Toshiba 50H82 50-Inch 16:9 HDTV-Ready Projection TV
Absolutely Awesome HD Picture Quality
Our Initial reaction to the 50H82 was one of content. Ya it was an upgrade from our 48&quot; Sony but we weren't necessarily amazed..<br />The problem was/is, 4:3 content doesn't fill a 16:9 screen, and there's a lot of 4:3 content out there! Hence, if you're watching a standard Broadcast, Cable, or Sat signal you'll need to decide how best to fill the screen. In the case of the 50H82 you can stretch it into fitting, scale/crop it to fit (loosing a bit of the top/bottom), you can keep the 3:4 aspect ratio which translates into leaving the unused sides of the screen blank, or you can use one of Toshibas hybrid schemes that only stretches the outer portions of the image leaving the center area untouched.. This is probably your best bet, albeit not a perfect one..<br />One area that appears to be pretty close to perfect was discovered with the addition of an HD SatDish/OTA tuner. Within a second of selecting PBS's HD Channel it became abundantly clear exactly where Toshiba had put it's R&amp;D money.. 1080i HIDef content, coming off stations like PBS and HD-Net, looks simply STUNNING.. Words can not do justice to Nature scenes appearing as real as looking out a window and sporting events that place you in the stands. Suffice to say,, having seen what this set was capable of, we have become virtual slaves to HD. Fortunately most of our local stations (Boston Area) have already begun OTA digi broadcasts. A lot of 480p signals during the day and 1080i for the networks (mainly CBS) primetime programs. <br />The 50H82 has plenty of analog inputs, 3 composite/SVideo, 2 antennas, and 2 component HiDef inputs. Sadly, Toshiba failed to provide a Digital interface. ie. NO Firewire, USB, or DVI..<BR>  <BR>This is truly unfortunate and the only real negative I can think of..  Hopefully Toshiba will follow some of the other manufactures who had neglected to provide a digital interface and offer a retrofit device of some sort... ala Mitsubishi's &quot;Promise Module&quot; that addsa Firewire interface to a few of their upper end sets.<br />Other than the Firewire issue, we're completely happy with the 50H82.. , and for those looking for an HD or DVD Monitor, would highly recommend giving it a look,,