WOW all I can say is WOW!!!
The Picture on this set is AMAZING!!!!!
I have no white lines issues, (yet?) I set the TV up following the suggestions on this site. ie brightness/contrast adjustments.


I added a couple more pics to the gallery of the semi completed room.
Now I need to isolate and fix the rattles around the room.
and maybe add a couple traps???

Anyway check out the pics, and lemmie know what you think.

Originally posted by roulettewheel
I've had my 51H84 for about a week and I could not be more pleased. I paid 1400 total for mine so your deal is great.

I run with Adelphia HD/DVR8000. I use Color Stream 1 (component) for digital channels, HD
channels. Color Stream 2 for the DVD, and antenna 1 for SD. Using Ant. 1 for analog allows me to go out to my cable splitter and adjust it for the best non digital picture. I can actually receive a very good picture this way. I don't think you will have any regret if you go through with the purchase.

Roulette;

Thanks for the input. I ended buying the set at a cost of $1200.

I set it all up this weekend in my home theater and am very happy thus far.

Did some minor adjustments to the picture, however, need to do more given all that this web suggests be done.

I have some questions, however, I will pose them in a separate post.

Thanks again.

You are welcome. I happy to see that you bought it and like it so far. I'm new to HD tv also so I'm sure your questions will also help me.

Cissado and Seadragon;

I have the Studio CC v2 as well and having just purchased the 51h84 placed it atop the TV. How long did it take for each of you to notice that the top of the TV where the speaker was located was starting to sag?

When I saw the top of the 51h84 and saw how Toshiba had almost tried to put a stand like area for a center channel speaker I thought it was so great, however, I do not want to cause the screen to sag with the weight of the Studio cc.

I also thought about moving the Studio CC back off the silver edge of the TV frame so that the center channel speaker is resting more on the black/Grey body of the TV itself, but having done that the speaker looked in danger of falling behind the TV if the TV were bumped. Did either of you try this?

Originally posted by cissado
Thanks, a lot of people seem to be doing that, I see. I have a big picture window directly behind my TV and cannot put a shelf there. I'm thinking of putting a bracket BEHIND the silver frame and just rest it on the black portion of the TV towards the back of the set. The back part seems sturdier.

I did'nt realize the speaker was that heavy. 42 pounds! wow lol

Anyway, glad I at least found another person who's had the same problem.

Originally posted by eugovector
For your center speaker, have you considered putting it on a small stand directly under and in front of the screen angled upward slightly? I am still considering this approach for my system as I'd like to put my dvd player and a future HD reciever on the top shelf of my 51h83.

Thats exactly what I did with my Athena AS-F2, custom center. You can check it out in my gallery.

Darn, the 65H84, makes my Athena AS-F2s look small.

Originally posted by slawless
Cissado and Seadragon;

I have the Studio CC v2 as well and having just purchased the 51h84 placed it atop the TV. How long did it take for each of you to notice that the top of the TV where the speaker was located was starting to sag?

When I saw the top of the 51h84 and saw how Toshiba had almost tried to put a stand like area for a center channel speaker I thought it was so great, however, I do not want to cause the screen to sag with the weight of the Studio cc.

I also thought about moving the Studio CC back off the silver edge of the TV frame so that the center channel speaker is resting more on the black/Grey body of the TV itself, but having done that the speaker looked in danger of falling behind the TV if the TV were bumped. Did either of you try this?

slawless,
I noticed it pretty much on day one. It was about 2 weeks later that I built the shelf and relieved the 65H84 of it's 42 pound burden. There is no damage from it, but I'm glad the speaker is off of the TV now. I tried moving it back a little, but the top of the TV is very plasticy and does not feel very sturdy. I think is would be fine for a small center, such as those that are in HTB sets. The CC is quite heavy and I think it's best not to place on the TV.

BTW, I think the Studio CC is an awesome speaker! Coupled with the Studio 100s and ADP surrounds and the 65H84, I have a full fledged home theater finally! I don't think I'll be in a theater anymore.

I agree with Seadragon about the top being flimsy. I tried setting the CC back on the black part of the TV, but like SD said, it's still not that sturdy there. It may help a little so I may put some double sided tape to hold a platform for it or a velcro there so it won't slide. I can't mount it behind the TV on the wall as I have a window there.

I'll figure something out some day. lol

I got my 65H84 ISF calibrated yesterday and was watching a few DVDs I've previously seen. The PQ is really good but maybe I just need to adjust myself because it SEEMS less "colorful". Maybe that's just me... almost like the time when I first used my AVIA disk and thought it was too dark until I got used to it. Now I love it. So this may take a while using the new settings.

I'm using it with the 59AVi pioneer elite. DVD player. btw.

Originally posted by GGR
WOW all I can say is WOW!!!
The Picture on this set is AMAZING!!!!!
I have no white lines issues, (yet?) I set the TV up following the suggestions on this site. ie brightness/contrast adjustments.


I added a couple more pics to the gallery of the semi completed room.
Now I need to isolate and fix the rattles around the room.
and maybe add a couple traps???

Anyway check out the pics, and lemmie know what you think.
Woohoo another 46H84(83) added to the gallery, now a total of three! Looks great nice job, and enjoy my friend.

Well I've had my 57H84 now for 3 great days and I love it! Is it me or does the picture look better everyday? Maybe I'm just getting used to it but it seems my DVD's are sharper now than they were when I first got it. SD is fine except for Fox which is pretty bad.

I just wish I had HD now:(. Being locked in a Dish network contract until November sucks. That's what I get for signing a 2 year contract for the 510 PVR. Not having HD on this tv is like having a Ferrari but only being able to put Kerosene in it. Oh well, when I get HD then it'll seem like I'm getting another new tv:D.

Originally posted by kbohip
Not having HD on this tv is like having a Ferrari but only being able to put Kerosene in it. Oh well, when I get HD then it'll seem like I'm getting another new tv:D.
Are you in an area where you could receive OTA signals? (Check www.antennaweb.org to see). If so, you could get an OTA receiver for as little as $200, connect an antenna to it and receive free HD programming.

Originally posted by Vin
Are you in an area where you could receive OTA signals? (Check www.antennaweb.org to see). If so, you could get an OTA receiver for as little as $200, connect an antenna to it and receive free HD programming.

I can get OTA HD in my area but the $200 seems like a complete waste of money. I'll be getting either DISH HD-DVR, DIRECTivo, or even HD-DVR from my cable co. in November so I think I'll just save up the money and wait 'till November.

Originally posted by kbohip
I can get OTA HD in my area but the $200 seems like a complete waste of money. I'll be getting either DISH HD-DVR, DIRECTivo, or even HD-DVR from my cable co. in November so I think I'll just save up the money and wait 'till November.

I don't think you can get local HD from Dish. I have Dish and use an antenna to get locals. They offered CBS in HD but I had to install another dish just for that channel, so I declined as I was getting it anyway.

Well, I just took delivery of my 65h84 this afternoon.. This set is truely amazing.. I adjusted the basic picture settings just to 45 each.. I'm still going to do some major tweaking, but I don't know if I have the guts to do the 56pt adjustments.. I hooked up my XBox and the ESPN games look incredible.. I played a full game of ESPN MLB and I swore it was like watching a regular game in that you could tell the the difference of the textures of the uniform and the letter stitching..the grass and the dirt textures look great.. Me and my boys watched Shark Tales on my JVC progressive scan DVD player.. amazing... I have my Samsung Direct TV SIR-TS160 HD receiver. connected with component cables. Its so cool finally to be able to watch HD without having the black bars. only problem is I also have a DVI to HDMI cable connected as well, but the tv is not recognizing the cable.. any help guys???

In conclusion guys, I want to thank you guys for this thread, it was major factor in my purchasing decision..

Im not very familiar with your box, but make sure in the settings that the dvi is enabled, sometimes they have it defaulted to disabled.

Also, make sure to turn the set on first and then the box. This helps in the HDCP handshake that happens between the 2 devices. Also, do the reverse when shutting them down, box 1st then the set. If you turn the set on first, and then the box and still get nothing or an error message about your set not being HDCP compliant or whatever... try and change the channel up or down one channel and seee if it gets a picture anyway. Sometimes this works. But, like SSJ said, make sure there isn't something in the boxes menu to enable the DVI out first. One other thing, if you have component and DVI hooked up at the same time, one of them may override the other, so to try the DVI/HDMI hook-up make sure the component cables are unhooked from the box. Good luck and let us know how it goes. Matt, how's the HTPC goin'?

Anyone tried this set with powerstrip? I was wondering if you guys had any settings that might work well. I plan on connecting my geforce via dvi to hdmi cable.

Matt, how's the HTPC goin'?
One word......Aggravating. I cant seem to get it right, my resolutions and settings are all wrong. Im using the ATI software, and powerstrip. Just cant seem to get working right. I'll have to do some more research, I have made some ground. Havent had too much time because good ole spring semester is starting to churn away my time. Still loving my tv, btw anyone see the 100 Greatest Discoveries on Discovery HD? Absolutely beautiful huh?

Here's an update on my 65H84 bright line fix:

Refresher: The tech came out a few weeks ago to see if he noticed the "line". He saw it and said he would attempt the fix in the same way as the H83's. He looked at the circuit board and said it was laid out differently than the 83 but found the connection points and soldered a wire between them. It definately removed the line.

Now that I've lived with the fix awhile, I'll give this impression. Soon after the fix was performed, I thought I saw more "noise" in the picture than before. Kind of a mild snow effect. (very mild, mind you) It's most noticable on DVDs and network HD shows like "Law and Order", etc. Last night my wife and I watched "Medium" and there was a very pronounced "snow". Very grainy and noisy. It's worse on certain things than on others, but I think this line "fix" may be causing it. (or maybe I'm imagining things)
The tech still needs to come back to replace my green gun and I'm thinking about having him remove the wire to see if it gets rid of the noise. I honestly would rather have a faint line I usually never see than a "noisy" picture.

Any thoughts?

I have the 46H84 and need some advice on how to connect my components.

These are the 3 things I want to have, HD tuner, DVD, and PS2.

The HD tuner is running through component cables (monster THX courtesy of BB employee discount,DVI/HDMI aren't options with this box). So that leaves me with only one set of component inputs. Do I use that to hook up my DVD player and run my PS2 through composite or s-video? Or do I step-up to an upconverting DVD player with HDMI and use the PS2 with component cables?

My DVD player crapped out, so I need a new one. It would cost around $180 to get a new 1080i dvd player, HDMI cable and component cables for the PS2. Or $50 for just a new DVD player and still running the PS2 through the crappy composite cables.

The basis of my question is how much better is an upcoverting DVD player with these tvs, and how much better will a PS2 look with component cables? Gran Tourismo 4 in the menu has output options for progressive scan and 1080i, not sure what that is all about.

Any help/advise would be great!

I'm considering the purchase of a 46H84 but have a question about viewing angle. How far can I stray from center before losing PQ? Since I'm using a Sears store credit from an extended warranty claim, I have to buy a new TV from there and they don't stock the 46H84 in-store so I can't see it. It will be replacing a 32" Sony Wega SDTV. Will I completely hate the 46H84's SD PQ versus the Sony? Did anyone compare this set to the Samsung HC-P4241W or the similar Akai PT4299HD?

Also, I'm no fan of stretching but watch about 1-2 hours of SDTV per day average, especially from my ReplayTV. Will burn-in be a factor if i don't stretch? I generally watch about 1 or 2 DVD's per week in addition to the SDTV and would hope to watch some a few hours of HDTV content, especially sports, if the content is there.

xwill, take a trip to best buy, they should have one there.

Does anyone know how close my rather large, floor-standing speakers can be to a 46H84? I will have very little room for this set and my speakers will be quite close to it--by my rough estimate, as close as 10". Think that's a problem?

Depends on if they are shielded or not. Click the gallery tab at the top of my post here and see how close mine are. No problems here.

Me either :D

My speakers are NOT shielded--I should have mentioned that. pittdog1, are yours? Matt?

On another note, I went to BB and checked out the 46H84 and was very impressed. I'm pretty certain I'll be buying this set, but would like to try to get Sears to price match a better price. I'm hoping for a sale in the next few weeks. The only complaint I had from what I saw was that the viewing angle up and down was pretty limited. I could go left to right a fair amount (probably 3-4 feet off center from about 10' away) without any image degradation, but up down effects could be measured in inches. Has this been a problem for anyone?

The other bummer was that the BB salesman told me he couldn't show me anything in SD because their "DirecTV setup was not working correctly and won't be fixed until sometime this coming week". They were running some kind of promo loop but I have no idea what the source or specs were and neither did the salesman.

Originally posted by xwilliam
The only complaint I had from what I saw was that the viewing angle up and down was pretty limited. I could go left to right a fair amount (probably 3-4 feet off center from about 10' away) without any image degradation, but up down effects could be measured in inches. Has this been a problem for anyone?

With my 51H84 I can stand up and notice my picture look very faint. I, like you, can move left or right several feet and still have a great picture. I'm watching the Oscars right now and am still in awe of the HD feed. Man these sets are so nice.

Yes my speakers are shielded, if they werent I wouldnt have put them anywhere close to my tv. In any case, the horizontal viewing angle i was impressed with, however like many sets the vertical viewing angle isnt much. Although when sitting down i dont see how that could be a problem. Most BBY's usually use a D* feed (which is usually 1080i widescreen), however it should have been possible to feed a regular coax to it, maybe something funky was happening, wouldnt have been surprinsing my store always has querks.

when sitting down i dont see how that could be a problem.
I guess it could be a problem if the stand the set is on is not EXACTLY the right height. A few inches isn't much room to play with. Maybe my couch is a few inches low and when sitting down the set will always be just a bit dim. That would kind of be a let down. Did most of you buy the Toshiba stand for this set? Matt, check out my new thread on magnetism if you have anything more to add. Thanks!

xwill,

I almost bought the Toshiba stand, but couldn't get over the lack of storage space therein. I was turned on to this stand by another poster (can't remember where or what thread): http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Planet-3-TV-Stand-55015-/sem/rpsm/oid/95993/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do
It works perfectly! Plenty of space under the stand for gear and very stylish looking. It's about an inch or two higher than the Tosh stand (bear in mind that the CC picture shows 2 stands stacked on top of each other; you want just one).

Great set (hope to get some pictures up soon)!

Ted

Originally posted by atye
Here's an update on my 65H84 bright line fix:

Refresher: The tech came out a few weeks ago to see if he noticed the "line". He saw it and said he would attempt the fix in the same way as the H83's. He looked at the circuit board and said it was laid out differently than the 83 but found the connection points and soldered a wire between them. It definately removed the line.

Now that I've lived with the fix awhile, I'll give this impression. Soon after the fix was performed, I thought I saw more "noise" in the picture than before. Kind of a mild snow effect. (very mild, mind you) It's most noticable on DVDs and network HD shows like "Law and Order", etc. Last night my wife and I watched "Medium" and there was a very pronounced "snow". Very grainy and noisy. It's worse on certain things than on others, but I think this line "fix" may be causing it. (or maybe I'm imagining things)
The tech still needs to come back to replace my green gun and I'm thinking about having him remove the wire to see if it gets rid of the noise. I honestly would rather have a faint line I usually never see than a "noisy" picture. OK, here's the new and improved update.

