Toshiba 42H82 42 in. HDTV-Ready TV

Being a lover of the Big Screen since I was just a wee lad, I always knew it would only be a matter of time before I bought my own home theatre system. In April 2003, I finally bought the key piece: my Toshiba 42" Wide-Screen Projection TV (42H82).

BUYING IT
After doing a minimum amount of research online (stupid me!) and only really shopping around at 2 or 3 stores, I really didn't get to preview a huge selection of wide-screens before I decided on the 42H82. I knew I didn't want to order it online; the delivery or shipping charge for a 150+ pound monster was bound to blow a hole in my wallet, and I was all too happy to put my well-earned money to the greatest work for me. I managed to pick up a floor-model from Best Buy (they were getting the new 42H83s to replace this model) for a sweet price. The $200 off practically paid for my extended warranty. (It IS a floor model after all; I'm not stupid.)

I chose the Toshiba over other similarly-sized wide-screens for a number of reasons:
(1) Picture quality - the 42H82's picture was incomparably the best I viewed. I even had the salesmen adjust the settings for the competitors to maximize the picture quality, but they couldn't quite reach the vivid colors and sharp picture that the Toshiba achieved.

(2) Size - this wide-screen, unlike most of the competition, was a tall TV. The stereo speakers sat below the 42" screen, bringing the screen about 20 inches off the ground. I didn't have to worry about buying a stand to get it to eye level. There was a Sony 42" that you had to buy the stand for separately, which cost an additional $200. I'm sure you could find a cheaper non-perfect-fitting stand for it elsewhere, but this Toshiba and a couple of others were already tall enough.

(3) Price - wasn't the cheapest of the models I viewed, but when I found out that I could get a discount on the floor model, it suddenly became the cheapest of the models I looked at. Plus they threw in free home delivery, so I couldn't pass it up.

AT THE HOMESTEAD
I live in a two-bedroom apartment w/ about 1100 sq ft of floor space....relatively spacious. A big-screen was going to have to be limited or I could really overwhelm what little space I had. Because of the faux-fireplace and the half-wall separating my dining room, my living room had limited ways I could set up a TV-couch-loveseat arrangement. I was limited to putting the TV against one wall, my couch against the faux-fireplace, leaving only about 8-10 ft between my face (when I'm sitting on the couch) and the front of the TV. My loveseat has been totally discounted from the viewing pleasure, which sucks if I have company. I'll have to work on a better arrangement.

The first thing I noticed about this beautiful behemoth when I moved it into it's correct place was that IT IS HEAVY! Weighing in at an impressive coulda-been-a-contender 200 lbs, I felt a certain security in its quality - like how people feel that a heavier, older aluminum-framed car is more like a tank than today's plastic-framed cars. It feels very secure in the standing position, and in no way does it feel like it would fall over haphazardly. That well-weighted feeling is difficult to achieve with a TV that's 47" tall but only 18" wide.

The slim profile & small footprint were definitely nice features, but were unnecessary for my needs. I intentionally purchased a wrap-around entertainment center to hold all the home theatre audio goodies that I was going to need. But for the individual that needs to get maximum performance from minimum floor space, this wide-screen was impressively slim.

The color scheme is a black with grey/silver trim. Like most TVs, there's not much furniture it won't go with. It has three sets of RCA cable inputs (2 in back, 1 in front); three S-video inputs (2 in back, 1 in front); two component video inputs (in back); and two coaxial cable inputs. There are also some video & audio (fixed & variable) outs, and a strange 24-pin serial connection that I don't know what to use for. Plenty of space to connect the equipment.

TAKING THE PEPSI CHALLENGE
Firing up this beasty for the first time at home was exciting. Nothing spectacular to be said for its startup times; it takes the usual few seconds most TVs take to warm up.

Initial setup was a snap. Menus are easy to understand & navigate. Actually, the menu was pretty cool in itself. There was no solid background, just the thin font lettering on the picture in the background. You don't even have to stop watching your show or DVD to change a single setting. It can make it hard to read at times, but I found out soon that you can put a solid-color background behind the menu if you wish. Good forethought by Toshiba there. I was already impressed with the practicality of the design, and I hadn't even given it a real test yet.

I first tested the cable signal. I'm running digital cable from Comcast (took over AT&T last year). The picture quality of the digital signal was so good, I could literally see the pixelization of the picture when I was standing up close. (I can't imagine having a bigger TV! I probably wouldn't be able to get away from those pixels!) The pixels were harder to identify when I stepped a few feet away, and the picture looked GREAT. I just couldn't believe that this TV was sensitive enough to pick up the digital signal flaws that I couldn't see on a 27" conventional. To this date, I can still see those pixels when I move too close to the screen.

