Toshiba - 72" 1080p DLP RPTV - Details and Price

[auscott]

you pricks are frustrating

just when i think i have made my decision on projector and screen i come across this thread.

well, i will be checking out HN this weekend.

$6k for the 72" Model has me sold.

A question though with the stand.

How much space is available between shelves in height.

I like pail i think it is will be connecting a HTPC with digital TV coming through the HTPC as well as all other types of media.

So the ability to be able to have a good HTPC fit in the stand that they provide is pretty important.

Good work guys, really good read, took some times, but i think this is the TV for me and by the sounds of it, it will last me a long time.

Out of Interest - Has anyone watched LOTR:EE on this TV - how did it look?

[smokin]

you pricks are frustrating

just when i think i have made my decision on projector and screen i come across this thread.

well, i will be checking out HN this weekend.

$6k for the 72" Model has me sold.

A question though with the stand.

How much space is available between shelves in height.

I like pail i think it is will be connecting a HTPC with digital TV coming through the HTPC as well as all other types of media.

So the ability to be able to have a good HTPC fit in the stand that they provide is pretty important.

Good work guys, really good read, took some times, but i think this is the TV for me and by the sounds of it, it will last me a long time.

Out of Interest - Has anyone watched LOTR:EE on this TV - how did it look?

Aus

Very happy with my set

Top shelf = 183 mm high

Bottom Shelf = 185 mm high

Depth = 380 mm

Width = 1280 mm

Python

[TwelveinchTom]

Auscott, I was concerned about the 72" stand when I bought as I paid $800 for a stand to house all my components for the failed LG MW60 but was not wide enough for the 72". Very happy to advise the 72" stand will easily house all your current & future components with ease including a centre speaker. I'm just so glad I got it in time to watch England win the world cup.

[Foggy]

I'm just so glad I got it in time to watch England win the world cup.

It doesn't take a sleuth to look at your forum name, and your sentiment in the quote above to realise just how delusional you are

[Hosko]

It doesn't take a sleuth to look at your forum name, and your sentiment in the quote above to realise just how delusional you are

TwelveInchTom refers to his Twelve Inch Palsonic Telly

[paul_c100]

Gents - I noticed today that Harvey Norman are advertising the 72" Toshiba in their catalogue for $6,998 including the stand. Presumably, if that's their offer price, the closer the $6,000 price will be fairly generally available.

Given an earlier poster suggested that the best price on the LG was $8,000, the Toshiba is stacking up to be the best all-round.

The other thing, you might find that more stores have stock and have them on display.

Couple of questions regarding Dynamic Iris. I understand that the light source is controlled by limiting the light going through to the screen. While this increases the quoted specs and will make dark scenes look darker, I would have thought that this will have a serious side effect of reducing the brightness of other bright parts of the picture.

So, in the case of dark shows like start wars, the planets and other bright objects will not be as bright as a display unit with a natively high contrast. Presumably, shadow detail will also be poor if the light source is being lowered.

This is like an averaging process. You can't have bright and dark at the full extremes at the same time. I would expect the bias will be for the additonal blacks, so the picture is most likely going to be darker and less vibrant.

Any thoughts ?

[pietro1503559499]

Riv, my TV arrived yesterday..a day early. But I have nobody to help me lift it onto the stand, probably until Monday. Luckily I'm patient.

BTW the stand is easy for 1 person to assemble....45kg though.

[Omega1503559526]

Gents - I noticed today that Harvey Norman are advertising the 72" Toshiba in their catalogue for $6,998 including the stand. Presumably, if that's their offer price, the closer the $6,000 price will be fairly generally available.

Given an earlier poster suggested that the best price on the LG was $8,000, the Toshiba is stacking up to be the best all-round.

The other thing, you might find that more stores have stock and have them on display.

Couple of questions regarding Dynamic Iris. I understand that the light source is controlled by limiting the light going through to the screen. While this increases the quoted specs and will make dark scenes look darker, I would have thought that this will have a serious side effect of reducing the brightness of other bright parts of the picture.

