of take on a CRT-RPTV like appearance, where I've observed grain there also, but sans the mis-convergence/color fringing.

I've found on my RCA 50 that if I turn the edge enhancement off or to low then the grain found in SD input is basically removed.

When getting an HD feed turning EE back on gives absolute detail to even human hands and finger prints.

Since we watch some of both I normally leave it on "low". If I turn it off completely then SD or simple digital loses most of, if not all the grain. It appears to work like a "smooth" effect found in some computer image management programs.

It takes 5 seconds to turn it on and off.

I recently bought a 55" Mitsubishi Gold Plus($2500) TV for christmas. However, they are not in stock and I'm still waiting for delivery. There was some system error so they gave me another 5% off.

In the mean time I've been looking at other TVs. I've managed to find a good deal on a 61" RCA Scenium DLP. The price difference between the two TVs is $500. I've read quite a bit of bashing on this TV but I wonder how this particular model compares with the Mits RPTV. None of the BB in my area have the RCA yet and the sales guy THINKS they're not going to carry it or I would checkout the tv myself. Going through my source I would have to order it, there is no demo model. Thoughts and feedback would be appreciated.

Could someone please explain the issue of a TV's native signal such as RCA's 720P?I've read some of the threads regarding RCA DLP vs Samsung DLP. If the Samsung is 720P native this would mean it could take a 720P source signal and pass it through 1 to 1? However if the source signal is 1080i(NBC, CBS) the TV will convert from 1080i to 720p? On that same note the RCA would have to convert the 1080i source to 720p. So is it really that big of a deal that when the RCA receives a source of 720p it converts it to 1080i then back to 720p? If the RCA is unable to accept 720P does this mean it will not be able to display ABC's 720p in HD? Somebody please shed some light on my confusion?

I watch ABC and ESPN HD in HD.

I haven't a clue what the TV is doing with that 720p signal, but in reality it may not be getting it to begin with. I am hooked up to a SA 3250HD box that converts all HD to 1080i before it passes it on through component. The pq on either is great as far as I'm concerned so whatever the TV has to do, it is doing it.

Wait....I sometimes hook up an antenna and watch ABC in HD OTA through the tuner and the picture is fine also.

Sometime this spring Cox is suppose to turn on the DVI port on this box then I'll let you know what I see from that input/output arrangement.

It seems the TV takes 720p through the built in tuner but not neccesarily through component, but not yet sure of DVI since I have nothing that works on that mode at the moment.

From reading all these posts it seems that many tvs convert signals all the time, but for some reason this fact has become a talking point with the RCA DLP and not other tv's that do the same thing. I don't know why!

Given a choice between a CBS 1080i football or basketball game versus a 720p from ABC or ESPN, I'll take CBS any day for color, clarity, and just a better viewing picture. And for movies and general tv...give me the 1080i with no caveats.

Originally posted by Tom Roper
... I think I'm reading from you, and possibly heard it somewhere else that the RCA doesn't do 720p? Odd, since it's a native 1280x720 resolution panel.

The RCA rejects 720p through the DVI and Component inputs. If you are watching ABC through a STB then you have to feed the RCA a 1080i signal.

Of course, is does do 720p through it's own OTA internal tuner.


That makes no sense to me since it has to be down-rez'd and re-scaled for that to work.


It seems that RCA used technology from their CRT RPTV sets instead of developing a "pure" digital path for DVI. Sony has been doing that too. Their first "pure" digital path is the GWIII XBR model. The GWIII ME models don't have it either.


The set I saw had a non glare screen. Is there also a reflective version?

The Scenium line has a glass screen. They do a non-Scenium line just for BB with a non-glare screen and maybe some other changes.


I've been watching some good HD stuff on my Sammy this evening. It doesn't remotely have that strong green push that was making me sick on the two 5065's at Best Buy.


When I had a version 109 HLM507 last January it was a demo that had the "fluorescent" green push in the store. Before I watched it at home I deactivated black enhancement in the SM. I had the set for a month and never saw any green push. When Samsung "upgraded" the easy fix I did was no longer available. A more complicated SM change seems to get rid of it now. In fact, I haven't notice any bad green push in stores that cycle out their demos regularly.

There are wags who maintain that the Samsung "green" is catering to NFL fans when they are shopping.

The RCA DLP DVI port does not accept 720p.

As they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If you are happy with the RCA DLP that's all that counts.

My biggest concern is if something goes wrong with the set will RCA be able to diagnose and repair the problem quickly, the past experiences of many people (with non-DLP sets) indicate this is not the case.

Originally posted by soarski
None of the BB in my area have the RCA yet and the sales guy THINKS they're not going to carry it or I would checkout the tv myself.

That should change. I'm in the San Francisco Bay Area and got my first chance to see a RCA DLP less than two weeks ago. They seem to be coming out very slow. I wouldn't buy anything sight unseen or without a "no charge" thirty day return period.


