As the first RD50A owner on the forum I feel it is my duty to create the official owners thread for this model.

There are a number of Optoma threads floating around, including a few of my own, but I would like for this thread to become the place to be for all "A" owners and prospective owners.

If all goes as planned, this thread should be devoted to the A's and not the 50, 65, 50H, or 65H. Those televisions are all very different internally and I feel that there is a significant advantage to limiting this thread to A discussion. One model that -could- be included here is the Sovereign Series XF model, which is mechanically identical to the RD50A.

Since this thread is intended to be official, it would be prudent to included some pertinent info in the first post.

So, about the RD50A and Optoma:

This TV has the HD2+ TI DLP chip and a seven segment color wheel.

It features a DVI input that -IS- HDCP compliant.

Optoma is a very well respected DLP display maker who have been quite successful in the front projection arena and have rather recently entered the RPTV market.

The RD50A is a second generation Optoma DLP set, with the RD50 being the first generation.

That will do it, for now. I can update this as it becomes necessary.

Rolen, why don't you post when you first got the RD-50A. It would be a good indication of just how recently this model became commercially available.

Also maybe it would be good for each owner to report how they have their set hooked up and to what components, so that we can compare how the tv looks with sat. versus cable, what dvd player does better upscaling versus the tv with a dvd player set to 480i on the SD1 input, etc.

I'll be recieving mine Tuesday... but if you do any DVE/etc based calibration maybe also possibly add what you changed and the settings you changed them to for those trying to tinker.

I will definitaly add my setup, where items ended up hooked up, etc late next week after I play w/ things.

Is there going to be a RD65A?

USC - I received mine on the 10th. I was the first person to order the A model from VA.

Later on I will post my picture settings for each input.

Is there going to be a RD65A?
The RD65A is offered by TV Authority, but the pricing is no where near the pricing for the 50A

USC - I received mine on the 10th. I was the first person to order the A model from VA.

Later on I will post my picture settings for each input.
I got mine on the 13th and ordered it on the 3rd. Am I Number 2?

Is there going to be a RD65A?There is already an RD65A but it is very expensive - close to $4k.

The RD65H is now discontinued at Visual Apex

USC - another forum member, whose name escapes me at the moment, ordered his set a few days after I did, but received it just a few hours after me, so he would be number 2.

USC - another forum member, whose name escapes me at the moment, ordered his set a few days after I did, but received it just a few hours after me, so he would be number 2.
Damnit. I was so ready to proclaim: "I'm #2, I'm #2!" ;)

Since we are consolidating threads, I will repost a question I never got answered.

Has anyone run the THX optimizer on a dvd like "Finding Nemo"?

I ran into a problem I am most concerned about: The test pattern for 4:3 with the circle in the box was not a nice uniform circle, so the THX thingy said the tv was not outputting a true 4:3 picture. Likewise, the widescreen test pattern didn't look like a nice uniform circle in the Full, Full-L, Wide1, Wide2, or Wide3 settings. I think it was meant for the Wide1 setting but I listed the others just to cover all the bases.

Can anyone else confirm this is a problem or is it just my set?

ok i just got this the living room. this might be a stupid question but do you guys just take the box apart to get the tv out? or is there an easier way aside from just tearing it up?

Mines in transit right now... does that count? :)

It was bad enough waiting a week for this company to transfer the money to me (they bought one of my websites for around 5,000 so i was waiting for the bank transfer to go through) but now that my TV is actually in transit its even worse.

Before it was just... oh, once this goes through I can order. Now its... its already on the way, GET HERE ALREADY!

:)

Has anyone run the THX optimizer on a dvd like "Finding Nemo"?

I ran into a problem I am most concerned about: The test pattern for 4:3 with the circle in the box was not a nice uniform circle, so the THX thingy said the tv was not outputting a true 4:3 picture. Likewise, the widescreen test pattern didn't look like a nice uniform circle in the Full, Full-L, Wide1, Wide2, or Wide3 settings. I think it was meant for the Wide1 setting but I listed the others just to cover all the bases.

Can anyone else confirm this is a problem or is it just my set?
I ran the TXH Optomizer from "The Incredibles." I don't remember that particular test. I'll look again. However, I could not do the FIRST test which sets contrast. You're supposed to see eight separate white boxes if you have it set right. No matter what I did, I couldn't see anything but one giant white box. That has me thinking that digging into the service menu may be required.

Had my RD50A delivered and up and working on 5/4. Was ordered from VA on 4/29. Can't beat their service. Best mail order firm I've ever dealt with for high ticket consumer electronics.

BTW the driver was alone so I had him take it off the pallet and he and I carried it up my steep steps (hillside house) and then up another indoor flight to my second story. I unboxed it and disposed of the cardboard myself. That's service!

ok, stupid me i figured it out. now moving it onto a 2-ft high stand on your own, and taking off your 32" flat CRT off of it, that was tough. i cant really give my intial thoughts since i realized the last time i bought a dvd player was back in 99 so i dont even have a progressive scan player to see the quality. hopefully when the cable company comes by on sunday to install HD i'll have a better idea. the SD looked pretty sharp. a lot sharper than what i had expected from people posting on the boards.

ok, stupid me i figured it out. now moving it onto a 2-ft high stand on your own, and taking off your 32" flat CRT off of it, that was tough. i cant really give my intial thoughts since i realized the last time i bought a dvd player was back in 99 so i dont even have a progressive scan player to see the quality. hopefully when the cable company comes by on sunday to install HD i'll have a better idea. the SD looked pretty sharp. a lot sharper than what i had expected from people posting on the boards.
Simple. Hook up the dvd player with component cables to the SD1 input and let the tv do the progressive part for you.

I ran the TXH Optomizer from "The Incredibles." I don't remember that particular test. I'll look again. However, I could not do the FIRST test which sets contrast. You're supposed to see eight separate white boxes if you have it set right. No matter what I did, I couldn't see anything but one giant white box. That has me thinking that digging into the service menu may be required.
What time of day did you do it? Mine was done at night with some lights on. I could very easily see the 8 boxes in both Cinema and Normal mode. I had to adjust the USER 1 settings to make the 8 boxes blend more together (more white with less contrast between them).

i'm number 2! I'm number 2! haha. i recieved mine the same day as rolen.

so far it looks like my screen shift issue has completely disappeared. it hasn't happened once in about 3 days. and i turn the set off and on a couple times a day. so i'm even more happy now than i was when i first got the set.

wonders if he is the only one wth the 65a coming?????

Ordered mine Wed. May 18th.
Received it Wed. May 25th.

My H/K 635 is routing all video signals to the HD1 input.

I have Charter cable HD with a Moxi HD DVR. I've split the cable at the wall and run 1 direct to the Optoma for better quality analog cable. This also adds the possibility to view any channel from 2-78 while the DVR records up to 2 other channels.

I've run the THX calibration program from the Star Wars "Clones" DVD. My 4:3 and 16:9 tested with perfectly round circles.

I posted a review on another thread, but for consolidation purposes I'm pasting it below. Any updates, new discoveries and such will be added to the bottom of this post...


I THINK I'M GOING TO BE SICK!!!



This TV is freakin' gorgeous!

I just got my RD50AUXA. I'm assuming this model # on the back confirms that this is, in fact the "A" model that I ordered from VA. The lone TP Freight (local, I guess) driver was more than happy to help it out of the box and onto the mantle where it will stay.

I hooked it up for a quick test run and am quite pleased as you may be able to tell from my opening. I haven't touched a thing, as far as the picture goes. It came set to Cinema. The picture is almost 100% of my highly respected Hitachi 36UDX10S, but it's a whole lot bigger, especially factoring the 16:9 screen. A friend of mine watches allot of news as well as video games and movies. I asked him, "Which would you rather have, Bill O'reilly's head filling up your screen in all his splendor with black bars for your movies and games, or your movies and games filling up the screen with your black bars for Bill on the left and right?"

As far as the all important black is concerned, it is the best I've seen on an RPTV. Not quite as black and detailed as the Hitachi, but everyone knows you still can't beat a tube for that. But the resolution is greater. I think my Hitachi has 800 lines. I don't know how that works, exactly, but I could see the lines easier than I see the Optoma's pixels. Up close it looks like the cable HD is faltering before the Optoma, but, again, the picture is better than anything I've seen in the stores. Haven't seen the new Samsungs nor the Qualia. I'm sure, for 10 times the price, the Qualia is better. Still, the black and the picture, in general is many times better than Star Wars was last week in my non-digital, local theater.

I'm going to hook up the whole system. I've been waiting almost a month for this. My new home just hasn't been complete. It's been very unsettling. I'll try to write a little more this eve.

BTW, no screen shift or any problems to report. My Charter/Moxi HD DVR is hooked up via components to the Optoma in HD1. I tried DVI to no avail. Charter claims it is not supported, yet there's a port for it on the back of the Motorola box. At the same time the ladies at the desk stated 1 installer hooked one up for a customer and it worked. I'm going to fool around with it a bit.


ADDED at 4:33 PM:

From 12 feet away and my eyes about 8" below the bottom of the screen I notice just a hair less brightness than at eye level. If I didn't stand up, I would have no idea that it's not 100%. It looks perfect. Very impressive! I expected to have to shim the back of the TV and angle it down. Nope. Not necessary. Try that with your precious Samsung.

Oh yeah. BTW. Forgot to mention the SD quality.

Analog cable is very, very good going direct from the wall via coax to the TV.

Analog via the cable box is not nearly as good. Obviously no fault of the Optoma, though cable card ability might fix that for future models.

Digital SD via the cable box is better than both of the first 2.

Now obviously none of these are near HD. I think many people expect that and report on how terrible their SD is. Taking into account viewing angle, SD is better on this than on my non-HDTVs.

IMPORTANT!!! For those experiencing poor analog.


If you're unhappy with your SD, be sure to try another input method.

Now for me (Charter cable,) I found a drastic difference in splitting the cable and running direct to the back of the TV with my cable Coax. This has been mentioned in several other forums here. Sounds like it's fairly common. With DVR this has the added benefit of allowing viewing of a 3rd, albiet analog station while the machine records 2 others. Bonus!

vs. the D-ILA

I was so pumped on the TV yesterday, I forgot about the D-ILA. I have to say they're fairly even. The JVC is a bit brighter and prolly has better whites, but I think the color is more accurate in the Optoma. And it's cheaper. And it just happens to fit in my EC (barely.) I could prolly get the JVC in, but the sides would get covered and it would look funny (you'd have to see my EC to understand.)

I've never seen the JVC with a decent SD picture, where the Optoma simply rocks! It's damn good. Pretty important for cable with my 77 analog stations and tons of digital SD.

DVD

DVD is spectacular on this display. Nothing beats HD, but DVD is close. Still, I'm trying to hold out buying any more DVDs until HD-DVD comes out.

I tested the SD 480i input vs. the HD1 input with an inexpensive yet decent Toshiba 4900 Progressive DVD player.

Turning the progressive off for the 480i input yielded conflicting results. The picture was a hair sharper and had maybe a hair more contrast which I would normally love. But there was noticeably more pixelization. The HD1 MAY have been a hair softer, but viewing comfort was better. I would be happy with either, but since I have a decent prog. player, I'm sticking with HD1. The sheer ease of having just 1 input and switching via the receiver is reason enough. Especially for the WAF. But this TV obviously has a good deinterlacer. I don't know if it's the Sil 504 doing it on direct cable, but there seems to be some quality deinterlacing going on there, too.

HD

Just like any HDTV, this is where the machine truly shines. Digitally recorded material (vs. film transfer) like Discovery and ESPN is just sick. Before I DVR anything, I check to see if it'll be on the HD channels. HD takes up about 5 times the HDD space, so I just have to watch the recorded movies before too long. And then erase. If I had a DVDR, I would still watch HD movies before I record them and erase the DVR. Recording would be for library building purposes only until HD-DVD becomes affordable. The added expense of an "enhancer" to remove "record once" flags is also holding me back until HD-DVD arrives.


Update 5/29/05

The Fan

Can't hear it. My Motorola, Moxi, HD DRV box is much louder. Upon start up (which takes close to a minute. I think it's a bit quicker than the D-ILA) it runs loud for several seconds, but quiets down before the screen is up.


Update 5/30/05

FINDING NEMO--Optoma vs...

I just saw it was on Starz HD and decided to check it out for a minute. Damn! This TV really kills. I demoed allot of sets many times over. The sales people got tired of lookin' at me. "Nemo" was on several times and none of the displays were in this league. I thought the Panny HD, Plasma sets were incredible, well this thing blows 'em away. The Sammy DLPs aren't even in the same league. And remember, my eyes are 6" or more below the bottom of the screen at 10-12'.

Now Circuit City, Costco, Sears etc. may not have had the best feeds, but the pro shops I went too likely did. D-ILAs are prolly the closest in this price range, but I'm sooooo glad I didn't get a Sony LCD.


Update 6/5/05

HDNet Calibration

I was able to DVR the 10 minute HDNet Calibration deal. Though not all encompassing, it was very helpful. It showed that I have very acceptable overscan and resolution. I made a few minor adjustments to the vertical and horizontal and was able to get the contrast and brightness pretty dialed. For tint and saturation I relied mainly on facial shots from an average of several good HD shows. The resulting picture is most excellent.

Most importantly, though was the not-so-surprising discovery that my TV has a much better scaler than my Motorola/Moxi DVR HD box. The resolution charts of the Calibration image proved to be MUCH tighter when the Motorola was set to output 1080i vs. 720p. Very cool.

It's now time for a few, minor negatives...

Channel Change Lag and HD/SD switching

This has been reported elsewhere, but I thought I'd mention it as well.

Since I've begun using the TV's tuner for Analog SD (as stated above the TV does a much better job with Analog than my HD-DVR,) I've been forced to recognize the lag in channel changing. It's probably about a second or so. I've seen worse and it doesn't bother me, but it certainly could be better.

Also when I hit the HD button to return to HD1, it seems hit and miss. Sometimes it works perfectly and sometimes it goes to PC1. I then have to hit at twice more for HD1. It's a minor annoyance and could be operator error. I must admit, I haven't read much of the manual.

Start-Up Time

I believe this is typical for fixed-pixel displays (I know the JVCs, for sure,) but it takes a good 45 sec., maybe as much as a minute for the display to reach full brightness.


Update 6/7/05

On the slow channel surfing subject, if you want to click up (or down) a few channels and you know how far you have to go, the TV will let you hit ch. up as many times as you want and it will find that channel just as fast the next channel up. In other words it doesn't force you to wait for each channel if you know you want to skip a few. Obvioulsy you can punch in the desired channel on the keypad as well.


Update 6/8/05

Analog: RD50A vs. Hitachi 36" HD-CRT

I hooked up my Hitachi 36UDX10S last night. I split the cable out of the wall and ran 1 lead to the HD-STB and one to the back of the TV as I did with the Optoma. I was a bit surprised by the resulting picture. Analog was nearly indistinguishable through the STB vs. direct to the Hitachi. It was also clearly not as good as the Analog yielded by the Optoma's tuner and on par with the Analog from the STB to the Optoma.

I always thought the Hitachi had a great Analog picture. I found it sitting next to a Sony Wega at Rears. Both were being fed the same Analog signal and the Hitachi was beating the Sony pretty good. The Hitachi was an open box on sale for about the same price as the Sony (just over a grand, I think) so I grabbed it, took it home and started enjoying... DVDs and video games, mainly as I didn't have cable HD and couldn't afford a satelite HD-STB. But the Analog was still better than any non-HD sets I'd seen and much better than my friend's Samsung 32" CRT-HD. But....

The Optoma beats it.

Here's a shot of the 50A in my new entertainment center. A bound rug covering most of the living room's hardwood should be here tue. Right now the room is pretty hollow sounding. The Boston VR-M60s sound great even though they're in a cabinet. I had my concernts, but David Fabrikant form Ascend was never worried as long as the had twice the depth behind them as the diameter of the rear ports. Well there's much room to spare.

That's a M&K MX-80 on the left of the fireplace. I'm surprisinly happy with it there, though the H/K 635 is likely aiding with it's auto-eq. I'm keeping my eye on ebay for another for the right side to replace my wife's Dumbek. I may not need it, but for the sake of symmetry...

A near perfect fit.

My wife tells me, We have to wait!!! ag$5h%%! I have envy reading about you guys and this TV. AV has it for XXXX$$ now. It stinks reading about how you guys are enjoying your sets but I have to wait. Any ideas for how to make an older tv go bad quickly...
How about a hammer!
Enjoy your sets. I hope they dont start going up as they become more popular. I tried to tell her it was a steal but, NOOOO!!!!

Since this is an owners thread that no one seems particularly concerned about consolidating with prior RD50A threads, it would be useful if some people could cut-n-paste their reviews, or add new ones, and also post a summary with resolution or lack thereof for common problems discussed in other threads.

Saw my first rainbows today.

The first one happened during an HD-DVR recording of "The Last Samurai." I'm batchin' it for a bit, here and was eating dinner on a TV tray while watching the movie. During a wild battle scene I quickly looked down at my next bite and that's when I noticed it (that's what I get for eating and watching TV.) It Took me a few seconds to process what I saw. With some serious effort, I was able to reproduce the effect, but only a few out of many attempts.

I may have seen 1 or 2 more, but it was not distracting. I think because I've read so much about it on this site is the reason I thought about it at all. I'm certain that had I been watching the movie instead of "multi-tasking," I would never have seen the rainbows. And, for me it is still difficult to reproduce.

Whew. Still a very happy DLP owner. My wife hasn't seen the set yet. It's gonna' be a real bummer if she's one of the 3%.

Ysaric - It is up to the mods whether or not to consolidate the threads. If they do, then my review thread will make its way in here. If not, I will cut/paste my review into here.

Just posted an update to my review regarding the fan. I'll be posting any new info. and discoveries there.

As a potential owner I was wondering something...I expect to have the money to purchase the rd50a by the end of July. I was just wondering if there was any reason to worry about a new model discontinuing the rd50a bc I am really hoping to purchase it from Visual Apex for $xxxx.

As a potential owner I was wondering something...I expect to have the money to purchase the rd50a by the end of July. I was just wondering if there was any reason to worry about a new model discontinuing the rd50a bc I am really hoping to purchase it from Visual Apex for $xxxx.
This is not a problem at all. The sets just came out at the beginning of the year, and really became available at the beginning of May when VA started selling them. The manufacture date on mine was 12/2004. If Optoma puts out a model next year, I don't see anyone being able to get their hands on it before May 2006. BTW, each new model will be soley dependent on any innovations by Texas Instruments since they are the DLP technology. DLP is a rapidly evolving technology, but the next step seems to be 1080p, and nothing outputs to that yet, so I don't think that any new model will make the "A" series obsolete. The next Optoma 720p model will only be a slight improvement over the "A" series and a 1080p will be too far ahead of the programming curve, IMO.

hopefully the price doesn't skyrocket in the near future.

That VA price is the cheapest, by far for the "A" model.

I think the HD2+ chip is still highly respected in the DLP world and 1080p (1080i deinterlacing) sets are quite a bit more expensive at present. I think it'll last you awhile at this price range. If you've got 4 gand burning a hole in your pocket, then, I guess you could hold out for a month or 2. I wouldn't. Oh wait. I didn't. Buy now and start enjoying.

