Toshiba 56HM195 56 in. HDTV DLP TV

Another update as of 8 Feb 06 to my review: Originally went to three local brick and mortar stores (2 Sears, 1 Ultimate Electronics) in Albuquerque, NM (Oct 05) and saw it side by side with the old WEGA 720p, Toshiba 52HM95 720p, Toshiba 52MX95 720p, 50" Samsung 1080p, and Mitsu WD52628 1080p. Could not get the Toshiba to be as bright as these others even on bright bulb. Could not dial down the black. Had the black at setting 1 of 3 (there is no 1-100 for black). Took the contrast down from 100 to 50. Still could not get real browns or reds, and the dark scenes in Blade II brought out the lack of definition of skin and clothing compared to the other sets. Could not set my own colors, only those useless settings of COOL and WARM. I guess the 56MX195 is supposed to have custom settings. Signal was from Direct TV. Yes it was split, but so were the other TVs inputs. Saw multiple artifacts, probably due to the splitter. But the Samsung 1080 was the best at receiving the signal, nearly no artifacts, but still a dark picture for the Sammy. Also, could not get the 56HM195 set to show 4:3 without stretch, probably due to the receiver setting (I can't stand stretched scenes). In the second Sears could not get the 16:9 to display without stretch even though the JVC next to it could! And, I saw the age old screen door effect during action scenes. At Ultimate Electronics spent a couple hours changing settings of the 56HM195 and trying different inputs. The Toshiba looked best with the IEEE fire-wire DVD player, but still showed more artifacts than did the Mitsubishi 1080p on the same input. The Tosh 1080p exhibited even worse PQ when put on the split SD signal compared to the Tosh 720p. I went back to the Ultimate Electronics a week later and the manager had moved the Toshiba 56HM195 out of the main display area into another less prominent area and the set was turned OFF! I asked the salesman why and he said probably because they couldn't get a good picture. I returned several times over the past few months to Ultimate Electronics. In January, I saw for the first time a beautiful picture on the Toshiba 1080p with a closed circuit HD feed. Salesman claimed they moved it away from electromagnetic interference. I now believe that the PQ can be very good depending on the quality of your source. Bottom line: make sure you do not buy this sight unseen. I purchased the Mits 52628 1080p instead on 25 Nov 05. I wrote a separate review in Dec 05 and you can read it as of Feb 06.

UPDATE 12 Sep 06: Ultimate Electronics and several other stores are displaying a very good/ vivid HD picture on closed loop signals. This may warrant a second look at the TV. I still prefer custom color settings, however.