Registered: Dec 2004
Location: ^ of Indy
Posts: 9

I'm new to the whole world of HDTV. I'm currently looking for a new HD CRT for under $600. I was thinking around 26" Wide Flat Screen with component, s, and av inputs. Speaker quality doesn't matter since I already have everything wired through my reciever. I need suggestions on what type of TV to purchase, where I can find one, and one with a quality picture for under 600. I'll be using it to play video games and play DVDs for the most part. If that's hard to come upon, please let me know. I've seen TVs for around 700 at BestBuy, but I can't afford to pay that much. Plus, I can find better deals online...somewhere.

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Mr. Zaleski ~ MR 2aleski

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Registered: Jun 2004
Location: North East, MD
Posts: 1892

You might want to look here -> http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/foru...p?s=&forumid=64

This part of the forum is not for displays, just HD hardware to go with them. Good luck on your search.

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Matt

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Registered: Dec 2004
Location: ^ of Indy
Posts: 9

thank you for telling me... I wasn't sure where to post.

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Mr. Zaleski ~ MR 2aleski

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Registered: Mar 2004
Location: Small Town X, HDTV Land
Posts: 1565

In the world of HDTV you get what you pay for. Generally the more you spend the better HDTV you will get (within a catogory that is, just because a Plasma is 10X more expensive doesn't mean it is any better). For under $600 your not going to find any stand outs in the CRT world, but that may not be important to you. I would not recommend playing video games for long amounts of time and on a regular basis on anything besides an LCD, as all other forums of TV's suffer from burn-in. (CRT included). Your going to need to a source for HDTV (HD cable, OTA or satellite), as an HDTV without an HD signal isn't an HDTV. You will need an external tuner box, (or on cable a CableCard (NOT recomeneded at this point)) as that HDTV is in most cases nothing more then a monitor. Make sure it has a DVI-HDCP, or HDMI input (or both), otherwise it headed to being obsolete in no time.

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Registered: Nov 2004
Location: Rochdale, MA
Posts: 330

Check out the 26" HD toob that Samsung makes. Nice pic!!

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Registered: Dec 2004
Location: ^ of Indy
Posts: 9

Well... the main portion of my income is put into my racing project. I really can't go too far out of the way to purchase an awesome quality TV. I have a Samsung 20" CRT right now (5 years old!) with the good old rounded monitor. It's outdated, picture isn't too good, and there's too much noise. When I went to BestBuy, the HD TV I actually took a liking to was a 26" wide screen Samsung. It was about $750 though, and that's just too much for me right now. I just need something to satisfy my gaming and DVD needs for right now. So basically, the TV I saw at BestBuy, just cheaper... if I can find it somewhere online for a good price. Or an alternative to that TV. Though, does HDTV make DVDs and video games any better looking?

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Mr. Zaleski ~ MR 2aleski

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Registered: Feb 2004
Location: Area51/S4
Posts: 3191

DVDs are 480p resolution not HD, though an HD set can support 480p progressive mode which is better than 480i interlaced mode. Some video game systems like XBOX have a few HD video games out. But with a small 26" set you would have to view from well under 5feet to appreciate the higher resolution.

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Registered: Dec 2004
Location: MD, USA
Posts: 5

I have a Samsung 30" DynaFlat HDTV (w/o HD rcvr, Model TXN3071). This is a 1080i set. Samsung also makes a 26-27" DynaFlat HD set that is very good set for the price (last year was ~$600 on sale at Sears).

Things I like about the 30" I own:
- color is excellent
- picture is very sharp (although it wasn't this way out of the box)
- watching dvd's in 480p is very very nice (still waiting to get an HD rcvr - samsungs latest models include integrated rcvr)
- front side svideo input for quick camera connects
- crts still provide best viewing angle (and great color depth/black levels)
- great set for the price - I can recommend this set.

