RCA P61310 CRT TV
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More suggestions in Projection Televisions »![Mitsubishi 73\](http://di105.shoppingshadow.com/images/di/4a/34/37/783253533634373934574b6930326c38436f41-80x80-0-0.jpg?p=dHTXkcGZQP&a=1&c=1&l=3057240&t=05%2F27%2F12%2010%3A00%3A56%20AM&r=1&d=1599.0&rt=mr "Mitsubishi 73\")
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A great TV, great value
Pros
Excellent picture, optical audio out, built in tuners for everything.
Cons
PIP only in non-digital modes, HDTV tuner doesn't output video. Slow tuner. Convergence drifts daily!
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
Needs faster tuning, PIP support for all modes, HDTV outputs. Great picture, SP/DIF out.
Sharpness will amaze in HDTV mode, but the same sharpness (as is the case with any HDTV I'd presume) that is wonderful at 1440x1080 (RCA stated resolution in the 1080i 1920x1080 mode) is such a great indicator of how horrid the signal quality of your old sources really is. Digital standard definition that looked awesome on a 25" TV will make you vomit at 61" HDTV. MPEG quantization the size of your fist, and the SDTV interpolated by broadcaster to HDTV looks like it was processed through a cheese grater. I don't think this is a fault of this TV, but I suppose the receiver could fuzz the low resolution signals to mask the ugliness. Tivo looked good before-- now this TV is capable of showing how bad the dual-encoded MPEG2 signal is (DirecTV encodes once - quality varying by the broadcasters bitrate (compare HBO to SciFi, tell me the bitrates are the same!) encoded a second time by Tivo.) Be prepared to be disappointed by any non-HDTV equipment you have feeding signal in.
It is nice that this TV includes the necessary receivers for off-air HDTV and DirecTV. This alone is also worth $550 the last time I checked for a set-top box so compare prices with this in mind. The consolidation is nice since this TV is in fact (grin) larger than the average apartment in Tokyo. Add to that the cost of Monster Cables (cough-sucker bait) and you've netted $620 versus the price of any other set.
If weight is a consideration (poor saps in the delivery business) this TV is fairly light at only 220 or so pounds (Toshiba claims 300+ and 400+ pounds for their 61" and 65" sets, respectively). Your delivery man will thank you. Mental note: any delivery guy who can carry a 220lb. TV up a flight of stairs in the bottom position is not someone you want to mess with ;).
The tuning is very slow. This will break the clicking habit. Tuning up a channel takes several seconds. Forget channel surfing, you'll have to use the channel guide. Now with broadcast HDTV, you'll also often get 3 versions of the same channel, analog, HDTV, and SDTV (standard definition digital). Switching between these modes is painfully slow on this model. Glad I spend most of my time on sattelite, it seems a bit quicker.
A big con (don't know who does it better) is the PIP feature - dual tuners, but analog only. Neither terrestrial HDTV nor satellite in any form SDTV or HDTV will allow PIP. Basically, you can watch two crappy resolution pictures at once, or one good one. Oh well, you replaced a lesser set with this one, right? Set it nearby and you've got a better PIP ;)
It is nice that this set outputs optical audio SP/DIF. It would be nicer if it output component video and standard/Svideo for a Tivo or something along those lines. That is the downside of an internal decoder - it's a little weird setting up the Pioneer receiver I have to accept a video source with no video but digitial audio.
A prior reviewer mentioned the weakness of the internal speakers: to this I add: what kind of person spends $3500 on a TV and uses the internal speakers? These are vestigial organs; I only wish the store sold the model that has no speakers at all (I think RCA makes just such a thing). Of course, the non-speaker model would probably require a TV stand which would cost as much as the savings from not having speakers ;( . For the record, my speakers are off, the SP/DIF is on.
The unit I got came with a Circuit City promotional DVD player (modest Zenith model) and also the mail-in rebate RCA progressive-scan model yet to arrive.
Addendum: a couple of annoyances: RCA won't have the free bundled progressive scan DVD in stock until October. Another thing I've noticed is that the red/blue convergence seems to drift every single day - perhaps this is a temperature issue due to starting up much cooler than the operating point when last adjusted. This is very annoying. It's also fairly hard to get acceptable convergence (for text) across the full width of the screen. Perfect alignment on the left = poor alignment on the right. This doesn't seem to matter as much watching live video.
Overall, I'm very pleased for the first week of owning this TV.
It is nice that this TV includes the necessary receivers for off-air HDTV and DirecTV. This alone is also worth $550 the last time I checked for a set-top box so compare prices with this in mind. The consolidation is nice since this TV is in fact (grin) larger than the average apartment in Tokyo. Add to that the cost of Monster Cables (cough-sucker bait) and you've netted $620 versus the price of any other set.
If weight is a consideration (poor saps in the delivery business) this TV is fairly light at only 220 or so pounds (Toshiba claims 300+ and 400+ pounds for their 61" and 65" sets, respectively). Your delivery man will thank you. Mental note: any delivery guy who can carry a 220lb. TV up a flight of stairs in the bottom position is not someone you want to mess with ;).
The tuning is very slow. This will break the clicking habit. Tuning up a channel takes several seconds. Forget channel surfing, you'll have to use the channel guide. Now with broadcast HDTV, you'll also often get 3 versions of the same channel, analog, HDTV, and SDTV (standard definition digital). Switching between these modes is painfully slow on this model. Glad I spend most of my time on sattelite, it seems a bit quicker.
A big con (don't know who does it better) is the PIP feature - dual tuners, but analog only. Neither terrestrial HDTV nor satellite in any form SDTV or HDTV will allow PIP. Basically, you can watch two crappy resolution pictures at once, or one good one. Oh well, you replaced a lesser set with this one, right? Set it nearby and you've got a better PIP ;)
It is nice that this set outputs optical audio SP/DIF. It would be nicer if it output component video and standard/Svideo for a Tivo or something along those lines. That is the downside of an internal decoder - it's a little weird setting up the Pioneer receiver I have to accept a video source with no video but digitial audio.
A prior reviewer mentioned the weakness of the internal speakers: to this I add: what kind of person spends $3500 on a TV and uses the internal speakers? These are vestigial organs; I only wish the store sold the model that has no speakers at all (I think RCA makes just such a thing). Of course, the non-speaker model would probably require a TV stand which would cost as much as the savings from not having speakers ;( . For the record, my speakers are off, the SP/DIF is on.
The unit I got came with a Circuit City promotional DVD player (modest Zenith model) and also the mail-in rebate RCA progressive-scan model yet to arrive.
Addendum: a couple of annoyances: RCA won't have the free bundled progressive scan DVD in stock until October. Another thing I've noticed is that the red/blue convergence seems to drift every single day - perhaps this is a temperature issue due to starting up much cooler than the operating point when last adjusted. This is very annoying. It's also fairly hard to get acceptable convergence (for text) across the full width of the screen. Perfect alignment on the left = poor alignment on the right. This doesn't seem to matter as much watching live video.
Overall, I'm very pleased for the first week of owning this TV.
