Toshiba TW65X81 65 in. TV
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State of the art for Home Theatre
Pros
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Cons
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Recommended it?
Yes
MAKE THE RIGHT CHOICE FOR YOUR VIEWING HABITS: 4x3 vs. 16x9
I place a much higher priority on DVD film watching than broadcast television. If you are primarily a broadcast television watcher, this is not your best choice. If you are a DVD film watcher, this is your ultimate home theatre display.
WATCHING DVD FILMS
This TV delivers a extremely smooth, theatre-like image when watching anamorphic DVD's on a progressive scan player. Whenever someone sees my HT setup for the first time, their jaw usually hits the floor.
The TW65X81's screen is 5 feet wide and 3 feet high. It has 1600 horizontal lines of resolution, as high as you'll ever need. Make sure you are going to sit 8 feet or more from the screen. If not, you might be better off with a smaller model.
The viewing angles from the side are quite good, the display remains even and bright. On the vertical axis, however, it is important to be sitting with your head at a similar height as the screen: lying on the floor or standing up are not good vantage points.
As with most HDTV's, this model will upconvert interlaced video to progressive for display, and will accept native progressive video from capable players, such as the Toshiba SD-5109, which I also have. The second option provides the better picture quality.
Of particular interest is the TW65X81's ability to allow you to control the aspect ratio of progressive signals, which enables you to view non-anamorphic DVDs without having to reconnect your video cables to the interlaced inputs every time you rent a widescreen movie that turns out to be non-anamorphic. This feature seems to be pretty unique to Toshiba, although there may be others.
WATCHING STANDARD TELEVISION
Standard-width TV images will display with gray bars on each side. This may seem awkward for people who watch more TV than DVD. The bars are gray instead of black to minimize the uneven CRT wear (called phosphor "burn-in") that can result when viewing too much 4x3 images on a 16x9 display. This problem is with ALL widescreen TVs... not just Toshiba. To view standard TV on the full width of the screen, and eliminate the uneven wear problem, Toshiba gives you two viable options:
1. Zoom the picture in so that the top and bottom are cut off (this is the most preferable to me), or
2. Use a special stretch mode that leaves the center of the image (where most of the important action is) alone while stretching the outer portions of the image to fill the wide screen. This cuts off less of the top + bottom of the image, but adds distortion to the picture (It's too annoying for me... I prefer seeing the images cropped and in their normal perspectives.)
One additional thing to note about watching standard TV on this unit... It will give superb pictures if the signal is strong, but with weaker signals, it looks terrible. The line doubler, which provides great images with strong signals, also increases the visible noise with weak signals. This problem is generic to all HDTV's, but if you have a good strong cable or satellite signal, it won't be a problem.
WATCHING HDTV
I have not yet seen true HDTV on it yet. I am still waiting for Toshiba to introduce their DST-3000 HDTV set-top box. It has been pushed back since last fall and currently (5/28/00) has a release date in July 2000. The unit will cost about $1000 plus the dish, and will be able to receive over-the-air HDTV, standard TV, and DirecTV HDTV.
For those not inclined to wait for the DST-3000 (It's release may get pushed back even further... who knows?), the currently available RCA DTC-100 set-top will work with this TV but requires a special VGA to component video converter.
WILL IT FIT?
This may sound silly, but make sure you can get it into your home: It's overall size (60"W x 60.5"H x 29"D) and weight (over 400 lbs) made it quite a challenge to get it in the front door and up the stairs. It took four of us (two were professional deliverymen) and for a short while I was thinking it might have to go back to the store.
CAN YOU GET ONE?
6/24/2000- I have been hearing a lot (in online discussion forums) about order backlogs of the Toshiba widescreen sets. Many have become frustrated with long waiting lines (sometimes months) at dealers to get their hands on one. I ordered mine mid March (2000) and got it early April, so it wasn't to bad. Just take it with a grain of salt when a dealer tells you that the set will be in "maybe next week"... they just want to close the sale and probably have no idea when it will come in. No matter. Just plunk your deposit down and be patient. Those who are expecting a long wait are less likely to be angered by them. If the prospect of waiting a month or two is unacceptable, you may want to consider another manufacturer.