The tech came out a few days ago and replaced the green gun. The purple spot is GONE!! (yeah!) I also learned a few things from this tech about the line fix. He said there's no way adding the wire to these points introduced noise into the picture. He said all the wire does is correct the "Overcorrection" in the vertical. (not sure exactly what that means, but kind of makes sense)
I learned some other things, too. I'm no longer aprehensive about trying some of the "scarier" (for me) tweaks. Last night, I had the grill and center cover off to touch up the focus (with the 3 individual focus dials) and found that you can access the mechanical focus wingnuts on the individual CRTs WITHOUT removing the screen! (at least on a 65H84 you can) I was able to perform an electrical AND mechanical focus. This altered convergance a little so I spent time with the service level converge. (BTW, I'm now doing this by turning off the blue gun and converging just red to green, then turning off red and converging blue to green. Then I do a quick touch up with them all on.)
Long story short, I'm now experiencing a GREAT picture with much better detail and sharpness. I still need to tweak the color issues a little (even though color is more than acceptable) but this set is now performing at a level I did not expect just a few days ago. The line is gone, the spot is gone, and I've figured out a few more relatively harmless techniques to feed my need for tweaking!

Originally posted by MrBradSr2k2
only problem is I also have a DVI to HDMI cable connected as well, but the tv is not recognizing the cable.. any help guys??? I had the same problem when I first hooked up to HDMI from my VOOM box. When I turned the TV off and back on again, it worked. I pretty much have to do this every time I fire up the HT, because I have a Harmony remote that always turns the TV on first. I'm trying to figure out how to delay the TV power for a few seconds after pressing "Watch TV", but so far no luck.

Originally posted by atye
I had the same problem when I first hooked up to HDMI from my VOOM box. When I turned the TV off and back on again, it worked. I pretty much have to do this every time I fire up the HT, because I have a Harmony remote that always turns the TV on first. I'm trying to figure out how to delay the TV power for a few seconds after pressing "Watch TV", but so far no luck.

You guys should read this thread. I think it will help you out.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=515037

My speakers are NOT shielded--I should have mentioned that. pittdog1, are yours?

Yeah, mine are shielded as well as Matt's. The best advice i could give you is to put up a screen of solid color and move your speakers in towards the set and look for waves or distortion in the picture. This will be easier to see with a solid color on your screen like a test pattern from AVIA or DVE. Then, place your speakers where the distortion stops. Of course, if they are to far away for you, then it's a great excuse to upgrade the front speakers!

Is there a way to make these sets always display a particular screen size everytime you turn it on. I watch everything in Theater Wide Mode 1 except HD stuff and I have to switch it everytime. I know it's trivial but it's something I'd like to not deal with.

OK, just a few more questions regarding the 46h84 before buying. How much of an area on top of the TV will I have for my center channel? I saw some posts on here regarding weight, but not amount of flat space to put a speaker assuming it is not too heavy. Also, what is my best bet for calibration, DVE or Avia? I wish this thread wasn't so long--to print it would be 237 pages! Can anyone point me to some of the best posts regarding calibration or other important info? I'm going to try to read through every single one of these posts, but it's going to take a long time...

If anyone is looking for a deal on one of these from a B&M store at online prices, I just got Sears to price match J&R. J&R has a store in NYC, but it took some convincing of the Sears store manager to match the price. Great deal on what looks to be a great set.

Thanks to everyone on here. I feel like I'm making the best decision given my wallet and needs. I'm not sure how people bought anything with confidence before forums such as this.

I just got a Bafo brand HDMI->DVI cable yesterday to connect my 8300HD cable box to my 46H83. No go...nothing but black screen no matter what I try.

I wonder if it's possible to wire one of these cables assuming you're going from a DVI source to an HDMI display? It seems that all the sucesses I've read about with similar combos are using an HDMI->HDMI cable, then an HDMI->DVI adapter.

I have my Motorola 6412 cable DVR box connected to my 46H84 with a DVI to HDMI cable and it works like a charm. Only time there's a problem is when the TV is shut off and the box is left on, but that hardly ever happens since I use the "All On" button on the cable remote to control both at the same time. It must be timed such that the "handshake" issue is not a factor.

Hey guys.

OK this center drive line is driving me crazy!! I've had the 46h83 for about 9 months now and I can't deal with it anymore.

I have an extended service plan from BB, but I've heard that there service can be, well.. less then good. I decided to get it as a protective measure anyways. The question is, should I use them or go through Tosh directly?

I would think Tosh may be better, but my thinking is this... We've watched this TV for quite a few hours a day and night (it's the main house TV for everyone) for over 9 months. I'm thinking it may be possible that this Center Drive Line may be burnt in by now. If so it may be better to go through BB since they claim if the same problem isn't fixed after 3 attempts they offer a replacement.

Anyone with advice? Experience with this? Or even know if it's possible that this CDL can be burnt in over time?

I'd be pretty comfortable saying that it's impossible to have the 'drive line' burnt into the CRTs. It's just nowhere near the kind of thing that could do that kind of damage.

I'd say who cares who applies this drive-line patch? It's a simple procedure that any tech who's removed a light box and soldered a wire before can handle. I did mine myself!

Stop stressing and get it fixed!

JohnnyG, did you try that link i posted about 7 posts or so back? Just curious as i've got the same set and the same SA DVR box as you. Of course, i am using DVI/HDMI adaptor instead of an all in one cable. But the sequence is very important on turning things off and on and vice versa. Read that thread and try the things that are talked about on that thread and it just might work. By the way, the DVI/HDMI picture does look quite a bit better on HD material to my eyes anyway than compared to the component connection.

I have a question regarding the 65NH84 vs. 65H84. I know these 2 sets are supposed to be essentially the same, but I can't find anything referencing the 540p upconversion (or even the use of a 540p display mode) in the manual I downloaded for the NH84. Does the manual for the H84 reference this anywhere? Do any of you who own the NH84 know if this is a viable display mode for this set?

I have the 65NH84, and I know my menus have an option for 540p or 1080i for 480p sources. In the manual I downloaded it refers to 540p on page 51.

pittdog1, yup, tried that. Tried everything! It seems like a DVI cable with a DVI->HDMI adapter works, but an HDMI->DVI cable does not! Very odd. As I said above, my guess is that it has something to do with going from an HDMI source to a DVI display, instead of the other way around.

I checked the STB's diagnostic screen (page 14) and it *thinks* it has a solid connection to the TV, but the TV acts as if it's receiving nothing at all.

Anyone heard of the "secret" service menu?

It requires you to enter a few codes once you are in the "regular" service menu.

Adjustment of Horizontal Image Placement
On Toshiba HDTVs

To adjust horizontal image placement, you need to get into “secret” service menu. The only way to get to this menu is via the One for All remote, which can be purchased for about $20 on eBay. You need model #URC-8910B02. Set the remote for a Toshiba by entering code: 0156.

First, with the TV’s original remote, get into the regular service menu by pressing mute 3x & hold, then press menu on the TV’s front panel.

Second, enter the “secret” service menu by using the One for All remote. Press the “Set” button, then "014".

Need to go to location code: 0DC0H

Use the TV’s original remote:
Press “100+” to adjust the first & second digit of the code location (hex code) to "0D".
Press “0” to adjust the third digit of the code location to "C".
Press “Channel UP or Channel DOWN to adjust the fourth & fifth digit (hex code) to "0H".

Press Volume UP or Volume DOWN to adjust to picture’s location left & right.

Press POWER to get out & save the adjustments.

I have the DVE and noticed with my 57H84 set to full mode some of the title chapters at the top are slightly cut off. I have my DVD set to 16:9.

and....

The brightness test with the pluge pattern. Am I supposed to adjust the brightness so the of the 3 bars to the left and right, I make the outmost bars just barely visible. For some reason this is confusing me...

Thanks.

Your first question sounds like you have to much overscan. As for the brightness test pattern, you should reduce the brightness control until the darkest bar just fades into or matches the background with the other 2 bars still visible. I posted some instructions here as to how i reduced and fixed my geometry and overscan on this thread. I know it's a long thread but i have given instructions for what i did a couple of times. There are otherways to go about overscan in the SM and i beleive they have been posted here as well.

Has anyone who has had the jail bar problem in 1080i been able to successfully eliminate it without switching to 720p? It's important to me because the 720p mode on my 57H83 does not work properly. I sure hope someone can reply to this post.

Thanks,
Vince

I have a brand new 57H84....

The SD Quality althought not GREAT, it's not bad...there is one issue.

The picture seems to be flashing. Not on and off, but for example, I was watching Dateline. They were interviewing someone, on the chair there was little black designs. When I stared at them I could see the designs unfocusing + slight colour change. Very steady like an on/off switch at an exact tempo.

I could see this everywhere in the background I looked, almost liked the picture would be focused, then unfocused, then focused and on and on. In a rhythym.

I have a Motorola 6412 HD box with Componet Cables running to the Televison....

Any help would be greatly appreciated...THANKS>!

Second time asking:

Has anyone who has had the jail bar problem in 1080i been able to successfully eliminate it without switching to 720p? It's important to me because the 720p mode on my 57H83 does not work properly. I sure hope someone can reply to this post.

Thanks,
Vince

I could see this everywhere in the background I looked, almost liked the picture would be focused, then unfocused, then focused and on and on. In a rhythym.

I have noticed this also, kinda of like it's jumping a little. I've also seen red graphics on ads and news programs jump (or focus/unfocus) also. I think it's just the upconvert to 540p on SD. Never noticed this on HD channels even on the same feed.

VideoinSF, i remember that pittdog has mentioned jail bars on his 46h83 set. So hopefully he will respond, as for me i have no problems of that sort.

VideoinSF,I have actually seen the whiteline issue on these sets before. I have never see this issue in my set. The only reason i mention that is because at the same time i have seen the jailbar problem on my set. The degreee of jailbars that i see varies from the boxes that i've had. I will say that they are less pronounced with the DVI connection to the point where you really have to look for them and only on dark scenes. It could just be me, but i think the jail bars have diminished as the set has aged(i've had mine over a year now). If you are using component connections try the DVI or an HDMI/DVI converter depending on your boxes outputs and see if that helps, it seemed to help with the jail bars on mine quite a bit. Plus on the boxes where HDMI/DVI has been active, the picture has looked significantly better anyway. Let me know if this info helps.

Originally posted by VideoInSF
Second time asking:

Has anyone who has had the jail bar problem in 1080i been able to successfully eliminate it without switching to 720p? It's important to me because the 720p mode on my 57H83 does not work properly. I sure hope someone can reply to this post.

Thanks,
Vince
I have a 57H83. I don't know what the "jail bar problem" is, so I can't answer your question.

Albany, did you happen to read the post i gave you a couple of pages back about getting my 8300 to work with HDMI/DVI adapter? I know you've been looking for a confirmation of this working for a while and it works fine on mine. The jail bar problem is like vertical banding, mostly in grey or darker screens.

pittdog1:

I see you got it to work, but you didn't use a HDMI to DVI cord, correct?
You used a DVI to DVI cord with a HDMI/DVI adapter?

I've already tried two different HDMI to DVI cords that didn't work (at $20-$30 each). Purchasing a DVI to DVI cord and an HDMI adapter would be another big expense. Maybe I could borrow a set from my local TV store to see if it will work before shelling out the $$$.

That's correct. I'm just wondering if the HDMI carrying audio has something to do with the failure of it working as our sets have DVI. Maybe by using the adapter, it eliminates the audio signal all together at the adapter coupling? You are not the only one that has asked me about this and that's the only thing i can figure. By using the all in one DVI/HDMI cable, what happens to the audio signal and at what point is it eliminated from reaching the DVI end? Just a thought. I'd just try an adapter and for what it's worth the picture through the DVI/HDMI connection looks much better on my 46H83 than component does through the SA8300HDDVR.

I have the motorola 6412 and 51h84. I just purchased a Acoustic Research Pro Series DVI cable with a DVI to hdmi adapter and it work great. I noticed a significant difference in quality of HD channels and I'm glad i spent the 100 dollars for it.

I purchased my 46H84 last week. It looks like the geometry is off near the middle of the screen. The picture near the middle seems narrow, and at half-way between the middle and the edge, it seems stretched. The effect can be seen best when there is a slow movement across the screen. I hope that I can adjust the set to eliminate the problem. Has anyone else had this problem?

That sounds like the effect of one of the stretch modes. The only true way to tell if your Geometry is off is to put up a full grid either with a disc(DVE, VE or AVIA) or to enter the service menu. Try toggling through the stretch modes(pic sizes on the remote) and see if this changes the distortions you are seeing. In the manual it tells you what each stretch mode does to your picture and where it squeezes or stretches it. Let me know how it goes.

Always gotta beat me to it huh Pitt?

Originally posted by SSJLaletas
Always gotta beat me to it huh Pitt?

Dude, i've been sick at home with the FLU all week. I'm just starting to get better and feeling like typing a bit. First time i've ever had the flu. I feel sorry for anybody that get's it that is older or not in good shape to begin with. This SUCKS!(the flu obviously)I'm 40ish and in good shape and it's still horrible. But i still take the time to help out my buds here at AVS, or beat'em to the punch in your case, Matt.;) :D

Eh your a good guy. Sorry that your sick. Im still 20 so a flu isnt going to kill me old timer.... J/k buddy. Your not old, just getting near middle-age lol jk again, I should shut up before I get hurt. Anyway so far my 46H84 has performed fabulously, Im going to do a service converge soon, I was going to do it last night but I was tired from work getting out late stupid BB, midnight is not a suitable time to get home. Now im starting to complain..., god, anyway Im glad with everyone as of recent who have got their tv's and love it.

I'm pretty sure it's not due to a stretch mode. I see the problem with HD 16:9 broadcasts that fill the screen and also on every DVD I've tried so far. I hope to buy a setup disk tonight and put a grid on the screen to see exactly what's going on. Is there a way to move the vertical green lines if they are not spaced consistently?

My LG set top box and DVD player are built as a combination unit. Could this be the source of the problem? I have another DVD player that I will try tonight.

It is possible. What resolution are you sending from the LG unit to the Tosh? And with what connection?

I don't know about your LG/DVD model, but my LG4200a has stretch modes. Perhaps you need to change that setting (narrow/std/wide)?
Also, have you told the LG/DVD what type of TV you have (16:9)?

I think the player is a LG 3410-A. The output is 1080i on component cables. The TV is a 46H84 16:9. The stretching problem is very hard to see most of the time. I did a quick convergence this morning before going to work, and tonight I'm not sure that I can see the problem any more. Bought a DVI disk tonight and will check things out shortly. I hope the convergence is all that's wrong, because I really like the set.

good to hear, bring back some results for us

Originally posted by SSJLaletas
Eh your a good guy. Sorry that your sick. Im still 20 so a flu isnt going to kill me old timer.... J/k buddy. Your not old, just getting near middle-age lol jk again, I should shut up before I get hurt. .