I ran the TXH Optomizer from "The Incredibles." I don't remember that particular test. I'll look again. However, I could not do the FIRST test which sets contrast. You're supposed to see eight separate white boxes if you have it set right. No matter what I did, I couldn't see anything but one giant white box. That has me thinking that digging into the service menu may be required.
Ok, I have done the THX Optomizer from "The Incredibles" and "Finding Nemo" and it looks like I have a slight vertical stretch problem with my 4:3 aspect ratio, where the circle in the box looks like an slight vertical oval and the second bottom box line is not visible, but is shown in the "Native Resolution" mode (which also shows a perfect circle). It also was apparent today while watching the Disney Channel in SD. In "Native Resolution" mode you see the Disney Channel logo in the bottom left corner where the lettering is stacked with the words "Disney" above, "Channel" underneath and small gap underneath "Channel". This logo is a good test because it is so low on the screen. When I go to 4:3 only the top half of the letters in "Channel" are visible. They probably have Monday off, so I went be able to be at home to call Optoma during business hours until Friday. Bummer.

I, too, am looking at a purchase in Mid-July and have the jitters about VA upping their price. I'm just sick about it, because I am decided that this is the way I want to go at this price, I just don't really have anywhere to put it until we move to our new place.

If the price jumps, I'm going to freak out. Is there any precedent or experience with VA that we can look to in order to ease our fears or that would cause us to pull the trigger now? Is anyone from VA monitoring this thread that can comment? The sales woman I talked to at VA a couple weeks ago seemed pretty confident the price would at least be stable, but I don't have enough digits on my body to count how many times first-line sales people have been wrong regarding a purchase I made or intended to make.

I, too, am looking at a purchase in Mid-July and have the jitters about VA upping their price. I'm just sick about it, because I am decided that this is the way I want to go at this price, I just don't really have anywhere to put it until we move to our new place.

If the price jumps, I'm going to freak out. Is there any precedent or experience with VA that we can look to in order to ease our fears or that would cause us to pull the trigger now? Is anyone from VA monitoring this thread that can comment? The sales woman I talked to at VA a couple weeks ago seemed pretty confident the price would at least be stable, but I don't have enough digits on my body to count how many times first-line sales people have been wrong regarding a purchase I made or intended to make.
Layaway?

Don't know really what to tell you at this point. To be honest, in a month and a half you will probably buy a different tv because you never what deals are going to come and go.

A near perfect fit.


It looks fantastic in that entertainment center! The pic from the standing position look really good and bright, but that TV is way to far off the ground. There has got to be a nice reduction in brightness from your seated viewing location unless you are about 20 feet back or have the Tv tilted down.

Keep in mind that the best height for any RPTV is having the center of the screen at direct eye level from you seated position. That put you in the best part of the viewing cone.

My wife has approved the purchase for the RD50a. I just realized I dont know what all I need to set up HDTV in my home. I have a few questions before I order.
1. What atsc tuner did you all buy.
2. I dont have a hd sat but use Direct TV, what should I get so I can recieve HD Sat and where to buy?
3. I would love Tivo but will proly have to wait a while for that.
4. Do I need cables, convertors etc...? I have a dvd with component outs but no component cables came with it...

Also where is the best place to buy these components?
Thanks

My wife has approved the purchase for the RD50a. I just realized I dont know what all I need to set up HDTV in my home. I have a few questions before I order.
1. What atsc tuner did you all buy.
2. I dont have a hd sat but use Direct TV, what should I get so I can recieve HD Sat and where to buy?
3. I would love Tivo but will proly have to wait a while for that.
4. Do I need cables, convertors etc...? I have a dvd with component outs but no component cables came with it...

Also where is the best place to buy these components?
Thanks
You should search other forums on this site. There is a real commotion over on the HDTV Programming forum about HD-Lite, which is a sarcastic term for DirecTV's HD programming because they have increased the channels but not increased bandwidth. There seems to be buyer's remorse among DirecTV users because they had to buy the equipment and now they are stuck with sucky HD programming. Dish Network and the cable companies don't require you to buy the equipment, even the DVRs/PVRs (Tivo equivalent). Most HD receivers will have an ATSC tuner built in, but besides the tuner you will need to figure out what kind of antenna you need. Because I am in a hilly area I have given up on the ATSC tuner because I would need a big-a$$ ugly antenna attached to my house.

I read all the other threads about cables. There is some real debate over the difference between $10 and $100 cables, especially in a run less than 10ft., with a company like Monster being on the high end. I went with Ram Electronics (a forum sponsor) and I am very impressed with their quality at about 1/3 to 1/4 the price of Monster. For part-time uses like hooking up the laptop to the tv to use as a monitor I was going to go to monoprice.com where they have ridiculously inexpensive cables.

It looks fantastic in that entertainment center! The pic from the standing position look really good and bright, but that TV is way to far off the ground. There has got to be a nice reduction in brightness from your seated viewing location unless you are about 20 feet back or have the Tv tilted down.

Keep in mind that the best height for any RPTV is having the center of the screen at direct eye level from you seated position. That put you in the best part of the viewing cone.

Thanks for the compliment on my entertainment center and the advice, but if you'd read my review, you would've seen that I am 10-12' back with my eyes about 6" below the bottom of the screen. I was fully aware of the difficulties I may face, but was not willing to pay more than twice the price for a comparable sized plasma when SED is around the corner.

I had planned to shim the back of the base and angle the set down, but once it was in, I found it unnecessary. From sitting to standing, I can discern about a 5% difference in brightness. Believe me, I'm sitting right here. If you were in my living room right now, you would be as surprised as I am. Unless you are looking for it, like you or I would, you would never notice a difference standing up and centering your eyes to the screen center vs. sitting down. Having viewed the rest of the sets on the market, I was prepared for a situation. However, during my extensive research, my guinea pigs reported excellent vertical viewing angle with the Optoma and by George (what does that expression mean, anyway) they were right!

This set should hold me for a few years until SED sets come out and the rest of HD technology is refined. A nice 180 deg., vert., flat panel set with little or no base will be perfect over that fireplace. All in good time. For now, I'm lovin' the hell out of my Optoma!

My wife has approved the purchase for the RD50a. I just realized I dont know what all I need to set up HDTV in my home. I have a few questions before I order.
1. What atsc tuner did you all buy.
2. I dont have a hd sat but use Direct TV, what should I get so I can recieve HD Sat and where to buy?
3. I would love Tivo but will proly have to wait a while for that.
4. Do I need cables, convertors etc...? I have a dvd with component outs but no component cables came with it...

Also where is the best place to buy these components?
Thanks

Last I heard, Dish does make you pay a little something for the equipment if you get an HD-DVR. Not sure about the rest. DirecTv charges big. You can likely switch to Dish at little or no cost with a year contract.

I love my cable HD. If you have it in your area, I recommend looking into it. I pay 13 bucks a month. That includes the lease on an HD-DVR and and DVR (tivo type) service. I've got 11 channels of HD for a very moderate price, too. Add 3 megs down and 254K up of broadband for like 25 bucks and I'm huge!

You should search other forums on this site. There is a real commotion over on the HDTV Programming forum about HD-Lite, which is a sarcastic term for DirecTV's HD programming because they have increased the channels but not increased bandwidth. There seems to be buyer's remorse among DirecTV users because they had to buy the equipment and now they are stuck with sucky HD programming. Dish Network and the cable companies don't require you to buy the equipment, even the DVRs/PVRs (Tivo equivalent). Most HD receivers will have an ATSC tuner built in, but besides the tuner you will need to figure out what kind of antenna you need. Because I am in a hilly area I have given up on the ATSC tuner because I would need a big-a$$ ugly antenna attached to my house.


Thanks, very helpful info. I dont understand the "didnt increase bandwidth" issue? What effect will that have on HDTV as compared to Dish. Who else offers sat access?
So the advantage to switching to "Dish Network" would be monthly rental fees and no up front purchase costs for the equipment and better hd programming...
How can I recieve local hd channels from nbc etc...do I have to pay the 5.99mth from dish or can I just buy an antenna and get them?
When you say " figure out the type of antenna I need " are you reffering to off the air hd broadcasts for my local channels?

I hate to ask this, but since their website doesn't even show this 'A' version, does this set have a ATSC/QAM tuner built in and why is this set so cheap through VA?? Next, other than the reported better SD quality, why have those who ordered this set choose it over other DLP's other than price?

Um, does there have to be a reason other than price?
This TV is the best bang for the buck out there right now. End of story.

Um, does there have to be a reason other than price?
This TV is the best bang for the buck out there right now. End of story.

Hear Hear!

Take a leap of faith.

They're a small company. Stateside wise and they haven't updated their site yet. Buy the non-"A" version from Costco, if you're concerned. Or you can take advantage of a great deal while you can before it's too late. Everything you ever needed to know is posted on this website.

I hate to ask this, but since their website doesn't even show this 'A' version, does this set have a ATSC/QAM tuner built in and why is this set so cheap through VA?? Next, other than the reported better SD quality, why have those who ordered this set choose it over other DLP's other than price?
There is no ATSC tuner built in, so it is HD-ready. The SV50XF listing on the website is pretty close to the "A" series specs with the exception that the "A" has a lower contrast and is not factory ISF callibrated.

There is no ATSC tuner built in, so it is HD-ready. The SV50XF listing on the website is pretty close to the "A" series specs with the exception that the "A" has a lower contrast and is not factory ISF callibrated.

Superfan, I'm curious. How do you know the "A" has a lower contrast ratio? The site IS pretty screwed up. Under the 50XF page the contrast ratio is listed twice and they don't jive. One says 1500:1, the other 2500. It also specs. the HD2 vs HD2+. From what I understand, they both have the same chip (HD2+) and would thus have the same, basic contrast. To me it looks like they're just too damn lazy to fix their site. That or they're just not concerned. Maybe they're folding and all of our warranties won't be honored. Oh God! Someone check their stock!

Superfan, I'm curious. How do you know the "A" has a lower contrast ratio? The site IS pretty screwed up. Under the 50XF page the contrast ratio is listed twice and they don't jive. One says 1500:1, the other 2500. It also specs. the HD2 vs HD2+. From what I understand, they both have the same chip (HD2+) and would thus have the same, basic contrast. To me it looks like they're just too damn lazy to fix their site. That or they're just not concerned. Maybe they're folding and all of our warranties won't be honored. Oh God! Someone check their stock!
Calm down. ;)

I got an email from Optoma saying what I posted. The contrast ratio is 2000:1 for the 50A versus 2500:1 for the 50XF. I also previously printed out from Optoma's website the press release for the "A" series and in it they listed the contrast as 2000:1. I don't know why they don't cut and paste that press release into their website since it had all the detailed specs. When I find it again I will post it.

EDIT: It is my educated guess that the 50XF is a just 50A that they pull off the assembly line to tweak and perfect. Maybe it's just the ISF factory callibration that results in a higher contrast. Maybe there is some other "personal touch" that is not feasible to do during mass production of the 50A.

Last I heard, Dish does make you pay a little something for the equipment if you get an HD-DVR. Not sure about the rest. DirecTv charges big. You can likely switch to Dish at little or no cost with a year contract.
Yes, the new HD-DVR from Dish requires a $250 up front equipment charge for the lease option. :eek: Has DirecTV ever had a lease program? Buying the equipment sucks. I would go to Cable, but all College Football is usually not in HD and I worry about cable SD signal quality. I also just paid $100 two months ago to have Dish installed at my new house (existing customer), and I want some return on it. I have until September 3rd to decide what to do. If I stay with Dish, it is thru SBC and they don't offer the HD-DVR yet, so I would have to add an HD receiver, but not be able to record the HD stuff.

Calm down. ;)

I got an email from Optoma saying what I posted. The contrast ratio is 2000:1 for the 50A versus 2500:1 for the 50XF. I also previously printed out from Optoma's website the press release for the "A" series and in it they listed the contrast as 2000:1. I don't know why they don't cut and paste that press release into their website since it had all the detailed specs. When I find it again I will post it.

EDIT: It is my educated guess that the 50XF is a just 50A that they pull off the assembly line to tweak and perfect. Maybe it's just the ISF factory callibration that results in a higher contrast. Maybe there is some other "personal touch" that is not feasible to do during mass production of the 50A.

Hmmm. Thanks for clearing that up, SF.

I also previously printed out from Optoma's website the press release for the "A" series and in it they listed the contrast as 2000:1. I don't know why they don't cut and paste that press release into their website since it had all the detailed specs. When I find it again I will post it.


Cool. I'd really like to read that press release. Please find it and post it. :)

I thought Samsung and LG (more so) had confusing model numbers!

i'm having a hard time calibrating my screen. the menu just about covers the entire screen and its hard to adjust the picture. does anyone else feel this way?

i'm having a hard time calibrating my screen. the menu just about covers the entire screen and its hard to adjust the picture. does anyone else feel this way?
Just go into the service menu and select the smaller setting. I think the code is "619" to get in there. I don't have it in front of me.

Did anyone on this thread consider the SV50XF model of Optoma. I will be purchasing for delivery in August. I would love some comments.

Rob

Did anyone on this thread consider the SV50XF model of Optoma. I will be purchasing for delivery in August. I would love some comments.

Rob
I did because for a time earlier this year that was all Optoma had in new models. I started off being really intrigued by the Optomas Costco had, then I did more and more research to the point that I wanted the newest technology from them, but the 50XF was too much (in the $4K+ range at the time).

My comments now would be, don't buy the 50XF if it is more than $400 more than the RD50A. I don't think there is any difference in the components, so it comes down to the factory ISF callibration. For $400 you should be able to get a ISF callibrator guy to come to your house and not only callibrate your tv, but all your other components as well. If you live in a rural area, it may be hard to get someone out to your house, so that should be factored in. There is also a zero dead pixel policy for the SV50XF, but dead pixels is a problem more with LCDs than DLPs. JMHO.

OK guys, I found the press release. If anybody wants the original version, PM me and I will email it to you.

Press Release


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


Press Contact: Suite Information:
Kenneth Tompkins Jackson & Carter Room
Optoma Technology, Inc. Hilton Atlanta Hotel
kennetht@optoma.com 255 Courtland Street, N.E.
(408) 456-3812 Atlanta, GA 30303
June 9-11, 2004


OptomaTV Launches World’s First HD2+ DLP™ Based Rear Projection Televisions – The RD-50A and RD65A

Astounding contrast ratio of 2000:1 with virtually no dithering.

Milpitas, Calif. and Atlanta, Georgia. (June 09, 2004)— OptomaTV has launched the world’s most advanced rear-projection technology into the consumer electronics marketplace with two new, currently shipping models – the RD-50A and the RD-65A. With a contrast ratio double that of other products in its class and with the virtual elimination of the dithering artifact, these televisions are poised to revolutionize the television display industry with unrivaled image quality.

OptomaTV has achieved this astounding result by deftly deploying the latest high-definition technology from Texas Instruments – the HD2+ DLP™ chip – in a rear-projection application. This digital micromirror device (DMD) chip achieves both higher brightness and deeper black levels by “filling in” the area where the digital micromirror connects to its hinge – the so-called “dimple.” Enhancements to the color wheel in the RD-50A and RD-65A further improve picture quality and motion video so much that viewers will swear they are looking through a window instead of merely watching a television.

As improved versions of their award-winning, long-popular brethren – the RD-50 and RD-65, the RD-50A and RD-65A maintain all of the advanced features and unsurpassed characteristics of the RD series. The RD’s non-reflective screen allows the widest viewing angle of any television on the market. Overscan at a scant 1% enables the brightest image possible with the least amount of discarded pixels, in the slimmest of cabinets. Discrete IR commands mean one-button control of viewers’ entire home theaters – from lighting to AV component selection to television settings. The RD-50A and RD-65A also follow the trailblazing path set by the RD series by offering the consumer electronics marketplace the most flexibility of image controls, source inputs, separate audio outputs and two V-chip PIP/POP. Whereas most televisions would make this array of advanced features a source of confusion and distraction for viewers, OptomaTV has made them supremely simple by creating separate memories for each input and signal type. The installer or consumer need only adjust RD-series televisions once for each signal type and source; these settings will not require readjustment, even when switching between channels with different signal types (e.g., 1080i and 720p) on the same input.

The RD-50A’s and RD-65A’s major improvements – quality of their video images – are achieved by incorporating HD2+ technology from Texas Instruments. Optoma was the first to publicly demonstrate this technology in an HDTV at CES 2004. Featuring a 1280 x 720 high-definition resolution, these TVs offer an impressive 2000:1 contrast ratio.

The so-called “dimple fix” of the HD2+ is revolutionary in that, by “filling in” the point at which the micromirror attaches to its hinge, the brightness of an ‘on’ pixel and darkness of an ‘off’ pixel are both enhanced, thereby increasing the RDs’ already high contrast ratio by 33%. OptomaTV’s proprietary coated DVE (Dark Video Enhancement) color wheel further increases the punch of motion pictures by adding a dark segment which virtually eliminate an artifact in all previous DLP™ displays – the dithering effect.

RD-50A/65A User Friendly Features and Advanced Specifications:

§ Non-reflective, fine-grade, 0.15 mm screen-pitch display with extremely wide viewing angle.
§ Industry’s lowest overscan: 1% overscan enabling brighter picture with higher contrast ratio.
§ Extremely bright picture. RD-50: 450 nits. RD-65: 400 nits.
§ 2000:1 contrast ratio for more visual punch and shadow detail.
§ High Definition 1280 x 720 (native 720p) resolution.
§ Precision Pixel Matching technology with 1:1 scan conversion.
§ Superb image processing utilizing Silicon Image deinterlacer, Oplus Scaler and 3-D comb filter.
§ Unique manually adjustable color gamma fine tuning.
§ Lightweight and trim design. RD50: 90 pound, 14.8 inches deep. RD-65A: 280 pounds, 22 inches deep
§ Extremely long-lasting, easy-to-replace lamp. RD-50A: 10000 hours. RD-65A: 8000 hours.
§ DVI-HDCP connector ensuring connectivity with future digital devices.

For additional Optoma information and to view product photos, please visit http://www.optomausa.com/press.

About Optoma Technology, Inc.

Optoma Technology, Inc. is an award-winning developer of projection and digital display products for business and home. The company manufactures multimedia projectors for mobile users, fixed installations and home theaters, HDTVs, LCD flat panel monitors plasma display, and thin-client terminals. Optoma products combine superior image processing technologies with exceptional engineering and innovation to deliver images that are bright, crystal clear, and finely tuned for tone and color. Optoma’s award-winning products are sold through the company’s global network of pro AV dealers, major consumer electronics retailers, and Internet resellers. Optoma’s worldwide headquarters is located in Milpitas, California. For more information about Optoma please call 888-942-2929 or visit http://www.optoma.com/.

© 2004 Optoma Technology, Inc. Optoma names and logos are registered trademarks of Optoma Technology, Inc. Other product names mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective companies and are hereby recognized.

Earlier someoen was going to post their calibration settings for people to compare.

Could anyone who has calibrated their RD50A possibly do this for those who will be doing a DVE calibration so that we can see what options seem to be similar between users, and what varies more according to 'feel'.

My TV is scheduled to be delivered Friday... I'm THAT close to taking off work just to play with it...lol

I know this not the HTPC forum but I am seriously considering a purchase and would like to know what peoples general impression of the VGA inputs. I looked at a toshiba DLP in the same price range as the 50A. It has major issues with displaying PC images. My plan is to do a MythTV setup along with the other devices...
I think I will pull the trigger... DLP at the price of CRT with HD 2+ . Cant go wrong. Good PC capability will seal the deal for me.

