Any experience with TCL? People seem to *like* the LE55FHDF3300ZTA 55-Inch 1080p 240Hz - Page 3

Easy;
1. No name (unheard of brand),
2. Price,
3. If there isn't any "enthusiast" input, that kinda answers the question.

But, bottom line; when it dies, how about service & warranty coverage?? Read the one star reviews regarding contacting the company. Do you want to take that chance?
If you remember, one of the 1st large screen flat panels TV's (Pio 50" 720p Plasma) sold for $9,000 10 years ago. People don't realize just how cheap even the high end panels are now.

I got a chinese version of this one called L55F3310, and here is the method to show the factory settings menu: use remote to move the cursor to "Contrast" ,then press "9","7","3","5", then press"OK". now, u can adjust the white balance and so on. Hope this help

One quick question:

What is the BIG deal about 120 Hz or higher TVs? My purpose is mostly gaming, and I just watch movies on a regular DVD.

Why would I want anything higher than 60 Hz?

Is this how to get into the service menu? I just picked one of these up from TD over the weekend and would love to know how to get into the service menu.

Anyway, came here hoping to find some info on this TV and found this thread. Here are my thoughts on it -- First, i'm hardly a videophile and am not even close to being as knowledgeable as most people on here but I am a gadget enthusiast and have gone through my share of HDTVs starting with a massive Pioneer 65" RPTV, then a 50" Panny DLP, then a Toshiba 44" DLP and finally this TCL 55" LED.

For the price I paid it's a good TV with adequate picture quality. However, regular HD television programming doesn't seem to pop out as much as it did on my 44" Toshiba DLP which was 720P. Basically it seemed a little softer. That said, when I played a blu ray (Avater) on it in full 1080P, the picture was excellent, so I think the slightly lower picture quality I noticed with regular TV was likely due to the source and the fact that it was 720P being upscaled to 1080p on a much larger screen. A true 1080P source looked fantastic.

I also noticed a bit of the clouding effect that's been mentioned, but it was only once on a solid dark screen and is not something that would be a problem during normal viewing, at least not for me. Another thing I noticed was some pixelization or artifacting during a couple of very fast motion scenes during a movie I was streaming from Netflix. The scene was one of those that looks like it's shot with a handheld camera which is very jittery and jumpy and during shots where there was a lot of heavy foliage in the scene with a lot of dark green coloring, there was some noticeable pixelization. But, during fast motion scenes in Avatar in blu ray, I did not notice any of that so again I'm tempted to blame the source material which was Netflix.

Overall, I'd say it's an excellent LED set for a sub $700 price. I can't believe how relatively inexpensive these things have gotten. I paid almost 3K for my old Pioneer 65" and about $1500 for my Toshiba 44" DLP.

BTW, someone earlier asked about the difference between the ZTA, Z, and ZTT models. I had actually called TCL yesterday about that and was told that the only difference is the color on the lower bezel. According to them, the ZTA is all black, the Z has some gray, and the ZTT has some red in it. Functionally and mechanically they are identical.

Now a couple of questions -- regarding the sharpness control, from way back I was under the impression that it should generally be set at 0 on HDTVs because any higher can introduce artificial jagged edges but I noticed someone earlier mentioned the settings they found worked best for them had the sharpness turned up a little. Is it no longer the case on LED TVs that the sharpness is best left at 0?

As for the 240Hz claim, based on the pixelization I noticed in those couple of scenes I mentioned, I have a hard time believing it. I never saw anything like that on my DLP set. Does anyone know if there is any way to actually test the refresh rate?

And if the remote code mentioned above isn't the way to access the service menu, does anyone know how to get into it on these sets?

Ok, I just came home for lunch and gave that a try. Didn't work.

Any other ideas?

Sounds good. So I'm all set then? My primary purpose is gaming. And I'm sure the TV will comply with next generation Xbox hardware just fine!

bump....

so, any ideas on how to get into the service menu on this thing? I tried calling TCL tech support but they refused to give me the info.

Just purchased the TCL 48 inch LED-LCD, Model LE48FHDF3300Z at Sam’s Club. Here’s my story:

My 56 inch Panasonic LIFI blew another bulb with less than 2 weeks of factory warranty left. Panasonic offered to fix it again, but we lost our local factory service center, so I would have to drive it nearly 60 miles one way for repair. Panasonic also offered me a “buy back”, so I accepted that deal.

