Need help chosing a HD CRT RPTV: Sony vs. Toshiba vs. Hitachi vs. Panasonic

[Inzane]

I'm trying to choose between the following 46/47" rear-projection sets:
Hitachi 46F510
Panasonic PT-47X54
Sony KP46WT520
Toshiba 46H84C

My goal is to spend LESS THAN $2000, which I believe should be easily done with either the periodic sales or with some haggling depending on the store. In fact some sale prices for these sets have been under $1800 recently. (woohoo!)

Also, I don't intend to get into a debate with anyone about CRT vs. LCD vs. DLP vs. Plasma technology. CRT sets are the best size/$ that fits my requirements right now.

I'm having a tough time with this decision. When properly set up in the stores, all 4 of these sets have tended to look great.

Help is appreciated. :thumbsup:

[EK 2.0]

I say go with the Sony...:D

I am not familiar with the Panasonic with the Rear Pro Jo technology, I will tell you that right off the bat...but having compared the Hitatchi, Toshiba, and the Sony back to back, I found the Sony to offer the brightest picture, and well as the most adjusability for picture settings...

Just be aware of image retention for all 4 sets...and good luck with your purchase...

[Weapon_R]

Unfortunately I don't think that you're going to get an accurate answer here.

My bet is that no one here knows the exact features of all 4 televisions. You are going to get 50 people come and read this thread and vote according to what they have at home, even if its a 21".

Hell, I wanna vote, but I don't see RCA on that list ;)

btw - Pick the best one you can find for the price. Sony is no longer the dominant television manufacturer - most of the little guys have caught up.

[project240]

Originally posted by Weapon_R
Unfortunately I don't think that you're going to get an accurate answer here.

My bet is that no one here knows the exact features of all 4 televisions. You are going to get 50 people come and read this thread and vote according to what they have at home, even if its a 21".

Hell, I wanna vote, but I don't see RCA on that list ;)

btw - Pick the best one you can find for the price. Sony is no longer the dominant television manufacturer - most of the little guys have caught up.


I completely agree. I would recommend going to superstore or walmart, somewhere where they sell magazines and pick up a copy of Sound & Vision. They do reviews on current models of everything electronic.... you would get a much better opinion there than from here.

[kenny]

Hitachi or Toshiba, you'll be happy with both. Sony makes great TVs but CRT rear projections is not one of them IMO :) However, with that said if the price differential is big enough you may want to consider it as all four brands are of decent quality.

If I was to buy one of those for my home, it would definitely be either Toshiba or Hitachi. :thumbsup: Go read avforums.com and see what people have to say to help your decison.

[Khyron]

I bought the Toshiba cinema series one - it has very good reviews in Sound and Vision. The protective glass shield thing is great for when there's kids lurking about. But weapon's right - only Sony's and Panasonics I saw were in the store and those are poorly calibrated and in bad light.

Khyron

[EK 2.0]

Originally posted by Weapon_R
Unfortunately I don't think that you're going to get an accurate answer here.

My bet is that no one here knows the exact features of all 4 televisions. You are going to get 50 people come and read this thread and vote according to what they have at home, even if its a 21".


A few of us do as we work in the Consumer Electronics field...and have to have a very good knowledge of our own products as well as those of our competition...

[Digital_7]

this is my 2 cent's in the feild... I did a lot lookin' up spec's on the panasonic and sony, as fro the other 2 don't have a clue. Panasonic will provide you with a shaper picture in general, where as the sony will give you the best over all color responce. Also a word of advice, if you plan to use this tv's as your main TV I would seriously look into the life of the blub and cost for replacement. This is the main reason i changed my mind and bought the biggest CRT i could find Panasonic 34" CT-34WX53. The life of the bulb's for the rear projection's can be shorter and costly to replace. So to the point here.. :rolleyes: Your rear Projection will probally cost you another couple of hundred dollars every couple of year's to get a new bulb. PLUS the hassel of having to get it torn apart and drag the component to get the blub replaced, where as a CRT you don't haev to worrie about anything unless it breaks.

now that's a lot of ram-bling! :D

[Inzane]

Another thing, are the extended warranties worth it for rear-projection TVs? I know its like insurance where you're paying money for something you likely will not need to use. But parts & labor to fix a projection TV are probably expensive. A 5 year warranty plan through a store like A&B Sound is ~ $250, for example.

[Khyron]

If it includes a free calibration (this should always be done if you move your TV) and covers the guns it's probably worth it. They are VERY expensive to replace.