So, in the case of dark shows like start wars, the planets and other bright objects will not be as bright as a display unit with a natively high contrast. Presumably, shadow detail will also be poor if the light source is being lowered.

This is like an averaging process. You can't have bright and dark at the full extremes at the same time. I would expect the bias will be for the additonal blacks, so the picture is most likely going to be darker and less vibrant.

Any thoughts ?

Sounds reasonable in terms of extremes in the same scenes...but USUALLY (and i use the term fairly tentatively) you arnt going to get those extremes in the one scene.

And id say the iris would respond very very quickly, so for most movies it will do a pretty good job of switching between bright and dark. And given the brightness advantage it already has over DLP, i would expect that it would usually be brighter if anything.

On purchase price, the Toshiba is $6999 ticket at Todds Hi-Fi in Indooroopilly, but id have to wonder where the $8,000 for the LG came from.

Its ticketd at $7,315 at Bi-Rite Electrical, and given my past experience with bi-rite, they are more than happy to bargain for cash. From memory, my MW60 was high 8's ticket, and i got it on credit card for $8,000 even with a stand, 17" LCD monitor, HDSTB and Delivery thrown in, so i think at most, youll be paying $150-200 more for the LG.

On that priced item, thats irrelevant.

Anyone looking at these two sets should only concern themselves with the PQ, and respective value-adds that various stores will chuck in with them.

I think the more restrictive factor will be the availability of the LG, whereas Toshiba doesnt seem to be having any such problems.

is the Toshiba manual downloadable from somewhere?...i made up a Spec Comparison sheets of various sets available, but i havent got anythign listed for the Toshiba, dont think the website was very informative.

[pietro1503559499]

It's at the Castel website...I d/l from there to get to know the set before I bought it.

[OzHTfan]

These are all good questions. I can't recall the technical / legal detail, but from memory, the government can prohibit the sale of devices from within Australia that allow receiving of satelite broadcasts. If anybody was allows to broadcast into Australia, there wouldn't be so much fuss about media ownership laws etc. The media companies would simply buy satelite space and broadcast from there.

I know there are 'underground' ways to achieve this, but you won't be going to your local Harvey Norman any time soon for a HD Satelite box and subscription.

Hope that helps.

Paul, sorry, but what you are talking about is a standards issue with boxes, not a broadcasting regulatory issue. The box would have to meet consumer standards, which is not difficult. Don't the confuse Cross-media issues with Satellite, they are not connected. You won't see companies jumping into Pay Satellite ever day due to the extreme costs involved as well as the lack of expertise in operating them. This is absolutely no different from Austar bring their new dual tuner DVB-S/DVB-T/PVR box to market shortly. I know for a fact that that latest low cost Pay TV provider in Australia is looking at providing HD, but it will be via MPEG 4 part 10 or H.264 compression, which is available now by asian box manufacturers. How long it takes to introduce is another matter. But dare say it will be in the next year well ahead of a Foxtel offerring being that they are currently hamstrung with transponder space.

[paul_c100]

Paul, sorry, but what you are talking about is a standards issue with boxes, not a broadcasting regulatory issue. The box would have to meet consumer standards, which is not difficult. Don't the confuse Cross-media issues with Satellite, they are not connected. You won't see companies jumping into Pay Satellite ever day due to the extreme costs involved as well as the lack of expertise in operating them. This is absolutely no different from Austar bring their new dual tuner DVB-S/DVB-T/PVR box to market shortly. I know for a fact that that latest low cost Pay TV provider in Australia is looking at providing HD, but it will be via MPEG 4 part 10 or H.264 compression, which is available now by asian box manufacturers. How long it takes to introduce is another matter. But dare say it will be in the next year well ahead of a Foxtel offerring being that they are currently hamstrung with transponder space.

Hmmm .. I would be very surprised if anybody could decide to start beeming into Australia and selling set top boxes and subscriptions to their service without government approval.. I hope that I am wrong though..