I have to wait till it gets a little later in the night before i come up with the good and humorous responses, so here goes. Now you know that i know you were joking about being old. But when your 40, you won't think that's old anymore. I wasn't offended at all.........(Note to self, pack a suitcase with all the nescasary torturing devices suitable to make a 20 year old college KID apologize, check with Delta for the redeye flight to Delaware). Now that's pretty funny. You and i both know that if i showed up there we'd end up watching a movie on your Toshie, probably go ahead and get the 56pt. SM convergence done, before of course you drink me under the table, make fun of me for not holding my liquor, place me in the sack with a hot nubile coed whilst passed out from the above. Then dropping me off at the airport and telling me what i should tell my wife when i get back. Everything sounds perfect, except that i can't lie to my wife. So i guess i'll forego the trip to the airport. Man i get wierd late at night. Maybe it's all the med's from this DAMN flu. C-YA and hope you guys get a little chuckle out of this as it gets a little to serious during the week sometimes.;)

That's funny stuff!!:p

BTW, I'm looking into getting some geometry templates for my 65H84. I noticed an issue with geometry when credits would roll after shows or movies. It's obviously not as noticeable with letterboxed material, but 16:9 stuff. When credits would roll, i'd see a pretty significant "bowing" or "shrinking, expanding" effect toward the top of the screen. I've since experimented with fixes and at this point I think I've done more harm than good. I've got all sorts of issues now. (I'm not terribly worried, though, as I figure I can get a grid template and fix it rather easily.) I think I first learned about the grid templates at home theater spot.

Good luck!

You wouldnt be drunk and just didnt realize that you were watching the opening to one of the star wars movie right? Heheheh

As for pittdog your a hilarious guy especially at night I noticed. And you and I know that you coming here with torturing devices would end up being put aside and be watching a great 46h84 tv in all its hd glory. Like i said before many times your a funny and intelligent guy good to have you here at avs, in fact on the subject avs rocks. Lol i was reading a thread that kipp jones started in the hd programming section of posting on avs while drunk, funny stuff.

If you want to know smoething that is kind of ironic, my brother is an improv comedian. He works 3 nights a week at Comedy City in KC. I was always thought of as the humorous one in our family though. Funny how things work out. What's even funnier, i don't drink(occasionally a beer at a social event) or do drugs, all though it's hard to tell i know. This is anaturel'.

atye, i'm sure that a grid template would work wonders for you, especially on that big of a screen. Just be sure to do it in stages if it takes a while. That grid is bright regardless of how low you set brightness and contrast, they have no effect on the grid brightness. I'd go at it in 20 minute sessions, then save your work, watch some regular viewing material for 30 minutes or so and then go at it again. 2 reasons for this, 1 is so you don't burn-in that grid and 2 is that your eyes start getting squirrely.

Just like Matt, i love this forum as well and am pleased as punch that this thread has been kept alive for so long and all the great information that is contained within it. Let's keep it going and not be afraid to let it fly AKA humorous every now and then just to break the monotony every now and then, OH YEAH, that's my job, nevermind then carry-on! OUT!

On a 51h83, I've noticed while doing 9 point convergence, that my blue gun seems much less focused than my red gun, i.e., the line seems blurrier. 3 questions:

1) Does the touch focus button on the front do anything for the focus of the guns, or is it just autoconvergence? Should I be pressing this before I do a manual convergence?

2) Should I take off the grill and do a manual focus (I understand there are wingnuts that control this)? Is there a test pattern in the service menu somewhere that I could use for this?

3) This may answer 1 and 2. On my work computer I know I have a couple bookmarks of some webpages that detail the service menu for the Tosh 83/84. Can someone point me towards those pages, and could the author edit the first post of this thread to include links to those pages to make it easy for people to find them?

Thanks in advance.

From what i understand the blue gun is defocused on purpose. You are right in saying that the Touch Focus has no bearing on the individual guns focus but rather just convergence of the three CRT's. I have very minimal blue "bleed" on my set but have seen more on other sets. It's not just a Toshiba thing, as all the Mfgs. seem to do thisto the blue gun. It's not nescasarily a flaw, it's done on purpose and i don't remeber the reason why. As far as links, there are very good instructions in this thread(i know it's alot of pages) on how to enter the SM given by me and others here. As far as all the various settings and there meanings, a few have been described in this thread. For others you can go to keohihdtv's website, thehometheaterspot, or ask someone like ovalnut with a PM or have him or somebody that knows more about the other parameters in the SM post them here. When i bought my set, almost nobody here had one and i had to do alot of things on my own on my set. I did alot of things like overscan, geometry and such painstakingly by hand. There are easier ways to do these things in the SM with different parameter adjustments that i'm not very familiar with seeing as how i had to them. The best thing about the Touch Focus button, is that you can learn the 56 pt service manual convergence to that button. Once you do the 56pt. SM convergence spending all that time doing it you save it when done and the Touch focus will remember the convergence and apply it every time it gets out of whack with a touch of the button.

Originally posted by eugovector
On my work computer I know I have a couple bookmarks of some webpages that detail the service menu for the Tosh 83/84. Can someone point me towards those pages?
Toshiba Service Menu instructions can be found here (http://www.keohi.com/keohihdtv/brandspecific/toshiba/servicemenu/servicemenu.html).

Good luck and be careful.

Ask and ye shall receive! Thanks Albany!

Should I purchase an extended warranty for my 46h84. (Four years starting after the manufacturers warranty.) Cost is $199.

Wow, I got an honorable mention ... :eek:

FYI, defocusing of the blue CRT is a holdover from prior generations CRT RPTV's where the blue CRT did not generally produce enough light to equal the output of the red and green guns. Defocusing the blue was a workaround to increase the light output of that CRT. This is workable because blue is a fill color, it does not provide a substantial contribution to the image detail. Whereas read and green are the structure colors which have a much greater impact on resolution.

That all said, the current crop of CRT's are capable of producing light output levels which equal the red and green CRT. Due to this, for newer generation CRT's, defocusing the blue is not required and is generally advised against, FOR NEWER CRT'S.

If you do focus your blue CRT tightly, bear the following in mind:
Because blue is a fill color, the electrostatic focus (E focus) of the blue CRT will have a significant impact on the grayscale of your set. For this reason, the blue CRT should NOT be E focused unless it is done in conjunction with an ISF grayscale calibration.

You can however perform a manual focus (M focus) of the blue CRT without affecting the grayscale adversely. (I do).

Both M and E focus can and should be performed on both the red and green CRT's. (I do).


I like helping where I can, just please realize that there are others here much more knowledgable than me.

Tim

I just bought a 46H84 , so far its great I love the screen.I play alot of older games though And i mostly play at 800 by 600.Is there anyway to get this TV to play games at 800 by 600 and still fit the screen?My video card is a geforce 6600gt but i cant seem to find any driver option to help me.

dono35, while ovalnut is truly being modest, i will tell you that my computer knowledge sux. If i get through typing a post here without hurting myself then i consider that a good computer day. I'm not trying to put SSJLaletas on the spot here either, but he has been goofing around with resolutions on his 46H84 and maybe he can chime in here and let you know how that's going for him. Also, you may want to check out the HTPC forum here for more answers. As a sidenote and a laugh at my computer knowledge, you should have seen how long it took for me to figure out how to post a pic in the gallery, whew, i almost didn't (my computer either) make it through that one.LOL!!!

Hi all,

First off, awesome thread. I just picked up the Toshiba H84 and it's awesome. I'm wondering if anyone could recommend a 'decent' HD Tuner/Receiver for this set. I've already done some research in trying to find something and it appears Samsung is leading the charge with these tuners. I don't want to go through my current satellite provider for HD channels as it doesn't makes sense to me to fork over all the dough for a few channels. I'd rather get the over the air broadcasts in HD if I can.

Thanks all...

I'm hoping someone can point me to a post in this thread or help me with a problem on my new 65hn84 that arrived yesterday. I have a real bad red push(?) on the TV. All the faces are really red. I turned the contrast down to 40, brightness down to 45-50, but I had the color down to 20 and the tint over to the green side to +15 to get rid of red faces. I do have an AVIA disk but didn't use it yet because the new speakers (Ascends, yea, great, no problems there) arrived yesterday also, so ran out of time. I have a 14 day return policy on the TV. I read through many post last night but didn't find anything to help. Can I fix or should I send it back?

Do DVI connections look better than component on these sets?

kbgl,

I don't use DVI, but from what I've read component/DVI are very similiar in terms of how they look. I think your answer is in your own head as everyone has different opinions when it comes to DVI/Component. You'd have to see if you could discern a difference between the two. All I know at this point is component looks absolutely amazing on my set.

pjo

I picked up a Samsung and an LG. I like the LG better.

Originally posted by pjo
I'm wondering if anyone could recommend a 'decent' HD Tuner/Receiver for this set.

I have an LG 4200a, generally considered the best HD tuner currently on the market (it may be hard to find locally). Walmart sells a basic tuner for $200. Check the first post in this thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=179095) for more info on set-top boxes.

pjo

I didn't want to buy a $120 DVI cable to find out for myself. I already have component cables and am pretty happy with the picture. I am getting better PQ with DVDs than OTA HD broadcasts so far. I expected HD to be better.

Which Size H84 did you buy?

Originally posted by cannongjr
I'm hoping someone can point me to a post in this thread or help me with a problem on my new 65hn84 that arrived yesterday. I have a real bad red push(?) on the TV. All the faces are really red. I turned the contrast down to 40, brightness down to 45-50, but I had the color down to 20 and the tint over to the green side to +15 to get rid of red faces. I do have an AVIA disk but didn't use it yet because the new speakers (Ascends, yea, great, no problems there) arrived yesterday also, so ran out of time. I have a 14 day return policy on the TV. I read through many post last night but didn't find anything to help. Can I fix or should I send it back?

If you read farther back in this thread you'll see info on how to adjust this in the Service Menu (search this thread for "RCUT").

I am getting better PQ with DVDs than OTA HD broadcasts so far. I expected HD to be better.
Scratching my head.... That doesn't make any sense. Are you sure that the OTA you're looking at is HD and not just the digital broadcast signal of a non-HD program?

The best OTA HD show I've seen in terms of HD picture quality is the Tonight Show. The presentation is a perfect example of just how good 1080i OTA HD can be. It's just like being there, really. If you tune that one in on the NBC broadcast digital channel (the "-1' channel usually) at 11:30 pm ET on a weeknight, it should lock on widescreen when the pic size is set to Natural. If you have it tuned correctly with the correct pic size setting on both the TV and your OTA tuner and that doesn't look good, then either the set, or your OTA tuner, is not functioning correctly.

What are you using to tune the OTA HD with your 46H84?

Tim

kbgl,

I nabbed the 57" for about 1400 bucks - delivered. Insane deal in my eyes. Couldn't pass it up and glad I didn't :). I'm using the set primarily for movies at this point as I don't have an HD receiver and I don't want Dish to take anymore of my money. I'd rather try it myself and see how it goes.

Ebden, thanks for the link.

Ebden,

With your HD Receiver from LG, was it rather easy to setup with an antenna? That's the route I want to take and would like any pointers if you could pass them along.....

Thanks.

Originally posted by pjo
Eben,

With your HD Receiver from LG, was it rather easy to setup with an antenna? That's the route I want to take and would like any pointers if you could pass them along.....

Thanks.

The OTA setup seemed pretty straightforward to me. Take a look at the 4200a here (http://us.lge.com/Product/proddetail.do?actCategory=tv&archivedYn=&actType=search&categoryId=0000000104&prodId=1000000269&parentId=0000000001&parent2levelId=0000000001&category_level=3&totalItem=8&currentPage=1&perPage=10) for info on this STB; there's a link to the owner's manual there and you can see for yourself.

Eben

OvalNut

The best HD I've seen is the channel 5 news broadcast. None of the "prime time" shows are even close to this good. I've seen CSI, Medium, House, Vegas, Raymond, Still Standing, King of Queens, etc. To me these look maybe 15% better than SD, and I attribute that mostly to the 16:9 format without bars on the sides. None of these shows come close to the WRAL News broadcast in quality. Last night I looked at Fifth Element on DVD. I would say that it was very close to the PQ of the news broadcast. My tuner / DVD player is either a 3410A or 3510A by LG. I forget which one. The box is set for 1080i output on component. TV is set for 1080i.

The box is set for 1080i output on component. TV is set for 1080i.
That is a clue to what is going on here.


Your box is upconverting non-HD 480i signals to 1080i and passing them to your TV in 16:9 format. Since the signal started out as non-HD, upconverting and stretching it only takes a poor signal and makes it look bigger.

You need to set the box to "pass-through", (or whatever the equivalent setting name is). My bet is also that you are not tuning the digital subchannel (the -1 channel I referred to above). Instead, the tuner is picking up the normal 480i broadcast, upconverting it and sending the upconverted feed to your set as a 1080i signal. All your set knows is that it's getting a 1080i signal.

What are the specific channel #'s you are tuning?

Once you have the box outputting signals in their original format to the TV, then you'll be able to see the difference. Any signals that are not either 720p or 1080i will be displayed in 4:3 format on your TV when the Pic Size is set to 0-Natural. You can then use your set's 1-TheaterWide1 Pic Size to stretch those signals out to 16:9 if you like. (I do).

For example, the NBC affiliate in Atlanta broadcasts on channel 11, but the digital broadcast is actually on channel 11-1. If I set my Pic Size to 0-Natural and watch the Tonight Show on channel 11, I see a 4:3 formatted 480i picture. If I then switch to channel 11-1, I see a 16:9 formatted 1080i HD picture.

The rub here is the box. If the box is set to send all signals as 1080i, then your TV doesn't know any better, and all it's really showing you is a 480i signal blown up to show all it's warts. I would certainly expect a DVD to beat that picture in quality.

As an aside, the "pass-through" concept applies equally to cable/sat STB's as well as OTA tuners as discussed above.


Tim

Try the term "native" for the selection on the STB.

Nope. I tune to 5-1. 11-1, 17-1 etc. I don't watch the SD channels at all. The box is set to put out 1080i. If the signal is HD and 1080i, then it is unchanged as it passes through the box. Since the output is 1080i, the TV set does not convert the signal. It displays the signal at 1080i. On non HD programs that are broadcast on the -1 channels, the 480i signal is up converted by the broadcaster to 1080i and fed to the STB and TV as 1080i. If the set top box was setup to output 480i, then the TV would up convert the signal and display it as 1080i. The picture would be converted three times. (480i to 1080i by the broadcaster, 1080i to 480i by the STB, and from 480i back to 1080i by the TV) Several of the shows I mentioned above were not HD. I was at work and trying to remember shows I've watched. I just haven't seen a HD show that was spectacular yet. What other shows do you think look better than DVD?

OK, I'm out of ideas then, though I am not advocating that you set the box to output always at 480i. Rather, set the box to pass through any signal directly to the TV, in the native resolution in which it is received. Then let the TV alone do any scaling needed.

Anyone else please chime in. Thanks,


Tim

OvalNut

Thanks for your suggestions! I think my setup is correct for viewing the -1 channels. (No scaling by my equipment. 1080i all the way through.) I think that the shows are the weak link. I've only had my set a week, so I've only seen a few shows. The Tonight show looked very good last night. The news always looks very good. I just wish more shows were of similar quality.

Glad to help where I can. One note though regarding keeping the box set to 1080i only: Some of the -1 HD channels broadcast in 720p (FOX, ABC and others), and for those channels the box will be doing the scaling. It may be possible that your TV would scale it better if you set the box to pass-through instead. (am I sounding like a broken record yet...?:D ) Try it both ways and let your eyes decide.

By the way, I wasn't aware that your set is so new. You can definitely expect the picture to improve/tighten up as the CRT's get a couple hundred hours on them. And at that point if you are up for a few modest tweaks you'll be amazed at how good it looks.

