Toshiba 30HF84--Behold it's beauty! Updated 11/14/04

UPDATE (11/14/04): I have received a replacement TV from Toshiba as my original TV had some serious vertical geometry issues. For those not with the lingo, geometry means how true vertical and horizontal lines appear on your display. With fixed pixel type displays such as LCD and Plasma geometry is literally perfect. However with CRT sets because of the way the image is displayed the geometry is always less than perfect. Generally it isn't much of a factor in most settings, but can be noticeable with like news/stock tickers, indoor scenes with lots of straight lines and whatnot. The original 30HF84 I received had poor vertical geometry at the top part of the screen (bent left like >1/2" at the top) and just above the middle ALL the vertical lines went left.

After hooking up the new TV I could tell right away that the geometry on this set was definitely better than my old 30HF84 as the 'jail-bars' shown for 4:3 viewing looked fairly straight. After popping in my Avia essentials disc I skipped the contrast/sharpness/color settings and went straight to the geometry tests (I HAD to know).

WOW! After phone calls, faxes, a local tech visit and more I finally had a Toshiba HDTV with some great geometry. I'm not talking about acceptable, but all-in-all the set had some pretty darn good geometry. I know because I took my Avia disc around to a bunch of different stores and tried out a lot of the 30-34" CRT HDTVs (from the Sony KV30HS420, 32HS420, 34XS955, 34XBR960, Philips' 34" WS and a few others). I am definitely happy with my purchase now! I am placing the blame on split between Amazon and Toshiba. Amazon because they were selling a TV with an MSRP of $900 for nearly 20% less with free shipping and no tax...and this was a TV that was selling for $900 at other online stores as pre-order/out of stock! Toshiba because they were the manufacturer!

The TV I had with the poor geometry had a build date of July 2004 and my replacement with great geometry has a build date of September 2004...what a difference a day makes. Now back to the original review:


I admit it, I started eyeing this TV after seeing a review of it in the Stuff magazine. I've always had an affinity towards Toshiba made products. My first TV in fact was a 19" Toshiba purchased some 6 years ago and which I still have today. I also have a Toshiba M665 4-head VCR which has served me flawlessly as well. So after moving in to a new studio, I knew that my 19" wasn't going to cut it anymore.

Features

At first glance the specifications on this TV were very nice. It has 2 component inputs (each with their own RCA style stereo audio inputs), an HDMI input which is similar to DVI but a step ahead as it combines audio with the digital video, 3 S-Video inputs (overkill?), 3 composite video inputs (yellow RCA video and then L/R RCA audio), 1 RF antenna/cable input and 1 composite video/audio output. Other webpages have pictures of the back with 2 RF antenna inputs and 1 RF output and also 2 RCA audio inputs as well as a vague RCA audio female plugs (with no label). Mine does not have these. Of these connections, all are located in the back save for 1 S-Video input and 1 composite video/audio input on the front.

Here are the basic size spec's of this TV:

Audio Output Power 10 watts x 2
Surround Modes SRS WOW
Width (inches) 31-1/4
Height (inches) 21-3/4
Depth (inches) 22
Weight 118 lbs

The TV has a very flat glass screen and the speakers are located at the bottom which is a really nice touch as it makes TV viewing much more natural. The cabinet is a nice silver color and has two hidden handle type indentations in the back for lifting/moving. The weight is typical of an HDTV of this size. Note that this is an HDTV monitor as there is no internal HDTV tuner--this TV will serve as just a display for whatever you pump through it. To pick up HD channels you will need an antenna, satellite dish or cable box.

First Impressions

The TV was easy to install. Just plug it in and you're ready to go! Well actually you do have to plug in your video sources. All my cables fit in pretty well into the plugs in the back. Then you turn on the TV.

The factory settings for the display were pretty dismal. In fact they needed to be tweaked quite a bit to get a nice picture. There are 3 pre-defined modes and then a memory mode. What's nice is that the television remembers each mode for each input. So while you might like your DVD player at one setting, you can have your cable be at another. One thing that isn't nice is that if you go to one of the presets and then change any of the settings this will be your NEW memory setting and whatever you had will be erased. (So write it down). Also the menus aren't very pretty to look at, but they do give you a decent supply of things to fiddle with.