[Hosko]

Hmmm .. I would be very surprised if anybody could decide to start beeming into Australia and selling set top boxes and subscriptions to their service without government approval.. I hope that I am wrong though..

The australian government has no control over what is beamed into this country via sat. They don't control space. Aslong as it is based overseas the Government can't do squat.

[auscott]

Hmmm .. I would be very surprised if anybody could decide to start beeming into Australia and selling set top boxes and subscriptions to their service without government approval.. I hope that I am wrong though..

i would get sky sports HD in a heart beat regardless of cost

[Omega1503559526]

It's at the Castel website...I d/l from there to get to know the set before I bought it.

Hmm thanks for that.

Had a look at it, pretty useless manual spec wise, so is the brochure.

Things im missing are:

Projected Lamp Life:

Brightness:

Contrast:

Viewing Angle:

Pitch:

The JVC was similarly unhelpful.

Projected Lamp Life is particularly important to be gotten direct from the company if possible, cos its that 'representation' that will be needed if something fails grossly short of that, but outside warranty.

Anyone got any info on these specs for the Toshiba?

[OzHTfan]

Hmmm .. I would be very surprised if anybody could decide to start beeming into Australia and selling set top boxes and subscriptions to their service without government approval.. I hope that I am wrong though..

Don't suppose you've heard of SelectTV(www.selectv.com.au) then. It just launched last month and is not being marketed yet. It is a fully fledged pay provider taking on Foxtel and Austar as a low cost alternative. Different model from the other providers though, as they do not subsidise STBs or dishes. It also opens up the opportunity for higher quality paytv STBs ala the DirecTV US scenario ie HDMI w/ PVR, etc.

[dlpnut1503560389]

Hmm thanks for that.

Had a look at it, pretty useless manual spec wise, so is the brochure.

Things im missing are:

Projected Lamp Life:

Brightness:

Contrast:

Viewing Angle:

Pitch:

The JVC was similarly unhelpful.

Projected Lamp Life is particularly important to be gotten direct from the company if possible, cos its that 'representation' that will be needed if something fails grossly short of that, but outside warranty.

Anyone got any info on these specs for the Toshiba?

Lamp life about 6000 hrs, but warrantied only for 6 months.

[Omega1503559526]

Lamp life about 6000 hrs, but warrantied only for 6 months.

thanks for that, where did you get that from?

Funny how these estimated lamp lifes are slowly dropping.

First "over 10,000" then 8,000, now 6,000.... Either they are cutting costs using cheaper lamps (quite possible given all those 300hr lampblowouts recently), or they are starting to front up about previous "exaggerations."

This isnt a minor drop, the expected lamplife has almost halved.

[dlpnut1503560389]

thanks for that, where did you get that from?

Funny how these estimated lamp lifes are slowly dropping.

First "over 10,000" then 8,000, now 6,000.... Either they are cutting costs using cheaper lamps (quite possible given all those 300hr lampblowouts recently), or they are starting to front up about previous "exaggerations."

This isnt a minor drop, the expected lamplife has almost halved.

It is something I recall seeing on the net in reviews, and mantioned on this forum, also the contrast was about 5000:1 contrast ratio .

Althought the specs may give you some indication, not all the values are measured the same way by the manufacturers, so don't go by them only to judge a display unit.

[Owen]

The other thing, you might find that more stores have stock and have them on display.

Couple of questions regarding Dynamic Iris. I understand that the light source is controlled by limiting the light going through to the screen. While this increases the quoted specs and will make dark scenes look darker, I would have thought that this will have a serious side effect of reducing the brightness of other bright parts of the picture.

So, in the case of dark shows like start wars, the planets and other bright objects will not be as bright as a display unit with a natively high contrast. Presumably, shadow detail will also be poor if the light source is being lowered.

This is like an averaging process. You can't have bright and dark at the full extremes at the same time. I would expect the bias will be for the additonal blacks, so the picture is most likely going to be darker and less vibrant.

Any thoughts ?

Display brightness is dependant on ambient lighting conditions in the viewing environment.