2 things in life that need extended warranties - digital camcorders and rear projection tvs :D

Khyron

[rage2]

Inzane, a few questions:

1. What are you gonna watch on the TV?
- HDTV signals?
- Analog Cable?
- Digital non HD (digital shaw, starchoice, expressvu etc)?

2. How long are you planning on keeping the TV?

It'll help me make some recommendations ;).

[kenny]

Regarding the question on extended warranties. Generally, NO, you shouldn't buy extended warranties because they are a waste of money. There are however, many exceptions such as the extended warranties that actually cover bulbs (on newer style tvs) or calibration/convergence of the guns on older style rear projections.

Basically, its kind of unfair. The people that NEED extended warranties are those that usually don't have the money for it. Those that DONT NEED it are those that have all the money in the world.

[milhouse]

I just bought a new HDtv

Go to this site, they rate tv's and the site is very informative. They don't recomend this tv cause they own it.


WWW.avsforum.com

Anything that you need to know about home theatre is there


I hope it helps.

:thumbsup:

[Inzane]

Originally posted by rage2
Inzane, a few questions:

1. What are you gonna watch on the TV?
- HDTV signals?
- Analog Cable?
- Digital non HD (digital shaw, starchoice, expressvu etc)?

2. How long are you planning on keeping the TV?

It'll help me make some recommendations ;).


1. Mostly DVD movies, and Digital non-HD for now (ExpressVu). I'm sure I'll eventually upgrade to HD satellite (as I hinted in my satellite receiver thread on 780tuners that you've been participating in).

2. As long as practical. With the extended warranty plan that's 1 year manufacturer coverage, a 2nd year covered by my credit card, and an additional 4 years with the extended plan.. A total of 6 years coverage. If the set will last 8-10 years... bonus. The only way I could see getting rid of the TV sooner would be if prices of Plasma/DLP, etc. dropped significantly in the next 5 years and I were to find someone to buy this set from me.

As it stands now, the size/$ ratio of CRTs is hard to beat. And most of the sets I listed in this thread have been dropping below $1800 lately... In fact the Panasonic is/was on sale for $1698.xx recently at A&B Sound (and stores like that have 30 day price protection in case they drop again before Christmas).

[rage2]

OK, here's why I asked those questions.

The problem with HDTV sets when watching non HD signals is that it's so detailed, you can see the flaw of SD signals. The larger the screen, the worse this gets.

For DVD's, you're in good shape. DVD's are fairly high bitrate, so there's very little MPEG artifacting in the picture. So it'll come out fairly crisp on your HDTV set.

For ExpressVu, they are limited in bitrate that the MPEG stream comes down to you because of bandwidth limitations on their satellites. So, with lower bitrate videos, you get artifacting, the little square blocks near the edges of moving objects, etc.

On a NON HDTV set (typically ~400 lines of resolution), the TV blurs the image enough to make it smooth, and your eyes see it as a clean image. On a HDTV CRT set (typically ~600 lines of resolution) you see every bit of detail, so the picture quality of satellite and digital cable mpeg signals all of a sudden look like ass. This is the biggest complaint of people buying HDTV sets that don't watch HDTV signals!

Toshiba CRT HDTV's are the worse for this, because it has the best picture quality, it all of a sudden has the worse SD quality. You can do some workarounds, like turn the sharpness all the way down to blur it a bit to get rid of the effect, but you can't hide the effect. The best way to tackle it is to run the TV OUT coaxial output of the receiver to the TV's analog tuner. Then will the image be blurred enough where it's acceptable. So when shopping for those 4 models, go to the store, and get them to feed in an ExpressVu non HD channel, preferrably a low bitrate channel such as one of the newfoundland local network channels. Find the TV that looks best. Remember, the better the SD quality, the worse the HD quality.

Now, why did I ask how long you're keeping it for? Because if you were only planning on keeping it 2 or 3 years, you might as well buy a non HDTV set (not sure if they still exist) because really, less than 5% of all shows are HD. HD DVDs are still in format battles, so it'll be a good 3 years before we get a lot of HD content.

My 2 cents :D.

edit - non HDTV sets don't seem to exist anymore, so yea, go to the store and test each set with a bad expressvu channel :).

[sputnik]

^

:werd:

I still prefer my 36" Panasonic CRT over any CRT rear projection TVs I have ever seen.

Also, if $2000 is your price point, why not hold off on the purchase for a few months and get a DLP or LCD rear projection TV? 46" units are selling for under $3000 right now.