Many of the settings were still in place from when it was on display. So I was watching the cable in one of the many wide-screen modes. A little stretched, I began looking at some of the other wide-screen modes, until I found one that didn't stretch the image of letterboxed movie (left a couple inches of black bar on the top & bottom of the screen). It looked great. I then turned to ESPN to see how a 5:3 picture would look: the width of the pic was extended to the sides of the screen, and the top & bottom were slightly cut off, but not too horribly that I couldn't read both the scorebox at the top & most of the scrolling scores at the bottom. A closer look revealed that the picture was extremely slightly stretched left-to-right, so much that I didn't even notice from a distance. Quality use of this particular wide-screen mode.

Next, I tried the ESPN picture in the 5:3 mode. This was a little disappointing! I actually got very much what I expected: a great-looking picture w/ wide bars on the left & right of the screen. What I didn't expect was that those bars would be grey! Not black, like most would expect, but GREY. I'm not sure what the designers were thinking (maybe they thought the grey looked good w/ the grey trim around the edge of the screen - it actually clashed!), but it was a crime to put grey bars on my television. I'd never been bothered by the black bars in letterboxed movies, but these grey side-bars distracted me & generally creeped me out. I put it back in my favorite wide-screen mode, and I haven't looked back since.

The last big test was, of course, watching a DVD on mi monstro. I popped in Star Wars, Episode 1 and was blown away by what appeared before my eyes. (Keep in mind that the ONLY accessory I bought with this TV beyond the warranty was component video cables.) I've never seen a more beautiful picture in a person's home. The colors were great, the picture was smooth and flowed, the movie was an experience as opposed to a movie. Even close to the screen you couldn't detect a flaw in the picture; no pixelization up close, high refresh rate. Toshiba really did have the picture quality down pat.

PLAYING AROUND
Now that I've had this puppy for 8 months now, let me point out some notable features and some disappointing nice-tries.

Angle-of-View - One complaint I had about this bad-boy was that it doesn't have a very large angle-of-view. I know that I'm probably a little closer to my screen than most people would be to theirs, but I really thought the viewing area would be larger. At about 8 ft away, if I stand up from the couch, the picture dims. If I sit on my chair 3 ft from the left-most edge of my couch, the picture dims. If I lay on the floor about 4 ft from the screen, the picture dims. I knew that I was going to have a limited angle-of-view for a projection TV, but I foolishly thought that it would be a little more accommodating.

Touch-Focus Conversion - There's a button on the front of the set that supposedly will correct your TV's RGB conversion & colors automatically. Personally, this is one feature that never worked for me, I suspect because I bought a floor-model. I'm still trying to get Best Buy to fix this feature, so I can't comment on it's usefulness yet. But I will as soon as it's fixed.

Ambient Light Sensor - Automatically dims or brightens the television based on the ambient light in the room. I can tell there is a huge difference when I turn on the light at night after watching TV in the dark. Very nice little feature. During the daytime, it's brighter. At night, it dims, saving energy & your eyes.

Screen-level - The screen is perfectly elevated off the ground. I have an average-height couch (about 19-20" off the ground), and when I sit on the couch comfortably (I'm 6'2" tall), I look eye-level at the very center of the picture. My girlfriend is about 5'4" and sees the same center of the picture when she's sitting down.

Internal Speakers - Besides sounding very nice as stereo speakers driving an input signal, there is a not-well-known feature to the internal speakers. The TV will take a line-level input & use the internal speakers as a center channel speaker for a surround-sound setup. Unfortunately, I have yet to find a single surround-sound receiver that has line-level outs for the satellites. It was a nice idea but.....

Side-by-Side PIP - The two-tuner PIP on this Toshiba was the feature that finally sold me. Taking great advantage of the wide-screen design, Toshiba did not employ the standard smaller-window in bigger-window PIP. They put equal-size pictures side-by-side! There are grey bars above & below the different pictures, but it's bearable for the little amount of use I get from them (only for NFL Sunday, usually). The one drawback of the PIP: the second picture has limited inputs; you can't use just any equipment that's hooked up. I've gotten around this by doing all of the audio/video switching through my receiver & just sending the Zone2 signal to my TV as well.

JERRY'S FINAL THOUGHT
I'm very happy with my Toshiba 42H82. Due to space restrictions, I couldn't have gone with anything bigger. Since I don't use the 5:3 mode ever anymore, I can't put up much of a complaint about the tacky grey side-bars. In fact, other than Best Buy's sucky warranty service, I haven't a complaint in the world.