I know this not the HTPC forum but I am seriously considering a purchase and would like to know what peoples general impression of the VGA inputs. I looked at a toshiba DLP in the same price range as the 50A. It has major issues with displaying PC images. My plan is to do a MythTV setup along with the other devices...
I think I will pull the trigger... DLP at the price of CRT with HD 2+ . Cant go wrong. Good PC capability will seal the deal for me.
I have not tried all the inputs, but I can tell you that the VGA input is in the front and the DVI-D input is in the back. For asthetics, I think you would want to hook up the HTCP to the DVI-D in the back. I also saw on the Ram Electronics website that the VGA input is not a pure digital input, so if you are putting in the effort for a HTPC then you want to go DVI-D. Here is a link:

http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/howto-av.html#v


Note that they call "VGA": RGB or RGBHV on the site.

Just got my TV.

Its on the floor in the living room waiting for me to put it on the existing entertainment stand (til Sunday when I buy one thats much lower for this TV since its twice as large). Looks beautiful.

I'm a newbie to this forum and to HDTV in general. I'm looking to make my first HDTV purchase in the next couple of months. I had been considering the Optoma RD50A pretty seriously (but leaning toward plasma), though I suspect I'd prefer the RD65A. So I tried calling Visual Apex to see if they have any estimate on when they'll be carrying it, but they're phone number doesn't seem to work!

While it seems that most Visual Apex customers on this forum have been generally happy, this is a bit suspicious to me. Has anyone else had this problem? Maybe I'll try the number again next week...

800-883-7495

Worked for me.

I just recieved my RD50A from VisualApex today. I have been watching DiscoveryHD for about 45mins in awe in its normal mode playing with the remote buttons...lol.

I'll have pics later once there's a show on that really shows the colors.

Its amazing!

digitard, it sounds like your first impressions of your new set are good ones! how do RD50A owners feel their set compares to plasma in terms of PQ and brightness? i think my decision will come down to the RD50A or the Vizio 50" plasma that will be available at a large warehouse store for about $1K more. i'm wondering if the plasma is worth the extra $$.

btw, the phone number is working for me now, too.

I'm quite happy w/ my purchase.

My biggest fear was how SD would look as well as my DVD player. Until Sunday my DVD player is running through a basic yellow video connector. I forgot to buy a cable before it came, but even that looks a LOT better than I thought it would. I'm sitting about 7' back from the TV and its just fine.

Immediatley upon powering the TV on I tested the HD channels on my SA 8300HD recorder (service through COX) and spent a good hour watching DiscoveryHD and various HD channels in awe of how well the set looks out of box w/o being calibrated yet. I went and made a few tiny adjustments (brightness, etc) to darken it up a tiny bit and its just awsome. It can only get better once its calibrated (going to try DVE first).

SD actually looks fine as well. I set it to STRETCH and you can see a tiny bit of pull but nothing that misproportions things enough for me to be bugged by it and I know I'll get used to it and worst case I just put the original aspect ratio back on and deal w/ the black bars. SD looks much better than various DLP models I had seen at stores. I dont know if they were just going antennae, or a crappy store feed, but it is definitaly a good picture.

I'll be playing with it a LOT more over the next week (especially after buying the right cables for my DVD player) and I'll post a more thoughtful review of everything.

Now I'm going back to watching the 2nd season of '24'. God I love this show.

Dave.

p.s while this is off topic. The delivery driver for DHL was awsome. He couldn't get his truck into my apartment complex due to the '8' design of the streets in it so instead of basically telling me I'm SOL and loading it curbside at the office he parked the truck in the shopping center next to us and helped me carry the TV across 2 buildings and put it in my apartment. Of course I threw him a great tip for that, but he offered w/ no hesitation and even asked me questions about the TV to understand what the DLP was that was on the box cause he'd seen it before. Hell he even struck up a conversation about normal day to day stuff driving the truck. Very cool guy.

Just got my TV.

Its on the floor in the living room waiting for me to put it on the existing entertainment stand (til Sunday when I buy one thats much lower for this TV since its twice as large). Looks beautiful.

Wooo Whooo
Congrats digitard. Mine is on the way and I cant stand it. Should be here early next week. I bet your dieing to get it finished and just the way you like it..

digitard, it sounds like your first impressions of your new set are good ones! how do RD50A owners feel their set compares to plasma in terms of PQ and brightness? i think my decision will come down to the RD50A or the Vizio 50" plasma that will be available at a large warehouse store for about $1K more. i'm wondering if the plasma is worth the extra $$.

btw, the phone number is working for me now, too.

I believe I touched on that in my review. I, personally haven't seen a plasma that beats the Optoma. Especially in brightness. Plasma sets are notoriously dark. Their only redeaming qualities are vertical viewing angle and depth.

Small 'bit of my watching' experience yesterday.

While the TV is sitting much higher than it will shortly (when I'm sitting down my head is at the bottom of the screen) the image quality is superb and standing up I only notice a TINY bit of difference which is awsome. Means I can still watch my TV til I get my new stand...lol.

Spent most of the night watching HDTV channels and DVD's. Watched 'UFC47' on INHD2 last night and widescreen UFC is just amazing as well as watched some other stuff and I'm thoroughly impressed.

I plan on writing a full review (similar to Sketcha's) once I have my stand and I spend a day watching w/ my final cable and height setup.

I just posted a few extras to the bottom of my review, if anyone gives a rat's a$$.

Mine just arrived yesterday and so far I'd say I'm pretty happy with it. Sure takes up a whole lot less space than my Panasonic 47WX53 CRT RPTV!! I did have a few questions for you experts though? First, is there any way to remove certain inputs that aren't being used so that you don't need to scroll through all of them for both HD and SD? Also, can you name the inputs? I'm also trying to figure out how I should set up my cable box. I have a SA 8000HD through Comcast but I do not believe that it can output through the DVI port. I am currently using component but there is no passthrough option on this box so I can either have it convert all 1080i to 720p and all 480i to 480p or I can set it up to output 480i, 720p, and 1080i and then choose which to use depending on the channel and have the TV convert the 1080i to 720p. This is somewhat annoying because then I may forget to switch it from 1080i to 720p going from CBS to ESPN or something and then the box is gonna output the 720p as 1080i and the TV is going to convert it BACK to 720p. Probably not the best way to get the best picture! Any comments? I really appreciate all of your discussions so far. They helped me buy the TV from VA as well as the Prima TV stand from Best Buy. What a great combo!

I have a SA8300HD box from Cox and what I do to get the best quality of the channels is I hooked up a splitter at the wall and ran a cable directly to the standard tuner1 input on the back of the TV and the other into the 8300 box.

For channels 1-100 (which are analog) I just use the TV's built in tuner and run it straight from the wall. The picture is about 30% better. I then use the various stretch/etc modes in the TV settings to sorta force it into letterbox (I use the zoom type feature that crops a bit off the top/bottom but I've yet to have an issue w/ it).

Then for digital and HD channels I switch to my HD1 port (component) and use the box. The only downfall is that some shows I just dont want to watch live (or I'm at work) so I have to watch em off the DVR box.

But I watched THE 4400 on USA the other night for its premiere and I switched between my cable box and the direct TUNER1 input and it was noticeably better for analog channels just coming in straight from the wall, but I lose DVR capabilities doing that but worst comes to worst I just set my DVR to record the show and if I get tired of watching it I'll finish it on DVR.

First, is there any way to remove certain inputs that aren't being used so that you don't need to scroll through all of them for both HD and SD? . . . I really appreciate all of your discussions so far. They helped me buy the TV from VA as well as the Prima TV stand from Best Buy. What a great combo!
Look at the owner's manual for the remote control codes. Holding "Info" and "1" will take you right to AV1 for instance. "Info" and "4" will get you to SD1 (just off the top of my head).

I also really like the combo with the Prima stand.

Look at the owner's manual for the remote control codes. Holding "Info" and "1" will take you right to AV1 for instance. "Info" and "4" will get you to SD1 (just off the top of my head).

I also really like the combo with the Prima stand.

This works, but the "Info" button is not an IR function. It's an internal thing which means I can't transfer it over to my universal remote. Bummer. Oh well. HD/SD switching remains a minor annoyance.

Ok, so I got a little more time to play with the cable box tonight and lo and behold they have updated the firmware so I now have passthrough! So now I can let the 8000HD output 720p for 720p channels and 1080i for 1080i channels and the TV will do the scaling for the 1080i to 720p. Is that what you guys do and do you think it's bad for the TV at all when it does that nasty looking switch when you go from a 720p to 1080i channel or visa versa? I also agree that the cable straight into the TV looks better than the 480i over component but my 480i from the box looks HORRIBLE, not just bad. Even for digital SD channels and On Demand which is frustrating because I can't watch these straight from the wall. I am getting a shimmering effect where it's almost like you can see shimmering vertical scan lines. You can really see it on the info bar or the guide. Does the 480i from the box seem that bad for you guys? It seems to be MUCH worse than on my old Panny CRT RPTV. On the old TV the analog channels looked bad but not this bad and the digital channels actually looked pretty good. Any advice?

Ok, so I got a little more time to play with the cable box tonight and lo and behold they have updated the firmware so I now have passthrough! So now I can let the 8000HD output 720p for 720p channels and 1080i for 1080i channels and the TV will do the scaling for the 1080i to 720p. Is that what you guys do and do you think it's bad for the TV at all when it does that nasty looking switch when you go from a 720p to 1080i channel or visa versa? I also agree that the cable straight into the TV looks better than the 480i over component but my 480i from the box looks HORRIBLE, not just bad. Even for digital SD channels and On Demand which is frustrating because I can't watch these straight from the wall. I am getting a shimmering effect where it's almost like you can see shimmering vertical scan lines. You can really see it on the info bar or the guide. Does the 480i from the box seem that bad for you guys? It seems to be MUCH worse than on my old Panny CRT RPTV. On the old TV the analog channels looked bad but not this bad and the digital channels actually looked pretty good. Any advice?

O.K., one at a time.

1. Yes, this is how I do it. My TV does a much better job converting 1080i to 720p than my STB.

2. I doubt the switching is bad for the set.

3. My Analog through the STB is pretty bad so I generally bypass the box and let the Optoma tune it.

4. Digital SD from the STB is a whole lot better for me. Better than Analog tuned by the Optoma. Bummer it's not for you. Crappy STB.

5. Did you use this same STB for your old Panny?

No it doesn't look that bad for me. I just get that 'low quality digital' look. Sorta like taking a small movie file and stretching it bigger on your computer where you get that 'digital distortion' look where you can see some of the off blacks, and edges are rough in places, etc.

As for my digital channels (100+ to 700) they all appear much better than the sub-100 channels if ran through the wall. Sure they're still a lil fuzzy but nothing near what the analog channels appeared like, and it does appear slightly better than the analog channels running directly to AV1. Similar to what Sketcha said.

If that makes sense.

Yeah, that's exactly how stuff looked on my Panny with the SAME STB. Analog better if it's through the TV but not TOO bad through the box and digital pretty good through the box. I'm wondering if something is wrong with my TVs abilities to take a 480 picture from the box through component because there are almost vertical lines that are moving through the picture from left to right the whole time whether it be analog or digital on 480i. Watching the same channels on either 720 or 1080 with a fixed picture size of 4:3 is MUCH better for the analog and digital channels when it used to be worse. I might give Optoma a call but I'm afraid they'll blame the cable company!? I only wish I had the 8300HD so I could see if using S-vid for the 480 would do the trick but my current box can only output one at a time. No clue what I should do now.

Hokie,

That's too bad. I hope you can figure all this out.

What input/s are you using?

Hokieman I dont know where you live but you may find a 1:2 s-video convertor and try it...
http://www.kramerelectronics.com/indexes/item.asp?pic=80

I have used them before when wanting to display to two s-vid components when you only have 1 out like on a video card etc with great results.

I'm using component out of the 8000HD into the HD1 in on the back of the Optoma.

I'm using component out of the 8000HD into the HD1 in on the back of the Optoma.

Is 480i on in the STB? I turned mine off to keep the aspect ratio the same on my TV. Wthout changing the Aspect, SD comes in 4:3 (TV set to "Native") which is exactly what I want. I rarely use the STB for Analog, but my wife may find it easier to deal with (she doesn't care much about fidelity, God forgive her.) I'm not sure whether the STB converts to 720p or 1080i since both are on, but it works fine.

I just tried turning off 1080i so it would convert to 720p and then vice versa. I could discern little or no difference. I also just tried turning my 480i back on. Again, little or no difference other than the hassle of changing the aspect from Native to 4:3.

Have you tried experimenting with the STB's different formats?

Yeah I have played around with a bunch of the formats. I can set it to fixed mode where I choose the resolution it outputs at. That's where I did most of my testing. The 720p looks great for 720p channels and still pretty damn good for 1080i channels but I still think it is a little bit sharper to output 1080i to the TV and let it do the conversion to 720p. Both 480i and 480p have the vertical line problem but if I turn off both of those as possible outputs and set the box to passthrough it'll just do 720p channels and 720p and 1080i channels in 1080i and it seems to be upconverting 480i to 1080i since there is no resoution switching when going from a 1080i HD channel to an analog channel. If I go from a 720p channel to analog it does the switching so I guess this tells me that all 480i channels are being upconverted by to box to 1080i. This really isn't too bad since it looks waaaaaaaaay better than the 480i output but the only thing is that I don't have access to the stretch modes anymore. Guess this isn't a big deal since it's a DLP and I can always watch the analog channels straight from the wall. It only really affects On Demand stuff. I just wish I knew where the problem was occuring with the 480i, in the box or in the TV. I might wait a few months to get a 8300HD box and if it's still bad then have Optoma come look at it. If anyone else has any suggestions let me know!

Yeah I have played around with a bunch of the formats. I can set it to fixed mode where I choose the resolution it outputs at. That's where I did most of my testing. The 720p looks great for 720p channels and still pretty damn good for 1080i channels but I still think it is a little bit sharper to output 1080i to the TV and let it do the conversion to 720p. Both 480i and 480p have the vertical line problem but if I turn off both of those as possible outputs and set the box to passthrough it'll just do 720p channels and 720p and 1080i channels in 1080i and it seems to be upconverting 480i to 1080i since there is no resoution switching when going from a 1080i HD channel to an analog channel. If I go from a 720p channel to analog it does the switching so I guess this tells me that all 480i channels are being upconverted by to box to 1080i. This really isn't too bad since it looks waaaaaaaaay better than the 480i output but the only thing is that I don't have access to the stretch modes anymore. Guess this isn't a big deal since it's a DLP and I can always watch the analog channels straight from the wall. It only really affects On Demand stuff. I just wish I knew where the problem was occuring with the 480i, in the box or in the TV. I might wait a few months to get a 8300HD box and if it's still bad then have Optoma come look at it. If anyone else has any suggestions let me know!

I, personally haven't met a stretch mode that I've liked... on any TV.

As for on demand, get Netflix or Blockbuster's version. You won't have the spur-of-the-moment benefit, but your picture will be way better and if you watch more than 3 movies a month, you'll be saving money.

Yeah I know that On Demand sucks and I can get around the picture problems I have right now but I just wanted to make sure there wasn't something wrong with my television. If it's just the box doing a crappy job I'd be fine with the workarounds but I'm worried since the 480i picture over component didn't look nearly this bad on the old TV with the same box. I guess all I can do is wait until the 8300HD comes out. Oh well. I'm sure I'll be back with more questions later. Thanks for your help!

Yeah I know that On Demand sucks and I can get around the picture problems I have right now but I just wanted to make sure there wasn't something wrong with my television. If it's just the box doing a crappy job I'd be fine with the workarounds but I'm worried since the 480i picture over component didn't look nearly this bad on the old TV with the same box. I guess all I can do is wait until the 8300HD comes out. Oh well. I'm sure I'll be back with more questions later. Thanks for your help!

Maybe it's some kind of communications compatibility issue between the 2.

I think I would log my complaint now with email, though so there's a record.

Good idea, no reason to not atleast let them know I have a problem. I'm glad I purchased with Amex so I get the 2 year warranty!

Speaking of the warranty. Now that the box is gone and the TV is set up I realized that I didn't ever see a warranty card? I have the manual but I never saw a card. Did you guys get a card and do you think it's a big deal if I lost it?

Speaking of the warranty. Now that the box is gone and the TV is set up I realized that I didn't ever see a warranty card? I have the manual but I never saw a card. Did you guys get a card and do you think it's a big deal if I lost it?
I believe you can register online. I haven't done it yet, but I thought I remember seeing that on the warranty card.

Anyone do curbside with visualapex? My last online TV purchase was done with whiteglove service (free option). Seems like curbside is a little risky. If there was damage that is not noticable by looking at the box ... your options are limited.

Does VA ship everything from WA? I cant wait til it arrives

I recieved mine last week. While they say curbside its all up to the driver. My driver couldn't get his truck into my complex (he had the 52 foot trailer) so he helped me carry it across my courtyard in my apartment complex to my house. Very cool guy. I inspected the box and wrote 'possible internal damage' (it was actually something else, but if you check VA's site it gives you info on what to write) and it was just fine when I opened it.

VA packs is REALYL well. Mine was packed excellent in the OPTOMA box, then VA strapped it VERY securely to a pallet so it wasn't going ANYWHERE.

On the side of the box it has one of those 'tip' security things so that if your box was tipped or put anywhere other than standing up it drops pellets into the top half of the sticker so you can tell beforehand if it was mishandled that way.

VA did a great job and I've had no issues w/ my TV.

The RD50A actually ships from California. Its the only TV that does according to their rep. Mine shipped from San Franscisco (I had an SFO tracking #) and it arrived very quickly through DHL.

I have a few questions that I'm hoping someone can answer.

1) I have not been able to get the Monitor Output to deliver any audio at this point. Is there a setting somewhere on the TV to enable those Monitor audio outputs?

2) Is there a setting to turn off/on the TV's speakers, so that the volume control only controls volume going into the Monitor Output but doesn't have any effect on the TV's actual speakers?

3) Has anyone tried using the TV's speakers as a center channel in a 5.1 Dolby Digital setup? I see in the manual that you can do this.

Thanks for help with these questions.

I believe the only way it displays audio is if you use a HDMI input/output. DVI definitaly doesn't, nor does standard monitor. I believe HDMI (if your box has HDMI out and you use the HDMI cable into the TV) it can do audio, but thats it... if I'm correct.

I haven't tried the center channel thing but I had thought about trying to figure a way to rig it for that. I'll look more into it.

I have a few questions that I'm hoping someone can answer.

1) I have not been able to get the Monitor Output to deliver any audio at this point. Is there a setting somewhere on the TV to enable those Monitor audio outputs?

2) Is there a setting to turn off/on the TV's speakers, so that the volume control only controls volume going into the Monitor Output but doesn't have any effect on the TV's actual speakers?

3) Has anyone tried using the TV's speakers as a center channel in a 5.1 Dolby Digital setup? I see in the manual that you can do this.

Thanks for help with these questions.

I believe the only way it displays audio is if you use a HDMI input/output. DVI definitaly doesn't, nor does standard monitor. I believe HDMI (if your box has HDMI out and you use the HDMI cable into the TV) it can do audio, but thats it... if I'm correct.

I haven't tried the center channel thing but I had thought about trying to figure a way to rig it for that. I'll look more into it.
So you're saying that you couldn't run an audio signal into this TV then out into an amplifier? That doesn't make sense. I've never heard of a TV that wouldn't do that.
Anybody else have ideas regarding my questions?

I'm sorry I took 'monitor' as your actual computer... not a audio output to an external monitor...lol. In my job I'm just used to people referring to DVI cables as 'monitor connections' so that was what I was thinking.