Take care,


Tim

This sparked my interest. I have an HD box from Adelphia and it's set to output 1080i all the time. I have been through the setup but to my it's annoying waiting on the box to change to the broadcast. I guess I'm a little confused as to what everything should be set. Especially the settings on the HD box menu. Whats the difference between fixed, pass-through, etc?

Is it best just to leave it at 1080i all the time or should I have it set to find the signal?

Oh I have my 8300HD box hooked to my tv via HDMI cable.

I also have the 8300HD with Adelphia, though i connected mine via component to my 57HX93. Once the box is configured correctly, Pass-Through will send any signal to the box in it's original scan rate (480i/480p/720p/1080i) rather than upconverting everything to 1080i before sending it to the TV. The advantages of this are:

1. If you set the box to output all signals to 1080i, the box does the upconvert of a 480i signal. In doing so, it adds the black bars to the sides and includes them in the 1080i image sent to the TV. As a result, you cannot stretch the image since the TV is seeing it as 1080i already. By sending the signal to the TV in it's original scan rate, you can apply the Toshiba's superior stretch modes to 4:3 material and eliminate those black bars rather than using the Stretch mode on the 8300HD which seems to be just a Full zoom.

2. 720p is sent to the TV unaltered as well, and the TV will then do the convert to 1080i for display.

3. The TV may well do the upconverts better, as is my experience.


As to how to set it up to do the pass-through:

Essentially it involves redoing the initial setup of the box to add in each of the scan rates that you want to be able to pass through. You do this by running the Setup Wizard as explained on page 6 of the owners manual which you can download from the Scientific Atlanta website.

Once that is done, using the remote you press the Settings button twice and set the Picture Format to "Pass-Through". This is explained starting on page 9 of the same owner's manual.


Hope that helps,

Tim

Thanks Tim,

Yes that does help explain things. I use Theater Wide mode 1 now for just about everything except HD (normal) and I've never have a problem stretching to full screen (at least that I'm aware of). I'm not at home but I'm "pretty" sure my internal settings say HDMI and not fixed. Not sure how this will make a difference.

Good point. While the 83 series is unable to stretch HD signals, this capability was added back in with the 84 series.

My bad.


Tim

Ok. I'll try the pass through feature tonight for kicks. Should I choose every format during the 8300HD setup (Info+Guide button setup) and let the box deside which to output.

OvalNut

I will find out if any broadcasts are 720P, and try letting the TV convert the signal.

Have you changed much in the service menu? I want to do convergence from the service menu. I've been in the service menu, but only changed RCUT so far. How far down the list is convergence? I need to find out what all the abbreviations stand for so I can tweak a bit. I think I can guess what some do, but I'd rather know for sure.

Hi all,

I have 57h84.
Anyone there have experience on upconverting DVD player (like Panasonic S97) with h84/h83? How's the PQ, compare with 'regular' progressive DVD player?

Thanks!

kantonburg,

Yes, just select all the possible formats, and then the box will just pass them all straight through untouched. At that point the TV will convert 480i and 720p to 1080i automatically. Of course, 1080i received from the box will be displayed by the TV as 1080i. If for any reason you receive a 480p signal from the box, then the TV will convert it to either 540P or 1080i, depending on your setting under Theater Mode in the user menu on the TV, just as is the case with how your TV handles 480p from a DVD player.


kbgl,

Frist of all, when in the service menu (SM), DON'T GUESS. Secondly, before making any SM changes write down ALL, ... and I mean ALL, of the existing SM parameter values. There are over 200 of them, so this will take some time, but it will save your behind if you make an incorrect entry. Once I got mine written down, I put that paper in a legal envelope and taped it to the back of my set so that I will always know where it is, (and the kids can't get to it back there).

SM convergence is not IN the service menu, but is accessed via the SM. There have been some very good full blown procedural write ups done in this thread and elsewhere on the how to's of doing a SM convergence. I'll ask that you research those for the procedure and then come back here with specific questions as you get into it. Search this forum for "convergence" and that should get you started.

FOX and ABC broadcast their HD in 720P. Many of their prime time shows are broadcast in HD. You can go to www.titantv.com for TV listings which indicate which shows are broadcast in HD.


Tim

How would you guys compare a dvd's quality (progressive scan) to a program in HD? Is it leaps and bounds better than a dvd? If it is, I'll be shocked at how good it looks because dvd's are blowing me away and I've only had my set for 2 weeks.

Watched 'The Incredibles' yesterday with my kids. Saw it in the theater first time around and I swear it looked much better on my new Toshiba..

Awesome stuff man..awesome.

Modern Animated movies always look great. For starters, they are razor sharp to begin with, unlike film which can be slightly out of focus. They also always have perfect lighting and have less subtle gradients in skin tone, etc.

I'm still feeling like my DVD picture isn't as sharp as it could be. I've only done the 9 point convergence, but it still looks soft. I'm running progressive DVD to 1080i. It looks better to me than 540p because...

With my DVD in progressive, I'm getting horizontal bars across my screen, noticable in dark scenes because they are lighter than the picture. When I run my DVD in interlaced, these lines disappear. Any ideas?

tosh 3690 dvd
tosh 51h83

Yes, it really is that much better.

With a DVD, it's, "Wow, that is a really great TV picture, like being at the movies." And it certainly is stunning.

With HD, it's like looking through a window. There is the addition of depth and dimensionality as well as resolution. I'm talking about count the pores and nose hairs from across the street, and have a real feeling for what the weather is like kind of detailed.

Seriously though, you gotta see it to believe it. Last year a friend of mine who is a family physician was over at my house watching game 7 of the Stanley Cup playoffs, broadcast in OTA HD. Late in the game a Tampa Bay player took a stick to the face. This was followed by the requisite replays and close ups of the poor guys broken nose and deep facial lacerations. My friend's response was somewhat along the lines of, "This is ridiculous. I can make a specific diagnosis and prescribe a course of treatment for that guy without even getting off your couch here."


Tim

Anyone use upconversion DVD player on H83/H84?
Thanks.

nywst

Upconverting a DVD can be done by the DVD player, or by the TV. I think that the TV might do a better job than an inexpensive upconverting DVD player. I have a standard type Toshiba 3960 and also have an LG player that upconverts. I will compare them soon to see if there is much difference.

Originally posted by kbgl
nywst

Upconverting a DVD can be done by the DVD player, or by the TV. I think that the TV might do a better job than an inexpensive upconverting DVD player. I have a standard type Toshiba 3960 and also have an LG player that upconverts. I will compare them soon to see if there is much difference.

Thanks!

I just removed the outer screen on my 46H84 and noticed that the red gun has a metal strip in the middle of the gun that is about 5/8" wide. I also noticed that there is a definite red tint on the sides of the screen when looking at a white or grey screen with DVE.

Should I take the set back or is this normal on this set. I've had several RP and none of them had the strip in the red gun.

I'm afraid that I will not be able to set the grey scale properly due to this. It would also seem to me that this would effect the resolution of the set since it's in the middle of the gun.

Any advice would be appreciated. I only have 3 days to return the set.

Do you experience the horizontal line issue described in the first post on this page? The lines disappear in interlaced mode.

Also, I'm running the DVD in progressive mode and the TV in 1080i. Is this similar to your settings?

Thanks in advance,

Marshall

Originally posted by kbgl
nywst

Upconverting a DVD can be done by the DVD player, or by the TV. I think that the TV might do a better job than an inexpensive upconverting DVD player. I have a standard type Toshiba 3960 and also have an LG player that upconverts. I will compare them soon to see if there is much difference.

OvalNut,

I looked in my settings. They seem to have updated. What used to say HDMI now says Auto DVI/HDMI, then I have an upconvert-1, upconvert-2, Fixed.

I'm using Auto DVI/HDMI. Is this the current pass through mode for you?

kantonburg,

You know, I just learned something. Look at page 10 of the 68300HD owners manual. You'll see that is says "If your HDTV uses a HDMI or DVI port, AUTO DVI/HDMI appears here instead of PASS-THROUGH."

I've never used this option since my set is connected via component, so you have a leg up on this one, but it appears from the documentation that the AUTO DVI/HDMI setting functions essentially the same as PASS-THROUGH does. Maybe someone else with some direct experience with this can help us. It's something I'd like to know too for that time in the future when I do decide to give DVI a shot.


trgraphics,

That metal strip you're seeing on the red CRT is a factory installed version of a form of lens striping. Oddly enough too, even though it runs right across the middle of the CRT, it does not interfere with the image itself, but does cut down on the red output. There is a whole lot of complex and convoluted math you can do that proves this to be the case, but it's all beyond me.

Note: if you've followed this thread you've noticed that many people with the 46H84 tend to turn the RCUT down a few clicks in the service menu. This is probably related to why the factory installed strip is covering a small portion of the CRT on this model. Suffice it to say it's normal. Counterintuitive certainly, but normal.


Tim

I'm glad you learned something from my pure laziness :D

Seriously though. The forum world has ruined me. Directions are a thing of the past anymore. I should have looked there first ;)

Originally posted by eugovector
Do you experience the horizontal line issue described in the first post on this page? The lines disappear in interlaced mode.

Also, I'm running the DVD in progressive mode and the TV in 1080i. Is this similar to your settings?

Thanks in advance,

Marshall

Luckily I don't that center white line issue in my TV.
Yes, 1080i is the setting to play DVD in progressive mode.

Ok guys.....I've got some questions viewing a dvd, ie. The Matrix with my 57H84. According to the manual, if I turn on the Auto Aspect feature, the TV should automatically size the picture. So, The Matrix should automatically be displayed in the Full Mode. I don't show this to be the case though and I'm wondering if there's a way for me to test it.

Here's what I see, let's say I'm using the Theater Wide 1 picture size just watching regular tv. I then change my source to 4 for my DVD player (Sony Progressive scan using component cables) and the picture stays in Theater Wide 1 mode, even though I'm expecting it to switch to FULL.

Can anyone else verify this behavior? I actually leave it on FULL from now on but would expect the Auto Aspect feature to work. Is it failing to do so because I have configured my dvd player for my tv (set it to widescreen within it's options)?

Thanks all...

pjo

pjo,

Your experiences are not uncommon. Though the Auto Aspect feature is supposed to lock onto Full when the TV senses a 480P signal, and TW2 for 480i, in real world usage it seems to be flaky (that's the technical term:p ) at best. As a result, many people do end up not using it.

Secondly, I'm sure you've done this, but just check that your DVD player is set to Progrssive, or the Auto Aspect won't have any chance of working.

Personally, I much prefer using TW1 for stretching 4:3 material, so I don't use Auto Aspect anyway.


Tim

Yeah, I like TW1 too but not for DVDs. That's my beef. Granted, I can hit one button to change it to FULL but I'm lazy and this thing cost me some money so I expect it to work. Still love the set though, regardless. Gonna do some more testing to see if I can get it to work.

Another option is to get a universal remote to do all the input and pic size switching for you, among other things.

I got a Harmony 676 remote a couple weeks ago and I just love it. I call it the "One Remote to Rule Them All". You literally press one button to turn all your home theater components on and set each device exactly as it needs to be depending on what activity you're going to do, (i.e, Watch TV, Watch DVD, etc...). When you're done, press the OFF button and it all shuts down. Very cool. :D There are several different manufacturers of universal remotes out there. Do some research and you'll be pleasantly surprised.


Tim

Hey, my set is practically new and I've made a few changes to Contrast/Brightness/etc etc. I've seen many posts about 56 point convergence and other things related to convergence. Is there something simple I can do to tweak my picture other than hitting the Touch Focus button? If I start this 56 point convergence, what exactly am I doing with all of these crosses that appear? What am I looking for? I guess I'm wondering if it's even worth going into if the TouchFocus button is supposed to do this for me. Would going thru the 56 point convergence make a big difference or would I even be able to discern it?

Guess I could just shut the heck up and try it...lol.


Thanks.

Well, now that I've gone crosseyed from reading this whole thread :) I wanted to say thanks to everyone for contributing their experiences. I'm getting my 46H84 delivered on Sat. and am about to wet myself with excitement :) What I'm wondering is what things should I do as soon as its setup. So far I have:

Wait an hour or two to turn it on
Hit the Auto Focus button
Turn down the contrast
Wait a month or so to do the calibration

I'll be running a DTV H10 with HDMI straight to the TV and a Panasonic Progressive DVD, XBOX with the HD set and a Sony 6.1 receiver. I'll take some pics and post them in the gallery when its all setup.

Also, does anyone know if Best Buy's delivery includes bringing it into the house, or just to the door?

Thanks for all the great posts!

Glert

Glert,

They'll probably bring it in for you. Nice setup you have there with all of your gear. Just watched Ladder 49 last night on my 57". Great color throughout and the detail was fantastic.

You'll enjoy your set - for sure.

pjo

OvalNut

I searched this thread but can't find anything on convergence from the service menu. I have no problem doing it in the users menu, but I need to see if the service menu will allow more points so that that I can fix some geometry problems. If I can't fix it, or Toshiba can't fix it as a warranty repair, then I might have to return or exchange the set.

nywst

I compared my upconverting player with my 3960. I had to use 3 different video cables to make up the second set of component cables for the 3960. The cables used with the upconverting player may be better than what I used with the 3960, so don't take this as final. So far it looks to me like the upconverting player had the better picture. I plan to switch cables and try again.

kbgl,

Take a look at the steps outlined in this thread:

http://www.hdtvoice.com/voice/showthread.php?t=13090&highlight=convergence

Post back with any questions.


Tim

OvalNut

That was quick! Thanks!

OvalNut

Is there a reset to set everything back to factory settings? Just in case?

Yes, you have to press 7 while in the service menu convergence grid in order to save your work. If you power off your TV while in the service menu convergence grid you will lose the changes you've made.

I am not aware of a way to return the convergence setting back to factory settings, though someone else may know if you can do that. Either way though, it's not a big deal as long as you've not changed anything else in the service menu.

Speaking of which, before making any changes in the service menu or doing a service menu convergence, WRITE DOWN ALL OF THE SERVICE MENU PARAMETER VALUES AND STORE THAT LIST IN A SAFE PLACE. There are over 200 parameters, so it does take a little while to do, but if you ever need to check a setting due to pressing the wrong key, you'll be able to get it back to the right value.

Good luck,


Tim

Woo Hooo!!! Got my 46H84 today and all I can say is WOW! Picutre needs a bit of tweaking but it looks great! Do most of you use the FULL setting for watching SD shows? I've tried it and it doesn't look like other stretch modes I've seen on other TV's, it looks very natural. Again, thanks for this great thread!!


Glert

Originally posted by Glert
Woo Hooo!!! Got my 46H84 today and all I can say is WOW! Picutre needs a bit of tweaking but it looks great! Do most of you use the FULL setting for watching SD shows? I've tried it and it doesn't look like other stretch modes I've seen on other TV's, it looks very natural. Again, thanks for this great thread!!


Glert

Congrats Glert,

Personally I use TW1 for all SD stuff. The full setting to "me" makes people look fat. Plus most of the time my option 4 (full) isn't selectable. I'm not sure if it's due to the HDMI cable?

Regarding orginal convergence settings:

On my 46h83, after a 56 pt convergence, I have read that I can either hit 7 twice to save or hit 7 when done, then when it says to press touchfocus press it, and it will save to memory.

My theory has been that if I don't save it to touch focus memory, I can get the original settings using touch focus. Haven't really tested this as ther hasn't been a need.

