Toshiba 51HX93 51 in. HDTV TV

I have read many reviews of electronic devices and most seem to spend a great deal of time talking about comb filters, special mirrors, video inputs and outputs, resolution both horizontal and vertical, brightness etc. etc. etc... The fact is that if you are serious about looking at any electronic product, then I am assuming for the purpose of this review, that you are familiar with such terms, and I need not lecture you about the pros and cons of each.


The bottom line here is this set delivers the best picture I have seen. I looked at Plasma, DLP, LCD, and other rear projection sets.

I did not rely on HD pictures I witnessed in various showrooms. Instead, I took my own DVD (" Pirates of the Caribbean ") and had the salesperson play it using component video inputs.(not all showrooms allowed me to this) After making some minor adjustments in the showroom to the Toshiba 51HX93, the picture was almost 3D like, and the colors vivid and true. Even as I moved to the side, the picture still looked great. I was sold.

Now here's the rub. The manual says the built in HD tuner will receive digital signals using ANT 1 or ANT 2 (there are two such F connections in the back of the set). The owners manual is wrong. Connecting a roof-top antenna to ANT 1 resulted in the built in HD tuner finding several digital signals. However, this unit has a built in TV Guide that works through signals that must be feed into ANT 1. If you have cable without a cable box (I do), then you need to feed that cable line to ANT 1. Thus, the roof-top HD antenna needs to be connected to ANT 2. The HD tuner of the 51HX93 does NOT
find digital channels using ANT 2 like the manual says. As a result, I had to make a choice of using the TV Guide or receiving digital signals for free over the air.

Making the choice between digital and cable seemed like a no- brainer. However, in my case I discovered that I only really picked up two channels during the limited time that HD was being broadcast in my hometown. Also, the picture was so good using the analog cable signal that during the time the stations were broadcasting in HD it seemed like my picture was almost HD quality. Thus, I decided to hook the cable up to antenna one and make things work using the TV Guide etc.

This created another problem. The 51HX93 has a feature called clear cable ready. This means that the tuner can receive digital signals that are being feed to via the cable connection. Thus, when the computer inside the TV began to
"program" itself during "set up", it found several digital
music channels as well as all the analog TV channels that were not scrambled. This resulted in the overload of the computers memory, and the failure of the TV to function properly. The first thing to stop working was the audio.

I almost sent the set back to the dealer, but I decided to do a total factory reset. I then manually programed the channels into the TV's computer, and as a result everything works beautifully except the HD tuner. It has limited capacity to handle things exactly as I wanted, but I am not concerned until HDTV is widely broadcast. By that time the cable companies will have to send the HDTV signal directly through the cable allowing those of us with "cable clear" tuners. to receive digital channels.