I assumed you were talking about using the VGA/DVI/HDMI connections. Sorry.

You're talking about the 3 output (red/yellow/white) on the left side of the TV right? Trying to get it to output whatever the audio on the TV is at the time over to a reciever/etc?

I haven't tried to use the 'output' connections on the TV yet to my reciever. I have been meaning to so I dont have to keep changing the 'device' on my reciever all the time when playing between dvd/xbox/ps2/cable box/etc.

I'll give it a quicky tonight and tell ya what happened... unless someone can get a surefire answer before I try.

So I was testing the DVD player options of the set to decide which was better, 480i into the SD input over component or 480p into HD2 (still haven't decided) so I was going back and forth up to the TV to switch the cables and I noticed that there is something that looks like a dead pixel in the middle of the screen about 4" from the bottom. You can't see it from the couch but if you get within 5 or 6 ft you see a little black dot that seems like some dirt that is inside the screen that spans 2 pixels but doesn't totally fill up either one so it isn't actually a dead pixel. Any ideas on what this could be? I tried tapping the screen to see if it was on the inside and it would fall out but that didn't work. I really don't know what I should do about this. The only other problem I seem to be having now is that I can get my PS2 to display on the SD component input but if I plug into HD2 to use it in HD for GT4 I get no picture, just the blue screen. Anybody else try using a PS2 on the HD input?

So you're saying that you couldn't run an audio signal into this TV then out into an amplifier? That doesn't make sense. I've never heard of a TV that wouldn't do that.
Anybody else have ideas regarding my questions?
I run the 2 audio cables (red and white) from the tv to my receiver and the audio plays just nicely on my HT speakers. I have my Dish box hooked up to AV1 on the tv with a S-video cable and the red and white audio cables. Its kind of weird because the volume of the receiver/HT speakers will not change if I use the tv remote to lower the tv volume, it seems to just pass through. However, if I mute the tv or turn the sound on the tv all the way down to zero, then the sound from the receiver and HT speakers cuts off. Maybe you turned down the tv sound too much or muted the tv and that's why it won't output to the receiver?

I run the 2 audio cables (red and white) from the tv to my receiver and the audio plays just nicely on my HT speakers. I have my Dish box hooked up to AV1 on the tv with a S-video cable and the red and white audio cables. Its kind of weird because the volume of the receiver/HT speakers will not change if I use the tv remote to lower the tv volume, it seems to just pass through. However, if I mute the tv or turn the sound on the tv all the way down to zero, then the sound from the receiver and HT speakers cuts off. Maybe you turned down the tv sound too much or muted the tv and that's why it won't output to the receiver?
Man, that's what I figured mine should be doing. What I'm doing is running a laptop into the VGA input (PC2) in the front of the TV to watch a movie that I've downloaded. I'm running audio from the laptop into the PC Audio input on the front of the Optoma, and the sound comes out of the Optoma's own speakers just fine. But I can't get anything to come out of my home theater speakers. I'm running good ol' RCA cable between the Monitor Outputs on the back of the Optoma and into the inputs of my home theater receiver. Nothing. It's driving me crazy. And it's not the receiver. If I plug the PlayStation into the same RCA inputs on my home theater receiver, sound comes out of the home theater speakers fine.
I wonder if my Optoma has a flaw and doesn't output sound?
:mad: That would suck.

I wonder if the PC1 and PC2 settings simply aren't output by the Monitor Output on the back of the TV? I may have to call Optoma and ask about this.

Does it output to your reciever if you use something plugged into another input (such as something in the rear inputs like a dvd player or game system)?

Just trying to narrow down if its related to the fact its plugged into the pc audio input, or if its not ouputting at all from the monitor output.

OK, the Monitor Output does work with the AV3 setting. I plugged my PlayStation into the front of the TV, then ran the audio from the back of the TV into my amp -- and it worked.

Either the PC2 input has an issue with outputting sound through the Monitor Output, or the TV simply isn't set up to output sound from sources running into PC1 of PC2. Like I said, this may require a call to Optoma.

Glad its at least 'working' in some fashion.

If you do call OPT post what they say. I have all my back inputs filled now, but I was going to use the front to stream some stuff off the network using my laptop but it'd be a pain to redo anything to move the audio around.

Glad its at least 'working' in some fashion.

If you do call OPT post what they say. I have all my back inputs filled now, but I was going to use the front to stream some stuff off the network using my laptop but it'd be a pain to redo anything to move the audio around.
I'll probably e-mail them. The only time I tried to call their tech support, I was on hold forever. I will say this: I've been bit torrenting Doctor Who episodes that are showing every Saturday night in England, and those puppies look better running from my laptop into the PC2 VGA input than normal SD does on this TV. When the sound is plugged into my amp and converted into Dolby Pro Logic II (I ran RCA cables into an adapter that then plugs into the earphone jack of the laptop), it pretty much kicks complete and utter ass.

Well I am the proud new owner of an Optoma. And all I can say is WOW! I connected it all up last night, took about 3 hours. I have a Sat, VCR, DVD, Receiver, Super CD so it took some time. My first impressions are just blowing me away. Picture quality rated in order:
1. DVD's are awesome when letting the Optoma upscale it.
2. My Dig Sat is very crisp and clear but just a tad below the DVDs
3. To my surprise my SD TV is actually very good as well.

MY HD Dish DVR942 will be installed 6/23 so I can only imagine how good the HD is going to look on this TV...

I have no artifacts, dissapointments or complaints about the TV. Its awesome!!! :)

I gotta say I was somewhat hesitant to buy this but you guys were right on the money with your comments. The PQ is second to nobody and I am glad I didnt fork over my hard earned cash to the major retailers.

For those worried about shipping and handling from VA dont be. The box is very well packaged from Optoma, mine arrived looking as if they had just finsihed the crating and DHL was fast from Seatle to Ok. Also this thing is really light and thin. I am a big guy but I carried mine in from the garage with my son then later when nobody was here to help I carried it alone about 15' to the stand.

Well I am the proud new owner of an Optoma. And all I can say is WOW! I connected it all up last night, took about 3 hours. I have a Sat, VCR, DVD, Receiver, Super CD so it took some time. My first impressions are just blowing me away. Picture quality rated in order:
1. DVD's are awesome when letting the Optoma upscale it.
2. My Dig Sat is very crisp and clear but just a tad below the DVDs
3. To my surprise my SD TV is actually very good as well.

MY HD Dish DVR942 will be installed 6/23 so I can only imagine how good the HD is going to look on this TV...

I have no artifacts, dissapointments or complaints about the TV. Its awesome!!! :)

I gotta say I was somewhat hesitant to buy this but you guys were right on the money with your comments. The PQ is second to nobody and I am glad I didnt fork over my hard earned cash to the major retailers.

For those worried about shipping and handling from VA dont be. The box is very well packaged from Optoma, mine arrived looking as if they had just finsihed the crating and DHL was fast from Seatle to Ok. Also this thing is really light and thin. I am a big guy but I carried mine in from the garage with my son then later when nobody was here to help I carried it alone about 15' to the stand.

Congrats, SDG!!!

Another notch on the bedpost for Optoma.

Well I spoke with Optoma about my problems (something inside screen, interference on 480i through HD1, PS2 componenet not showing up on HD2) and they are swapping out my TV. Great service in that they are sending out the new one and taking the old one away rather than making me send the old one back before sending out the new one. I'll let everyone know how smoothly the exchange goes and if the new TV fixes the problems.

I thought you guys would like this link I found in another thread. What I took from it is that the RD-50 (not "A" or "H") performed better than plasma and lcd. If you read all 5 pages you get a real good understanding of pros and cons of each technology and how they compare with measurable criteria.

http://www.displaymate.com/ShootOut_Part_1.htm

Here are some excerpts:

We chose the top performer for each technology from the DisplayMate Best Video Hardware Guide (see www.displaymate.com), which includes our selections for the best video hardware in 40 categories. The candidates included a 40” direct-view LCD (NEC LCD4000), a 61” Plasma (NEC 61XM2), a 50” DLP Rear Projection (Optoma RD-50), and a much smaller CRT 19” professional High Definition studio monitor (Sony PVM-20L5), which was used as the reference standard for color and gray-scale accuracy. Only the Optoma RD-50 is marketed as a home theater display (it delivers outstanding picture quality) ...
Model: Optoma RD50
Gamma: 2.09 (ok, but a bit low) (Note: the gamma is 2.20 in the RD50A)

Primary Colors: relatively close to the CRT standard
Black-level: 0.26 cd/m2 (Rank 2)
Peak Brightness: 359 cd/m2 (Rank 2)
Dynamic Range: 1,381 (Rank 2)
4x4 Contrast: 332 (Rank 2 or 3)
9x9 Contrast: 274 (Rank 2 or 3)Note that the tv ranked #1 is a 19" CRT professional High Definition studio monitor

DLP Strongest Points: Darkest black-level and highest Dynamic Range of all the flat-panels ● Closest match to CRT Gamma and primary colors ● Perfect color registration for units with a color wheel ● High pixel fill factor of 90 percent produces a smooth yet sharp image with no apparent pixelation except close up to the screen ● Pixel intensities generated by the digital DMD chip are digitally precise, stable and reproducible ● Very fast pixel response times and few motion artifacts ● Native ATSC Mode 1280 x 720 for the HD2 chips means some HD content doesn’t require rescaling and also allows scaling by other video components that can generate 1280 x 720 ● Very little aging effects other than lamp dimming and replacement.

DLP Computer Application Viewing tests: Image and picture quality was excellent for computer applications. DisplayMate test patterns and InfoComm ShootOut photographic images were rendered accurately. Pixels are a bit softer than the direct-view flat panels because of the rear projection optics and screen. Contrast for fine text and graphics was also lower than the direct-view flat panels for the same reason. A slight overscan (when the image is larger than the screen size) resulted in the loss of 1 percent of the image pixels on each side, which can be a problem for some computer applications. (Note that the Optoma’s 1 percent overscan is the smallest of any rear projection display.)

DLP Video Application Viewing Tests: For video the picture quality was outstanding, with an excellent match to the reference CRT monitor, but on a much larger screen, an impressive achievement. Dithering noise was occasionally noticeable in dark scenes. These effects should be much less noticeable on the new higher resolution displays. As with most rear projection units there was a significant variation in brightness with viewing angle, which is intentionally introduced by the projection screen in order to maximize the luminance at normal audience viewing angles. However, there is no variation of Dynamic Range, hue or saturation with viewing angle.

Glad its at least 'working' in some fashion.

If you do call OPT post what they say. I have all my back inputs filled now, but I was going to use the front to stream some stuff off the network using my laptop but it'd be a pain to redo anything to move the audio around.
Just hung up with Optoma tech support.
The Monitor Output DOES NOT output PC or HD sources. It will output SD, AV and ANT inputs.

At least we know now.:)

Also, if you decide to go in and tweak your settings in the Service Menu (hitting Menu 619, which -- despite rumors otherwise -- he says doesn't affect your warranty unless you screw up the TV by making damaging settings), he recommended NOT messing with the gamma settings or color wheel index. And be sure to write down the original settings so you can go back if necessary.

Hokieman,
Have you tried running s-video from your STB to TV for the analog channels? The box will output both at same time. I notice a nice improvement using it.

USCsuperfan,
That shoot out article was a big factor on my buying an RD50H sight-unseen. Reviews and info on the sets were hard to come by, but everything I did manage to find was very positive. Glad to see more buzz surrounding these sets. I still think they are very over looked. Haven't really seen higher quality in the other brands and when you consider the price/quality ratio, I'm suprised Optoma can make enough to keep them in stock anywhere.

peace.
unloaded

Hokieman,
Have you tried running s-video from your STB to TV for the analog channels? The box will output both at same time. I notice a nice improvement using it.

USCsuperfan,
That shoot out article was a big factor on my buying an RD50H sight-unseen. Reviews and info on the sets were hard to come by, but everything I did manage to find was very positive. Glad to see more buzz surrounding these sets. I still think they are very over looked. Haven't really seen higher quality in the other brands and when you consider the price/quality ratio, I'm suprised Optoma can make enough to keep them in stock anywhere.

peace.
unloaded

VA is giving them away. The next cheapest price I could find by a google search was over $400 more including shipping and I'd still gladly pay that. The only other TV under 3 grand that competes with it, right now, is the D-ILA. But going that route, you'd better buy local as they seem to still have some problems. My step-father is looking at the 70" for his new HT and I support that as long as he gets some kind of protection.

From what I've seen reported at this site, you don't need protection, for the 1st year at least, as Optoma seems to provide strong support for their products. $hit, Hokieman is getting a new set sent to him without a tech even coming out to look at it. Now that's impressive. Especially for this day and age.

Just hung up with Optoma tech support.
The Monitor Output DOES NOT output PC or HD sources. It will output SD, AV and ANT inputs.

At least we know now.:)

Also, if you decide to go in and tweak your settings in the Service Menu (hitting Menu 619, which -- despite rumors otherwise -- he says doesn't affect your warranty unless you screw up the TV by making damaging settings), he recommended NOT messing with the gamma settings or color wheel index. And be sure to write down the original settings so you can go back if necessary.


Thanks for the info on the service menu. I was hesitant to use any calibration disc outside of the general 'user' settings due to that. Thanks!

Also thanks for posting that info. It kinda makes sense though. Generally people who are using the HD inputs are running their audio straight to a reciever (at least I am). Good to know though for sure.

I learn more and more every day.

Since we are consolidating threads, I will repost a question I never got answered.

Has anyone run the THX optimizer on a dvd like "Finding Nemo"?

I ran into a problem I am most concerned about: The test pattern for 4:3 with the circle in the box was not a nice uniform circle, so the THX thingy said the tv was not outputting a true 4:3 picture. Likewise, the widescreen test pattern didn't look like a nice uniform circle in the Full, Full-L, Wide1, Wide2, or Wide3 settings. I think it was meant for the Wide1 setting but I listed the others just to cover all the bases.

Can anyone else confirm this is a problem or is it just my set?
Just to follow up if anyone cared, I found the problem with the widescreen test pattern . . . I didn't have the the dvd player set to output 16:9. I thought there was something wrong. :o

However, I do think my 4:3 ratio stretches the picture vertically and cuts off an inch at the top and the bottom. Maybe I am being picky, but this ratio should have no overscan.

I called Optoma and the CSR asked that I send screenshots to detail my complaint. He emailed back that he forwarded them to different technical group at Optoma.

Here is a screen shot of the THX test pattern. Does this look like a slight oval to you? The bottom line is definately cut off.

http://gallery.avsforum.com/data/503/IMG_0225a.jpg

Here is the test screen under native resolution.

http://gallery.avsforum.com/data/503/IMG_0220a.jpg

VA is saying that the RD65A should be in mid month. They say usually the new models are less expensive than the old. If this is true, then that would put the RD65A at a very good deal. I would appreciate all of your opinions as to wait or would there be any good reason that the RD50A would be much better. Right now I am waiting until they release the RD65A. What do you all think. Should I wait or should I jump.

VA is saying that the RD65A should be in mid month. They say usually the new models are less expensive than the old. If this is true, then that would put the RD65A at a very good deal. I would appreciate all of your opinions as to wait or would there be any good reason that the RD50A would be much better. Right now I am waiting until they release the RD65A. What do you all think. Should I wait or should I jump.
I can't imagine there will be any difference between the two except size and a few hundred bucks. However, the 65 will be a TANK compared to the 50, which weighs much, much less. One of the reasons I bought a DLP was to avoid the elephantine qualities of CSR and plasma. I'm really not interested in a TV the weight of Rhode Island. But if you want the larger TV, then get the larger TV. Seriously, though, the 50's screen is pretty big. I love it and have no craving for anything bigger.

VA is saying that the RD65A should be in mid month. They say usually the new models are less expensive than the old. If this is true, then that would put the RD65A at a very good deal. I would appreciate all of your opinions as to wait or would there be any good reason that the RD50A would be much better. Right now I am waiting until they release the RD65A. What do you all think. Should I wait or should I jump.

If your viewing distance is more than 12' and you don't mind the bulk, wait for the 65. Since HD-DVD is coming out, your picture is going to get much tighter, therefore justifying a larger TV. If you have any analog channels, be prepared for a little ugliness, there. However my digital cable channels on the 50A are pretty close in quality to my HD channels at 12'.

If I had the room, I'd get a 65A.

Just to follow up if anyone cared, I found the problem with the widescreen test pattern . . . I didn't have the the dvd player set to output 16:9. I thought there was something wrong. :o

However, I do think my 4:3 ratio stretches the picture vertically and cuts off an inch at the top and the bottom. Maybe I am being picky, but this ratio should have no overscan.

I called Optoma and the CSR asked that I send screenshots to detail my complaint. He emailed back that he forwarded them to different technical group at Optoma.

Here is a screen shot of the THX test pattern. Does this look like a slight oval to you? The bottom line is definately cut off.

http://gallery.avsforum.com/data/503/IMG_0225a.jpg

Here is the test screen under native resolution.

http://gallery.avsforum.com/data/503/IMG_0220a.jpg


Actually I'd say that's barrel distortion from your camera. Notice the top and the bottom of the TV's frame are bent as well? You prolly shot this with a zoom, digital camera. And prolly at the start-up focal length. You need to zoom to about the middle of the focal range and re-shoot.

Here's a review of the Canon G6. Scroll down to just under half-way and check out the "Barrel and Pincushion Distortion."

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canong6/page15.asp

Otherwise it does look like you have a bit more than 1% overscan. 1% is, basically unheard of in the world of DLP, but since they advertise it, if you're not getting close to that, you're entitled to a new one. HDNet has a good calibration program that includes an overscan test on Tue. mornings. Do you have HDNet?

Actually I'd say that's barrel distortion from your camera. Notice the top and the bottom of the TV's frame are bent as well? You prolly shot this with a zoom, digital camera. And prolly at the start-up focal length. You need to zoom to about the middle of the focal range and re-shoot.

Here's a review of the Canon G6. Scroll down to just under half-way and check out the "Barrel and Pincushion Distortion."

Otherwise it does look like you have a bit more than 1% overscan. 1% is, basically unheard of in the world of DLP, but since they advertise it, if you're not getting close to that, you're entitled to a new one. HDNet has a good calibration program that includes an overscan test on Tue. mornings. Do you have HDNet?
I don't have any HD, but I am switching from Dish to Comcast this coming Friday. I am not a photographer, but I believe the center of the picture (where the circle is) is not distorted whereas the edges are. Probably not the greatest photo, but the circle on the photo is representative of what you see on the screen. I have a 4 mega pixel Canon Powershot S410 and I got up close to the screen to take the picture. Maybe I need to sit back to take the picture and then crop the picture on the computer later.

I don't have any HD, but I am switching from Dish to Comcast this coming Friday. I am not a photographer, but I believe the center of the picture (where the circle is) is not distorted whereas the edges are. Probably not the greatest photo, but the circle on the photo is representative of what you see on the screen. I have a 4 mega pixel Canon Powershot S410 and I got up close to the screen to take the picture. Maybe I need to sit back to take the picture and then crop the picture on the computer later.

You are correct that the distortion will be more pronounced on the edges, but, if you look at the barrel distortion shot on the link I posted, it does look like it's almost everywhere.

The 410 is a great camera. I have an old S30, myself that still works great. Got an A85 for my father-in-law and a G5 for my mother. I'll prolly get a G6 for myself, next.

No, what I would do is zoom the camera to the middle of it's range (roughly) and adjust the camera position accordingly.