On another note, should you find yourself doing an electronic-focusing down the road, make sure to only turn the focus trimpots. I lost my ISF calibration yesterday by not adhering to this.

Originally posted by kantonburg
Congrats Glert,

Personally I use TW1 for all SD stuff. The natural setting to "me" makes people look fat. Plus most of the time my option 4 (full) isn't selectable. I'm not sure if it's due to the HDMI cable?

Thanks! I have noticed the FULL option, 4, isn't available if I have the resolution set wrong on my DTV receiver. Ex. I'm watching a SD channel and the output is set to 1080. If I change that, the full option becomes active. I guess its all about personal prefrence!

Glert

Yea I have everything output to 1080i right now. I need to redo the 8300HD setup and choose the options available.

Please help me fix this geometry issue!

I used my DVE setup disc and displayed a convergence grid. This grid has a series of horizontal and vertical lines which are supposed to be evenly spaced. On my TV the square formed in the center of the picture is the smallest. My center square is 1 7/16 ' wide and 1 5/8 ' high. It looks as if 3/16" of width is simply missing! The squares get larger as you move horizontally from the center. The largest squares are about 18% larger than the center. This stretching all takes place in the middle third of the screen. Most change is in the middle 5". I took my disc to the store where I purchased the TV and tried it on other TVs. Almost every set in the store had similar issues. The smaller (46") TVs seemed to have the problem the worst. I was told by the owner of the store that there is no adjustment to fix this.

(This geometry problem was later fixed using the service menu convergence.)

So far I am really impressed with my 46h84, but im having alot of problems playing alot of my PC games.Some of my games will only play at 1024 by 768 resolution, but the games image is way to big for my screen and the refresh rate seems to be stuck at 30mhz for some reason instead of 60.Anyone know a way to get my get a 1024 by 768 game to fit my screen and run at 60mhz?Would powerstrip help with this?

Originally posted by dono35
So far I am really impressed with my 46h84, but im having alot of problems playing alot of my PC games.Some of my games will only play at 1024 by 768 resolution, but the games image is way to big for my screen and the refresh rate seems to be stuck at 30mhz for some reason instead of 60.Anyone know a way to get my get a 1024 by 768 game to fit my screen and run at 60mhz?Would powerstrip help with this?

I don't know about that, sorry. But, I was just playing some Xbox and OMG, it was amazing. I have a couple 1080 games and they were awesome. Halo2 was great and thats only 480p. So far I'm lovin this thing.


Glert

Originally posted by kantonburg
Congrats Glert,

Personally I use TW1 for all SD stuff. The natural setting to "me" makes people look fat. Plus most of the time my option 4 (full) isn't selectable. I'm not sure if it's due to the HDMI cable?

I also use TW1 for all SD viewing. After reading a lot of threads in the forums that relate to the full mode I was wondering why mine is not available or selectable. Are we missing something? Some of the threads mentioned that DVDs would auto play in the full mode. I play DVDs that don't fill the screen in TW1. Is there an adjustment that can be made to allow full mode for watching DVD or other signals? Is full mode for DVD better than TW1? Also, kantonburg, did you mean to say Natural makes people look fat or some other mode. Natural is what all of my HD is viewed in and the aspect is auto full for 16:9. I'm currently running Component so it's not your HDMI affecting your full mode.

Roulettewheel,

Yea I did mean full. I'll edit my original post to not confuse people in the future. Thanks for pointing that out.

Originally posted by kbgl
Please help me fix this geometry issue!

I used my DVI setup disc and displayed a convergence grid. This grid has a series of horizontal and vertical lines which are supposed to be evenly spaced. On my TV the square formed in the center of the picture is the smallest. The squares get progressively larger as you move away from center, either horizontally or vertically. The largest squares are about 35% larger than the center. I took my disc to the store where I purchased the TV and tried it on other TVs. Almost every set in the store does the same thing. Smaller (46") TVs seem to have the problem the worst. I was told by the owner of the store that there is no adjustment to fix this.

It sounds like you may have one of the stretch modes enabled since the squares get progressively larger as you go out from center. Put that grid pattern up and select the pic size option on your set and see what it is at.
If that's not it , then make sure you have your DVD player setting right for 16:9 set and such. I can't imagine that the geometry would be so uniformly off, getting a little larger across the screen in both directions. Usually geometry is off showing a bow in a line or something other than what you are seeing via distortions in the lines. I'm pretty sure it's just a stretch mode enabled. That grid pattern though, will show you exactly what your stretch modes do to the picture. Each stretch mode will do it different and those lines (grid pattern) will show you how.

I have another convergence question. One thing that kinda worried me was when I was performing the service convergence the screen seemed to shake or wobble a little. Is this normal?

Also my colored square skipped to every other or every third line instead of moving in one square increments.

Pittdog1

You have a 46" set and the DVI disc too. Could you display the grid on your set and actually measure the spacing. I swear, the settings are correct on my setup. The sales guy also thought I was in stretch mode until I showed him on all the sets in the store. When we played the disc in the store, virtually every TV had the same problem to some extent. If this is fixable, I'd like to know.

kantonburg,

The shake/wobble you're seeing during a service menu convergence is due to the horizontal interlace of the scan lines. This is because the TV is receiving an interlaced input at the time. To steady the grid for the service menu convergence, first feed the tv a progressive signal from your DVD player, then set the Theater Mode to 540p. By doing this, the set is receiving and displaying a progressive image and the grid won't flutter like that.

Also, make sure your pic size is set to FULL before doing the service menu convergence.


Tim

Tim,

Well first off I don't have a progressive player, I know I know, but I watch DVDs about once every other month if that. But when you say the theater mode do you make the display format in the picture settings inside the televison menu?


edit: I re-did the guided setup and I think the HDMI cable has something to do with all this. I chose every format available in the HD setup then used HDMI/DVI auto in the box settings. I then turned for FOXHD and it said the race was displayed in 480i. I changed the channel then came back and it was displaying 720p. Ugh! I'm going to swap the HDMI with component cables later on and see how that does.

quote:
Originally posted by cannongjr
I'm hoping someone can point me to a post in this thread or help me with a problem on my new 65hn84 that arrived yesterday. I have a real bad red push(?) on the TV. All the faces are really red. I turned the contrast down to 40, brightness down to 45-50, but I had the color down to 20 and the tint over to the green side to +15 to get rid of red faces. I do have an AVIA disk but didn't use it yet because the new speakers (Ascends, yea, great, no problems there) arrived yesterday also, so ran out of time. I have a 14 day return policy on the TV. I read through many post last night but didn't find anything to help. Can I fix or should I send it back?


If you read farther back in this thread you'll see info on how to adjust this in the Service Menu (search this thread for "RCUT").

Thanks, Eben for the reply. Did the rcut and still have the problem. Skin tones change from channel to channel. Avia shows I should be running color at 47 and tint at 8 plus red which produces real red skintones. I get OK skin tones at 26 color and 15 plus on the green side but then the skin tones keep changing from channel to channel. Also, do I just ignore the AVIA settings? This problem is consistant whether I run through the Comcast box or use the TV's tuner. Also, I have another crt on the same cable that doesn't exhibit the problem. Am I just too picky, is there something that I'm still missing here, or does the set has a problem? I'm open to any ideas before I send it back. The picture is GREAT, as long there are no people in them.

Pittdog1

After checking things more carefully, here's what I have.

I used my DVI setup disc and displayed a convergence grid. This grid has a series of horizontal and vertical lines which are supposed to be evenly spaced. On my TV the square formed in the center of the picture is the smallest. It's not even square. I cut thin pieces of cardboard to use as a measuring tools so that I would not scratch the screen. My center square is 1 7/16 ' wide and 1 5/8 ' high. It looks as if 3/16" of width is simply missing! The big circle looks almost round. If 3/16" was added in the center, I think it would be. The squares get larger as you move horizontally from the center. (Not vertically as I stated earlier.) The largest squares are about 18% larger than the center. This stretching all takes place in the middle third of the screen, after that the width is consistent. Most change is in the middle 5". I took my disc to the store where I purchased the TV and tried it on all the other TVs. Almost every set in the store had similar issues. The smaller (46") TVs seemed to have the problem the worst. I was told by the owner of the store that there is no adjustment to fix this.

I currently have a 50H71, which is a 4:3 set. It has a vertical compression mode, which makes it roughly the same as a 42" wide screen. I am looking at buying a 57h84, but I had a few questions for the group... The H71 is basically the same as the H81 series, only 4:3 instead of 16:9. The H71/H81 did a poor job at up-converting 480P to 540P, and did not even take a 720P signal. I know the H84 does take a 720P signal, and converts it to 1080i, but how is the PQ when fed a 480P signal? I have heard that Toshiba has improved the 540P up-conversion, but I was wondering how much better it does comparing it to my older H71? I have a Panasonic XP30 DVD player, and I really did not want to have to buy one of the up-converting DVD players...

I have the 65H84 and I can share my own experiences with you... I sit fairly close, only about 7 feet away from my set. mainly I watch dvds but occassionally HD on a couple channels. I have experimented with 540P vs 1080i and they are both good it just really depends on your preference...540p is a smoother picture and has virtually no flicker. 1080i is a sharper picture but has flicker. depending on how far away you sit will also determine how much flicker you can notice. I keep it on 1080i because I do like a little bit sharper image and even though I sit close, I have gotten used to the flicker and now rarely notice it except when there is text on the screen. all in all, a 480p picture still looks really good and even better if you get a DVD player with DVI or HDMI that can upscale it to 1080i.

Also I used to have the 50H81 and the upscale to 540P was not nearly as good. I do like the fact that the H84 series allows you to choose between 540P and 1080i versus the the older series upscaling everything 480 to 540P. I also used to have an issue with the H81 and ghosting/trailing images on anything non-progressive which I see none of with the H84.

1/4 mile, I have the 57H84 and I can't tell a difference between the 540p and 1080i settings. I've tried both when viewing a dvd and both provide an excellent picture - IMO. I've had my set configured for 1080i since I bought it and I doubt I'll ever try 540p again.

I've seen losts of refrences to the service menu and think I know, but if someone can confirm the buttons to get into it, that would be great. Also, does anyone have a link to the Service Manual?

Thanks!


Glert

Originally posted by kbgl
Pittdog1

After checking things more carefully, here's what I have.

I used my DVI setup disc and displayed a convergence grid. This grid has a series of horizontal and vertical lines which are supposed to be evenly spaced. On my TV the square formed in the center of the picture is the smallest. It's not even square. I cut thin pieces of cardboard to use as a measuring tools so that I would not scratch the screen. My center square is 1 7/16 ' wide and 1 5/8 ' high. It looks as if 3/16" of width is simply missing! The big circle looks almost round. If 3/16" was added in the center, I think it would be. The squares get larger as you move horizontally from the center. (Not vertically as I stated earlier.) The largest squares are about 18% larger than the center. This stretching all takes place in the middle third of the screen, after that the width is consistent. Most change is in the middle 5". I took my disc to the store where I purchased the TV and tried it on all the other TVs. Almost every set in the store had similar issues. The smaller (46") TVs seemed to have the problem the worst. I was told by the owner of the store that there is no adjustment to fix this.

I just measured mine and they measure 1-5/8 square horizontally and vertically all the way around the screen. You should have your set to view as FULL in the pic size menu. I also assume you mean DVE(Digital Video Essentials) disc instead of DVI. The pattern you are speaking of says 1.78 anamorphic, correct? That's the one i took measurements off of. Maybe somebody else can see if they have this problem or not. I can try and post pics if you want of that pattern on my set. And most geometry problems can be solved , so the guy that told you it couldn't be fixed is full of it. It is a PITA though, but it can be done. Have you entered the SM on your set and viewed that grid pattern yet? Would be interesting to see if the problem shows up there as well. Also (sorry can't remeber if you had the H84 series set) you can bring up the Manual convergence on your set and measure the distance betwen the crosses and see if they are uniformly spaced or not. The SM convergence is a complete grid instead of the crosses. Let me know what you find out.

I mostly watch in stretch mode to fill my screen if it's a 4:3 ratio signal. I have the 65H84 and a Dish Network HD receiver. Should I stretch it from the Sat receiver or the TV? Is there a difference?

I do it now from the Sat receiver.

edit** Maybe I should throw this in as well... I have the receiver set at 1080 and the TV at 1080 all the time.

After months, 6 - 8, of research and deliberation. I have just ordered a refurbished 65HX93 from the secondact web site.

What sealed the deal was the 2004 HD face off that Home Theater Magazine did.

I just hope getting a refurbished model was a good choice. I couldn't find it new, and didn't want to compromise on my choice of set.

Has anyone on this thread had any problems with a refurbed set?

Cant wait for the set to get here............ :D

Anybody here know anything about SVM?

I've noticed that there are instances where a dark object, when against a light area such as a sky, will have a very subtle white outline or ''glow'' around it or something. Not very noticeable (I'm the only person I know that can see it, as usual...), but I did some quickie google research and it might have something to do with the SVM, which I don't know how to disable.

Anybody know what I'm talking about, this ''outline''? It's pretty hard to spot.

Pittdog1

Thanks for checking. I went in to the service menu convergence last night and displayed the grid. This of course eliminated a stretch mode as the problem. The first 2 vertical lines were indeed closer to the center line than they should have been. I moved both lines out 13 clicks. It was actually very easy to do. I just did one color at a time, and didn't try to align them by eye. Thirteen on the green, then blue, then red. The spacing is still off a little. Took maybe 20 minutes. Tonight I will move them about 5 more clicks. I watched several hours of TV after the adjustment, and could no longer detect the problem. I can't believe I was told the problem couldn't be fixed!

cissado,

I suppose you could stretch from either source. I'm interested in hearing how the Dish HD receiver works as I'm looking into getting setup with their HD channels. How's it working for you? Can you also get local channels in HD with their receiver? How are the 5 channels they offer for their HD package? Worth the 10 bucks? Also, did you have to buy the receiver or are you leasing it? Thanks man...sorry I had to ask all these questions but there's no straight answer from Dish on any of this for me in my area - Maine.

I hate to go too OT and if there's more info you need, I'll PM you, no problem.

I've had some glitches with the 811 receiver but they were common ones that everyone has. The PQ is pretty good connected with an antenna. You can only get CBS local channels with the receiver other than an antenna. I wish there were more channels with HD but the ones they have are pretty good. I love the DiscoveryHD channel. Great programs on there as well as the other HD channels.

I'm leasing the receiver for $5/month. I have 2 of them and a third regular receiver that controls two rooms for 4 total rooms that are being leased. One of the HD receivers is set to 720p and the other is set at 1080i. I think I like the 720p better, but I'm keeping the setting native to the TV's resolution.

In the beginning it was a little awkward to change from DirecTV but now I'm used to it and it's OK. I had a non-HD DirecTV package and I would have needed a new dish, receivers, installation that I had to pay for, so I switched to Dish for free everything (except the lease).

I just recently moved and went from directv to dish network. the only reason I chose dish network was because I got a 4 room system for free, free installation, one dvr box ($5 a month) that controls 2 tvs and one HD box with the HD package free for 6 months. The channels are ok. HDNET movies is kinda cool they have a wide variety and discovery are the only ones I watch. As far as I know you can hook up an antenna for local HD but I never watch local anyway.

IMO I like directv alot better but the same equipment with the dvr and the HD box and eliptical dish to get HD would have been between $500-600.