TV Viewing

I have this TV hooked up to a LiteOn LVD-2002 DVD player which is connected via component cables to the first component hookup in the back. It suppports progressive scan this way, so all viewing with this device is in '480p' (480 lines displayed progressively). This is further 'upconverted' to '1080i' (1080 lines displayed interlaced) through the TV circuitry. Like most HDTVs the 30HF84 doesn't do 720p natively, it can do 540p or it will upconvert the 720p signal to 1080i.

I haven't had a chance to watch any 'true' High Definition video (as 480p isn't actually considered HD) as I haven't found a suitable cable provider yet (>$60/month for only 5-7 HD stations through Charter is the biggest scam I have EVER seen). HOWEVER, DVDS at 480p look very good, especially the newer movies which have the best encoding. The picture is very nice and clean and the black levels truely show off how superior the CRT is for the movie experience.

Analog television and other Standard Definition video looks slightly worse than on a standard definition TV. From what I have read this is to be expected as the increased number of scan lines aren't filled with an increased number of actual content. To be fair, my VCR is only connected with composite cables as it doesn't have an S-Video output. (Composite cables carry basically the worst quality video signal there is). Most people I have talked to for ANY HDTV come to the same conclusion that SD broadcasts will look slightly inferior on an HD TV.

However, this is not my biggest complaint with the TV. My biggest complaint is the poor geometry for the vertical lines. Geometry is a term used to describe how well the TV reproduces true and straight vertical and horizontal lines. Plasma and LCD TVs have no problem with this, but all CRTs have some geometry issues. Well the 30HF84 has a little more than its fair share. There is a definite twist to each vertical line sort of an \ in the middle portion of the screen. Also at the top inch, the lines skew to the right /. The top issue isn't a big deal since most TV viewing is concentrated at the middle portions of the screen.

The skewing in the middle portion does provide some unwanted side effects. While not very noticeable in most movies or TV shows, any picture that involves a lot of horizontals looks extremely poor. This includes any indoor scenes with lots of edges (doors, windows, bookcases) or outside shots with skyscrapers, buildings, large signs, etc. Also, when there is a quick vertical pan on a mostly stationary object, the picture literally warps as it goes straight up and then goes to the left and then continues upwards.

I have had a technician come and he noticed the geometry issues, but tried to assure me that it was 'within spec' and I only noticed because I was being 'picky.' However from his facial reaction when he saw a gridfield displayed I could tell he was somewhat surprised at the poorness of the vertical lines. He fiddled in the service menu (allows for more advance tweaking, which I already tried out, but I couldn't really do anything but fix some overscan) and wasn't able to remedy the solution.

As it is now, the ball is in Toshiba's court as I have already had an authorized technician to come out (which didn't help) and have faxed them proof of purchase. I suspect there will either be a replacement or a refund. I have already heard of people getting 30HFX84's (the cinema series which has better speakers and 2 HDMI inputs along with a couple other goodies) for a replacement.

With the time this has taken I have scouted out other 30" HDTVs in hopes of finding a possible replacement. I noticed that these TVs *ALSO* had geometry issues, some worse, some not so bad as mine. As it stands I am REALLY hoping that Toshiba sends out a specialist who actually knows how to fix some of the geometry issues that Tube televisions inherently have. Even the tech admitted that someone who really knew what he was doing could definitely improve the picture to almost perfect ('in 4-5 hours'). Is it wrong to want a TV with an MSRP of $899 to give you a very high quality video reproduction? I think not.

Conclusion

As it stands I am really hoping to get the TVs geometry issue fixed...if it wasn't for that I would LOVE this set. The picture quality is very nice and the sound is great. My lesson to you is to check out a new CRT thoroughly before jumping into it! I didn't buy from a box store so now I'm stuck taking the matter up with Toshiba directly instead of being able to just return it and move on. For fine tuning of the controls I recommend the Avia calibration disc (also called Avia Home Theater Essentials). It helped me really get the picture dialed in which did take a little while.

Also for more information on other people's experiences with this TV (with emphasis on the geometry issues) you can check out the AVS forum at

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/index.php

the CRT area is called "Direct View (single tube based) Displays.' This forum is also VERY helpful for anything TV or Home Theatre based.