This may not do anything. You're the one who is there in the room and if you think the circle is oval, then you are in the best position to be the authority on the matter. I'm just trying to help you run through the scientific method and eliminate the other possibilities.

Actually, upon further review, I do see the difference in the 2 shots. And I don't think it has anything to do with the camera. It's still a good idea to eliminate the barrel distortion for your shot so no jerks like me can find fault with your photography when deciding whether or not to send you a new set.

I never use the 4:3 so I've never noticed whether or not my 50A has this problem. I'll run the THX test, myself again and see if I do.

O.K., I ran the THX Optimizer from the "Clones" DVD. Mine showed much, much less overscan on 4:3 and appeared to have a perfectly round circle. However I could not reproduce your "Native" shot. For the 4:3 test my circle gets fatter in Native as well as the other modes. And for the 16:9 test my circle stays round for everything but the 4:3 setting whichs gets narrower. Must be a different test. I would've thought THX would be THX. Nemo and Clones are from basically the same era. Nemo maybe being a bit newer, I'd guess. Hmmm.

O.K., I ran the THX Optimizer from the "Clones" DVD. Mine showed much, much less overscan on 4:3 and appeared to have a perfectly round circle. However I could not reproduce your "Native" shot. For the 4:3 test my circle gets fatter in Native as well as the other modes. And for the 16:9 test my circle stays round for everything but the 4:3 setting whichs gets narrower. Must be a different test. I would've thought THX would be THX. Nemo and Clones are from basically the same era. Nemo maybe being a bit newer, I'd guess. Hmmm.
You changed your dvd output settings right? It sounds like you have your dvd outputing at 16:9 when you ran both tests. For my dvd player I have to stop the Optomizer in between the two tests to change the ouput setting on the dvd, then restart the disk and do the Optomizer from the beginning again.

You changed your dvd output settings right? It sounds like you have your dvd outputing at 16:9 when you ran both tests. For my dvd player I have to stop the Optomizer in between the two tests to change the ouput setting on the dvd, then restart the disk and do the Optomizer from the beginning again.

No. The Optimizer only called for changing the "TV" setting and it basically works perfectly, both ways. Why would I want to do that? That certainly explains why I couldn't reproduce your results from the Native setting. Are you sure you're doing all of this right? My guess is, yes, for the full-screen screen-shot, anyway which is really the problem. You've got the DVD set to 16:9 for that and 4:3 for the smaller one, right? My TV displays that pillar/letterboxed picture when it's in Native and being fed a 4:3 signal by either the DVD or the STB.

No. The Optimizer only called for changing the "TV" setting and it basically works perfectly, both ways. Why would I want to do that? That certainly explains why I couldn't reproduce your results from the Native setting. Are you sure you're doing all of this right? My guess is, yes, for the full-screen screen-shot, anyway which is really the problem. You've got the DVD set to 16:9 for that and 4:3 for the smaller one, right? My TV displays that pillar/letterboxed picture when it's in Native and being fed a 4:3 signal by either the DVD or the STB.
Forget what I said about changing the dvd player settings, that was wrong. However, for the 4:3 test pattern done in Native Res. or 4:3, I do get the same result whether my dvd player is set to output 4:3 or output 16:9. In other words, with my dvd player set to output 16:9, the 4:3 test pattern on the screen in the Native Res. mode looks exactly like the picture I posted. I'm not sure why you can't reproduce it. The 16:9 test pattern looks perfect in "Full" mode and a tall thin oval in the Native Res., which it is supposed to so that's fine. Let's just make sure we are talking about the 4:3 test pattern shown in "Native" res. mode and 4:3 mode, only.

Forget what I said about changing the dvd player settings, that was wrong. However, for the 4:3 test pattern done in Native Res. or 4:3, I do get the same result whether my dvd player is set to output 4:3 or output 16:9. In other words, with my dvd player set to output 16:9, the 4:3 test pattern on the screen in the Native Res. mode looks exactly like the picture I posted. I'm not sure why you can't reproduce it. The 16:9 test pattern looks perfect in "Full" mode and a tall thin oval in the Native Res., which it is supposed to so that's fine. Let's just make sure we are talking about the 4:3 test pattern shown in "Native" res. mode and 4:3 mode, only.

I was able to reproduce that pillar/letterboxed thing in one of the combinations. I forgot which, but I know the DVD was set to 4:3. Otherwise it's perfect either way.

With my player set to 16:9 I get a proper picture when the Optimizer tells me to set the TV to 4:3 as well as when the Optimizer has me set the TV to Native. Full is very close to native, too.

Don't know what else to tell you. I think you've got a sitch there. Hope you get it handled. Good luck and keep me posted.

Nighty night.

Just hung up with Optoma tech support.
The Monitor Output DOES NOT output PC or HD sources. It will output SD, AV and ANT inputs.

At least we know now.:)

I'm also finding that the Monitor Output does not output audio for SD either. I have my PS2 hooked up to SD since I can't get it to show up on the HDs and I had to run an optical cable to my reciever because I got no sound passed from the TV. The TV speakers will play the sound though. I know I'm on the right audio input on the reciever because if I switch the TV to ANT1 then I get audio out of the reciever. Oh well. I'm also getting some strange distortion on my HD1 input which is now DVD for me. On the top 2" in so of the screen the DVD picture is all distorted and stretched in weird ways. I am thinking this is just as likely my DVD player as TV though. I was just gonna wait till the new set arrived before I tried to debug that problem. I still haven't heard back from Optoma since I faxed in my RMA info so I'll try to contact them again on Monday. I'm hoping all my weird problems are just from this one set and with a new on they will all be fixed.

Forgot to mention with my cable that while my box (8000HD) cannot output on 2 outputs at the same time (no S-vid possibility) it DOES now work with DVI so I have been using that for cable. Looks much cleaner and I now just convert EVERYTHING to 720p in the box. Makes SD look better and I can always stretch it with the STB's stretch and 1080i looks pretty damn good as well. It also doesn't have to go through all that format switching stuff every time I change channels.

Forgot to mention with my cable that while my box (8000HD) cannot output on 2 outputs at the same time (no S-vid possibility) it DOES now work with DVI so I have been using that for cable. Looks much cleaner and I now just convert EVERYTHING to 720p in the box. Makes SD look better and I can always stretch it with the STB's stretch and 1080i looks pretty damn good as well. It also doesn't have to go through all that format switching stuff every time I change channels.

Cool. Have you compared the box's 1080i-720p conversion vs. the Optoma's?

Even though you can't get an S-Vid output, you might be able to get a component. If so, you could hook 'em both up and A/B.

I'm pretty sure that as soon as I hooked up the DVI the component no longer worked. This was fine with me because EVERYTHING looked better over DVI with better colors and clarity. S-vid would have been nice so I could have output in 480i nicely for the analog stuff but this looks just as good upconverted to 720p. One thing I found is that while you can send a 480p signal through the DVI the 480i doesn't work. No biggie though. I did play around with whether to let the box or the set do the 720p -> 1080i conversion and I really didn't see that much of a difference. Not even enough to make it worth having the TV do it's little freak out between channel changes. Now everything stays constant the entire time and everything looks great as well. The only loss is that with no 480i for analog I can't use the TV's stretch modes but I don't like the mode where it stretches the outside nearly as much on this set as I did on my Panny. If I do any stretching I just do the Full stretch and the STB can do that just as well as the TV.

I'm pretty sure that as soon as I hooked up the DVI the component no longer worked. This was fine with me because EVERYTHING looked better over DVI with better colors and clarity. S-vid would have been nice so I could have output in 480i nicely for the analog stuff but this looks just as good upconverted to 720p. One thing I found is that while you can send a 480p signal through the DVI the 480i doesn't work. No biggie though. I did play around with whether to let the box or the set do the 720p -> 1080i conversion and I really didn't see that much of a difference. Not even enough to make it worth having the TV do it's little freak out between channel changes. Now everything stays constant the entire time and everything looks great as well. The only loss is that with no 480i for analog I can't use the TV's stretch modes but I don't like the mode where it stretches the outside nearly as much on this set as I did on my Panny. If I do any stretching I just do the Full stretch and the STB can do that just as well as the TV.

Cool. Thanks for the info.

Moxi/Charter is supposed to be activating the DVI on my Motorola STB fairly soon. Hopefully I'll get similar results.

Figured out the distortion on DVDs through HD1. I had the DVD player outputting 480i rather than 480p because I had been doing all that switching between HD1 and SD to see what looked better. It doesn't make sense that the HD1 distorts the 480i signal at the top of the screen but if I'm using HD1 I would only use 480p anyways from the DVD player. It's like I learn something new everyday from this TV!

On another note, someone mentioned a few pages back that the Info + number combo to go directly to different inputs didn't work with universal remotes. This DOES work with my Onkyo learning remote. It learns it as a discreet IR code and I now have macros that can go directly from one input to another switching both the TV input and the receiver sound together.

Figured out the distortion on DVDs through HD1. I had the DVD player outputting 480i rather than 480p because I had been doing all that switching between HD1 and SD to see what looked better. It doesn't make sense that the HD1 distorts the 480i signal at the top of the screen but if I'm using HD1 I would only use 480p anyways from the DVD player. It's like I learn something new everyday from this TV!

On another note, someone mentioned a few pages back that the Info + number combo to go directly to different inputs didn't work with universal remotes. This DOES work with my Onkyo learning remote. It learns it as a discreet IR code and I now have macros that can go directly from one input to another switching both the TV input and the receiver sound together.

Yeah, that was me. Is a discrete IR code different than a standard IR code? I have a Home Theater Master MX-500. What am I doing wrong, if anything?

Well I think the way it works is that if you press Info it generates a discreet IR code just for Info and if you press say 5 it generates a discreet IR code just for 5 but if you press them both at the same time it generates a totally different IR code. It's almost like pressing those 2 buttons at the same time makes a whole new button that they just didn't put on the remote. This means that ANY learning remote should be able to learn the IR codes from pressing those 2 buttons at the same time since it just thinks it's a totally different buttons. Make sure you press them at the exact same time to make it work. I tried it out with the Optoma remote pointing at the TV first to see if it did what it said and then I had the learning remote learn the exact same thing and it worked just the same.

My info button, alone does nothing. The TV is not affected by it, nor is my universal.

What I can do is customize one of my lcd linked buttons to say HD1 and make an IR code for that. I only use HD1 and AV1. AV1 can be accessed just by selecting a channel for the analog coax input so I only need to be able to get back out of it.

Now why didn't I think of that earlier?

Well, it worked. That's a pretty good bonus, having an MX-500. It's got 10 hard buttons (with 2 pages for 20 total) with corresponding lcd displays that can be customized with up to 5 digits (ex. sleep, sourc, ch up, etc.) So I labeled one HD1, set it to learn for that button and hit "Info" and "7" at the same time on the Optoma remote and joila! Don't even have to hit 2 buttons simultaneously, now in order go get back to HD1.

I don't foresee using anymore inputs on the Optoma at this time as everything but the split coax for cable runs through the receiver. But if I do...

Now to set up the macros.

Help me pull the trigger.

I am down to the Panasonic TH-42PWD7UY and the Optoma RD50a.

The TV is going to be 12-14' away so I think I need the extra size of the Optoma. Anyone compared the PQ of the two? The way I look at it, with Optoma I am getting a bigger TV, HDTV ready. Is it a no brainer or just personal preference which will be tough since I have not seen either one.

Thanks for helping the confused.

Help me pull the trigger.

I am down to the Panasonic TH-42PWD7UY and the Optoma RD50a.

The TV is going to be 12-14' away so I think I need the extra size of the Optoma. Anyone compared the PQ of the two? The way I look at it, with Optoma I am getting a bigger TV, HDTV ready. Is it a no brainer or just personal preference which will be tough since I have not seen either one.

Thanks for helping the confused.

I was considering the Panny ED, myself. I viewed them more times than I can count. Great TV. Beats most HD Plasmas out there. But the Optoma is better. At that distance you want the extra inches. The extra brightness won't hurt either. Oh yeah, and it's HD. The 2 things that would shake me from the Optoma are rainbows and vertical viewing angle. The Optoma has to either be on the floor or practically on the ceiling for vertical viewing angle to be a problem. As far as rainbows go, I see them on occasion. They don't bother me. Would I rather they weren't there? Sure. But it's not a deal-breaker for me. A few years down the road, I'll replace it when technology has improved enough to warrant it.

Thanks Sketcha. That is what I needed to hear.

I am following this thread with a lot of interest. I have been researching big screen televisions for over a year and I must say I like what i have read so far about the Optoma RD50A. There are only two thinks holding me back from buying this unit. Rainbows which I have not been able to see with other DLP units in showrooms but that does not mean I will not see them once I get a unit in my house and the second one is the reliability with Optoma DLP televison since they fairly new in the DLP market. I wish I can see one of this RD50A units but there is nobody near me that carries it. Thank for all the input that has been provided from other users.

I just found this thread today. I was planning on getting the new 52" JVC HD-DILA when it comes out, but then I found this thread. I have a few questions for the owners of the Optoma RD50A:

1) How does this TV compare to the JVC HD-DILAs (new or old)?

2) How is it for watching sports like baseball? I plan to watch a lot of football in the fall and wonder how it handles sports/fast motion?

3) How is it for darker scenes/scenes with less light? A friend of mine has the Toshibal 52HM84 and it had great PQ except in scenes with less light. The picture would be very distorted. After I saw that, I decided I wouldn't get a DLP, but this thread has me reconsidering that.

This is the first time I've posted, but I've been looking through the AVS Forum for a while.

2) How is it for watching sports like baseball? I plan to watch a lot of football in the fall and wonder how it handles sports/fast motion?

3) How is it for darker scenes/scenes with less light? A friend of mine has the Toshibal 52HM84 and it had great PQ except in scenes with less light. The picture would be very distorted. After I saw that, I decided I wouldn't get a DLP, but this thread has me reconsidering that.
I was watching the College World Series the last few days and I thought the PQ was great on ESPN2 with Dish. I'm a big college football fan and I was watching some SC games I had on the DVR. Our first game of the year was on ESPNHD, and although I recorded the regular ESPN channel in SD the PQ was outstanding. Other games, especially on ABC in SD were not great. Similarly, the NBA Playoffs on TNT and ESPN were great, but the Finals on ABC in SD were not too hot. So it really comes down to the incoming signal. Fast motion is not an issue. The only thing I really notice is the grassy field or the stands. It's like the tv wants to show every blade of grass and every fan in the stands but the resolution in the signal is not there.

I have also seen some very dark movies and thought the tv performed great. I have no issues with the PQ in dark scenes. Watching dark scenes in a brightly lit room in the middle of a summer day is doable (albeit not the greatest PQ), however trying the same thing with a CRT is downright impossible.

Thanks for the info USC!

Sounds like the PQ for sports viewing is great.

My friend's DLP (Toshiba 52HM84) did most of the real dark scenesl well. However, there were some scenes that would have a very grainy picture/distortion. I'm sure there is a technical term describing it, but that's best I can describe it. In a movie like 'Aliens vs. Predator', when they were underground, some scenes would be really great and other scenes would be very grainy. The Optoma RD50A uses the same HD 2+ chip that the Toshiba does, so I thought I would check with the Optoma owners if they noticed this.

I'm not a big sports person but I've been hitting the ESPN HD channels w/ COX just to keep the channel on HD...lol. I have to say its awsome compared to 2 other HD sets I see often (a friends few year old 60" HD and my father in laws 65" HD").

The ONLY thing I have seen is a few rainbows but this ONLY happens when I'm watching from my DVD player which is currently going through standard Yellow/Red/White connections right now til all my new cables come in (HDMI, another composite, etc). Regular TV and videogames I have not seen any rainbows but then again I have 'looked' for them and the wife doesn't even know about rainbows and she hasn't mentioned anything at all (She loves watching random HD movies... she just saw THE WIZ for the first time...lol).

I love this TV. Back to my DVR recordings I go.

D.

Thanks for the info USC!

Sounds like the PQ for sports viewing is great.

My friend's DLP (Toshiba 52HM84) did most of the real dark scenesl well. However, there were some scenes that would have a very grainy picture/distortion. I'm sure there is a technical term describing it, but that's best I can describe it. In a movie like 'Aliens vs. Predator', when they were underground, some scenes would be really great and other scenes would be very grainy. The Optoma RD50A uses the same HD 2+ chip that the Toshiba does, so I thought I would check with the Optoma owners if they noticed this.
I never had an issue with scenes being grainy. I watched one dark movie "Queen of the Damned" and the movie was dark scenes and even darker scenes. The only questions I had were about contrast, i.e. a character's black shirt blending into a black background. Another poster suggested watching Alien from the Quadriliogy set to test black levels, but I haven't done that yet. I can barely get the tv away from my kid who wants to watch "Toy Story" on VHS (the PQ is bad).

I viewed the SV50XF for the first time last week. It looked terrific. I ordered it, I am very excited. I have been following the Optoma comments for over a year and it is as good as advertised.

Sketcha,
The reason you can't get the same size test patterns as USC, he's using 480i while you are using 480p. 480i on the 4x3 setting of TV is same size as 480p Native. 480i Native results in the small box in center of the screen. I suspect USC's overscan is a result of the DVD player not the TV.

peace.
unloaded

So while waiting for the new TV for the dead pixel issue I received an e-mail response about the distortion I was getting outputting 480i SD from my 8000HD cable box over component cables into the HD1 input.

Dear Andrew,

Sorry about the delay..

The problem you are having is normal. HD1 & HD2 ports are designed to
work with 480p, 720p & 1080i. It is not designed to receive 480i
signal. SD1 is designed to receive only 480i signal. Anything higher
will not work or will work with problems.

Most of the cable boxes would allow you to change the output signal to
either 480p, 720p or 1080i. Right now you probably have set it as "send
the signal as is" so some are hd others are not. You can call your
cable company for more information on your cable box.

Sincerely,
Arun Kanuga
Technical Support/Customer Service
P: 888-289-6786
F: 408-383-3701
www.optomausa.com

While this does explain the problem I was having it does bring up potential problems for this TV. While I am now able to get a great picture for SD cable by just outputting it at 720p over my DVI others might want to output all data in it's true format so that they can use the TVs stretch modes to do as they please to the 480i picture. I am also encountering a problem with this because my PS2 will not work at all over either of the HD component inputs because while some games are in HD (GT4), the TV can not output anything during bootup or any of the menus before you change the resolution to HD in the game options. I've never seen a TV before that can only take HD signals through their component inputs. Is this normal? Maybe I was just spoiled with that option on my Panny CRT RPTV. It really isn't a dealbreaker since the picture is great on this TV and I have a workaround for pretty much everything (will need to just play PS2 in SD) but I was just surprised to get that answer. It's good to know that those weren't defects in my partucilar set though.

Sketcha,
The reason you can't get the same size test patterns as USC, he's using 480i while you are using 480p. 480i on the 4x3 setting of TV is same size as 480p Native. 480i Native results in the small box in center of the screen. I suspect USC's overscan is a result of the DVD player not the TV.

peace.
unloaded
I also get the overscan connecting my Dish Network 522 DVR to the AV1 input with S-video.

Along with the test pattern shots, I also sent to Optoma a shot of the Disney Channel logo with the bottom cut off and another screenshot of the Dish on-screen menus with the top of the on-screen menu cut off. I sent in Native resolutions of both for Optoma to compare to.

Ahhh. I completely forgot to look before leaving but I need to know what kind of DVI (or HDMI) cable I would need (male to female, male to male, etc) for my RD50A and a SA 8300HD DVR (Cox).

