Rating: 
Summary: excellent piture, poor tuner
Review: The piture is excellent. The TV speakers are poor. They breakup at higher sound volumes. Souround sound is good. The tuner surfs very slowly and if a digital channel is either weak or not broadcasting it gets stuck on it momentarly. It acts like a computer without enough RAM. When viewing in 4:3 mode it has grey bars instead of being blacked out. The controls on top of the TV are a joke except turning it on and off. Don't lose your remote.
Rating: 
Summary: I SENT MINE BACK!!!!!!!!!!
Review: Despite all I read about this TV, (both good and bad), I went to [local store]and after seeing it there, bought one. I thought this set was going to be quite a bargain. WHAT A MISTAKE! Beware of what you see in stores! The only picture available to see at CC was an HD feed, thus making this set look better than it does under normal conditions. While HDTV & DVDs looked fine on this set, everything else looked like garbage. All analog sources looked bad. When comparing the picture of the internal Directv tuner to that of my old set top box I was blown away by just how much worse the internal tuner was. Other considerations in my sending it back were: the fan that never stops (Never!); it's weight (I nearly killed myself moving it); the sound (typical for a tv, but I expected better for the $$$); poor zoom modes for widescreen viewing; those grey bars on the side when viewing 4:3; no screen saving/degausing utilitys. I am the type of person who normally will not return an item unless it has a major defect, but for [price] I expected much much better, so I did return this. I guess you get what you pay for, because I have since bit the bullet and bought the Sony Grand WEGA KF60DX100 and could not be happier. I know this set costs twice as much but is looks and sounds GREAT. (also it weighs half as much, trust me this matters). Good luck HDTV shopping and stay away from this one
Rating:
Summary: Poor Quality
Review: The unit is highly succeptable of blowing the high voltage (fly-back) transformer, which will generally cause other component failures. You'll find yourself waiting for months to get replacement parts, and longer waiting for Thompson Electronics to provide any form of customer satisfaction or care. (Poor design and sub-standard quality).
Rating: 
Summary: A few flaws, but a great value
Review: First of all, having the flexibility of a built-in HDTV tuner, DirecTV tuner, and more inputs than you can shake a stick at is really great. With a good signal, the picture is darn good. Not up to Sony quality, maybe, but pretty good. The speakers are about what you would expect; I imagine most people willing to plunk down the dough for one of these will have a receiver around and run the sound through it. Highly recommended. DVDs look great, and you can adjust the aspect ratio easily from the remote (press the fast-foward button). Downsides: screen is not flat, and it is sensitive to noise/interference. A bit of dot-crawl is noticeable as well. User interface takes a little getting used to. Having 16:9 for DVD movies, rocks, however. Think carefully about where you are going to put it; it weighs 215 pounds! Making a slide out tray for it in my entertainment center was a major engineering feat.
For the money, if you want HDTV and a tube screen, this is hard to beat.
Rating: 
Summary: NOTHING BUT PROBLEMS
Review: I also want to echo the sentiments of most reviewers in regards to the unreliability of this product. We purchased this set in December 2001 (despite having read some concerns expressed by other purchasers). The TV seemed to work fine until June (only 6 months later with mostly nighttime viewing only) when it stopped working completely. We contacted RCA which took forever due to computer downtime, phone backlogs, etc. I should have seen the problems coming when they did not return my calls 3 times. Finally, it was determined that I needed in-home service and was given the name of some repair companies. To make this story a little shorter, my TV has been at the repair shop since July 2nd, I am getting nothing but the run around with both the repair shop and RCA and no one seems to care ...........they both blame each other. To add insult to injury, I have to call LONG-DISTANCE TO OKLAHOMA to complain to RCA. We spent alot of $$ for a piece of junk! Next time, I will pay attention to the reviews and next time, I am buying a Mitsubishi.
Rating:
Summary: Any word on a second generation?
Review: I do not own this TV, therefore, it wouldn't be fair to provide a rating. I couldn't post witout one though so I took the middle ground w/3 stars. There really seems to be a LOT of bad customer reviews out there for this one. sounds like the kind of thing that may be remedied by a newer model. Any word on a second generation?