I just bought my 46h84, and I'm very happy with it. I have a couple questions, however.

1. When I was doing service menu convergence adjustments, i did not press 7 to save, but just pressed the "touch focus" button...did I not actually save my settings?

2. The service convergence is easier than the user menu, but I still ahve a hard time seeing exactly what I'm doing, because the grid seems to bloom a bit. is there any way to show through the video source while you're doing this? Any other tips?

3. Certain things are not behaving exactly as I thought they were supposed to. For example, in 1080i mode (from the cable box), I can still use all of the zoom modes. It's helpful for 4:3 windowboxed content, but as far as I can tell, the manual tells me I shouldn't be able to do that. Also, it seems that my picture settings are global, rather than staying on an input or input type. For instance, my dvd player seems to have slightly different black levels in progressive and interlaced, but I should theoretically have different picture settings for 480i and 480p input, no?

Still trying to figure out if I should get it isf calibrated, but I guess I have a while till the set is ready for it, anyway. Anybody know of any good affordable calibrators in Los Angeles?

thanks in advance

One thing I can suggest doing to make the service convergence easier is to turn off one of the colors. i.e. turn off blue and converge red to green, then turn off green and converge blue to red. That makes it easier to see what you're doing.

Okay I just got my 46H84 in today, and I must say im not all that impressed... I just upgraded from a Sanyo 30" Widescreen HDTV...and i must say my sanyo was alot sharper in terms of details... but then again it was a direct view instead of a rear projection so im sure this has something to do with it..

I have a couple of questions that i liked to see if you all could answer ( especially, Pitbull1, since you seem very knowledgeble with this tv )

1. I am running my Cable via DVI to HDMI cable, and the pic looks very ( how can i say) not as clear as i would expect. Also when i look at standard TV channels, everything seems very grainy. Especially peoples faces.

2. When i watch standard tv channels i see that my pic size is in full, but when i watch HD channels, its in Natural, Is this normal?

3. I watch DVD's via a progressive scan dvd player, i set my signal option to 540p, this is correct right? what is the best pic size to watch dvd's in?

4. Also I have a thx optimizer disc that i bought off ebay, and it has all these test, (eg tint/contrast/ and a whole bunch more, i also have the blue filter glasses that are needed ) but it seems even with then i run this calibration disk, the picture is not up to par.( i know everything is right, because i also have a manual that tells me how every test should be run).. I would like to know what settings everybody is running ( all of them if possible ( tint, sharpness, contrast ))

5. I often do dvd viewing so what would be the best settings for that ( all of them again if possible )

Since im a newbie with this tv, what all esle should i do or be on the look out to make the picture better? ( will get into service menu convergence this weekend and try do a little tweaking )

First thing you should always do is disable the SVM which there are different ways to do that, but the easiest is to set your picture setting to "Movie" then turn your sharpness all the way down. That will get rid of the grainy picture. as far as the color/tint goes, Toshibas have alot of red push so you'll want to adjust that accordingly and as far as the brightness/contrast goes that can vary on the different sets as well as your lighting conditions but I usually keep my brightness at about 35-40 and the contrast at about 60.

As far as your cable goes...I had a similar issue with a dish HD box. for some reason the component out gave me a better picture. So I ended up using that and got a DVI dvd player that upscales to 1080i. I rarely watch TV anyway.I keep it on 1080i for everything now which is the native resolution of the TV. 540p gives a slightly softer picture. But my main use is DVD watching and xbox.

If your primary use is DVD, get yourself a good DVD player with DVI and upscale capabilities, set your TV to 1080i and that will yield the best picture. As far as your question about the HD channels changing to full, that is normal, it has something to do with the output being 16:9 anamorphic and regular channels being 4:3.

Thanks for your quick response...

As far as the your sharpness,brightness and say color temperature, what would you keep that at?

I dont have a dvi dvd player, but i do have a progressive scan... will changing the signal to 540p, yield a better pic? also for dvd, should i set it to "movie" pref and put sharpness all the way to 0 to?

as for the convergence, any good hints other then to start from the middle and work my way outwards?

Do you have any comments on the thx optimizer im using? should i preferably go to DVE, or AVIA?

thanks again....

I keep my sharpness at 0 all the time. the Sharpness setting is an artificial enhanceement. if it isn't quite sharp enough after setting it to 0, it may be a focus issue which is something else altogether. I currently have my brightness at 35 for dvd and tv watching and 40 for xbox. I also have a light controlled room so I don't have to worry about brightness.

540p will give you a softer image and a little bit less flicker, 1080i will get you a sharper picture and a little bit more flicker. so it is kind of your preference. obviously for HD watching you want it at 1080i. 1080i is a much higher resolution even though it is interlaced so if you can get your hands on a dvi dvd player like the samsung that upscales to 1080i at the dvd player you will get the best dvd images possible without having to get an external scaler or HTPC.

I would select "movie for all of your inputs and adjust it from there. you only want to start there because the SVM (scan-velocity-modulation) will be dissabled and gives you a better image.

As for convergence, the best way is in the service mode and the way I do it is select green only and ensure your geometry is good as that will be the reference, then converge red to green, then turn off green and converge blue to red. It comes out perfect everytime I do it that way, otherwise the blue is very hard to see next to the white.

The THX optimizer is very good, the AVIA just takes things a step further with additional tests. definately worth it if you want to get the best setup possible.

LRend1215

I've had my set about 2 weeks. I used a DVE setup disc, but tweaked a little for personal preference afterwards. My settings are in the 40 to 48 range on brightness, contrast, and color. I have my sharpness at 16 and color temperature on medium. Some OTA broadcasts vary a lot from show to show and channel to channel. Oddly, some shows seem to be intentionally tinted. I don't think there's one perfect setting. When you save your picture settings as preference, it will save them for that input only. You will need to save preference settings for each input that you use. If the convergence is off a little, the picture will not be as sharp. I think a 46" set reveals shortcomings of the source material that would not be noticed on a 30" set unless you got really close to it.

I have had some PMs from people to help me get flesh tones on my 65nh84 set-up. Thanks for the help. Last night I turned on the TV and all had gone to the green side. The TV was also pulsating from green to more green and back again. I tried everything, inputs, settings, no difference. I called the B and M and they are sending out a replacement. As a matter of information, it had a Feb. 05 build-date.

I "thought" you weren't supposed to press the touch focus button. But I may be wrong (usually am) :)

I wasn't aware of the turning off the set via remote or on the set itself....I'm glad you brought all this up.

Still lovin' my 46H84 but I ran the Avia disc last night and seem to be at about 5% overscan. I got into the service menu but I need to know which of those settings I change to correct the overscan. Thanks for any help!


Glert

5% overscan is pretty much right on the money. Some people run 4% (me :p), but that is pushing it a little. At 5% you'll have pretty stable convergence once the CRT's settle in after a couple hundred hours.

To get it to 4% correctly, you'd need to go into the service menu and center the image with VCEN, VPOS and HPOS, then bump down the HIT and WID to size the image in to 4%. That would be followed by using a geometry template to straighten the green convergence grid which will have bowed somewhat due to the adjustments above (bearing in mind that most templates are drawn for 5%, you need to fudge the grid lines toward the inside of the template lines). Then after all that, do a service menu convergence.

As long as you have a consistent 5% on all 4 sides, I wouldn't touch it at this point other than an occasional service menu convergence as the CRT's settle in. Just sit back and enjoy.


Tim

Originally posted by OvalNut
5% overscan is pretty much right on the money. Some people run 4% (me :p), but that is pushing it a little. At 5% you'll have pretty stable convergence once the CRT's settle in after a couple hundred hours.

To get it to 4% correctly, you'd need to go into the service menu and center the image with VCEN, VPOS and HPOS, then bump down the HIT and WID to size the image in to 4%. That would be followed by using a geometry template to straighten the green convergence grid which will have bowed somewhat due to the adjustments above (bearing in mind that most templates are drawn for 5%, you need to fudge the grid lines toward the inside of the template lines). Then after all that, do a service menu convergence.

As long as you have a consistent 5% on all 4 sides, I wouldn't touch it at this point other than an occasional service menu convergence as the CRT's settle in. Just sit back and enjoy.


Tim

Thanks alot for the quick reply!!

Originally posted by kantonburg
I "thought" you weren't supposed to press the touch focus button. But I may be wrong (usually am) :)

I wasn't aware of the turning off the set via remote or on the set itself....I'm glad you brought all this up.

The touch focus button shouldn't be used if you can help it but it is a process in the service convergence. By pressing touch focus after finishing, it saves those settings to the touch focus so that in theory, next time you hit touch focus it should revert back to the saved setting.

Is there some guide out there that shows you how to use DVE's advanced test patterns (eg gray scale and the other advance tests)? any links or anything/

If somebody could direct me to some books or websites that have good information on how to properly use DVE, Thanks....

Originally posted by Dangrzne25
The touch focus button shouldn't be used if you can help it but it is a process in the service convergence. By pressing touch focus after finishing, it saves those settings to the touch focus so that in theory, next time you hit touch focus it should revert back to the saved setting.

What about pressing power on the remote vs. the set? Does that really matter?

Either power button, remote or on the set, does the same thing.

The convergence in only saved by pressing 7 when in the convergence grid, and the settings are only saved to Touch Focus by pressing the Touch Focus button after pressing 7.

Tim

Originally posted by OvalNut
Either power button, remote or on the set, does the same thing.

The convergence in only saved by pressing 7 when in the convergence grid, and the settings are only saved to Touch Focus by pressing the Touch Focus button after pressing 7.

Tim

Does this essentially save the settings to the televisons rom chip, i.e. overwrite what was there?

whats the other way to turn of svm? according to the manual there should be a settings that says SVM in the picture settings, but my TV doesnt show it?

and when i put it on Movie mode and then change the settings, it reverts back to preference... so what to do?

Originally posted by LRend1215
whats the other way to turn of svm? according to the manual there should be a settings that says SVM in the picture settings, but my TV doesnt show it?

and when i put it on Movie mode and then change the settings, it reverts back to preference... so what to do?

I think I saw a post where Pittdog1 confirmed that SVM stays off even though it reverts back to preference.

Yes, pressing 7 when in the convergence grid saves the new convergence settings by overwriting the prior convergence settings.


Tim

Movie becomes preference once you make a change in Movie preset. This is a good thing though as it will save everything including SVM-off and still leave the Movie preset and it's settings in place. It will also be called preference mode for every input you change the settings in Movie mode on.
And they can all be different settings per input and it will retain those setting in preference mode. Say you need 40 for contrast on one input and 48 on another input. No problem, Preference will be different for each input.
By the way, i run my progressive scan DVD player with the set at 540p, and to me 1080i looks a little softer than 540p, not the other way around. I'm sure everybodies combination of DVD, set, and progressive or not will vary and as always use what ever looks best to you, you're the one who has to watch it. Also, i always shut my set off with the power button on the set after saving convergence with 7 and touch focus and have always had it retain my convergence work. Don't forget that if you power the set off and then back on to check it, it may take 15 or 20 minutes for the convergence to stabilize again. Hitting the Touch Focus actually does work pretty well at saving your settings. One of the calibrators here said previously that it takes 3 or 4 times of doing the SM convergence and saving it. 1st time it retains about 90% and then a little more each touch-up and save that you do. After about 4X of going into the SM to do touch ups and saving with 7 and then Touch Focus, you should just be able to hit the touch focus on the set to straighten everything back out when ever it goes out of convergence over time. It has worked very well on mine.

LRend1215"Quote By"
Help me out here?
Okay I just got my 46H84 in today, and I must say im not all that impressed... I just upgraded from a Sanyo 30" Widescreen HDTV...and i must say my sanyo was alot sharper in terms of details... but then again it was a direct view instead of a rear projection so im sure this has something to do with it..

I have a couple of questions that i liked to see if you all could answer ( especially, Pitbull1, since you seem very knowledgeble with this tv )


Well, first of all,I'm really more like a good ole' reliable mutt then a pitbull.LOL!!
All joking aside, i feel as some one else said that the difference in size is going to show more flaws in the picture, especially with sd. Also take into consideration that your set's PQ will get a little better with some hours on it. Make sure and do a good manual convergence as well. You could wait on doing the SM convergence for a while if you want as it is going to drift a bit until it gets some time on it and just do the one with the crosses on it in the user menu. But that's up to you. For adjusting sharpness, i just focus me eyes on one spot on the sharpness test pattern with the sharpness turned all the way down and start increasing it until you see the spot you are concentrating on develope increased jaggies is the best way i can describe it. Then back it off a click or 2 from that point. Good luck with it and i'm sure the longer you have it the happier you will get with it.

All service menu parameterss, except for convergence grid changes, are saved immediately, even if the TV is turned off with either the remote or the power button on the set.

Convergence grid adjustments are only saved if the 7 key is pressed while in the convergence grid.


Tim

I think he means to power out of the service menu, before hitting seven and saving anything,... so that way if you incorrectly altered any service menu code, then it wont take effect... as opposed to when you hit seven and it saves it...

What that means is if things don't go as expected ie. you see something other than the convergence grid, you can power off the set and turn it back on and it will be out of SM. If you change a setting in one of the parameters ie. vpos, hpos etc.(by accident) then you better have written them down before hand or you are probably screwed. So basically what i'm getting at is if you follow the posted instructions for entering the SM convergence and all does not do as described, then you can hit the power button and all will be well again. If you follow the instructions carefully you should have no problems and it's not that easy to accidently change a parameter just by doing the SM convergence. In summary, LRend1215 is correct, i'm only talking about the convergence side of the SM not other parameter adjustments in reference to the power button saving your butt.

Pittdog1

Thank you for clearing that up!!!

I will delete my posts on this matter so as not to confuse the issue more than I already have. This is a great thread!

If you change a setting in one of the parameters ie. vpos, hpos etc.(by accident) then you better have written them down before hand or you are probably screwed.
Yep. :eek:


Tim

I have a couple of questions concerning my 3-month old 46h84. I've done service menu convergences several times and the set looks very, very good. However, I've noticed a distinct pinkish tinge on the left and right edges of the screen, particularly on the right edge. It's not noticeable on color programming, but on B&W, it's just enough to bug me a bit. When doing the convergence, it seems that the right side (3-4") of the set has a softer focus than the rest of the screen, causing 'fatter' red lines (I see pink/red on both sides of the grid line). If I do an electrostatic focusing (trimpots behind speaker grille), will it adjust that side or everything? And in your collective expert opinions, will that solve my pink problem, or am I dealing with 2 different issues? I've tried adjusting RDRV and RCUT, but people here seem divided on the virtues of doing that, plus it didn't eliminate the pink entirely. After reading through this whole thread about elecrostatic focusing and red tint, my questions don't seem to be addressed. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

Ted

God this thread has exploded since I have been here. I dont know where to start, or to start at all. Or should just go back to bed...., bed sounds good.

Can anyone offer their opinion on whether or not this is true? In speaking to several people about HDTV programs, I was told that getting the HD signal OTA provides a better overall HD experience than say getting it from a cable company or satellite. Thoughts on that from those who have tried it?

My scenario is like many others except in my part of the world the HD programs are few/far between. I'm torn between several things at this point. These are my options:

1. Go with OTA signals and buy a receiver/antenna for myself and watch programs in HD when they are broadcasted. The pro here is that I'll own the equipment forever and won't have to pay anyone a dime. Of course, this is for local channels only but that's fine by me. Watching the Red Sox or Pats in HD would be awesome.

