Toshiba 56H80 56-Inch HDTV-Ready Projection TV
Almost Thrilled
I have had this tv for about a year now,and can report no problems with it as of yet. I do have to say that I believe the whole widescreen phenomenon to be way ahead of it's time. Cable,satellite,and even hdtv are still broadcast in 4:3 aspect format. To make a square picture fit into a rectangular frame you simply must distort the picture. There is no choice. You can watch the image on 4:3 with this tv,but there are gray bars on the sides. I got used to them,and so can you. Not a big deal. For DVD's you can not do better than this tv. Hooked up to a home theater system,the experience is as good as going to the movies. Fabulous. Make sure you have a progressive scan dvd player,as this tv is progressive scan and the image will be better. I have had one problem however. My cable system broadcasts all of it's movie channels in digital cable. The progressive scan on this tv is not compatible with a digital cable system. You can watch the movies in 4:3,which this tv does let you do. But stretch the screen and you see ghosts,which is a horrible multiple image effect that is unwatchable. If you have digital cable,I would recommend a non hdtv set with no progressive scan. HDTV is a long way away,and there is no reason to pay so much for it now. Otherwise,I do recommend this tv highly. It is my opinion that by the time widescreen and HDTV becomes the norm,which I believe it will,there will be much better tv's available. I won't really want this one anymore. Will you? Probably not. So why buy something now just for the future? I do not recommend hdtv's or widescreen right now. 4:3 projections seem to be disappearing quickly however. If I had it to do over,I would have bought a regular 4:3 projection without all the fancy digital features. I think my cable picture would be better,and I would have paid less. Something to think about.