If the viewing environment is very bright, you need a very bright display, however under subdued lighting conditions, a bright display is unnecessary, and will only cause eye strain.

Display black level requirements are similarly affected by ambient lighting.

A bright viewing environment will require black levels to be increased to maintain shadow detail.

Conversely a dark viewing environment will require very low black levels (low brightness setting) to provide convincing blacks, as well as relatively low peak brightness (lower contrast setting), to avoid eye strain.

Therefor a display needs to be calibrated differently for different ambient lighting conditions.

In general, digital displays are very bright, but have relatively poor black levels. This works well in relatively bright viewing environments but, in a relatively dark viewing environment, the poor black levels become obvious, and the brightness of the display becomes unusable.

Under such conditions, it is an advantage to limit the light output from the light engine using lower lamp power and a smaller iris (aperture) setting to limit peak white levels to a comfortable level, and at the same time lower black levels significantly.

In my viewing environment, which is relatively subdued, day or night, I find I only need 9-10 foot lamberts (FtL) of light output from my CRT RPTV to provide more then adequate brightness.

If I choose to turn down the lights at night, even that is too bright.

Manufacturers make there displays as bright as possible, to provide the most pop in a showroom.

Bright displays attracts uninformed customers like moths to a flame, however this inevitably compromises black levels.

Displays like Sonys SXRD can provide 30FtL light output, which is great for a brightly lit room, but is completely over the top for a relatively dark viewing environment.

The solution for the videophile who requires good blacks, is to lower the lamp power, disable the dynamic iris (aperture), and manually close it down as much as possible, to lower the overall output from the light engine significantly, thus improving blacks.

If the light engine output is lowered 50% , then black levels are also 50% percent lower.

As long as peak light output remains adequate for the ambient lighting conditions, all is good.

Its simply a case of optimising the display for best possible blacks under subdued lighting, rather then optimising for the brightest whites in a relatively bright showrooms, as manufacturers always do.

In a bright environment, deep blacks are not required, in fact black levels will need to be increased to maintain shadow detail.

In the case of the SXRD , with a native chip contrast ratio of 5000:1, (without dynamic iris operation), when peak light output is restricted to 10ftL, black level will be 5000 times lower, or .0002ftL, which is very black in anything other then a completely black room.

With the use of a little back (bias) lighting, black screens should look completely black, at least I hope they will.

[BRD]

Displays like Sonys SXRD can provide 30FtL light output, which is great for a brightly lit room, but is completely over the top for a relatively dark viewing environment.

Thats why you have various adjustable brightness & presets. As lamps age, you might need to dial things up a bit!

A brighter Plasma would be a good thing for the same reason. Halflife = half dark!

That means say 5% drop per year over 10 years for some...

[Omega1503559526]

In the case of the SXRD , with a native chip contrast ratio of 5000:1, (without dynamic iris operation), when peak light output is restricted to 10ftL, black level will be 5000 times lower, or .0002ftL, which is very black in anything other then a completely black room.

With the use of a little back (bias) lighting, black screens should look completely black, at least I hope they will.

See, now that is what gets me about that review of the SXRD posted above.

It says the black levels were inferior to the topline DLPs.

However, we know that the contrast ratio of 5,000:1 is a perhaps conservative estimate if independant testing is anything to go by.

Yet the Toshi apparently has a contrast ratio of 5,000:1.

Now either Toshiba is significantly UNDERstating its contrast ratio....or something about the review was wrong.

I know Contrast Ratio isnt the be-all-end-all of blacks and shadow detail, but still...it seems to be a rather odd contradiction.

Mind you, the LG LCOS advertises 10,000:1...however unlike the Sony's this doesnt hold up under independant testing, and where they get that figure from in the first place ill never know as Spatialight give a figure of 2,000:1 (or something like that).

Owen, are we absolutely sure that the LG DOESNT have a dynamic iris? As that is the only way to reconcile the figures.

Sonys say 5,000:1 with it off, and 13,000:1 with it on

Spatialight say 2,000:1 ...but LG say 10,000:1...that seems to fit with what the reading should be if it had a dynamic iris.