I went to Sam’s expecting to buy their 60 inch Panasonic Plasma at $798. My wife and I are both retired and in over 40 years of marriage she rarely offered any input in electronic purchases. This time she did, as she asked me why we would buy another Panasonic TV. I had searched the internet for days prior to our Sam’s visit and did find some customer complaints with some plasma models doing what the LIFI is notorious for… will not power up, red light blinks twice in sequence over and over and over. However, we also own a 32 inch Viera LCD that has been a great TV, so I did have mixed emotions.

After she said that, I remembered one TV that caught my eye in the five or so rows of display sets. It was the 48 inch TCL LED that said “special purchase… $ 498”. I went back to find it & then realized why it caught my eye: it had the brightest display picture in the row. I was also surprised to see a VGA/SVGA D-Sub connector on the TCL. My now dead LIFI also had one, but the Panny Plasma did not. We occasionally use our laptop to watch Uverse or other internet content on the LIFI.

I then went home to do some research on who was this “TCL” and who else was selling them. With most of the reviews on both the 48 and 55 inch product on Amazon positive, I decided to take a chance. Although I did not want to downsize our main TV, we both decided this time to spend as little money as possible. By the way, the TCL also has a 2-year parts/labor warranty. Also by paying with the Discover card, we get a third year for no cost. I know, if TCL has lousy service, it wouldn’t matter if it had a 10-year warranty, but again, for the few dollars spent after the Panasonic Buy-Back, it was worth the risk.

Here are my observations after a month worth of much more than usual TV watching:

Compared to our LIFI and Viera sets, this TCL can be retina-searing in brightness & contrast. I mean that. I have never owned a TV with a picture that CAN BE as bright as this one.
Our rec room has two windows 8-10 ft to the left side of the TV that look into a small sun room so they have indirect light. We also have a 15w CFL light that we turn on evenings that is 5 feet behind us and opposite the TCL. Here are settings we decided work best in our environment:

Bright: 50; Contrast: 55; Sharp: 50; Backlight: 33; Color: 40

To be able to adjust the Backlight, the Light Sensor option must be turned off. We also turned off the “Dynamic Backlight” option and have the “Noise Reduction” set to low. Although not stating it directly in the limited information Users Guide, I’m thinking that the Noise Reduction level may reduce the refresh rate from the advertised 240hz. We did not notice any Soap Opera Effect.

We have tested our new TCL with both regular and Bluray DVDs, JPEGs/MP3s plugged into the USB port, & laptop connected to the D-Sub. Everything works flawlessly.

It was also a great month to look for motion blur on NFL playoff games. Here’s what I found:

The CBS and Fox broadcast games looked fantastic. I sat directly in front of the TCL and looked as closely as possible for any motion blur and did not see any.
The NBC game during opening playoff weekend is a completely different story. Connected to the TCL is a DirectTV HD DVR running through a Yamaha A/V amp with HDMI. On live sports I only have motion blur issues with the Myrtle Beach NBC affiliate, and that’s with all my TVs. I have no idea why, but I think it’s time to send an email asking it they know of the problem. It’s either them or DirectTV, and since I’ve never seen it on any other channel I suspect it’s the NBC affiliate.

As of this writing the only complaint I have with TCL is the rather bright orange “standby” light that can only be turned off by unplugging the TV. If it were in our bedroom, there would already be a piece of black electrical tape over the lens. I think it’s both needless & ridiculous.

In conclusion, I am thrilled with the performance of this little gem of a TV. Naturally how it continues to perform in the long run will seal the deal. With the still unpleasant Panasonic LIFI experience fresh in my mind, this TCL would have to be really bad to top it.

first week with the 48'' version 3300Z

looks good for a 499 tv with a superbowl rebate of 100 so 399 but now gone from TD

had sony wega 32 hd tv after it et the replaced chips the second time I left it on until it died
I got a sammy 39 on black friday but it got flashing lines after about 3 weeks on all inputs
so was returned to tiger
I got an upstar 24'' for a 100 after rebate now my monitor and used it a few weeks as a tv while waiting the SB deals to pop up

then got the TCL 48 a week ago
only used 1080i off the air so far
plan a BD with wifi next but still hunting for one
for a low end tv it works well with a good picture
and about the best deal on a 240-48'' rear LED

does any one know the type of panel the TCL uses
the type of processor [that maybe a clue to if it is a true 240h]

and the lag of these 55 or 48'' tv's and if it lags less on a given input then others

try "1" "9" "5" "0" or "9" "7" "0" "5" these codes are for MS28L series ( maybe it is the main board or main chips name of my TCL TV, check the pic below) good luck!