Rating:
Summary: F38310 - Review
Review: Purchased and began using this TV this past weekend. I have found that it seems to be a product rushed to production. Simple problems such as no satellite outputs. If you wish to tape something off of satellite, this set does not have a satellite output to hookup to your Tivo, Ultimate TV, or VCR. Are you a big fan of PIP? If so, this isn't the TV you want. You can only view PIP if you are viewing an analog channel and if the PIP is tuned to an analog channel. So it isn't possible to view a satellite or digital CATV program and pull up your PIP. Selecting channels is also cumbersome. If viewing satellite and you want to go to ESPN from another channel, you would have to enter '206', then press 'OK' for the tuner to switch. I know, just one more button to press, but try finding that button in the dark. Picture quality is Good with my satellite, and Best when viewing DVD's. RCA included the HDTV tuner with this set which will save you money down the road and allows you to view HDTV broadcasts currently being offered. In St Louis, 3 local stations are broadcasting HDTV, and with my over the air antenna, the quality is outstanding. Out of 5 stars I would rank the picture a 4 as quality seems to go along with digital broadcasts (HDTV, DVD etc). With limited HDTV broadcasts, picture quality suffers right now. The absence of the satellite output bothers me most especially when you pay this much for a TV and it's the "latest and greatest" offering.
Rating:
Summary: This TV is a waste of money
Review: RCA you need to start over. The picture is great if your watching DVD's and more specifically only 16:9 ratio DVD's. If you watch anything in a 4:3 aspect ratio and you want the image to look normal you are watching it on a 29 inch screen. If you stretch the image with the only two options you have full (looks like a fun house mirror) and fill (you loose two inches of image at the top and bottom of the screen) it looks terrible. RCA you need to do a better job and offer more options for a more normal conversion of a 4:3 aspect ratio signal. The most annoying of all things with this TV is the HDTV fan that runs 24 hours a day. It never shuts off! Not only is it a huge waste of energy but at some point it will break. After reading other reviews of the lousy service RCA provides for customer support I decided to return my product before it was to late and something broke. There are better TV's at about the same price and although they are a couple of inches smaller the are way better. Don't get lured into the 38 inch size only attraction of this set. Stay away!
Rating:
Summary: Love lost....
Review: When the TV works, it has a beautiful picture with HD and DVD sources. Because the TV has a DirectTV tuner, the HDTV signal from that source is wonderful. The TV (when it works) has some quirks: it's difficult to manuever around the menus, the owners manual is incorrect in places, and the internal fan(s) are noisy 24/7; you can hear them over movie sound tracks during quiet breaks. But the real problem is that my TV has been unreliable. In just 11 months, the main circuit board and picture tube went out and I was without my TV for 3 months of the 11 waiting for repairs. The tube went out just 10 days after the circuit board was repaired. The retail price for the tube (not including labor) was [price]. The only parts that haven't had to be replaced are the plastic casing and speakers, and the right speaker now appears to be going out. RCA/Thompson Customer Service/Relations was simply unresponsive. They did not care that the TV was out of service for 3 months, and did nothing to speed up the process. They certainly weren't going to replace this obvious lemon (according to the repair tech). To talk to a human at RCA, it will cost you; it's not a toll free number. I was on the line waiting for someone for 75 minutes over 3 periods. I've had to get time off work on 6 occassions to deal with in-home techs and pick-up and deliveries. A product is really only as good as the company that stands behind it, and this is an obvious example of a company that does not stand behind its product, which makes purchasing this TV a significant gamble. With so many nice TVs to choose from, this TV is just not worth this hassle.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Televison Set
Review: I purchased this television in eary Dec. '01. Yes it is very heavy, yes the menu screen can be annoying, but I haven't had any problems with it at all(knock on plastic panels). The picture is very good. I have RCA ultimate tv so I do not use the built in direct tv feature. The progressive scan DVD player looks magnificent. Eventually I will add an outdoor antenna to take advantage of HDTV broadcast, but I never watch "live tv (people who have "tivo" or similar know what I mean). I'm sure there are some bad sets out there, this is a whole new technolgy, but I'm pleased with my purchase. I hope I never have to use my "Best Buy" 4 yr. warranty cause this set is in my basement and it was a pain (literally) to get it downstairs and on the matching stand (a must).The remote is typical rca and is in a box with two clones. I may be missing something because I CANNOT find the sleep timer (is there one?). The only dislike I have is that 7 months later I seen it [price]cheaper. I give it 5 stars and am very happy I bought it.
| 