All these numbers...my head hurts.

[Owen]

Thats why you have various adjustable brightness & presets. As lamps age, you might need to dial things up a bit!

A brighter Plasma would be a good thing for the same reason. Halflife = half dark!

That means say 5% drop per year over 10 years for some...

For my use, there will never be a lack of brightness with digital RPTV’s.

The problem for me is taming light output down to an acceptable level.

If this is done via lamp or iris control black levels can be improved significantly.

With Plasma, nothing can be done to improve blacks.

[Owen]

See, now that is what gets me about that review of the SXRD posted above.

It says the black levels were inferior to the topline DLPs.

However, we know that the contrast ratio of 5,000:1 is a perhaps conservative estimate if independant testing is anything to go by.

Yet the Toshi apparently has a contrast ratio of 5,000:1.

Both DLP and SXRD chips have a native contrast ratio of around 5000:1

The use of a dynamic iris only affects the brightest whites in a predominantly bright scene in relation to the deepest blacks in a predominantly dark scene.

The brightest whites and deepest blacks cannot be displayed together, as the iris can only be at one setting for any given frame.

This works quite well as you cant see deep blacks when there are significant areas of high brightness on screen.

When it comes to dark scenes, where deep blacks are required, the iris will be closed down to minimum, and black levels will be dictated by the lamp brightness and the native contrast ratio of the micro display chip.

When comparing two displays of similar contrast ratio, the brighter display will have poorer black levels, simply because it is brighter.

For example, a display that produces 40FtL will have a black level 5000 times smaller, or .0008 Ftl, where as a display of the same contrast ratio that provides 25Ftl will have a black level of .0005 FtL

It’s up to the manufacturer what compromise they set, and Sony generally goes for a brighter picture.

However, the user can get around that by installing a smaller iris or neutral density filters to reduce maximum light output and improve blacks, and that is what I intend to do with any miro display based RPTV that I get.

They are all too bright for my usage, so I can dim them down to get better blacks, and get a compromise that suits me, rather then the one imposed by the manufacturer.

Now either Toshiba is significantly UNDERstating its contrast ratio....or something about the review was wrong.

I know Contrast Ratio isnt the be-all-end-all of blacks and shadow detail, but still...it seems to be a rather odd contradiction.

Mind you, the LG LCOS advertises 10,000:1...however unlike the Sony's this doesnt hold up under independant testing, and where they get that figure from in the first place ill never know as Spatialight give a figure of 2,000:1 (or something like that).

Don’t get worked up over the numbers, as they don’t mean much in practice, and are unreliable.

Let your eyes be the judge.

Owen, are we absolutely sure that the LG DOESNT have a dynamic iris? As that is the only way to reconcile the figures.

No, but I am sure the blacks on the LG are poor.

If blacks are important to you, stay away from the LG.

Sonys say 5,000:1 with it off, and 13,000:1 with it on

Spatialight say 2,000:1 ...but LG say 10,000:1...that seems to fit with what the reading should be if it had a dynamic iris.

All these numbers...my head hurts.

The Sony numbers have been independently verified.

LG is full of it, and if they are using a dynamic iris, it does not work well.

I don’t understand why you would even consider the LG, unless you see rainbows on DLP’s.

If you don’t like the Toshiba, wait for the SXRD.

Shadow detail, black levels and contrast ratio are not related.

It’s easy to get a display with great shadow detail, but woeful blacks or the other way arround.

A display with 100,000:1 contrast ratio can have very poor shadow detail, and a display with 500:1, excellent shadow detail.

[dlpnut1503560389]

All these numbers...my head hurts.

Don't look at the numbers, look at the PQ.

[Omega1503559526]

Don't look at the numbers, look at the PQ.

Yeah well i always do, however i find most in-store demo's to be so woeful that its not even close to being an accurate guide of what you will get at home.

Obviously when you get closer to purchasing, you can go in and make them set it up better, but instore viewings are such a hit and miss thing.