I place a much higher priority on DVD film watching than broadcast television. If you are primarily a broadcast television watcher, this is not your best choice. If you are a DVD film watcher, this is your ultimate home theatre display.
WATCHING DVD FILMS
This TV delivers a extremely smooth, theatre-like image when watching anamorphic DVD's on a progressive scan player. Whenever someone sees my HT setup for the first time, their jaw usually hits the floor.
The TW65X81's screen is 5 feet wide and 3 feet high. It has 1600 horizontal lines of resolution, as high as you'll ever need. Make sure you are going to sit 8 feet or more from the screen. If not, you might be better off with a smaller model.
The viewing angles from the side are quite good, the display remains even and bright. On the vertical axis, however, it is important to be sitting with your head at a similar height as the screen: lying on the floor or standing up are not good vantage points.
As with most HDTV's, this model will upconvert interlaced video to progressive for display, and will accept native progressive video from capable players, such as the Toshiba SD-5109, which I also have. The second option provides the better picture quality.
Of particular interest is the TW65X81's ability to allow you to control the aspect ratio of progressive signals, which enables you to view non-anamorphic DVDs without having to reconnect your video cables to the interlaced inputs every time you rent a widescreen movie that turns out to be non-anamorphic. This feature seems to be pretty unique to Toshiba, although there may be others.
WATCHING STANDARD TELEVISION
Standard-width TV images will display with gray bars on each side. This may seem awkward for people who watch more TV than DVD. The bars are gray instead of black to minimize the uneven CRT wear (called phosphor "burn-in") that can result when viewing too much 4x3 images on a 16x9 display. This problem is with ALL widescreen TVs... not just Toshiba. To view standard TV on the full width of the screen, and eliminate the uneven wear problem, Toshiba gives you two viable options:
1. Zoom the picture in so that the top and bottom are cut off (this is the most preferable to me), or
2. Use a special stretch mode that leaves the center of the image (where most of the important action is) alone while stretching the outer portions of the image to fill the wide screen. This cuts off less of the top + bottom of the image, but adds distortion to the picture (It's too annoying for me... I prefer seeing the images cropped and in their normal perspectives.)
One additional thing to note about watching standard TV on this unit... It will give superb pictures if the signal is strong, but with weaker signals, it looks terrible. The line doubler, which provides great images with strong signals, also increases the visible noise with weak signals. This problem is generic to all HDTV's, but if you have a good strong cable or satellite signal, it won't be a problem.
WATCHING HDTV
I have not yet seen true HDTV on it yet. I am still waiting for Toshiba to introduce their DST-3000 HDTV set-top box. It has been pushed back since last fall and currently (5/28/00) has a release date in July 2000. The unit will cost about $1000 plus the dish, and will be able to receive over-the-air HDTV, standard TV, and DirecTV HDTV.
For those not inclined to wait for the DST-3000 (It's release may get pushed back even further... who knows?), the currently available RCA DTC-100 set-top will work with this TV but requires a special VGA to component video converter.
WILL IT FIT?
This may sound silly, but make sure you can get it into your home: It's overall size (60"W x 60.5"H x 29"D) and weight (over 400 lbs) made it quite a challenge to get it in the front door and up the stairs. It took four of us (two were professional deliverymen) and for a short while I was thinking it might have to go back to the store.
CAN YOU GET ONE?
6/24/2000- I have been hearing a lot (in online discussion forums) about order backlogs of the Toshiba widescreen sets. Many have become frustrated with long waiting lines (sometimes months) at dealers to get their hands on one. I ordered mine mid March (2000) and got it early April, so it wasn't to bad. Just take it with a grain of salt when a dealer tells you that the set will be in "maybe next week"... they just want to close the sale and probably have no idea when it will come in. No matter. Just plunk your deposit down and be patient. Those who are expecting a long wait are less likely to be angered by them. If the prospect of waiting a month or two is unacceptable, you may want to consider another manufacturer.
