For all you poor soles still fighting with the Sony HD100, it's time to switch. Between the fan noise, and the lip synch problems, this unit caused me too much grief.
True it does auto-switch between 1080i and 480p depending upon the signal, and I was concerned about giving up this feature, however I found that this was not truly a benefit of the unit.
I switched to the Toshiba DST3000 and found the following benefits:
* The Toshiba easily receives Analog OTA channels as well as digital OTA - the setup is easy (The Sony did not receive Analog OTA)
* The fan is very silent
* The Toshiba allows you to easily import channel guides for OTA analog and digital and puts them side by side with their DirectTV counterparts on the channel guide - The setup entails the complex task of keying in your zip code!
* The Lip Synch problems completely disappeared!!!!!!!
The fact that the Toshiba always upconverts everything to 1080i, regardless of the signal source is not a problem to me. This needs some explaining as follows:
The Sony unit only needs one output (although it has several), that being the composite 3 color lumince connection directly into your digital TV/composite inputs on your HD-TV. The Sony unit would sense whether the signal was HD or SD and adjust the output accordingly - and display which format was being sent to the TV on the face of the unit. If you were receiving true 1080i, my Misu65 would automatically freeze the aspect ration on 16X9 and place black or grey bars on the sides if the image was not filling up the whole screen. Hitting the format button on the Mitsu had no effect in this mode. If you were receiving standard def, then the Mitsu would allow me to adjust the aspect ratio via the format button on the Mitsu, however the image was never really centered or even and the quality looked awful.
The Toshiba unit requires you to have multiple outputs, but not really (OK this sounds confusing). If you hook the composite connection from the Tosh to your HDTV, then you have to manually switch the unit to 1080i output (the unit comes factory configured to send signals this way). The Toshiba remote has an aspect ration button which switches between 16X9, 4X3 and stretched. Since my Mitsu does not allow you to switch aspect ratios on 1080i broadcasts, I must use the Toshiba remote to switch ratios, unless I use the alternate outputs on the Toshiba and switch the unit to 480p (i.e., the S-Video output). However, I found that if I leave the Toshiba aspect ratio on 4X3 and 1080i, then the unit will automatically switch the aspect ratio on true HDTV broadcasts to the fullest available. Also, on standard def 4X3, the unit is upconverting to 1080i which has the effect of smoothing the image quality, and the image is centered and sharp to boot (unlike the Sony).
So to summarize, the fact that it does not autoswitch is not really a detriment. I actually prefer it.
Time to give up on the Sony HD100! I'm glad I did.
True it does auto-switch between 1080i and 480p depending upon the signal, and I was concerned about giving up this feature, however I found that this was not truly a benefit of the unit.
I switched to the Toshiba DST3000 and found the following benefits:
* The Toshiba easily receives Analog OTA channels as well as digital OTA - the setup is easy (The Sony did not receive Analog OTA)
* The fan is very silent
* The Toshiba allows you to easily import channel guides for OTA analog and digital and puts them side by side with their DirectTV counterparts on the channel guide - The setup entails the complex task of keying in your zip code!
* The Lip Synch problems completely disappeared!!!!!!!
The fact that the Toshiba always upconverts everything to 1080i, regardless of the signal source is not a problem to me. This needs some explaining as follows:
The Sony unit only needs one output (although it has several), that being the composite 3 color lumince connection directly into your digital TV/composite inputs on your HD-TV. The Sony unit would sense whether the signal was HD or SD and adjust the output accordingly - and display which format was being sent to the TV on the face of the unit. If you were receiving true 1080i, my Misu65 would automatically freeze the aspect ration on 16X9 and place black or grey bars on the sides if the image was not filling up the whole screen. Hitting the format button on the Mitsu had no effect in this mode. If you were receiving standard def, then the Mitsu would allow me to adjust the aspect ratio via the format button on the Mitsu, however the image was never really centered or even and the quality looked awful.
The Toshiba unit requires you to have multiple outputs, but not really (OK this sounds confusing). If you hook the composite connection from the Tosh to your HDTV, then you have to manually switch the unit to 1080i output (the unit comes factory configured to send signals this way). The Toshiba remote has an aspect ration button which switches between 16X9, 4X3 and stretched. Since my Mitsu does not allow you to switch aspect ratios on 1080i broadcasts, I must use the Toshiba remote to switch ratios, unless I use the alternate outputs on the Toshiba and switch the unit to 480p (i.e., the S-Video output). However, I found that if I leave the Toshiba aspect ratio on 4X3 and 1080i, then the unit will automatically switch the aspect ratio on true HDTV broadcasts to the fullest available. Also, on standard def 4X3, the unit is upconverting to 1080i which has the effect of smoothing the image quality, and the image is centered and sharp to boot (unlike the Sony).
So to summarize, the fact that it does not autoswitch is not really a detriment. I actually prefer it.
Time to give up on the Sony HD100! I'm glad I did.
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