Here is the information show in my service menu:

I bought the 55 inch tcl from Amazon in January. My usage is for OTA broadcasts and Blu Ray/ DVD viewing. My experience;

HD and Blu Ray viewing, excellent
Standard Definition OTA viewing, so so to good
DVD viewing poor to good.

One problem I have with this set is that it does not have a 4:3 aspect ratio choice. The choices are full,normal,expand and cinematic
Standard definition dvds expand to the full width of the screen and there is no way to adjust.

Now the problem may be with my Sherwood bd5004 blu ray player, but both my LG 32" and Samsung 47" have the 4.3 option to overide the signal from the source..

If anyone using this tv would recommend a blu ray player that actually sends a 4.3 ratio signal for both blu ray and dvd, I would appreciate hearing from you.
Edited by golaj - 2/19/13 at 1:31am

Is that due to the aspect choices (or lack of), or something else? That's a major deal breaker.

I watch quite a bit of older tv shows broadcast in B&W. On my 32" LG, B&W looks very sharp, high contrast and has a nice bluish tint.

B&W on the TCL is very dull looking gray. I have to sit about 12 feet back for the picture to look good. Other shows look fine from around 8 feet back.

To be fair my 47" Samsung also is dull gray.



What I said about my blu ray player is true. I don't know what kind of signal it is sending out. When I hooked it up to the LG, if I select the ratio by program source I get a distorted image from a standard definition dvd,stretching the width of the screen. However the LG has a 4:3 ratio selector that shows the proper scope.

The TCL stretches the image, and both full and normal selections do not display the image correctly. This is true for all my standard dvds recorded in full screen.
Most of my full screen blu rays play as intended except for "Quo Vadis" which is also distorted. No doubt I should get another blu ray player,that's why I would like suggestions from persons on this thread with a 55" TCL. They should check to verify standard definition full screen dvds play properly.

I have hooked up a regular dvd player that sends the image in the correct image ratio.

BTW videoBruce I still have my RCA Selectavision VHS recorder. It doesn't work right and hasn't for years,but I just can't throw it away.
Edited by golaj - 2/20/13 at 12:04pm

It DOES work. Tried today,. At first it did not, but I forgot to press "OK". So I tried again in rapid sucession and it worked. Not to many settings, but you can independently change the gain for red, green and blue.

Oops..forgot to tell I was talking about the Contrast-9-7-3-5-OK to get to the service menu

Hello Sailor 08

Well I goofed! I wanted to try and re size the picture so I went to service mode and looking for a way to do it and I saw a mode called "SHOP" and the word DO so I clicked on ok and the TV turned off. I turned it back on and the picture came on UPSIDE DOWN! I am now trying to find how to turn it back to right-side up. Any Ideas??
Thanks
PS: I tried to call TCL and their 800 # is off

It shouldn't have any tint. The gray scale is off. You should be able to change the color temperature in the user menu. You are the first to comment on that. VBT100 aka Panny PV1000 (I believe) 1978. 40 lbs.

. Thats' the service menu access for TCL's??

. I doubt you would get anything from them. They only read prepared scripts for the user manual, not the service manual. Besides, if you call and tell them what happened. you void your warranty.

Try the service menu again?

It's kinda weird..I clicked on SHOP by mistake and what it did was it reset the TV and asked me if I wanted something like home or Retail.. I guess that's what SHOP means.
Anyway, try it again, I should let you go into the service menu even if it is upside down.

Let me clarify something.. the Contrast (just "select:" it, do not press it)-1-9-5-0, takes you to something like a Main Menu... contrast-9-7-3-5 takes you directly to a submenu called Factory (which you can also access from Main Menu

Hello, Did your TV shut off when you click on "SHOP" My did and I had to turn it back on, it did not go to the screen you saw until I turned it back on then it did but
upside down. maybe there is a problem with it and it only showed up when I went to the SHOP mode
Thanks for getting back to me!
Pilot

Did you try going to the service menu again? Are you sure it was SHOP mode and not NVM RESET mode?

I have the 55" model. It's really nice considering what I paid for it. The only thing I cant figure out is how to get the spdif to pass anything other than stereo. The manual seems to indicate you can pass Dolby Digital as well, and there is a setting for that, but it only passes stereo for me.

Anybody experience anything different?