I was going to order one today and meant to check on my connections before leaving this mroning but my puppy is sick so I was kinda making sure he was okay before going to work and completely forgot!

Also. For those who have tested your HD box with both DVI/HDMI and Composite was there a noticeable difference going to DVI (or even SVideo) over composite? Right now outside the expected SD fuzz things seem fine so I'm debating if its even something I should drop a few extra bucks on, or instead just get another set of Composites for my DVD and leave my cable box 'as is'



***EDIT: Nevermind. I was able to use a few mins of downtime at work to grab the RD50 manual and the 8300 input/output diagram off their respective sites. I guess, from what I can see, is that I need a HDMI to DVI connector (male DVI).

digitard,

Are you sure you mean composites for your cable box and DVD player and not component? Composite is the one where just the yellow cable passes video and component has Red, Green, and Blue for video. You can't even watch HD with composite, you need at least component and with an 8300HD box I would think you would want to watch HD? You'll also get a MUCH better picture on a DVD player with component over composite or S-vid. I personally use the DVI for cable since I do find it clearer than component but I still have to use a DVI only cable since my cable box doesn't have an HDMI output.

DVI question:

I was looking at the owner's manual for the SV50XF on the Optoma website and the picture for the DVI input showed a weird arrangement of the pin holes (for lack of a better term). (EDIT: The same image is in the RD50H owner's manual.)

The manual says that the DVI input is DVI-D, but maybe it supports all the different versions of DVI, like DVI-I, DVI-D, DVI, and DVI-A?

Take a look at this:

http://gallery.avsforum.com/data/503/medium/DVI_Input.jpg

And this is what a DVI-D only connector should look like:

http://www.ramelectronics.net/assets/images/DVI/DVI-D_female.jpg

digitard,

Are you sure you mean composites for your cable box and DVD player and not component? Composite is the one where just the yellow cable passes video and component has Red, Green, and Blue for video. You can't even watch HD with composite, you need at least component and with an 8300HD box I would think you would want to watch HD? You'll also get a MUCH better picture on a DVD player with component over composite or S-vid. I personally use the DVI for cable since I do find it clearer than component but I still have to use a DVI only cable since my cable box doesn't have an HDMI output.

Yeah I meant COMPONENT. I have been doing that for 2 weeks. I realize AFTERWARDS that I meant the other. I'm just used to 'composite'...lol.

I picked up some Acoustic Research component cables...lol.

I'm goign to go w/ HDMI in the near future to just get it taken care of cause my 8300hd does have HDMI out and then since that'll free up my HD1 port on the back I'm going to get the HIDEF kits for the PS2/XBOX and put those on HD1/HD2 and keep my DVD player on SD w/ Progressive scan.

That is correct right? That if I leave my DVD on the SD component spot I should leave 'progressive scan' on but if I put it on HD1/HD2 I should turn it off?

I'm goign to go w/ HDMI in the near future to just get it taken care of cause my 8300hd does have HDMI out and then since that'll free up my HD1 port on the back I'm going to get the HIDEF kits for the PS2/XBOX and put those on HD1/HD2 and keep my DVD player on SD w/ Progressive scan.

That is correct right? That if I leave my DVD on the SD component spot I should leave 'progressive scan' on but if I put it on HD1/HD2 I should turn it off?
Other way around. Set the DVD player to 480i or interlace when hooked up to the SD input. Set the DVD player to progressive for the HD1 or HD2 inputs. Does the PS2/XBOX have switches for progressive or interlace? (just curious, obviously I am not a gamer)

I know that some XBOX games support 720 and that w/ the component pack it can ouput that but as for user adjustable settings I haven't really checked out the menu's much. I just went in and changed it to 'widescreen' for my TV the other day but didn't look at any other options in there.

I'll check when I get home.

Thanks for the info. I'm not going to change my cables til Sunday cause I really dont feel like moving my components around right now to hook up the new cables but I'll let ya know once its done what I found out.

I do have to say though that even w/ composite cables the DVD player looks fairly nice. I mean there's some 'fuzz' but its barely noticeable unless I pause something or in the menu's. I'm very impressed overall.

Just warning you on the PS2 in HD. I bought the component cables for the PS2 which is really all you need and while it worked fine on my old TV it doesn't work on the RD50A. All I get is the blue screen showing that there is no input. I e-mailed Optoma about this and they said that the HD1/2 inputs are only meant for 480p/720p/1080i and while you can turn on HD in game in GT4 it just outputs 480i for everything else. What I have done is hooked up my DVD player to the HD1 and use 480p out because it can always do 480p and I have the PS2 hooked up with the component cables to the SD input and I just don't worry about the HD. It's only HD for GT4 and it really isn't THAT much better but I still would have liked to have the option.

Thanks.

I will probably hold off on the PS2 HD stuff and then test the XBOX stuff cause I'm not sure if the Xbox can do constant 480p or not. I remember erading your thing but it popped out of my mind temporarily...lol. I only play a few games on the PS2 anyways (GTA:SA, FFX and FFX2 shortly). Oh and FIGHT NIGHT 1/2.

I'll do some online research on the xbox if it can do constant 480p or not. I use my XBOX a TON more than y PS2 (due to the fact HALO 2 and GHTP (paintball game) are on the xbox and those are my 2 fav console games.

If it can then I'll go DVD in HD1 and XBOX in HD2 and then HDMI for the cable box and keep the PS2 on SD (probably still use component cables in the SD spot) and the SNES will stay on coax..lol. Man the SNES looks like garbage but the wife LOVES playing SUPER MARIO WORLD on it...lol.

D.

Sketcha,
The reason you can't get the same size test patterns as USC, he's using 480i while you are using 480p. 480i on the 4x3 setting of TV is same size as 480p Native. 480i Native results in the small box in center of the screen. I suspect USC's overscan is a result of the DVD player not the TV.

peace.
unloaded

I tried every format possible. My cable box outputs 1080i, 720p and 480i only. No 480p. I first tried that, then the 480i and p settings on my DVD player.

The HD1 and HD2 480i issue

It does seem strange that this TV has seperate inputs for HD and 480i. Must have something to do with the Sil 504 chip, or something. However, mine seems to be able to accept 480i from both my cable box and my DVD player. I don't use it on my cable box as I have to change the TV's mode from Native to 4:3 and I use 480p on my DVD player since it looks better to me than in 480i through the SD input. Digital cable looks great up converted by the STB and I use the Optoma's tuner for analog as the STB can't win in any output with that so it's not a problem for me. Now I haven't tried games with it yet, either. I guess it's time to fire up the ol' XBox again.

BTW, I'm away from home so I can't be 100% sure about all of this, but I will be back tomorrow eve. and recheck everything in the next day or two.

So I know this isn't a HTPC forum, but has anybody hooked up their PCs to this box through DVI or Component cables? Does it look good?

I haven't gotten around to it yet... but I will hopefully this weekend cause I want to be able to stream music/video's/etc off my laptop.

I'll post when I do.

Is there a counter for the number of hours on the lamp? I think I remember reading about a counter on the samsungs. I got mine for VA this week and like everyone else I am impressed. Only got Directv sd though...

To see the bulb life you have to get into the Service Menu by hitting Menu, 6, 1, 9, and then Menu again. Once in there it's in the last of the 4 option columns. To get back out of service menu just hit 6, 1, 9 again.

Well I tested out the 480i output from my STB into HD1 this morning. It seems to work perfectly. Looks small (pillar and letterboxed) in Native until I switch to 4:3.

Anyone try a samsung DVD-HD841 player? I read that this TV has good scaler so it doesnt need upconverting dvd player. The samsung can do upconversion over all its outputs. What's a good dvd player to use with the RD50a? Not much info in the dvd forum as it relates to the RD50a.

So I just got cable installed on Friday and now I have HD programming, and all I can say is, "WOW!" The Discovery HD Theater is great, the College World Series on ESPNHD is great. It is hard to watch a channel that is not in HD. I've been telling my wife that I could watch ants going in and out of an anthill all day long in HD.

What's also funny is that the cable guy was commenting on good the tv looked. He started asking who made it, and where I bought it from, and was impressed by the price I paid. You would think these guys see alot of HDTV's.

On a side note I have both cable and Dish Network hooked up right now. The PQ for the local channels on cable is bad (and other analog channels). Dish easily beats the PQ for locals. Only the local HD channels (when not showing HD) on cable beats Dish. What should be digital channels on cable (Comedy Central, TBS, USA, etc.) are hard to compare to Dish because they are all off by 3 hours. I never knew that Dish was giving me east coast times on that programming. The cable guy supplied component cables to hook up the Comcast Motorola 6412 to the HD1 input. I have my Dish 522 box hooked up by S-video to the AV1 input. Now I need to buy a DVI-D cable for the 6412 box.

With regards to the HTPC hookup. I have been considering the RD50A or 65A and was going to use my HTPC. I was going to use the VGA input for that and scale it through the PC to 720P. Is this a bad move???

So I just got cable installed on Friday and now I have HD programming, and all I can say is, "WOW!" The Discovery HD Theater is great, the College World Series on ESPNHD is great. It is hard to watch a channel that is not in HD. I've been telling my wife that I could watch ants going in and out of an anthill all day long in HD.

What's also funny is that the cable guy was commenting on good the tv looked. He started asking who made it, and where I bought it from, and was impressed by the price I paid. You would think these guys see alot of HDTV's.

On a side note I have both cable and Dish Network hooked up right now. The PQ for the local channels on cable is bad (and other analog channels). Dish easily beats the PQ for locals. Only the local HD channels (when not showing HD) on cable beats Dish. What should be digital channels on cable (Comedy Central, TBS, USA, etc.) are hard to compare to Dish because they are all off by 3 hours. I never knew that Dish was giving me east coast times on that programming. The cable guy supplied component cables to hook up the Comcast Motorola 6412 to the HD1 input. I have my Dish 522 box hooked up by S-video to the AV1 input. Now I need to buy a DVI-D cable for the 6412 box.


Congrats, SF! I'm sure you, your STB and TV will be very happy together.

Interesting results. Does your Dish box have component capability? I'd be curious to see whether or not that makes a dif. Prolly not much. S-Vid. seems to be pretty decent for 480i.

For the guys asking about hooking PC's to the Optomas. I have mine hooked to RD50H via DVI. I tried component and vga also, DVI looks better with test, graphics and video are about the same. The vga input is on the front of the set and I didn't want the cables always dangling there. I use the PC for surfing and gaming (FarCry, HL2, Doom3...) for DVD I use an upconverting player over component Zenith DVB 318. My cable box is also hooked via component. My vid card is a 6600GT Leadtek, I tried using my AIW 9800 Pro but ran into some troubles. The card didn't recognize all resolutions the TV was capable of displaying and wouldn't allow me to play any games. I think I could have made a custom ini file and got it to work but I was also having power supply issues with that card. The RD50A should look even better than my set and there probably is a better chance of the set being recognized by most drivers now.

peace.
unloaded

USCsuperfan,
I'm wondering why you didn't go with Dish Network's HD offerings. From what I've read they offer the most HD content now that they have Voom. Is there a high cost for HD box through them? Two dishes needed? I'm asking because I've been toying with the idea of trying them out. I haven't really dug into the initial cost yet. I figure it must be signifigant if you are half way there and didn't upgrade. I realize this is a bit off topic for this thread, but would really like to know why you chose to have both providers. Also, now that you've seen how much of a difference HD looks are you reconsidering Dish's HD offerings?

peace.
unloaded

Congrats, SF! I'm sure you, your STB and TV will be very happy together.

Interesting results. Does your Dish box have component capability? I'd be curious to see whether or not that makes a dif. Prolly not much. S-Vid. seems to be pretty decent for 480i.
No, my older dish box only had S-video and coax. Overall though, the Dish PQ is pretty good. I'm sure it would be better with the newer boxes.

USCsuperfan,
I'm wondering why you didn't go with Dish Network's HD offerings. From what I've read they offer the most HD content now that they have Voom. Is there a high cost for HD box through them? Two dishes needed? I'm asking because I've been toying with the idea of trying them out. I haven't really dug into the initial cost yet. I figure it must be signifigant if you are half way there and didn't upgrade. I realize this is a bit off topic for this thread, but would really like to know why you chose to have both providers. Also, now that you've seen how much of a difference HD looks are you reconsidering Dish's HD offerings?

peace.
unloaded
For some Dish offerings like Voom you would need a 2nd dish (and maybe for CBS in HD). And overall Dish has more HD content because of the Voom channels, but they do not have ABC, NBC or other locals in HD. Being a big college football fan I wanted the locals in HD, even if it is just upconverted SD. I watched a number of SC games I recorded on my Dish DVR and I could not stand the ones recorded in SD on ABC.

The main reason to leave Dish (and satellite in general) is cost and equipment. To go HD with Dish, since I had SBC, I would have to pay a $100 install fee to get the 811 box and pay an extra monthly fee for it along with my 522 box. We have grown dependent on the DVR with the 522, but the 811 HD box is not a DVR. The new HD-DVR Dish came out with is the 942, but SBC does not even offer it. The lease terms for the 942 from Dish is a $250 up front non-refundable equipment fee plus a monthly charge, or $600 to $700 to buy outright.

Cable doesn't charge an install fee, nor do they have equipment fees for a HD-DVR. DirecTV has always made their customers buy the equipment and now they have buyer's remorse because DirecTV is pushing "HD-Lite" on them. I don't want to buy equipment because then I would be married to the provider.

I don't want to buy equipment because then I would be married to the provider.

...and the equipment. New stuff is arriving all the time. What about MPEG4. I'd hate to buy an MPEG2 box a month before that came out. Even a year. I'll let Charter absorb the new equipment costs, thank you.

My Moxi DVR has its quirks, like it's tiny 80G HDD and crappy analog (I use the TV's tuner for those. Much better,) but compared to the alternatives, it's well worth the minor lease fee. And 11, recordable HD channels ain't bad, either for this day and age. Not to mention my SD channels. They're mostly in 4:3, but they're near DVD quality.

...and the equipment. New stuff is arriving all the time. What about MPEG4. I'd hate to buy an MPEG2 box a month before that came out. Even a year. I'll let Charter absorb the new equipment costs, thank you.

My Moxi DVR has its quirks, like it's tiny 80G HDD and crappy analog (I use the TV's tuner for those. Much better,) but compared to the alternatives, it's well worth the minor lease fee. And 11, recordable HD channels ain't bad, either for this day and age. Not to mention my SD channels. They're mostly in 4:3, but they're near DVD quality.
Yeah, the Motorola 6412 with tvGuide software is a poor man's Tivo, and not nearly as good as even the Dish DVR, but its free. I think that Dish is moving towards customers buying the equipment, that's what the $250 equipment fee for the lease option tells me. The basic cable channels really do suck for PQ, but most do have HD alt. channels that upgrade the PQ somewhat for SD programming (upconverted to 720p). Also the 6412 has active firewire ports (the tech also said the USB was active) and there are other forums on this site about archiving so that takes the pressure off the limited hard drive capacity of the DVR.

So my replacement RD50A arrived today. The box was pretty beat up and the Tip n Tell had some sand in it which kinda worries me but when the box was opened it didn't appear that any of the indentations to the box made it all the way to the set. I took pictures of the box and marked down all the dents and stuff on the shipping slip they make you sign but I didn't want to just send it back and have to wait another week and a half for another new TV. This way if I find anything wrong with it I can just let them know and they'll send another one out then I guess.

The dead pixel problem I had on the old one is now gone and I won't get a chance to check out much else until tonight when I go back home. The only thing I did notice that was on the old TV as well was that if you look closely at the blue screen you get with no input there are little sections around the TV that seem darker than others. Just groups of 4-20 pixels or so and it's probably only a 3-5% difference over normal so that if you have any kind of picture on the screen you won't be able to tell the difference. I ONLY notice it when there is no input but was just wondering what this was and why it happens? It's in different spots on the new set than it was on the old set. This is very different from the dead pixel problem though that totally blacked out portions of 2 pixels and was obvious on all content. This is much more minor but I'm just curious as to what it is if anyone knows.

The dead pixel problem I had on the old one is now gone and I won't get a chance to check out much else until tonight when I go back home. The only thing I did notice that was on the old TV as well was that if you look closely at the blue screen you get with no input there are little sections around the TV that seem darker than others. Just groups of 4-20 pixels or so and it's probably only a 3-5% difference over normal so that if you have any kind of picture on the screen you won't be able to tell the difference. I ONLY notice it when there is no input but was just wondering what this was and why it happens? It's in different spots on the new set than it was on the old set. This is very different from the dead pixel problem though that totally blacked out portions of 2 pixels and was obvious on all content. This is much more minor but I'm just curious as to what it is if anyone knows.
I never noticed anything like this. I have always thought the screen was a beauitful uniform blue (I even pointed it out to my wife).

Are you looking up close to see this or is it visible from an 8-10' viewing distance?

I think it's only visible from a closer distance. I don't think I noticed it from the couch but I'll check tonight. After my last TV (not the replaced Optoma, the Panny RPTV I had before it) had problems that I didn't notice at first but drove me nuts later I've been going over this one with a fine tooth comb making sure EVERYTHING is perfect and I know what is causing what.

Hokieman,

I am expecting delivery of the 50a soon from VA. So can I assume that unless there is an extreme amount of damage to the box and the Tip and Tell is OK, making notes on the slip before signing is acceptable if I later discover problems when I get it out of the box. I know VA says you need to notify them within 72 hours but they do not give much guidance beyond that.

Thanks

Hokieman,

I am expecting delivery of the 50a soon from VA. So can I assume that unless there is an extreme amount of damage to the box and the Tip and Tell is OK, making notes on the slip before signing is acceptable if I later discover problems when I get it out of the box. I know VA says you need to notify them within 72 hours but they do not give much guidance beyond that.

Thanks
Just follow the procedure. When the box arrives there will be instructions in an outside pouch from VA. Only refuse delivery if the box is really bad with holes in it, etc. They give you 72 hours to find internal damage so that the driver doesn't have to wait while you open up the box, hook up the tv, etc. If you find damge or problems after 72 hours it jsut means that you will have to contact Optoma directly.

I forgot to write any notes on the packing slip when mine arrived. But I don't think VA can refuse you a replacement if the tv doesn't work just because you didn't sign the packing slip right. That must be more for VA to go after the delivery company for breaking the tv in transit.

Yeah if you realize there are problems with the TV Optoma will replace it directly. The only reason they want you to mark down problems with the box is that if those problems are directly related to the shipping damage they can recoup there money from the shipping company. My first box was in perfect condition and I still found a problem about a week into having the TV and Optoma still replaced it pretty much no questions asked. I told Optoma about the box damage to the new TV and that I took pictures and they said that was all I needed to do for that so now if I have to have it replaced the shipping company will pay rather than Optoma. You really have nothing to worry about, if anything goes wrong you'll still get a perfect replacement!

Just got my dish 942 hd sat connected and am not to happy with the end results. I know its a connection issue and not anything to do with the tv.

I did have a non hd direct tv sat connected to the optoma thru av1 s-vid connection and was very impressed with the digital sat channels.

I now have the dvr942 dish hdsat going to hd1. Is this correct? The reason I ask is now the non hd channels look fuzzy... although the hd channels are awesome I would like to have clear non hd channels as well.

It seems that the s-vid input for dig channels was better than the hd1 input for digital channels....

The RD50a does not like any 480i on the HD1 or HD2 inputs.

