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Rating: 
Summary: Almost Thrilled
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Almost Thrilled
Review: I've owned the 56H80 for about 6 months. I am now addicted to wide screen :)Pros: - SUPERB picture with DVD's and HDTV signals, absolutely stunning. - Lack of scan lines is wonderful - Good connection pack on the back - Easy User controls - Good multi control remote (controls DVD, stereo, VCR, DirecTV etc.) - Once adjusted it has excellent color and clarity on DVD or HDTV. Cons: - several times the TV has made a loud POP, the picture disappeared and sound too. It does come back on immediately but needed to be readjusted again. - DirecTV signal looks HORRIBLE on this TV, you can see crawling around every sharp contrasted edge (even with SVM disconnected). My understanding after reading many other reviewers is this is common with HDTV's not just Toshiba. Consistent consensus is this is due to the signal compression from the DTV source or cable company source. I will, however, be trying Dish Network and different cables soon. - switching Inputs via remote is done by repeatedly pressing the INPUT button till you cycle to the input you want to watch (VCR, DVD, Satellite, etc)- this is minor but annoying, would rather have one touch selection. - TV speakers are terrible for voices. With just the TV speakers I am always straining to hear conversations - highly recommend a center channel speaker at the least. Would I buy this HDTV again? No..and Yes. As I watch mostly DVD's and not TV I LOVE the picture and when paired with a good surround Sound system it's movie heaven. For the price - I don't think you can get a clearer richer picture in this size. HOWEVER.. Though infrequent, the occasional POP and loss of picture is disturbing. The quality of the DirecTV picture is very bothersome to me but, I am a perfectionist.
Rating:
Summary: Superb DVD viewing POOR Satellite viewing
Review: I've owned the 56H80 for about 6 months. I am now addicted to wide screen :) Pros: - SUPERB picture with DVD's and HDTV signals, absolutely stunning. - Lack of scan lines is wonderful - Good connection pack on the back - Easy User controls - Good multi control remote (controls DVD, stereo, VCR, DirecTV etc.) - Once adjusted it has excellent color and clarity on DVD or HDTV. Cons: - several times the TV has made a loud POP, the picture disappeared and sound too. It does come back on immediately but needed to be readjusted again. - DirecTV signal looks HORRIBLE on this TV, you can see crawling around every sharp contrasted edge (even with SVM disconnected). My understanding after reading many other reviewers is this is common with HDTV's not just Toshiba. Consistent consensus is this is due to the signal compression from the DTV source or cable company source. I will, however, be trying Dish Network and different cables soon. - switching Inputs via remote is done by repeatedly pressing the INPUT button till you cycle to the input you want to watch (VCR, DVD, Satellite, etc)- this is minor but annoying, would rather have one touch selection. - TV speakers are terrible for voices. With just the TV speakers I am always straining to hear conversations - highly recommend a center channel speaker at the least. Would I buy this HDTV again? No..and Yes. As I watch mostly DVD's and not TV I LOVE the picture and when paired with a good surround Sound system it's movie heaven. For the price - I don't think you can get a clearer richer picture in this size. HOWEVER.. Though infrequent, the occasional POP and loss of picture is disturbing. The quality of the DirecTV picture is very bothersome to me but, I am a perfectionist.
Rating:
Summary: Toshiba 56H80
Review: The Toshiba 56H80 is a widescreen projection TV that is "HDTV-compatible": it claims 1600 lines of resolution, and can display native 1080i. Positives: the image sharpness is exceptional. The built-in scan converter substantially improves the look of DVDs and broadcast TV by line doubling, dot doubling, and video noise reduction. This TV has lots of inputs, including 2 colorstream component video (senses either interlaced or progressive scan DVD players), 2 S-VHS inputs, and 2 composite video. This unit has two-tuners for side-by-side pictures, and a surfing mode that displays an array of still images grabbed from multiple channels. Standard 4:3 TV images are shown on the wide screen in several formats, such as full height with grey sidebars, or full width with cropping of the top and bottom, or full height and width by distorting the image. Negatives: channel switching is slow. The universal remote is powerful but somewhat awkward (for instance, there are buttons to switch from VCR to cable to DVD, but these only change the infra-red command codes; it is also necessary to press the input-select button to cycle through the 6 input connectors.) The built-in stereo audio is ok, not great. No support for 5.1 audio formats such as DTS or DD. Note: projection TVs break and repairs can be problematic. My former Sony 46" developed a bad image after 5 years, and the Sony Factory Service Center eventually determined that the needed replacement parts were discontinued and no longer available. (Hello, landfill!) My new Toshiba 56H80 broke after 1 week, and the Toshiba-authorized warranty repair folks (1-year in-home service) came and took away the chassis, but three months later they still haven't been able to obtain the needed replacement parts from Toshiba.
Rating:
Summary: Toshiba 56H80 - update
Review: This is a brief update to my previous review of the Toshiba 56H80 HDTV. In my previous review I mentioned that the TV broke after 1 week, and 3 months later, the service folks still hadn't been able to obtain the needed repair parts from Toshiba. At 4 months the repaired TV was returned to me in perfect working condition. At 5 months it continues to work perfectly. I continue to recommend this TV over its competitors because of the exceptional picture quality. If you do a side-by-side comparison of HDTVs, one thing to look for is noise in solid-color backgrounds. On Sony WEGAs, I see millions of tiny dots randomly moving around like insects. The Toshiba 56H80 has circuitry that eliminates this visual defect. (The video noise suppression can be disabled for ultimate sharpness from noise-free digital sources.)
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