The Toshiba DLP (HM/HMX) Owners Thread

This thread is for issues of interest to owners of the Toshiba DLP series.
For discussion of Configurations, Settings, Tweaks and Issues of all sorts.

My configuration: Toshiba 52HM84
HTPC (1.6GHZ P4) with MSI G4Ti4600 w/DVI out
going to a DVI to HDMI cable (from pchcables.com aprox $26)
and a MyHD HDTV tuner/recorder card with DVI daughter board

The DVI tuner output of the MyHD is awesome!!! I am getting some dropouts
which I am not too woried about as I have only tweaked with it for an evening.

I am interested in using my monitor with an HTPC. My thanks to member
remotepc who was the first to report that the 52HM84 works with the DVI
output of nvidia cards (and probably types as well).

I am using the MyHD HDtuner/recorder/DVD player card in my computer.
I have the version with the DVI daughter board. My DVI video card output
goes into the MYHD and the MyHD DVI output goes to the Toshiba. I see
my desktop with a window containing HD content or when I switch to HD
mode I see the tuner or DVD output from the MyHD full screen. The picture
quality on HD OTA reception is simply STUNNING. The quality on DVD playback
left me with tears of JOY. I am a very very very happy 52hm84 owner!!!!

I can see my desktop on the DLP but there is significant over-scan and the
mapping of pixels to mirrors dose not seem to be the ideal 1-1. I have played
with powerstrip a little and have been able to move the image a bit so I can
at least see part of the task-bar. I am interested in hearing from anyone who
has made advances in fine tuning the DVI timing parameters as well as any
other HTPC configuration info.

>>the HD Tivo only having 1 set of audio output jacks, I cannot seem to send the Audio to my
>>DVD-Recorder(The DVD recorder video is connected to the HD Tivo S-Video output).

for simple audio connections you can piggyback. Go to your local radio shack
(or whatever) and get somthing like this:

http://store.pchcables.com/2rcafeto1rca1.html

to make two audio outputs out of one (on the hd-tivo)

>> Would I be able to get better quality picture with a thicker component cable or a shorter one?

Unless the old cable is of really poor quality it will not make a visable
difference. Any reasonable quality shielded cable should work well. I
dont agree with those who have almost religious zeal for super expensive
"monster cable". It's a shielded piece of wire with fairly low bandwidth
requirements.

>>If I upgrade to a DVI dvd player, would that also result in better PQ?

A highly critical viewer on a really good DVD transfer would say YES.
If the DVD player dosent have an HDMI output you will
have to get a DVI to HDMI adapter and run seperate audio cables.

I prefer to use an HTPC for all my signal needs....but not everyone
wants to add the extra complexity.

Use as a monitor is a priority for me too...but since I have had it for only
three days and my wife loves watching the Olympics... not much time for
tweaking yet...Be advised that along with my manual came an extra sheet
saying that the monitor is not intended for use as a PC monitor...This
was a little disapointing....but I am still confident that with some tweaking
it can be made to work (much like the case with the Samsung DLP's) By
reading other threads about other people finding the right combination of
timing information to make it happen for various other displays
I feel it's just a matter of time. stay tuned.

I hooked my htpc on the first day. On my (nvidia) card the DVI output
was not active if the analog VGA was connected but this depends on the
mode the drivers expect you to use the DVI port (clone or dual monitor).
I found that at boot the Toshiba will sink to the 640x480 initial resolution
but the overscan will be significant. My first step was to boot on a standard
analog vga monitor and set it for 1280x720, power down pull out the vga
and plug in the DVI and reboot. I expect you will at least see desktop. You
will have trouble seeing the task bar (because of overscan) and the problem
with powerstrip is that once it's installed it is activated from the system tray.
You will have to avtivate it w/o seeing the cursor. The latest version of
powerstrip has a lot of preset resolutions for DLP and LCOS monitors. I
would try these first. Powerstrip also allows you to tweak the actual
timing parameters interavtively. Some of these will cause you to loose
picture. learn the powerstrip hot-key that restores the default frequencies.
By playing with the front porch/back-porch setting I was able to get most
of the taskbar displayed. Powerstrip will remember this and the next time
you boot you will start from there.

This is all I have learned from a single short session. I encourage you to go
ahead and experiment. The more of us working the sooner the solution. I will
(and encourage you) to search these forms for information on how others
have achieved 1-1 pixel mapping. You will know you are there when you
see razor sharp non-grainy characters. The (non 1to1) effect looks exactly the
same as setting your laptop resolution to a resolution different from it's
native resolution. Please share your results.