If you cannot run 2 outputs at the same time on your box, you may need to call Optoma and see what they reccomend.

480i looked like crap through the HD1 input for me as well. What I ended up doing was having the box convert everything to 720p and that took care of the fuzziness of SD cable out of the box. See if your box can upconvert all of the 480i and 480p to 720p.

Well, I purchased this TV based on all the glowing recommendations I have seen in this thread and others. The pictures posted were helpful as well. I can't wait to hook this puppy up. It is replacing a 30" Sanyo widescreen. I get all locals in HD, 2 PBS HD stations, and 15 more over Dish so I have lots of HD to watch with this TV. :D

I've experienced a glitch. Although I gave Optoma a hollar and while they dont think it'll happen again they said they'll send out a tech asap for me to be sure.

I was watching TV last night and my screen went out. I could still hear the program and so forth and the screen had a 'backlit' type display but no 'true video'. I turned off the TV, turned it on and it worked again fine after that.

Gave OPTOMA ahollar to ask if it may have been something that glitched cause my cable box, or somethign to that nature and they weren't sure so they offered to send out their local tech in my area under warranty and have em take a look just to be sure even though its been fine since.

Thats a great warranty service... my problem hasn't even been diagnosed as bad hardware but to be sure so I'm happy they'll send out a tech before its gone 'permanant'.

Most companies I've dealt with only send out their tech after its completely toast. Mine is still working, and great I'll give you, but because it did flicker out on me that one time they offered to send a tech out.

Purchased the TV after unloaded turned me onto this thread in the HardOCP forums. Received it yesterday, and I have to say I'm loving it. First thing I did is hook up my htpc, and while the desktop and browsing look good at 1280x720 with a little bit of overscran, I'm having the same probs that unloaded did gaming. I've gotten hl2 to load in some funky res, but not having any luck with other games as of yet. I am running a radeon 9600xt, and will be upgrading to a 6600gt, so hopefully this will fix that issue. In terms of movie playback, I've gotten the best picture out of my htpc running the asus branded windvd that came with my motherboard. It absolutely kills the signal I get running s-vid out of my sony htib that I have in my den. I was planning on buying an upscaling dvd player, but now don't know if i'll have to with the pq coming out of the htpc.

Purchased the TV after unloaded turned me onto this thread in the HardOCP forums. Received it yesterday, and I have to say I'm loving it. First thing I did is hook up my htpc, and while the desktop and browsing look good at 1280x720 with a little bit of overscran, I'm having the same probs that unloaded did gaming. I've gotten hl2 to load in some funky res, but not having any luck with other games as of yet. I am running a radeon 9600xt, and will be upgrading to a 6600gt, so hopefully this will fix that issue. In terms of movie playback, I've gotten the best picture out of my htpc running the asus branded windvd that came with my motherboard. It absolutely kills the signal I get running s-vid out of my sony htib that I have in my den. I was planning on buying an upscaling dvd player, but now don't know if i'll have to with the pq coming out of the htpc.
I have a Sony HTiB DVD player hooked up to the tv, but I used component cables to the SD input and set the DVD player to interlace and let the tv do the upscaling. Your Sony should have component, so give the tv's upscaler a try (remember that it only does it for the SD input). I've found that it is good enough to not need to buy a new player, especially since HD-DVD/Blu-ray is supposedly right around the corner.

Either way you should be good and you do not need to buy a new player.

Even runnin through standard Composite the quality is higher than I expected. I ran my DVD player (generic Sony from about a year ago) through COmposite til today because my component cables I ordered weren't here yet and it was definitaly much better than I expected. The only time I 'really' noticed anything was on REALLY REALLY bright scenes (first episode of 24: Season 3) I would see it get fuzzy but standard stuff I noticed it only a tiny bit. But then letting the DVD player do its thing w/ the components it was a BIG leap.

Just out of curiosity, before I purchase the 50A... does anyone have any info on the 65A? Is it officially released yet? I inquired at VA and they claim they have no plans to carry the 65A. The very FEW retailers I found show it OOS and want your 1st born plus shipping and handling. Guess that makes the 50A that much of a sweeter deal. I'm tempted to pull the trigger right now, but I do have a HUGE LR and it would be nice to have the 65A. Hmm...

Purchased the TV after unloaded turned me onto this thread in the HardOCP forums. Received it yesterday, and I have to say I'm loving it. First thing I did is hook up my htpc, and while the desktop and browsing look good at 1280x720 with a little bit of overscran, I'm having the same probs that unloaded did gaming. I've gotten hl2 to load in some funky res, but not having any luck with other games as of yet. I am running a radeon 9600xt, and will be upgrading to a 6600gt, so hopefully this will fix that issue. In terms of movie playback, I've gotten the best picture out of my htpc running the asus branded windvd that came with my motherboard. It absolutely kills the signal I get running s-vid out of my sony htib that I have in my den. I was planning on buying an upscaling dvd player, but now don't know if i'll have to with the pq coming out of the htpc.

Glad you took the plunge. How do you have HTPC connected to the set? I tried all options with the ATI card and couldn't get the games right. I thought the set's EDID wasn't giving enough info to the drivers about all resolutions it is capable of. I now think it's a problem with ATI drivers not recognizing the info. Since switching to the 6600GT I haven't had any troubles. I use the DVI connection, because text is perfectly crisp through it. Also I have the Overscan Compensation in the drivers set to 1%, screen is full and I can see everything. Once you start gaming on it, it will ruin all other monitors for you. Do you have a thread going on Hardforums? I couldn't find one.

peace.
unloaded

I'm inputting thru dvi, and having the same problems that you're describing. I have a pci-e gt6600 sitting in my living room waiting for the mobo I ordered yesterday. I accidentally ordered an a8v and not an a8v-e from newegg, so I'm running the agp ati card I had lying around until I get the pci-e board. I don't have a thread up in the hardforum, mainly due to the fact that I haven't put my final setup together, and don't want to start asking questions until I have the components that I'm actually going to be using. Right now I'm running the tv on the floor with the htpc next to it with the case off. it's not a pretty picture. except for the TV. That's a pretty picture.

Just out of curiosity, before I purchase the 50A... does anyone have any info on the 65A? Is it officially released yet? I inquired at VA and they claim they have no plans to carry the 65A. The very FEW retailers I found show it OOS and want your 1st born plus shipping and handling. Guess that makes the 50A that much of a sweeter deal. I'm tempted to pull the trigger right now, but I do have a HUGE LR and it would be nice to have the 65A. Hmm...
I thought I read somewhere else a rumor that VA was going to offer the 65A, but don't rely on it. Right now the 65A is not cost effective and any mention of a better deal is hearsay. I would have liked to get the 65A, but I couldn't wait for it to be affordable. I also still watch some low quality stuff, and I was concerned about it being blown up from 50" to 65".

Received my 50a in yesterday. Two guys delivered so they carried in into the house for me. Box was in perfect condition.

Love the TV. I have DirecTV DVR with S-video as the highest video source, DVD has component so I need to pick up those cables but it looks very good on composite.

How do I get the PIP/POP to work so that I see two different video sources? Now if I do PIP I just see the same channel. I have two feeds coming into the DVR and it is connected through AV1 S-Video. How should I hook it up so that I see two channels coming from satellite? What about one satellite and DVD? DVD is currently coming through AV2.

Also, I bought the Optoma stand and love how it looks with the TV. Since it was made specifically for this TV, and all blends together and looks like one piece.

How do I get the PIP/POP to work so that I see two different video sources? Now if I do PIP I just see the same channel. I have two feeds coming into the DVR and it is connected through AV1 S-Video. How should I hook it up so that I see two channels coming from satellite? What about one satellite and DVD? DVD is currently coming through AV2.
To do POP or PIP through the tv you need to use signals from two different inputs, i.e. AV1 and AV2, AV1 and HD1, Ant1 and AV1, etc. It sounds like your D* DVR is like my Dish DVR since they both have S-vid as the best output. I had to use composite cables to hook up the 2nd tuner in the Dish DVR to the AV2 input with the main S-vid going to the AV1 input, then I could do POP or PIP with my tv programming signal.

I also have cable right now (in the process of switching over) and the cable box has its own PIP funtionality separate from the tv. To use the greater PIP/POP functions of the tv I would again have to have 2 separate lines to the tv from the 2 separate tuners of the cable box, or I can put in a splitter on the coax coming into the cable box and just run coax to the ANT1 (or 2) input for analog channels only. Since you have sat, you can't do this because there is no analog signal. You either need a dual tuner sat. box or 2 different sat. boxes.

I guess I have the two tuner DVR as I can record two shows at once. Once I move DVD to component then it sounds like I can use composite to AV2 and I will be set. I think with the DVR, the last channel you viewed is on the second tuner. How do I tell the TV which source to use with PIP?

Sorry, I am a little out of my comfort zone so I appreciate the help.

I guess I have the two tuner DVR as I can record two shows at once. Once I move DVD to component then it sounds like I can use composite to AV2 and I will be set. I think with the DVR, the last channel you viewed is on the second tuner. How do I tell the TV which source to use with PIP?

Sorry, I am a little out of my comfort zone so I appreciate the help.
At this point I will have to tell you to look at the manual, but I think the hard part is wiring up things correctly and you seem to be on the right track.

Has anybody here bought the Optoma from Costco?

Also, is it the RD50A version or the old version?

Has anybody here bought the Optoma from Costco?

Also, is it the RD50A version or the old version?
Costco has/had the oldest version, the RD50 and RD65. Try a search in the main forum for rear projection tv's. There will be plenty of posts.

Ok, I got my RD50A yesterday and the HD material is REALLY good on this display. I am very pleased with the purchase. My only hang-up is getting the DVD's looking good at this point but I just started playing with the display settings.

I was wondering what settings you guys are using for DVD's. I seem to get the best picture quality with the sharpness nearly turned to 0. Is this what others are using? I wonder if it is just my cheap Phillips 642 player.

I am also curious what all your other standard settings are for DVD.

Thanks.

I have a SONY dvd player (using component) and I have the sharpness set near zero and the brightness turned down a tiny bit. Its just a lil different then running CINEMA mode. It looks just fine.

It even looked fine when I ran throguh composite cables.

I dont have any pics of DVD's but I'll snap one or 2 off tonight.

Here's just a normal HD content picture:
http://www.lockdownhosting.com/images/sunset.jpg

Thanks to this thread I finally chose a new HDTV out of the many I had under consideration. I was initially curious to see this TV from a manufacturer that I previously was not familiar. Fortunately I live in the Bay Area and the company headqurters are located in Silicon Valley. I was unable to find a local dealer but after calling the company I made a visit to their office and had a personal 1hr. introduction to this set. To make a long story short I was impressed with the company and the set and was able to purchase and pick up my set directly from the company at the same price offered by VA.
I have my set hooked up to HDcable using component cables and a Denon 2900 DVD also thru component. I really like the picture quality even with the out of the box settings. I have read a ton of material on ISF calibration and have set up an appointment with Robert Busch of Busch Home Theater to have my set calibrated early next month. This guy is recognized as one of the best in the industry. I can't wait to "optimize" my Optoma. I figure the cost of calibration ($500) is offset by the low price ("deal of the century" according to the Optoma guy). The total cost even with cable upgrades is still below my initial budget.
Thanks again to all of you for creating this thread and introducing me to this great TV. Hope you're all enjoying your sets.

Thanks to this thread I finally chose a new HDTV out of the many I had under consideration. I was initially curious to see this TV from a manufacturer that I previously was not familiar. Fortunately I live in the Bay Area and the company headqurters are located in Silicon Valley. I was unable to find a local dealer but after calling the company I made a visit to their office and had a personal 1hr. introduction to this set. To make a long story short I was impressed with the company and the set and was able to purchase and pick up my set directly from the company at the same price offered by VA.
I have my set hooked up to HDcable using component cables and a Denon 2900 DVD also thru component. I really like the picture quality even with the out of the box settings. I have read a ton of material on ISF calibration and have set up an appointment with Robert Busch of Busch Home Theater to have my set calibrated early next month. This guy is recognized as one of the best in the industry. I can't wait to "optimize" my Optoma. I figure the cost of calibration ($500) is offset by the low price ("deal of the century" according to the Optoma guy). The total cost even with cable upgrades is still below my initial budget.
Thanks again to all of you for creating this thread and introducing me to this great TV. Hope you're all enjoying your sets.
Of course, as a thank you to all of us, you will share your callibration settings, right? ;)

I kind of wonder how much a callibrator has to offer until the sets become more popular and the callibrators get more experienced with them.

Especially since my OOB settings are phenominal compared to other out of box settings I've seen on friends projections.

If you could get the settings for your calibration when its done it'd be quite helpful.

Get a list of what people find are the best options.

Of course, as a thank you to all of us, you will share your callibration settings, right? ;)

I kind of wonder how much a callibrator has to offer until the sets become more popular and the callibrators get more experienced with them.

Ditto.

I wonder how much can be improved on this TV for 500 bucks. Still, I'd be happy to try out those numbers for free. :)

During my visit to Optoma I viewed two units side by side. The plasma PD50 & the SV50XF. I was impressed by both pictures and saw no significant drop off in picture quality between the DLP & Plasma. That can't be said for the other DLP vs. Plasma comparisons that I've made during my search for a new HDTV. PLasma always won by a long shot. I thought the picture on the SV50XF was brilliant. I was told that the only difference besides cosmetics between the SV50XF and the RD50A was precalibration for the SV50XF. Calibration for the RD50A was highly recommended.
I am aware of products such as Video Essential and Avia and believe they are a step in the right direction. In my research of ISF calibration I understand that the critical adjustment made is to the units grayscale. Grayscale adjustments can only be made thru the units service menu, not the onscreen picture menu. Color temperature of 6500 Kelvins across the entire grayscale is what the technician is trying to achieve thru the use of specialized equipment such as a color analyzer. In my limited experience with electronics (2yrs of avionics study) I wouldn't dream of calibrating instruments without the use of proper test equipment. My own conclusion is that a true ISF calibration will achieve a level of accuracy that is far superior to my own adjustments. Although I am a experienced mechanic and have no hesitations in doing things myself, I also value a skilled technician who possesses equipment and expertise that I do not. In addition the unit will be calibrated to my own systems components. An advantage over purchasing a precalibrated model.
In the end my final decision to calibrate was based on the final costs still being within my inital budget for a big screen HDTV upgrade. The great deal found on the RD50A made this possible. Although I am not eager to spend another $500, I am excited by the possibility of having my unit perform at its highest possible level. Again I thank you all for the information you share (can anyone make the grayscale adjustment? what is the gamma adjustment?) and anticipate your thoughts and reponses. I'll be more than happy to share my final numbers but given that my reference point (calibrated grayscale) will be different , I don't know how much help it will be. My appointment is for next Tues.

JKE,

Right on. You make a good point about the individual system. My STB seems to have it's own color output that I believe is slightly off, at times vs. DVD and direct cable to the TV. I'd still like to hear your #s, though.

I'm uncertain, where you asking if anyone can do grayscale? If so, the answer is yes. I plan to try out your #s, but I will certainly log the originals so I can return home if I don't like what I do.

FYI -

Maybe others figured this out, but I just found out that Netflix has both the Avia and DVE callibration disks for rent.

FYI -

Maybe others figured this out, but I just found out that Netflix has both the Avia and DVE callibration disks for rent.

Thanks. Just added Avia to my Blockbuster queue. Didn't see the DVE.

Whoop. Found it. Didn't think to use the words vs. acronym "DVE."

Whoop. Found it. Didn't think to use the words vs. acronym "DVE."
Also, here is a link I found for a manual from DVE to explain their notoriously un-friendly dvd:

http://www.videoessentials.com/Manuals.php

Anyone using HDMI?

I just finally got around to ordering my HDMI-DVID cable for the TV to free up one of my HD component ports for my XBOX and just wondering if its got any noticeable improvement over my components.

I dont care if it does... cause the main reason I'm switching is to free up that HD port, but it'd be nice to know what to expect.

I rented DVE from Netflix, but it doesn't come with the color filters. Without them you are very limited to what you can do. I wound up buying it on ebay for less than $20. My DVD's look much better after using it. I never did get the Green dialed in just right but thats an issue with my dvd player.

peace.
unloaded

I rented DVE from Netflix, but it doesn't come with the color filters. Without them you are very limited to what you can do. I wound up buying it on ebay for less than $20. My DVD's look much better after using it. I never did get the Green dialed in just right but thats an issue with my dvd player.

peace.
unloaded
Did you just do the User1, User2, User3 settings or did you go in and change the main tv settings?

Did you just do the User1, User2, User3 settings or did you go in and change the main tv settings?

I just changed User1 settings. My dvd player is a Zenith 318, upconverting over component. The TV is expecting HD colorspace and its getting NTSC color. A known issue with the player which throws of the greens. I'm thinking of trying out one of the Samsung players which can be hacked with the remote to upconvert over component. Might not even bother though as I'm happy with the results I'm getting now. When I'm in "tweak mode" it's hard for me to just sit back and enjoy anything, I'm watching pixels instead of shows. Since I'm content now, I probably won't bother with another player for a while.

peace.
unloaded

Yeah I haven't tweaked the colors themselves yet, but I have tweaked the other settings to get it to what I consider 'theatre appearance' and I'm quite happy.

I hope to get it calibrated, or at least get some calibration settings to compare to in the service mode' and take a look at it.

Watching 'actual' digital channels and HD specific channels are a HUGE difference from watching analog.

If your current recorder is digital (just not hidef) use a splitter to run one cable signal to your digital recorder, and 1 to your tv's ANALOG input and watch channels 1-99 (analog channels on most companies) through your TV's direct tuner, and then your actual digital channels through the box.

This is what I do and it gives the analog channels much better quality straight from the wall and not converted into digital and then sent to my TV.

**Update: Got my HDMI-DVID cable today. Hooked it up and worked flawlessly. The improvement isn't 'amazing' but its still noticeable on some things and considering how impressed I was w/ the component connection I'm quite glad.

So now I have my SA 8300HD DVR hooked into the PC1 DVI-D port and my DVD player going to HD1 (progressive on) and I'm quite happy.

I just found out that this weekend 'UFC 51: SUPER SATURDAY' is on INHD2 and being a fan of a good pounding I'm excited to get to watch it in HD w/ the new setup.

Now Im just waiting til next month when I can replace my speakers w/ a bit higher quality ones.

So I tried last night to change my cable box settings from the default 1080i for HD to 720p. Interestingly enough, most of the HD channels would not show a picture in this setting.

Also another poster mentioned that the tv does a "freakout" when switching HD channels. This is a direct result of some channels being broadcast in 720p and some in 1080i. I don't think there is a way around it until all programming is done in one format or the other. Here is a good thread aobut it that is continually updated:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=419472

HD Formats:
720p - ABC HD, ESPN HD, FOX HD
1080i - Everything else

Therefore, if you switch between ABC HD, ESPN HD and Fox HD, there will be no "freakout". But if you switch between ESPN HD and Discovery HD Theater the tv will have to convert its settings to receive a 1080i signal when before it had different settings to receive a 720p signal.