2. Go with local cable provider and pay around 60+ a month for 5 channels of HD + local channels. I also have to pay a lease fee for using their HD receiver.

3. Go with local sat company (Dish) and also pay them for as long as I use their receiver - same scenario as cable basically.

All I'm wondering at this point is if OTA provides an equal PQ in HD when compared to going thru cable/satellite.

Thanks all...

I searched this thread, but couldn't find an answer.

Could someone measure the top of their 57h83/84 for depth? I'm curious how much space there is for a center channel. The manual doesn't say.

Thanks in advance!

cstup,

I show this area to be between 9 and 11" on my set. It's 9" of black plastic which then fits into the frame which goes around the screen - which is another 2". So, you could have a total of 11" if you secure your center speaker correctly.

pjo,

Speaking from experience with the integrated HD tuners in my 57HX93, yes OTA is definitely a better image. I have been able to confirm this directly with my set by doing A/B comparisons of the signals for the same program in real time between the HD signal from my cable co and the HD signal from my OTA antenna. OTA is always crisper, revealing added image depth. It is true HD.

It has largely to do with how the cable/sat co's compress the signal. That compression manifests itself visually as a softening or loss of crispness to the image. This is not the case with broadcast OTA which is not compressed prior to transmission.

Also, if anyone is considering utilizing broadcast OTA, give some serious thought to getting a set with integrated HD tuners. Beyond the ergonomic benefit of having the tuner onboard, there is no need for external cabling from the OTA tuner. This eliminates further signal loss introduced by the cables themselves.

That said, I still did get the HD package from my cable co in order to receive INHD1&2, HDNet&HDNetMovies, ESPNHD and DiscoveryHD. That HD package includes a few of the broadcast channels as well, but for those I always use the OTA channels instead.

Lastly, with the OTA antenna you are able to pick up additional broadcast HD channels which your cable co does not carry. Example: the only broadcast networks channels available my the cable HD package are NBC, FOX and CBS. With the OTA antenna I am also able to pick up the broadcast HD channels for ABC, UPN, WB, WTBS and PBS.

Hope that helps,


Tim

Anyone have pictures of the inside of these sets? I want to do an E & M focus on my 46H84 in a few weeks.

I've read numerous references to $120 HDMI cables lately. Check the place that starts with an "e" and ends with a "bay". I got a DVI to HDMI breakout cable for close to 1/10th that amount, and the picture is great!

(is this post ok?):D

Tim,

Thanks for the reply. That's absolutely what I was looking for. I picked up the 57H84 (without the integrated tuner) so I'm gonna shop for an HD receiver. Ever watch Nascar in HD? Bet it rocks.....

I found this partial list of SM coded (don't remember if it was here or somewhere else). Does anyone have a full list, and better yet, a description of what each does?

RCUT Red Cutoff
GCUT Green Cutoff
BCUT Blue Cutoff
RDRV Red Drive
BDRV Blue Drive
BRTC Bright Center
COLC Colour Center
TNTC Tint Center
SCOL Sub Center
SCNT Sub Contrast
HPOS Horiz. Image Position
VPOS Vert. Image Position
HIT Height
LIN Vertical Linearty
VSC Vert. S-Correction
VPS Vert. Shift
VCP Vert. Compensation
WID Width
PARA Parabale (Pincushion)
CNR Corner Parabala
HCP Horiz. Compensation
VFC V-F Correct
PHUE POP Hue
PCNT POP Contrast
PCOL POP Colour
ECNT
VCEN Vertical Position
OPT1 Option 1
OPT2 Option 2
TVOP TV Option

Okay now im starting to back off my original post, of me not being impressed with this set.. Last night i watched Saving Private Ryan via my progressive DVD player, and i must say.. AWESOME!!! The HD content is still a little "AHHHH" but i will do a tuneup using DVE this weekend and also do a manual convergence in the service menu..

anywho, my question is, when you watch some HD content, some of them still have black bars or some type of bars on the side (i.e. ESPN, FOX). When im watching this type of content, should i change the picsize to Theater1, as to avoid Burn in's of the side bars? When im watching HD it doesnt let me choose the full pic size, because i guess natural is the original pic size of HD... anyways, any response here would be appreciated... thanks..

ohh also another quick question regarding the convergence in the service menu, should i not touch the green crosses? should i turn off the green lens and then work on the red and blue? any particualr order or way i should do this? thanks...

NASCAR in HD completely rocks, unbeatable.

Next on the list for me is a SVS PCi 20-39 subwoofer so I can feel that thunder too.


Tim

Originally posted by LRend1215
Okay now im starting to back off my original post, of me not being impressed with this set.. Last night i watched Saving Private Ryan via my progressive DVD player, and i must say.. AWESOME!!! The HD content is still a little "AHHHH" but i will do a tuneup using DVE this weekend and also do a manual convergence in the service menu..

anywho, my question is, when you watch some HD content, some of them still have black bars or some type of bars on the side (i.e. ESPN, FOX). When im watching this type of content, should i change the picsize to Theater1, as to avoid Burn in's of the side bars? When im watching HD it doesnt let me choose the full pic size, because i guess natural is the original pic size of HD... anyways, any response here would be appreciated... thanks..

ohh also another quick question regarding the convergence in the service menu, should i not touch the green crosses? should i turn off the green lens and then work on the red and blue? any particualr order or way i should do this? thanks...

If the program is 4:3 with bars on the ends, it's not HD your'e looking at. A lot of the broadcasts I receive OTA on the "HD" stations, are upconverted SD. The bars are part of the broadcast, and not always the same color. These broadcasts are not real HD, and sometimes look worse than some SD.

Leave the green lines alone unless you are fixing a geometry problem.

But it is HD, because i have the high definition package with my local Cable company... and they give you a list of certain channels that are HD, for my package channels 290-313 are High Definition... But still some of the High Def channels have Bars on the side, like when im watching college basketball on ESPNHD, some games are full screen and HD, and some are HD but with the grey bars on the side that say espn on them. The same when i watch 24 on Fox, its full screen and HD, but when i watch the simpsons, its also HD, just with blue bars on the side that say fox.... so should i adjust my tv to theater mode1, when i see these bars as to not burn them in my screen...

so should i adjust my tv to theater mode1, when i see these bars as to not burn them in my screen...


I set mine to theaterwide1 when I'm watching 4x3 windowboxed stuff from the HD channels. I'm not sure how much you'd have to watch with the black bars to actually cause burn-in.

Originally posted by LRend1215
But it is HD, because i have the high definition package with my local Cable company... and they give you a list of certain channels that are HD, for my package channels 290-313 are High Definition... But still some of the High Def channels have Bars on the side, like when watching college basketball on ESPNHD, some games are full screen and HD, and some are HD but with the grey bars on the side that say espn on them. The same when i watch 24 on Fox, its full screen and HD, but when i watch the simpsons, its also HD, just with blue bars on the side that say fox.... so should i adjust my tv to theater mode1, when i see these bars as to not burn them in my screen...

I know nothing about cable!

But I've been told by at least 3 people here and one that works for WRAL that if it's 4:3, it's not HD. This has nothing to do with your question about burn in, but I thought it might explain why you don't like the HD very much.

if it's 4:3, it's not HD

True. However, if it's on an hd channel, then that means the broadcast master has been upconverted to HD and broadcast that way through the hd channel, so the quality is at least theoretically better than the regular cable or OTA feed. (right?) The Simpsons, for example, looks pretty great (when newer shows are broadcast by fox in primetime, not the syndicated stuff), and scrubs on NBC looks pretty good. Other channels don't do as well.

Your right , shows that have been upconverted to HD format, definately look alot better then SD content... is there like a timeframe of shows i should not watch (that have side bars) before the bars start burning in the screen? just wondering?

Just use a stretch mode. I like Theatrewide 1, but 3 works too. I'm currently going through episodes of the Wire, and in TW1, I sometimes forget that it's 4:3.

Originally posted by LRend1215
Your right , shows that have been upconverted to HD format, definately look alot better then SD content... is there like a timeframe of shows i should not watch (that have side bars) before the bars start burning in the screen? just wondering?

Just because it's an HD channel doesn't meam it's broadcasting HD. Your box might be putting out 1080i on that channel but it's just upconverted sd. Almost all daytime programming and most local news broadcasts are 4:3 with bars and are not HD. Most of the higher rated prime time shows are in true HD without bars and have 5.1 sound. If you see bars on ESPN it's not HD either. They have to have HD cameras at that sporting event for it to be HD, thus the bars on some of their events. Dedicated HD channels like Discovery HD, HDNET and INHD very rarely show anything that isn't true HD and thus no need for stretching. Most sets won't allow you to stretch HD channels because they assume if you're viewing 1080i or 720p that it is true HD(almost always 16:9) and there is no need to stretch.

Also one other thing, an unstretched digital(not true HD) picture you recieve on an HD channel(4:3 unstretched) will look better than the same program viewed on the stretched analog sd channel. One hint for true HD on the major networks is to see if they are broadcasting with DD(Dolby Digital) 5.1. More than likely if you look in the info for that show and it says DD, Digital, or 5.1 audio in the description, then it is most likels being shown in HD and no bars. There may be exceptions, but this will hold true most of the time.

Okay i went back through this thread to see if i could see a previous post on something im experiencing on my set, but i could not find one. So here is my question....

When im watching HD TV, and it cuts to a commercial and its in 4:3 format , i get the black bars on the side of the commercial. Now upon a closer look i see the edges between the picture and the black bars ( the outline) is like a very dark green band. It caught my eyes because it looks like 2 green bands going up and down the edge of the tv.. Now when im watching tv, these bands are nowhere to be found, its just when its against a real dark (black) background. And i have yet to see them in a real dark movie... ANy body heard of this? any idea what this is and whats causing it? any help would be appreciated..

What you are seeing is why you don't really want less than 4% overscan. There is info that is not meant to be seen at the extreme edges of the picture. When your set is displaying 4:3 material on an HD channel, your set's overscan is thrown out the window horizontally, so you are at the mercy of the provider as to what you see at the right and left edges. For an example of this, go to ESPN HD and look at there sidebars. Notice they have there own set of side bars with artwork on them. You won't see anything out of place at the edges most of the time as they doing the overscan right for there signal. I see what you are seeing on my set as well and it varies from channel to channel , some look fine and some do not. It is no fault of your set, besides, who cares what a commercial looks like anyway. In fact, that's probably why you noticed it in the first place, DAMN commercials and there up and down volume anyway!

Reread what i just typed and rather than go in and edit it let me clarify myself. I'm not saying that your overscan is improperly set. In fact you are probably between 5 and 7 % which is ok. Most people like 4 or 5% because then you are getting the most picture on your set as you can without seeing anomolies at the extreme edges of the picture. But, when your set is showing 4:3 commercials or shows on the HD channel, then your
horizontal overscan is a moot point as the 4:3 picture isn't making it out to the edge of your screen. Thus, you are relying on the provider of what you are watching to make sure you are not seeing stuff you shouldn't at the edges of their signal. I hope i explained this ok and if not, if someone else can better explain or correct me if i'm wrong i would be thankful.

I get you, you explained yourself good enough for me,,, Im slow, but im not freakin slow, lol.... So this is normal i take it then? No worries then, nothing much i can do about it anyways, just caught my attention a bit since in my previous 30" HD tv i didnt see this, possibly because its alot smaller...Like i said this TV is starting to grow on me and i definately am starting to love it, like i see many people on here do....

Thanks again for your quick and knowledgeable responses...

I just did a manual covergence from the service menu last night - wow, big difference. One problem though. The very top and bottom horizontal lines were very bowed in the middle. The bottom line was arcing up, and the top line was arcing down. The other lines seemed straight. Should I straighten out the green horizontal lines in the grid, then match up the red and blue to them? Or is there another feature in the service menu that will balance out the picture? I remember reading something about "geometry, but I don't recall what it did, or what it was called in the service menu.

Also, when I hit the "TouchFocus" button the TV, and the lines pan up an down, I can see them bowing at the top and bottom.

Ideas on what setting to change would be appreciated. Thanks.

koach,

What you're seeing with the bowing of the green lines at the top and bottom is fairly normal due to the round CRT lenses projecting a rectangular image onto a flat mirror well over a foot away. As an illustration, think of what the beam of a flashlight looks like when projected onto a wall at an angle and you'll get the idea. Your solution of just straightening out the green line and converging the red and blue to it is correct.

As your CRT's age during the first few hundred hours, the amount of this bowing will vary, so don't be alarmed if you find that you need to redo it in the near future as well. After that point, the CRT's will settle in and you'll notice much less change in this area.

Sidenote: If you put up a geometry template you'd likely see that that next line in is also bowed to a lesser extent for the same reason, so take a good look at that one as well. In making adjustments to straight up the grid like this, what you are shooting for is for all the lines to be perfectly straight, and all the boxes to be of equal size, with the exception of those boxes which overlap the edges of the screen.


Tim

Originally posted by OvalNut

Sidenote: If you put up a geometry template you'd likely see that that next line in is also bowed to a lesser extent for the same reason, so take a good look at that one as well. In making adjustments to straight up the grid like this, what you are shooting for is for all the lines to be perfectly straight, and all the boxes to be of equal size, with the exception of those boxes which overlap the edges of the screen.


Thanks! I ordered the Avia DVD, so I'm assuming it has some sort of geometry template that I can use to line it up against?

I did notice that the boxes are not quite equal width. I'll have to adjust those as well. They seem to get wider as they move towards the edge. And this was observed with it in "full" mode.

As far as the ones that overlap the screen, you mean if a box on the left hand side of the screen extends off the screen, so that I can't see the left edge, then don't worry about adjusting its width?

Thanks again.

By geometry template I was referring to a clear mylar overlay which has the gridlines drawn on it. This is physically placed over the screen as a reference for doing geometry corrections. There is more to it, but essentially, you just line the grid lines up with those on the template.

As far as the ones that overlap the screen, you mean if a box on the left hand side of the screen extends off the screen, so that I can't see the left edge, then don't worry about adjusting its width?
Exactly.


Tim

Originally posted by koach
Thanks!

I did notice that the boxes are not quite equal width. I'll have to adjust those as well. They seem to get wider as they move towards the edge. And this was observed with it in "full" mode.


Thanks again.

My set had similar issues that were easily fixed. Take a look at my posts and Pittdog1s post on page 31 of this thread.

Originally posted by kbgl
My set had similar issues that were easily fixed. Take a look at my posts and Pittdog1s post on page 31 of this thread.

