RCA F38310 38" 16:9 HDTV with Built-In DirecTV and HDTV Receivers Review

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(More customer reviews)The answer is YES: Yes the picture quality is awesome, YES movies look better viewed the way they are supposed to be (widescreen), and YES TV is a whole new experience. If you are in the market for a TV and don't have room for a rear project massive TV this TV gives you close to the same size screen, arguably better color quality, and the versatility of putting this TV anywhere just like any other "tube". If you watch TV on a regular basis or if you are like me and love movies wide screen is the way to go. Enjoy!!! : )

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The 38-inch-diagonal screen in RCA's F38310 HDTV has similar proportions to a movie screen--along with 10 times the resolution of traditional television sets (2 million pixels versus 200,000 pixels, 1,280 horizontal by 1,080 vertical). Translation: it offers an unbelievable experience in picture sharpness, color, and detail. And with theaterlike Dolby Digital surround sound capability (via an optical connection to your surround receiver), movies will sound, as well as look, like movies.
The set's built-in high-definition decoder and DIRECTV receiver make it easy to begin enjoying the best in digital and high-definition broadcasting, as well as premium-quality images from your favorite DVDs.
You'll get full 1080i (interlaced) display of high-definition signals on the F38310's PERFORMAX 16:9 picture tube, whose tight, 0.78mm center dot pitch (the pixel width) and 3D Y/C digital frame comb filter ensure sharp, detailed images.
Advanced twin-tuner picture-in-picture is available for standard NTSC signals, and RCA's SYNCROSCAN HD component-video inputs automatically adjust to either normal component-video or progressive-scan signals.
SRS Focus audio technology electronically elevates sounds coming from the speakers beneath the screen and "repositions" the sound from the middle of the screen, as you'd hear it in a movie theater.

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Sony BRAVIA XBR Series KDL-40XBR9 40-Inch 1080p 240Hz LCD HDTV, Black Review

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(More customer reviews)I will admit up front that I am a complete HDTV newbie. I hung on to a 20 year old, 22 inch CRT color "monitor television" for far too long, in part because I do not watch much television programming (a bit of baseball, PBS, occaisional Law & Order reruns, that sort of thing) and in part because the whole HDTV techno nerd thing was too intimidating. After much online research and a few surreptitious visits to Big Box electronics stores, I finally settled on the 40XBR9 and bought it from an Amazon seller -- and could not be more pleased with my selection. The picture quality is simply riveting. The menus are reasonably user friendly and I have not found it all that difficult to calibrate for optimum results in a softly lighted room. With minor tweaking, the factory defaults work well for most cable television programming. I used the CNET suggested calibration for movies on the 52XBR9, and it works very well on this 40 inch unit.
This is a beautiful television. The bezel is as slim as they come and is an unadorned, moderately glossy black. While it is not a small television, it is not too overbearing for a medium sized bedroom or office. Considering its slender bezel, and the fact that there are no visible speakers, the sound is more than adequate for watching most TV programming. I purchased a ZVOX 525 sound base and an OPPO blu ray player to go with it. I have yet to watch a blu ray disc, but upscaled DVDs like Ratatouille and Wall-E are incredibly crisp, vivid and detailed, with wonderfully natural color, deep, pure blacks and brilliant whites and grey tones. With sound from the ZVOX, this is a wonderful way to enjoy movies in a moderate sized room without an enormous investment of time and money and without a lot of wiring and equipment monopolizing the space.
The one down side is that the XBR9 is not very forgiving of poor quality source material. My local cable provider still offers a limited selection of true HD content. SD television does not fare well on this set, although with some tweaks you can get acceptable picture quality -- ratchet down the sharpness so the poor resolution is not obvious, use a 4:3 aspect ratio rather than 'stretch' the image to fill the screen, so the perspective is not distorted, turn down the brightness and restrict the color range to avoid the exaggerated and artificial hues that seem to be part and parcel of SD TV, and you get a reasonable picture on par with a decent CRT. But once you've seen good quality 16:9 HDTV content, you will be somewhat disappointed with SD sources.
This competes head to head with the high end LCD and "LED" TVs from Samsung. I think it beats them for at least two reasons. First, the Samsung models have a very glossy, "wet look" screen, which is really a distraction. Under some conditions, it gives the picture more "pop," but except in a darkened room, the glare problem is insurmountable. Second, the comparable Samsung televisions have wider and more obtrusive bezels with a brilliant piano black finish, which is made even more garish by Samsung's somewhat ludicrous red "Touch of Color" gimmickry. The Samsung design is like over the top prom wear. The 40XBR9 is the electronics version of the perfect, simple and refined little black dress.
Prices seem to fluctuate wildly -- the prices quoted on the date of this review are about 15% higher than they were when I made my purchase ten days ago. You may want to keep an eye on the market and catch the next wave of "sales." But you won't buy this TV because it is an inexpensive "bargain" -- you may buy it because dollar for dollar, it will give you the most pleasure during the years it will be in service.
TWO MONTHS LATER: Having now had the opportunity to use my Sony 40XBR9 to watch post-season baseball in HD, as well as a number of blu-ray discs, I remain as pleased with my purchase as ever. This has transformed the way we watch movies and cable programming at home. I added a Harmony One remote to the system to avoid the remote control shuffle required to operate the blu-ray player, Zvox, cable box and Sony in tandem. It all works nicely and with a minimum of effort.