Could someone please explain the issue of a TV's native signal such as RCA's 720P?I've read some of the threads regarding RCA DLP vs Samsung DLP. If the Samsung is 720P native this would mean it could take a 720P source signal and pass it through 1 to 1?

Right. That's what it does through the DVI port. It makes a big difference watching DVD movies if you have a DVD player that can upscale the 480i signal to 720p in digital before sending the image to the Samsung for display.


However if the source signal is 1080i(NBC, CBS) the TV will convert from 1080i to 720p?

Most Samsung owners that I've read about have their STB convert 1080i to 720p before sending the signal to the Samsung using DVI.


On that same note the RCA would have to convert the 1080i source to 720p. So is it really that big of a deal that when the RCA receives a source of 720p it converts it to 1080i then back to 720p?


That is what happens with component (analog) input on any set. With DVI that step isn't necessary for other DLP TV sets but is necessary with the RCA. It's another way to introduce error into the image path.


If the RCA is unable to accept 720P does this mean it will not be able to display ABC's 720p in HD?
The RCA internal tuner will accept 720p signals from OTA sources.

If you have a satellite or cable source the 720p signal has to be converted to 1080i before it is sent to the RCA. Then the RCA has to convert it back from 1080i to 720p to display the image. The native resolution of the DLP chip is 720p. Both 1080i and 720p are high definition.

For some people who want to use a HTPC or game boxes or get the best out of their DVDs this is a bigger issue than it is for others who don't care about those activities.

Originally posted by Old Pirate
I haven't a clue what the TV is doing with that 720p signal, but in reality it may not be getting it to begin with.

I am hooked up to a SA 3250HD box that converts all HD to 1080i before it passes it on through component.

If you changed your STB to output 720p the RCA would refuse the signal at both component and DVI ports.

Wait....I sometimes hook up an antenna and watch ABC in HD OTA through the tuner and the picture is fine also.

In this case you are seeing HD TV without the signal being forced through an analog stage before it gets to the DLP chip.


... but not yet sure of DVI since I have nothing that works on that mode at the moment.


The RCA will reject 720p if you try it.


From reading all these posts it seems that many tvs convert signals all the time, but for some reason this fact has become a talking point with the RCA DLP and not other tv's that do the same thing. I don't know why!

There are no other DLP TV sets that do the same thing that I've heard about. In several ways RCA defeats the purpose of using the DLP chip. If the results satisfy you then there is no problem for you with the RCA PQ as it is. For some uses, others would choose something else. In fact, in a few days we may find that RCA has joined the crowd and added a digital path for it's DLP chip.

Paul...

I know the technican who would be responsible for fixing my set. I trust him and he says getting parts has never been a problem for him with RCA or Thompson.

Let's hope I don't need him for some time, but I sleep well because of this.

Considering that sales people and even RCA will not admit that the 720p dvi issue does not exist. I wonder if this is something that could be claimed in an Extended Warranty/Performance Guarantee? If this issue is ever resolved down the road...maybe you could get a free upgrade. I tested the RCA DLP at Frys with a Samsung DVD player via DVI and it absolutely would not accept a 720p signal. ATOC looked pretty good in 1080i output but who knows how it could have looked.

Hgoodman:

Yeah, "Castaway" was spectacular in HD as I had said. I am sure that it would have been great on any of the other HD's out there also.

Re the service manual: I will do the calibrations sometime next week. I will keep you posted. The manual is on CD, and yes, it does have circuit diagrams and block diagrams as well.

I am a little scared about the 720p issue that has cropped up here. I don't know what other HD's have DVI (P?), but I know the Samsung does not have DVI at all. I wonder if the RGB input on the Samsung is as good as or better than the DVI on the RCA. If we cannot input 720p, I assume that the RCA takes only 1080i and then down-converts to 720p! Sanity check, RCA.... I have DVD players, but they output to component, not DVI. I am curious if DVI is any better than component from the viewer's standpoint. I would assume that theoretically DVI would be better being straight digital to digital.

Dish network is coming out next week to do a three receiver install for me, and one of the lines will be to the RCA via the "phantom" 811 receiver. It has DVI output, and I think that it is set for 720p; however, according to threads on here it can be changed via its menu to 1080i output. I sure hope so!

It seems that it is really silly that RCA designed these HD's for up-conversion and down-conversion (720p input (component)>1080I>720p output). I am just getting into this stuff, and I don't know which format is most common for devices such as DVD players, but I get the feeling that most output 720p to TV.

If this turns out to be a problem when I upgrade my DVD devices or wish to use any other device that outputs 720p to DVI, I hope that RCA will allow a conversion, either by firmware or, luckily, by software update. That may just be a pipe dream though.

Frank