Pretty much the same as what OvalNut said. I'll wait until my AVIA disc is here to fine tune it.

okay tonite i went into the convergence grid and i was doing just as everybody say, but when i look at the grid the red or blue , doesnt really look to out of whack, on any grid... i then made the square solid in one quadrant, and then use the arrows to press to the side and nothing, and then up , and nothing, except the grid went up ..... now is this just me or shouldnt it when its red and the little square is solid, i should see some movement in the red outline against the white line? im not seeing that at all... no movement whats so ever.... also what are the little numbers on the bottom right when i adjust the quadrant? any help would be good

I'm not sure exactly what you are referring to. Explain exactly what you are in and what's going on again.

well when i get into the service menu, i press 7, it takes me to a white grid.... there is a little box in the upper left thats blinking, i can move it around by pressing 2, 4,6, 8. When i press 5 it makes it the box solid. By pressing 3 i can change the color of the box from red to blue to green. Okay now i chose a spot on the grid, i pressed 5 it made the box solid, now i use the arrows (up, down, left, right )i press side to side and nothing happens i dont see a line move out of the white grid line, almost as if the red line that im suppose to be playing with is not moving at all, but when i press the arrows from side to side, on the bottom right corner, i see blue numbers, they go 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, according to each click i do...and then it goes blank (not the screen but the counter itself) and it starts over again... now when i use the arrows to press up and down, again i see no movement of the redlines, the grid just blinks and it looks as if the grid moved up and thats it... Like i said when i make the box solid and i try movin the corresponding color that the box is , nothing Happens, or at least i cant see it , This is basically my dilema! how can i try and converge the colors when i dont even see them move or anything....

Hopefully this explanatory enough, i dont know how much more to explain it then that....anybody heard of this...

Sorry it took so long to get back to you. You DON'T use the arrows to move the lines. You use 2,4,6,8 to move them just like you do to move the cursor. I have no idea what it's doing when you're using the arrow keys on the remote. Hopefully you didn't screw up anything. Probably not if you didn't save it hitting 7 and just powered the set off with the power button. Just make sure you use the number buttons in the next attempt. If your convergence is not very far off it can be difficult to see from your normal viewing distance. I pull a chair out of the kitchen and sit about 4' from my set to do it. Like i have said in the past throughout this thread, it's hard to screw anything up in SM if you follow the directions very carefully. Good Luck.

Okay, thanks for your response, now i get how to do it.... Luckily everytime i did this in the convergence in the service menu, i never saved, i just powered the Unit off, when i didnt see anything being done.... Thanks again for your input....

Great. Also, if you have to spend alot of time doing the convergence, do it in stages and save your work. After staring at the grid which is quite bright and cannot be turned down(brightness and contrast settings have no effect on the grid),your eyes will start getting squirrely on you. And with the grid being so bright there could be a risk of burn-in with it up to long at a time. I would limit my time to like 20 minutes at a session. Then save your work with the 7 key. Watch some regular programming for another 20 or 30 minutes and then go back at it again. Good luck and as always be careful but don't be afraid, it's worth it for what you gain PQ wise.

It's been said b4. Awesome thread.

I have read all 49 pages and while I don;t understand it all yet it seems pretty clear this is a good set and will look closer at this model at best buy today.

Question: Which has the sharpest picture between the 46h84, 51 and 57h given the same media? Is the ONLY difference size?

My plan is to use both the Dis_Net 811 and a PC to this Tosh through an AV switch on my Onkyo. I plan to use the DVI to componet adapter out of my ATI 9700 pro and run componet throughout. The PC has a Twinhan 1020a sat card. It's not HD so I am hoping the 1080i upscaler will help here without a ton of artifacts. My DVD player is the Denon 1600, VCR is Mitsubushi U748.

Anyone see any compatiblity issues with my setup?

BTW, yesterday I saw a ton of TV's including the DLP. I thought the DLP looked way too digital and over sharpened and the best I saw all day was the Tosh 46h84. Panny 53x55 was a close second from what I saw. It's really boiling down to these two I think.

Usually the smaller the set, the better the picture will look as a larger picture will reveal more errors in viewing material. Not the set's fault, just the nature of the beast. E.g., cable looks best on a 27" tube than a 65" CRT RPTV because on the 27" tube you don't see all the garbage that cable is outputting, but you would on the 65".

Usually people simply go with the largest set they can fit in their room.

Regards,

PBC

LookingG, All depends on your viewing distance. At 8' the 46" will look better than a 57. At 10' the 57" will probably look as good as the 46" at 8'. That's why your viewing distance is critical for the best and biggest picture you can get. To see what i mean, move in on your set you currently have. Eventually the closer you get the more the picture quality will degrade. It's the same thing when you get a bigger screen. At 15' a 27" looks like HD cause you cant see all the crap that is there from that far away. Buy a set based on your viewing distance. I like this.... 8' or closer 46". 8'-9' 51". 9'-10' 57".over 10' you can get the big boys.

Originally posted by pittdog1
I like this.... 8' or closer 46". 8'-9' 51". 9'-10' 57".over 10' you can get the big boys.

I must be in the minority here on viewing distance. My set is a 46", and I sit 12' away. On SD material, I think this is sometimes too close. Do you not see lots of problems in some of the SD broadcasts at 8'?

Are some SD broadcasts just plain out of focus?

Thanks PittDog. I don;t have that much room right now but hate to buy something too small. This is actually going in a bedroom at the foot of the bed :-) From the foot of the bed it's about 6' to the screen I have now. If I lay back then it's more like 12" to the front of the screen.

I have a 46" 4:3 non HD RPTV in there now. I doesn't seem overwhelming even at 6". I might be better off doing the 46/51 though over the 57. The 57" was just $100 more over the 46". That's what I thought is was worth the upgrade.

Originally posted by kbgl
I must be in the minority here on viewing distance. My set is a 46", and I sit 12' away. On SD material, I think this is sometimes too close. Do you not see lots of problems in some of the SD broadcasts at 8'?

Are some SD broadcasts just plain out of focus?


I have TW cables Digital and HD package.Digital channels(200 and up) look pretty good. The lower channels look fairly bad but they vary. HD of course looks awesome. As well as DVD's, great. The only problem with being 12' away is that it is hard to enjoy the HD resolution and DVDs for that matter from that far away. I mean, they look great from 12' but great sources will also look great from 8' as well and give you more of a theater type experience. As far as SD goes, i don't watch much of it to be honest. All the good shows (most anyway) on the major networks are available on the HD channel for that station. So for sd it's pretty much just the local news for me and i don't really care if it looks great or not(no good looking anchor woman here i want to see in HD)LOL!! The only other sd programming i would care to watch is Discovery and TLC and some Animal Planet programs and if i wait a little while they all usually show up on Discovery HD. And it's not really a focus issue with sd, but rather an analog signal blown up and stretched and sometimes scaled to your sets resolution etc...
People need to remeber that these sets are intended to display HD,DVD and other great sources. So many people buy an HD capable set and don't even have HD, it would amaze you. By the way, i can't recall if you have a surround system or not, but i am of the firm belief that it adds as much to the theater experience,if not more ,than the picture itself.:D

[QUOTE]Originally posted by kbgl
[B]I must be in the minority here on viewing distance. My set is a 46", and I sit 12' away. On SD material, I think this is sometimes too close. Do you not see lots of problems in some of the SD broadcasts at 8'?

I must be in the minority as well, I have a 65" and sit about 7.5' away. lol. The picture definately looks clearer the farther back you sit but since I only watch HD and DVDs on this screen it looks good to me. Also to me the imact of the size out-weighs the loss of clarity. As long as I can't see scanlines or jaggies I'm good. On the other hand, my brother has a 47" Panny and sits about 12" away and when I went to his house to fix his convergence. it didn't even seem like a big screen!

Anyone have any tips on improving how analog channels look? I tried turning the sharpness all the way down, and it helped, but it made my HD channels seem a little blurry. I've tried adding an amplifier, but it doesn't seem to really help.

Can anything be adjusted in the Service Menu to improve this? Thanks.

Originally posted by pittdog1
By the way, i can't recall if you have a surround system or not, but i am of the firm belief that it adds as much to the theater experience,if not more ,than the picture itself.:D

I agree completely. I have a pretty solid 5.1 system. I built most of my speakers. Tomorrow I plan to build a new sub. My existing sub is excellent for music, but is too small for HT. I've built some bigger subs, but sold them to friends.

Originally posted by kbgl
I agree completely. I have a pretty solid 5.1 system. I built most of my speakers. Tomorrow I plan to build a new sub. My existing sub is excellent for music, but is too small for HT. I've built some bigger subs, but sold them to friends.

That's awesome. Don't fret because it's Easter and here i am posting:confused: . There's a lull now between the Easter egg hunt and dinner:D . Let me know how the sub goes as i'm considering building a sub myself. If i have any questions i just might direct them to you. I have quite a bit of woodworking knowledge and know i could build a pretty good cabinet and i downloaded and have been playing with one of those virtual sub programs. Happy Easter!

Originally posted by pittdog1
I have quite a bit of woodworking knowledge and know i could build a pretty good cabinet and i downloaded and have been playing with one of those virtual sub programs. Happy Easter!

Take a look at the Dayton DVC 12" woofer from Parts Express. In a ported 3 cu-ft box it performs very well!

hey all, lovin my 46h84. bout4 mos now. only thing, i get a pulse sort of in the picture. its random, about a quarter to a half inch in thickness all the way across the screen. randomly placed ,random freq.,. not all the time. but it happens on all 3 inputs i use...ant 1, hd1 and hd2. my guess is power issue. maybe house supply, maybe tv. i use an APC surge protector (pf11vnt3) but im sure it doesnt provide "clean" power. anyone else experience this.??? do you use "clean power" ??

I went looking at TV's again and looked a little closer. The only thing I saw even close to the Tosh was the PT-53WX54. Is the Tosh still superior to just about everything else out there or mught there be better options in the <1500.00 range and 46-55"?

Most of what I will be watching is standard Satellite off an HTPC and what little HD content Dish_net offers is probably secondary (Dish_811), then DVD. My guess is that the highest connection will be component because of my AV switch system.

I really don't want any issues with black crush, artifacts or rainbows. I went through some of that when I setup my PJ. I have the Avia DVD.

If there is something else out there right now I should consider in a HDTV other than H84's, please let me know. I'm ready to pull the trigger.

So I did a full manual convergence using the service menu, and the picture looks excellent now. I started off by getting the green grid perfect - all horizontal and vertical lines 100% straight and evenly spaced out. Then I lined up the red to the green, and then the blue to the red.

One issue though. Even though my lines are completely straight, when I hit the "Touchfocus" after adjusting so it saves it to memory, the lines that pan across the screen aren't 100% straight. There is a noticeable "bowing" in all of them. Should I be concerned? The grid is fine, it's just these lines than pan across.

Thanks.

If your lines are straight when you bring the grid back up, then i wouldn't worry about it. Hell, it might do the samething on mine, i never payed that much attention to that part.

Okay so i bought the DVE calibration disk today, and was kind of dissapointed..It wasnt very descriptive in terms of what to do, is there like a website or a how to guide, that goes more into detail as to what i should be looking for and doing...

I have my cable hooked up from a dvi to hdmi cable, and according to DVE, if i have this type of connection, i cant do my tint or color... Any ideas or methods on how i should approach calibrating my TV using DVE....I heard avia is a better in terms of being more simple and easy to use, but being i got the DVE disk for 5 bucks from a friend, with the color filters and everything, i figured i might as well go for it... any help would be appreciated... thanks..

Has anyone here ever performed an electrostatic or mechanical focus on their H83/84? I'm planning to get heavily into the tweaking part of this stuff... I'll go through with the mechanical eventually, but firstly, the electrostatic sounds pretty easy.

I recently did an electro focus on my 46h83 and it really focused things up.

A couple of things to note:

Do NOT turn the gun trimpots. They are clearly marked as adjustments where the focus trimpots are clearly marked as focus. I had a hellofa time getting my colors back after inadvertantly turning the red adjustment (not focus) knob.

My set was ISF calibrated and suggested that I not focus blue, since that defines the grayscale (which used to be 6500). Since I messed up the color already, I focused all 3.

After much fiddling with the damn red adjustment over a few weeks, I am now happy with the PQ. It is not 6500, but looks damn good. It is definitely much sharper and 3d looking. I also have my prefernce set to normal with als on (to bring down the 80 contrast level to somewhere in the 50's from what I can tell), brightness at 45, and color temp to warm.

While the tech did a good job, I was tired of a dark, soft pic and decided that I'd rather watch the PQ that I like even if it means less life for the set than a PQ I didn't like that would last a decade.

Good luck and take your time.

Thanks for the tips. I went ahead and did it... very impressed! My red seemed to be quite off. When I finished up all three CRTS, I turned them all on and saw the convergence grid... and it looked noticeably better, far less color bleed, way sharper, and even the ''necessary evil'' softness on the corners/edges of the screen appears to have been minimized. I even noticed some points that were kind of off because the grid just wasn't crisp enough before.

I don't want a dark/soft picture, either... my TV is mainly for gaming, and naturally the pictures are razor sharp and anything that isn't focused or sharp stands out.

Of course, it can't end here... I'll need to bite the bullet and go mechnical soon! Have you tried it, or planning to?

Very happy with my picture, but I gotta wonder... can I be even happier?

Now this sparked my curiosity. I see revolverjgw mentioned the convergence grid didn't seem to bleed after his electro focus. That was the first thing I thought when I did a service convergence.

Is there a quick link on how to do a electro focus? What exactly is it?

Originally posted by revolverjgw
Thanks for the tips. I went ahead and did it... very impressed! My red seemed to be quite off. When I finished up all three CRTS, I turned them all on and saw the convergence grid... and it looked noticeably better, far less color bleed, way sharper, and even the ''necessary evil'' softness on the corners/edges of the screen appears to have been minimized. I even noticed some points that were kind of off because the grid just wasn't crisp enough before.

I don't want a dark/soft picture, either... my TV is mainly for gaming, and naturally the pictures are razor sharp and anything that isn't focused or sharp stands out.

Of course, it can't end here... I'll need to bite the bullet and go mechnical soon! Have you tried it, or planning to?

Very happy with my picture, but I gotta wonder... can I be even happier?

Can you tell me how you did this focus? Did you read a "how-to" or something? I'd like to do this too, but have no idea where to start.

and what is mechanical focus?

Anyone take pictures while they were at it? I want to do an E &M focus soon, and it would help to have some pictures of the inside of the set.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v41/revolverjgw/electro.jpg

Koach- Just get the front grille off and look to the right. You don't have to turn the TV off, you'll want the screen on so you can gauge what you're doing. Those three knobs on the bottom of that box correspond to a CRT. From left to right, red-green-blue. All you have to is get a little screwdriver and turn them left and right. You can turn them from one extreme to the other to see what kind of effect you're having on the picture, it won't hurt anything.

(the knobs I'm talking about are clearly labelled r, g, and b in raised letters, and it says ''focus'' beside them. The top three are called ''screen'' and are never to be touched. I assume this is how it is on every H83/H84, focus on the bottom, but get a flashlight and take a look at it just in case)

Like I said, I used the service convergence grid to gauge how focused each CRT was. I turned off the blue and green CRT so I could get just the red on there, then I twisted the R knob to get it as sharp as possible. Then turned off the blue and red CRTs and did the green, etc. Easy as pie.

Mechanical focus is when you physically get at the CRTs themselves, behind the screen. You loosten a wingnut and then fiddle around to get the lens tight/loose or something. Don't quote me on this, I haven't done it! Going to do some research first, I DO plan on doing a mechanical focus.

There's like no risk in doing this electrostatic focus, all you have to keep in mind is- NEVER touch the top three knobs on that box, terrible horrible tragic things could happen.

Results will probably vary. My focus was pretty off, this has made a difference. I dunno if it's placebo or what, but the Xbox never looked crisper. And the convergence grid looks much sexier.

When you say grille, do you mean the the little grill where the touch focus, channel, volume, and all the other buttons on the tv are? or is it the black section under the TV (screen), where the speakers are and it has the toshiba logo?