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Experience powerful performance and superior design with the Sony BRAVIA XBR9 HDTV, featuring Motionflow 240Hz technology for maximum motion detail and clarity, plus broadband internet connectivity with built-in BRAVIA Internet Video1 capabilities that let you view select on-demand movies, TV shows, music and more, and even lets you personalize your entertainment experience by selecting and positioning widgets containing the latest news, weather, sports and more directly on your TV screen.

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Samsung LN40B650 40-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LCD HDTV with Red Touch of Color Review

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(More customer reviews)I'm happy to be the first to rate this wonderful LCD. I'll be short and to the point, and maybe come back and supplement this review after a few more weeks of use.
Aesthetically, the TV is clean and elegant. Love the touch of red. Love the crystal base. Love the fact that it swivels. It's a beautiful piece of equipment, and looks a good bit more modern than the more curvilinear A model. I'm very happy I waited for this one.
Set up was a snap. Took me about 2 minutes to connect the base. It took longer to remove the stickers. The manual is on a little USB drive that plugs in the side of the TV, but I haven't bothered with it yet.
The picture is stunning, right out of the box. Absolutely beautiful. Only adjustment I made was to turn the brightness down slightly, as I have a very dark TV room.
The on-screen graphics and menus are both intuitive and elegantly designed. I hate when the industrial design is carefully considered, and the on-screen UI is forgotten. That didn't happen here. Both are wonderful.
I somewhat skeptically connected my camera card reader to one of the USB plugs on the side, and inserted a memory card from my father's camera. He'd hoped to show us pictures, but didn't have a plan for how. Perfect timing, as the TV had arrived that day. The TV recognized the card, and very quickly we were watching pictures and video in high res on our new TV. Fantastic.
Less than perfect: the sound. Actually, it's a bit of joke. But, that doesn't effect my rating because I don't feel that the internal speakers are really meant to be used w/ a TV like this. I'm using a 5 channel surround system, but before I hooked it up, I heard the speakers. It makes sense that they wouldn't sound good since you can't even see them.
Also less than perfect was the delivery process via this company, CEVA/Eagle. Note that they claimed to have contacted me via email to set up delivery, but I never rec'd anything. They didn't call. So, I had to google them and call them. Plan for this! Stay on top of them. The driver called me no less than 4 times during the day, each time making up some goofy excuse for being even later. I think he was watching the NCAA tournament at a bar somewhere. But, in the end, it arrived 1 day late, and in perfect condition. So, I don't care. And, I can't take away a star from the TV due to the delivery service. I just think Amazon needs to communicate the process better with it's customers and make sure that CEVA does a better job too.
Anyway, Amazon's price is great, the TV is fabulous. Enjoy!

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Samsung LN40B650 40

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Toshiba 40RV525R 40-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV Review