Hi,

I hope you don't mind if I post in this forum.
I just received my Optoma SV65XF today.
I am curently hooked up thru cable and the picture is not that great.....kind of blocky looking...
I am in the process of buying the new 9200 Dual Tuner High Definition Personal Video Recorder from Bell Express Vu Satalite but it won't be out for another 2 to 3 weeks.
I will subscribe to the HDTV channels.
I am told the difference between cable and digital HDTV Satalite will make a world of difference.
I will let you know how the satalite system looks.
When the movers delivered the tv I had them set in on a wood platform that I built for an old rear projection tv that I sold 4 years ago and .........it made me very dizzey to view at that height. (approx. 16" off the ground) from approx. 12' away.
I asked a couple of friends of mine to help me move it back to ground level and it has made the world of difference. (as far as dizziness goes)

Thanx

Allan
Depending on your cable company, you may be better off staying with cable. You should look through the various local HD programing threads for your area here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=453241

Also, you need to be more specific about the devices you have and how they are hooked up. More than likely you have a setting that needs to be changed. For SD you should find out which channels are digital and which ones are analog. I am in the LA area and channels 32-99 are digitally simulcast, so I don't have a problem with analog channels because the only channels I watch in the 1-31 range all have HD versions that I watch. SD programming upconverted to HD (i.e. ABC does not always broadcast true HD programming 24/7 on ABC HD) on cable has better PQ than SD digital channels on both cable and satellite. Digital cable channels and digital sat. channels have very similar PQ. I know because I am doing a slow switch from Dish to Comcast cable and currently have both.

Also, you may need an amplifier for your cable signal. You should call your cable co. to send someone out. Hey, its free (unlike sat.). At this point in time I would not recommend DirecTV. They have serious issues right now and you can read all about it here (among other threads):

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=547670

If you have money to burn, then get Dish and get the 942 DVR and the Voom channels. However you will also need a OTA antenna to get locals in HD (ABC, NBC, etc.). So if you don't mind equipment and installation fees and multiple dishes along with an antenna that could range from 1' wide to 9' wide, then this is the right setup.

Personally, cable was a better option for me because I have a good cable co. and cable doesn't have equipment or install fees or convoluted setups.

OT:

If you guys are thinking about home theater seating you should check out this powerbuy:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=554333

There used to be alot of great threads on the subject of Coaster HT seating, but they got deleted because people would bring up pricing and then start spamming.

I am getting 1 row of 3 recliners and I don't even have a dedicated home theater room, they are going straight into my living room.

Ok, now back to your originally scheduled thread.

During my visit to Optoma I viewed two units side by side. The plasma PD50 & the SV50XF. I was impressed by both pictures and saw no significant drop off in picture quality between the DLP & Plasma. That can't be said for the other DLP vs. Plasma comparisons that I've made during my search for a new HDTV. PLasma always won by a long shot. I thought the picture on the SV50XF was brilliant. I was told that the only difference besides cosmetics between the SV50XF and the RD50A was precalibration for the SV50XF. Calibration for the RD50A was highly recommended.
I am aware of products such as Video Essential and Avia and believe they are a step in the right direction. In my research of ISF calibration I understand that the critical adjustment made is to the units grayscale. Grayscale adjustments can only be made thru the units service menu, not the onscreen picture menu. Color temperature of 6500 Kelvins across the entire grayscale is what the technician is trying to achieve thru the use of specialized equipment such as a color analyzer. In my limited experience with electronics (2yrs of avionics study) I wouldn't dream of calibrating instruments without the use of proper test equipment. My own conclusion is that a true ISF calibration will achieve a level of accuracy that is far superior to my own adjustments. Although I am a experienced mechanic and have no hesitations in doing things myself, I also value a skilled technician who possesses equipment and expertise that I do not. In addition the unit will be calibrated to my own systems components. An advantage over purchasing a precalibrated model.
In the end my final decision to calibrate was based on the final costs still being within my inital budget for a big screen HDTV upgrade. The great deal found on the RD50A made this possible. Although I am not eager to spend another $500, I am excited by the possibility of having my unit perform at its highest possible level. Again I thank you all for the information you share (can anyone make the grayscale adjustment? what is the gamma adjustment?) and anticipate your thoughts and reponses. I'll be more than happy to share my final numbers but given that my reference point (calibrated grayscale) will be different , I don't know how much help it will be. My appointment is for next Tues.

So what's the verdict, man? :D
We're dying to hear whether the Optoma gets significantly better with $500 worth of calibration ...

Sorry guys, my conscience has got the better of me and won't allow me to give away numbers that could potentially take bread off of guys tables.
Just finished watching House of Flying Daggers and a ballgame. OOTB I thought WOW! After calibration I'm thinking WHOA! Contrast, depth, detail, skin tone & color accuracy is amazing. I liked the pq OOTB but man there's no going back. The only problem is the screen is now too small because the picture iis genuinely theater quality. Its expensive but I am going to have alot of fun watching movies on this thing. Two words- GET CALIBRATED

Oh, for crying out loud, Lars. Make sure you don't ever download an MP3 or burn a CD, either. You're taking bread off tables. :rolleyes:

I can't even GET calibrated where I live at the moment. However, I'm interested in a detailed description of the improvements that were made. "Wow" vs. "woah" does not convince me that calibration will make a hell of a lot of difference on this Optoma for most buyers. As for "theater quality"? My Optoma already blows away the local theater.

If I ever decide to - and manage to - get calibrated, I'll gladly share numbers. They're not going to be the same from TV to TV, anyway -- but they'd still be fun to use as a starting point of what sort of effect calibration has.

Nothing personal, but are you sure you don't want to share your numbers because you don't think other Optoma owners will be all that blown away? :D

optoma .. is this good TV for price?

General Concensus... yes.

I love my RD50A. I just got finished watching season 3 of 24.

I am seriously considering buying an RD50A, but one thing I would be using it a lot for is videogames (Xbox, PS2, Gamecube). Has anyone found a way to run PS2 games in progressive scan (those that support it, such as Tekken 5) on this TV? I think it was in another thread, but I read that some people were having trouble with this.

They said that the PS2 runs in 480i mode unless the game itself runs in higher.

Which means w/ component you cant run it on the standard HD ports cause it'd be running in 480P and the SD component port is just that... SD. You'll probably have to hook up the pS2 hidef pack and leave the cable available to hook in for hidef games. Unfortunately its going to be the same really for any TV setup w/ the PS2 cause of how it was designed... but the PS3/360 are just around the corner w/ perma HIDEF support

I have my PS2 hooked into standard composite hookups (games i play dont need the hidef), then my XBOX hooked into HD1 (component), my DVD player in HD2 and my SA 8300HD in the PC1/HDMI port.

I was hoping to see one of these in person before buying one online, but neither my local Fry's nor Costco has it in stock. That's a bummer.

What state are you in? Maybe someone can help ya out?

Otherwise here's 2 pics of mine. One is just the 'shape' and the other is image quality.

http://www.lockdownhosting.com/images/tv.jpg
http://www.lockdownhosting.com/images/sunset.jpg

I can probably snap a few off running a PS2 game (GTA: SA) and something off the XBOX. Right now my XBOX is back on Composite (dog ate a cable...lol. my fault it was hanging out the back) but it stlil looks nice.

D.

I'm in southern California (Long Beach). I talked to someone at Costco today who said they haven't carried the Optoma since December, and that not a single store in the region has them anymore.

It's still a very tempting buy, but that's a ton of money to drop on something I've never actually seen in person. Do any other brick and mortar stores carry these?

I wouldn't use COSTCO as a comparison anyhow because they were shipped the RD50 model, not the RD50A (well I take that back... some were, but from what I've heard a very small percentage).

I honestly dont know of any 'brick and mortar' stores. A friend of mine runs a 'AV' business and he had one for a customer and thats where I saw mine. I based it off that.

The TV is phenominal... the only 'drawback' is the larger 'base' but just get a nice low entertainment center, or the OPTOMA stand and its great. I have mine currently on a pretty tall IKEA stand (until after my wedding reception is paid for) and even though I'm sitting head level w/ the speakers right now (had it for a while down on a basic stand but i hated the stand so i put it back on this) its still phenominal and you can be anywhere in the room and get bright/crisp pictuers.

I can snap off more than those 2 if needed maybe Sunday when I have a day off work.

I think I'm getting this. I just need to pick out an entertainment center and a surge protector, and figure out if VA's extended warranty is worthwhile, and I think I'll be good to go.

Try to pick out an entertainment center around 20" or less. That way you'll be sitting mid-level w/ the center of the TV and you'll get the best result.

I'm pretty sure on OPTOMA's website they have the RD50/65 manual which gives you the exact dimensions of everything.

I wouldn't use COSTCO as a comparison anyhow because they were shipped the RD50 model, not the RD50A (well I take that back... some were, but from what I've heard a very small percentage).

I honestly dont know of any 'brick and mortar' stores. A friend of mine runs a 'AV' business and he had one for a customer and thats where I saw mine. I based it off that.

The TV is phenominal... the only 'drawback' is the larger 'base' but just get a nice low entertainment center, or the OPTOMA stand and its great. I have mine currently on a pretty tall IKEA stand (until after my wedding reception is paid for) and even though I'm sitting head level w/ the speakers right now (had it for a while down on a basic stand but i hated the stand so i put it back on this) its still phenominal and you can be anywhere in the room and get bright/crisp pictuers.

I can snap off more than those 2 if needed maybe Sunday when I have a day off work.
Dude, buy the $99 Ikea Oppli stand. It's 15 inches high. It is absolutely perfect for this TV, plus my fiancee thinks the stand looks really nice because it's wood instead of metal.

Idaho,
Do you have any pics of yours? The only one I saw on their site was their light colored wood one and a silver one.

I'm looking for either Silverish, or black.

The only requirements I have for the stand is that its got closed sides (dont want open sides cause the dog will wire gnaw) and it needs to be either silver, or black to match the living room stuff (the silver is just neutral, and we have a bunch of black furniture and window drapes... no we're not evil we just have a black/red oriental theme going on).

And the wood one on the site is smaller than the silver one.
Wood width: 23 5/8 "
Silver width: 35 3/8 "

Also, they're only $50 on the site rather than $99. Maybe they have more varieties of this in store?

I have an IKEA across the street (literally 3 blocks away) here in AZ. I'm going w/ the wife tomorrow to check out their 'AS IS' sale anyhow (up to 75% off AS IS stuff til the 15th) so I'll run through the place again.

Well... I ended up going to IKEA today and we purchased an open box coffee table (at least thats what it was originally designed for) instead of an actual entertainment center.

The thing is the perfect height for our couch (its a very low couch, and the stand is about 8" tall so it puts us just about middle sitting down).

I haven't moved the TV to it yet but I've measured it and it seems to be what I wanted. Im going to replace it w/ another one in the near future and move all my components to an A/V rack but this will do for now.

We got the thing for like 80 bucks (it was on sale) so I'm quite happy.

I'll get pics of it later on, or tomorrow.

I think I'm getting this. I just need to pick out an entertainment center and a surge protector, and figure out if VA's extended warranty is worthwhile, and I think I'll be good to go.
Here's my 2 cents:

Get a whole house surge protector that is installed at the service entry. I got one from Amazon for about $75 and I still need to hire a local electrician to install it. After doing that a $20 surge strip from Costco will work just fine.

Before doing the extended warranty, make your purchase with the AMEX card that doubles the warranty. That would go from 1 year on the tv to 2 years, and from 6 mos. on the lamp to 1 year. Also, there are plenty of extended warranties out there that allow you to buy later, just as long as the original warranty is still in effect (1 year).

For a tv stand I got a black one from Best buy with a swivel top that works great.

And finally, I live in Santa Clarita. If you are nice to me I will let you come to my house and see the RD50A in action. Otherwise, I think your only option is to look for a custom installer who has a showroom where they might have the SV50XF on display.

Here we go. I took a pic after I reconfigured everything.

The stand is just a normal 'mini' coffee table from IKEA. I cant remember the name offhand cause it was -as is- so the tag is underneath but I'll get it again.

Its perfect because my couch is about 4" lower than most so I sit PERFECTLY. Plus I actually like the stuff underneath like that. Its very 'low profile' and goes well w/ the oriental theme our living room has.

http://www.lockdownhosting.com/images/newtv.jpg

Thanks for the advice, USCsuperfan. I'm pretty much sold on this TV at this point. I don't have an Amex card at the moment, but it definitely sounds worthwhile to get one before I buy this.

Thanks for the advice, USCsuperfan. I'm pretty much sold on this TV at this point. I don't have an Amex card at the moment, but it definitely sounds worthwhile to get one before I buy this.
You're welcome.

Here we go. I took a pic after I reconfigured everything.

The stand is just a normal 'mini' coffee table from IKEA. I cant remember the name offhand cause it was -as is- so the tag is underneath but I'll get it again.

Its perfect because my couch is about 4" lower than most so I sit PERFECTLY. Plus I actually like the stuff underneath like that. Its very 'low profile' and goes well w/ the oriental theme our living room has.

That looks like a nice setup, digitard. I'll probably end up getting the Best Buy stand several people in this thread have mentioned unless I find something better in the near future.

Yeah,
I dug the 'look' of the Best Buy stuff but it doesn't fit my room feel. My main problem was finding a stand that didn't 'take over the room' so to speak. This was a nice alternative and its simple look really compliments everything.

In a week I have a friend painting me this awsome 5'x5' painting thats going behind the TV to fix that area up. Plus I'm replacing the speakers w/ some new ones for a full 6.1 surround system.

Here's my 2 cents:

Get a whole house surge protector that is installed at the service entry. I got one from Amazon for about $75 and I still need to hire a local electrician to install it. After doing that a $20 surge strip from Costco will work just fine.

Before doing the extended warranty, make your purchase with the AMEX card that doubles the warranty. That would go from 1 year on the tv to 2 years, and from 6 mos. on the lamp to 1 year. Also, there are plenty of extended warranties out there that allow you to buy later, just as long as the original warranty is still in effect (1 year).

For a tv stand I got a black one from Best buy with a swivel top that works great.

And finally, I live in Santa Clarita. If you are nice to me I will let you come to my house and see the RD50A in action. Otherwise, I think your only option is to look for a custom installer who has a showroom where they might have the SV50XF on display.

Actually, I would consider getting an uninterrupted power supply (UPS), which has surge protection plus more. I got one for about $50. It's basically like a big battery. That way, if your power goes out, your TV won't suddenly go blank (which is horrible for your bulb) and your TiVo (if you have one) never misses a beat.

I'm thinking about picking up one of these HD50A's, and the only reason I haven't yet is that the wife hasn't picked out an armoire for the family room yet. The TV is gonna have to go inside the armoire, according to her. I get the home theater room, she gets the family room, but at least I get to pick the set that goes in the family room (inside her armoire).

Anyway, my question is in regards to whether my appreciation of the set will "suffer" from having the set sit up too high. I can't imagine the wife coming up with an armoire that will have the TV sitting any lower than 24" off the floor, and quite possibly much higher. The number of armoires wide enough to accomodate a 50" widescreen (and remain within our budget) are small, so this could all be moot, and I may end up with a Samsung 43" or smaller. But, if she finds a monster armoire that will swallow the HD50A, is it going to be a problem if it's perched on a 30"-high shelf in the armoire, with the screen obviously being above the speaker? TIA.

Actually, I would consider getting an uninterrupted power supply (UPS), which has surge protection plus more. I got one for about $50. It's basically like a big battery. That way, if your power goes out, your TV won't suddenly go blank (which is horrible for your bulb) and your TiVo (if you have one) never misses a beat.
You still should have whole house protection and not rely on a point of use surge protector too much. You can still use the UPS for battery backup. You should also think about all the appliances, etc. in your house which do not have surge protection (like your microwave, washer, dryer, etc.) which would be fried in a lightening storm, etc.

I'm thinking about picking up one of these HD50A's, and the only reason I haven't yet is that the wife hasn't picked out an armoire for the family room yet. The TV is gonna have to go inside the armoire, according to her. I get the home theater room, she gets the family room, but at least I get to pick the set that goes in the family room (inside her armoire).

Anyway, my question is in regards to whether my appreciation of the set will "suffer" from having the set sit up too high. I can't imagine the wife coming up with an armoire that will have the TV sitting any lower than 24" off the floor, and quite possibly much higher. The number of armoires wide enough to accomodate a 50" widescreen (and remain within our budget) are small, so this could all be moot, and I may end up with a Samsung 43" or smaller. But, if she finds a monster armoire that will swallow the HD50A, is it going to be a problem if it's perched on a 30"-high shelf in the armoire, with the screen obviously being above the speaker? TIA.
There is a limitation in the vertical viewing angle. Sketcha posted earlier in this thread about his setup, which is very high, but I don't think an armoire is very feasible. I also have not seen many that can fit a 50" tv (in both height and width).

Update: I've been approved for an Amex card, and I'm just waiting for it to show up in the mail. The extra warranty time should be worth the wait.

One other thing - has anyone tested this TV for lag with video games? Particularly 480i Playstation 2 games, since they seem to be the worst offenders on some DLPs.

I have no problems.... I have been playing a LOT of FINAL FANTASY X on my RD50A. If you're familiar with the game the main character has a 'break' move where you have to hit the X key at a certani time to make it land between the 2 points and its quite hard if you had lag. I have no problems.

I use both my XBOX and PS2 (as you can see in my pic on the previous page) and they're both just fine so far. I mean it may have a split second type thing but nothing I can notice so far.

There is a limitation in the vertical viewing angle. Sketcha posted earlier in this thread about his setup, which is very high, but I don't think an armoire is very feasible. I also have not seen many that can fit a 50" tv (in both height and width).
Thanks, USC. And congrats to the Trojans, by the way...they've become what Miami was a couple of years ago :(

Sounds like it might be better to go with a little smaller set that isn't self-perched on top of a big speaker. That sucks, but it'll probably be cheaper, so that's the silver lining, I guess.

That could be an issue. My Optoma was sitting at about 24 inches for a while, but I got the Ikea stand that lowered it to 15 inches. It's definitely better at 15. However, pretty much any big-screen TV is going to look kind of high at 30, I would think.

You won't have any trouble with the picture -- it's quite forgiving at vertical angles -- but you'll be looking upward a bit, sort of like at a movie theater. A matter of taste, I suppose.

My original stand was about 24". It was made for my tiny TV. While I had to look up (my head sat level w/ the speakers) I didn't really notice any difference in picture quality. Maybe like 5% drop in visability.

I happily watch it from the kitchen/dining room when Im cleaning things up or cooking (haha yeah i can cook). No problems there.

I have sicne dropped it to UNDER 10" stand. Because of the height of my couch, and the base size of the OPTOMA it sits SO PERFECT. Its great.

But yeah... I can defintialy see a problem with the type of setup your wife is wanting for size/money constraints. Luckily my wife just wanted a 'simple eastern' theme so the bench setup we use is perfect.

Thanks again for your inputs, guys. I guess I can see if there's some weird armoire that would sit the TV really low (18-20", maybe?) and is wide enough for this model. I have to imagine that anyone designing an armoire with a TV cavity wide enough and tall enough for such a big screen would also think to drop the interior shelf as low as possible, but then again, I don't know any furniture designers.

Thanks, USC. And congrats to the Trojans, by the way...they've become what Miami was a couple of years ago :(
You just remember who came first. Back when Miami's program was just getting started your new coach said he wanted Miami to be the USC of the East. :)

I would love to see USC and Miami in Pasadena.

You just remember who came first. Back when Miami's program was just getting started your new coach said he wanted Miami to be the USC of the East. :)

I would love to see USC and Miami in Pasadena.

Too bad Miami can't beat the Hokies! VT has won 7 of the last 10 against Miami and gets them at home this year, plus they got Vick. I would love to see a repeat of that BCA bowl last year in Pasadena though. Without the awful offensive pass interference call that would have been a WHOLE different game. Reggie Bush was scary good though!