Cons:
- most annoying thing is that you have to enter menu mode to select one of the component input sources - this should have been a single button on the remote - a major blunder by the designers
- others have complained about lack of a 2nd svideo input on rear - I don't need that
- out of the box - the picture was very "hot" - fixed with adjustments in the picture menu
- 4:3 mode doesn't look good; I also don't like the "stretch" mode where only the edges are scaled and center is 4:3; I leave mine in wide screen mode all the time and find that provides a great picture.
- there isn't enough shielding between side mount speakers and tube - result is slight moire in some scenes at screen edges caused by speaker magnetic fields affecting electron beam.
- all crts exhibit some amount of picture bloom - most people don't notice this - this set isn't too bad.
- the geometry was also horrible out of the box - this can only be corrected by making adjustments in the service menu (another design blunder IMO). Unfortunately, the manual does not provide instructions for the service menu because users can damage a set if they don't know what they are doing and they alter these settings. That said, the internet provides - the service menu can be accessed by using mute -1-8-2 then power on the remote. Before you alter settings - write all initial settings down so you can fix any problems your fiddling may introduce. After I corrected the geometry settings for my set (this can take hours of adjusting), I am very happy with the picture. Initially the set was cropping crawls at the bottom of the screen on stations that use them and there was also too much overscan on the vertical edges. This is commonplace among crts and usually correctable.

Regards.

Last edited by rangernine on 12-30-04 at 06:18 PM

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Registered: Dec 2004
Location: ^ of Indy
Posts: 9

I was thinking of going with either the Toshiba 26HF84 or the Samsung TX-P2675WHD.... but the one problem with the Samsung TV, is that it's a 1/2" too wide for my entertainment unit.

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Mr. Zaleski ~ MR 2aleski

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Registered: Dec 2001
Location: Vancouver, BC Canada
Posts: 62

Pleased with the Toshiba 26HF84 - I'll put it another way: I'm surprised at how pleased I am with this set.

We're somewhat lucky in the Vancouver downtown area of Shaws cable service, because we have very, very good analog cable to my apartment. Clean/good signal. The Toshiba takes the analog from it's built in regular NTSC tuner, and upconverts it to 1080i. As long as the signal is clean, the picture is really good.

One of my jobs in television is video/shading. So I spend some of my work using a 19" CRT Sony Pro Monitor for our HDTV ready Hitachi studio cameras. At the distance I work at, the scan lines are obvious... whereas with the Toshiba and it's mostly excellent digital "engine", the performance of upconverting is much better than similar sets I saw even last generation. MUCH better.

I bought this over the equivalent Samsung, although I suspect its the same picture tube, because this set was available at a healthy discount over the month of December. Better even, than you wonderful people in the U.S. could manage. The CanuckBuck has improved considerably in 2004 compared to the almight American dollar, but still... not *that* much

The Toshiba, with DVD progressive (480P) has also been great. Stretch modes are natural if you need to use them, and you *should* use mode "1" for regular 4:3 channels, to keep the wear on the CRT even.

And warning! Don't use any setting for colour, contrast, brightness and sharpness other than one you set yourself... even the Sports, Movie options are still *way* too bright and contrasty and too hard driving on the tube. The ergonomic engineers at Toshiba did the correct thing: you can keep a "custom" setting for *each* input. really, really smart!

hope this mini-review helps. I have a Shaw Motorola 6208 HDTV box/PVR arriving in a week to use the HDMI input. I just hope the 6208 "talks" properly with the 26HF84 and I'll be good to go.

btw, this set was for my bedroom. at a distance of just short of 8 feet from the headboard , it's fine. I would also suggest it for someones den, office, etc. Anything more than probably... 10 feet or so, you'd need a larger size.

My living room has a Sanyo Z1 projector, and the usual goodies for Surround, Bass Shakers etc. My next projector, more because of evolution than revolution will have an HDMI input of some sort - I'm waiting for the next generation of reasonably priced front projectors in LCD or DLP to make their debut, and then I will upgrade. The Z1 has been a remarkable value over the past 18 months, and I still marvel at just how good it can be with DVD sourced material. Trying it with component output HDTV will be interesting as well.

Good luck with your search.

Patrick.

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Registered: Dec 2004
Location: ^ of Indy
Posts: 9

thankyou for the input... I'm narrowing my decisions. This Toshiba looks like my best bet so far.

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Mr. Zaleski ~ MR 2aleski

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