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(More customer reviews)I uploaded a video of the Toshiba 40RV525R displaying some TV, Blu-Ray, and video game. (Just a small reference... obviously not going to be exactly how you see it in real life from a recorded video camera; on top of that, an internet video/low resolution/etc...)
This was my first real HDTV (supporting 1080p). Anyone can get super excited over their first HDTV and rate it a 5 star immediately (going from a standard definition to HDTV is definitely a major upgrade to anyone). However, if you're very PICKY like me, you'll be *somewhat* disappointed with the video quality.
If you're like me and have been drooling over the image quality from several of the high-end HDTV models (you know, the ones that cost over $1500-$2000+), on display in retail stores -- and then expecting to get the same quality out of this (okay, it was wishful thinking but you never always know just from prices...), well you'll be disappointed.
When I see those TV, I'd be blown away like I'm seeing directly through a window instead of a TV screen. Naively, I was hoping for that same effect. Don't get me wrong, it's not horrible that I would want to return this TV, but "you get what you pay for". (well, technically, it's still a little better than what you pay for... did that make any sense?) Just keep that in mind. For the price, though, I can't really complain so I'm keeping it.
You just won't get that super super sharpness with this. You need to be a couple feet away; up close, for the very picky eyes, you will easily notice the grainy/fuzzy-like-paintbrush/interpolated effect (I hate this...), muddled together than every object being 100% sharp to the minute detail.
The potential of the Blu-Ray image quality is definitely not there. Animation like Wall-E / Final Fantasy Spirits Within Blu-ray looks pretty good, but I'm just not that impressed when watching Dark Knight/Iron Man/Transformers/Black Hawk Down/The Matrix -- even tested it with Planet Earth and Baraka...to list a few. The graininess is just really obvious in all of them. Although, again, I am very picky in image quality.
The D-Sub connection for the PC is really worthless and waste of potential on the monitor; it only supports 1360x768 max. To get full 1920x1080 resolution from a PC, you first need a video card that has a DVI-out and supporting that resolution (or if it has an HDMI out then great).
Second, you need a HDMI male-to-DVI male cable to connect the TV to the PC's video card. I'm quite impressed with how PC games on this TV look at 1080; it easily beats from how games look on PS3. Definitely makes a great Media PC monitor.
Some other thoughts:
* I'm using the regular "rabbit ears" antenna and 1080i shows/channels still look pretty good with it.
* DVDs won't look as sharp like on a standard definition. However, again, if you're far away enough it can look okay. The contrast/blacks are definitely better/more feeling of depth in the picture. *updated thoughts at very below*
* The speakers aren't as bad as I thought. There is some surround sound. The bass is weak, but most built-in speakers are.
* When I first turned it on, 40" seemed really big to me. But after a couple weeks, it's not as big as I thought. It's good enough for a small room, but for a main TV in a large living room, you'll soon definitely want to have something larger. The screen does reflect a little bit.
* I think it's nice that it has 3 HDMI ports, which is more than enough for me. (PS3, PC thru HDMI)
* I really can't tell the difference having the benefit of "game mode" on when I play games.
* I usually turn the auto contrast mode off because it's apparent when it changes its brightness than being subtle. It's pretty annoying.
Pros:
- Good entry level HDTV at an affordable price (I can't believe I paid close to this amount for a small 19" PC monitor just a few years ago... ugh technology)
- Black finish/stand Toshiba logo glows (it can also be turned off through the menu)
- Games look good. (PS3/PC at 1920)
- Excellent for a Media PC monitor (using HDMI)
Cons:
- Doesn't look that great up close. It's not really sharp. It seems to interpolate/very grainy smudgy/"paintbrush"-like effect. (for us really picky-eye buyers)
- D-Sub is essentially worthless at 1360x768 resolution (use DVI-HDMI to connect to your PC!)
Considering this isn't Toshiba's higher REGZA model and the price, it's definitely a good entry level HDTV. Definitely far from a perfect 5 star, but if you're on a budget and not overly picky like me, you should be happy with this.
I recommend getting a HDMI cable too (don't be spending over ten dollars on it!)
Update: I was using the PS3 to playback DVD (it's supposed to upscale). However, I've recently tried playing a DVD back on a Philips DVP5982 (it has 1080p upscaling function also via HDMI) and it did A LOT better job upscaling than the PS3. The difference was quite noticeable. Of course Blu-ray video still has more detail, but the DVD looked almost as good! (depending on the DVD, the compression is still apparent, but properly upscaling that resolution really makes the difference) So I take my comment back about DVD looking not as sharp. Your mileage will definitely vary depending on what player you use, so if you have a better Blu-Ray player than the PS3 (what I used to playback Blu-Ray movies), you may get slightly better results than what I see.

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The RV525 series combines a 1080p Full HD CineSpeed LCD Display with DynaLight dynamic backlight control and a High-Res PC Input for true home theater picture quality, and enhanced PC Gaming.

DynaLight Dynamic Back-Light Control
Built-In ATSC/NTSC/QAM Digital Tuning
Cinespeed LCD Panel
10 Bit Video Processor
60 Hz Video Scan Rate
Cinema Mode 24 fps (3:2 Pulldown)
Color Temperature Control
TheaterWide Modes
Native Mode
Thin-Line Speaker System
QSound 3D Surround Sound
Mute/Half Mute
Sleep Timer
4-Item Universal Remote*
Auto Aspect Control
Gaming Mode
Channel Browser
Channel Labeling
Input Labeling
Logo Light On/Off
HDMI-CEC
HDMI Inputs (3)
ColorStream HD Component Video Inputs (2)
Front A/V / Rear A/V / Rear S-Video: 1/1/1
High Res PC Input (S-XGA, 15 pin, D-sub)
Analog Audio Out (Variable)
Dolby Digital Optical Output
Weights and Dimensions
Dimensions:39.2 x 25.0 x 3.7(WxHxD)
Weight With Stand:39.3lbs.
Dimensions With Stand:39.2 x 26.9 x 10.9(WxHxD)
Weight With Packaging:50lbs.
Dimensions With Packaging:49.1 x 30.0 x 8.7(WxHxD)

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