Customer Reviews

Toshiba 32HLX95 32 Inch Cinema Series LCD HDTV/DVD Combination

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought the TV from Crutchfield. It arrived promptly in a well packaged box. Even a 32" LCD TV is relatively heavy and my wife and I had a struggle getting the box upstairs. Setup was easy and the manual was clear on hooking it up to cable, a JVC VCR and a Technics Stereo receiver.

Initially, we could only receive 12 cable channels. Tuning via the VCR gave us the full range of non-premium channels. So far we had a TV that could display standard TV signals. It did a very nice job; the better the original picture the better the result. We found the first wide-screen mode that stretches the picture more at the edges than the center worked nicely on most material. We also found the remote could be programmed to control the VCR and Stereo receiver. However, it got tricky because you had to switch mode. Click change channel in TV mode when the input was from the VCR and you lost the picture. Definitely a temporary arrangement until we got full cable service.

I called Adelphia to get them to install a Cable-Card. That went smoothly enough but the TV was unable to work with it. It got stuck acquiring channel information. I called Toshiba and after 15 minutes, got the name of a local dealer and part numbers for two parts that needed to be installed to upgrade the TV to match current cable card standards. The dealer came right on schedule and did the upgrade. So we now have an HDTV and it does a stunning job with true HD transmissions. Although the set is maxed out at 720p, both 720p and 1080i pictures looked wonderful. Unfortunately, not very many channels do true HD.

The TV has a built in progressive scan DVD player. Picture quality depends on the quality of the original. Some of our meagre collection of wide screen DVDs don't fill up the whole vertical space. I haven't figured out if there is a way around this. Broadway - The American Musical (PBS Series) (2004) (bought from Amazon) worked well. These DVD contained contain lots of old B&W, film footage, still photos, and current interviews in HD, and the TV displayed all that material very well.

The built-in DVD saved a lot of extra cable clutter but it is still a mess back there. Down the track I'll move the VCR to an old TV and buy a digital sound system for the Toshiba.

The TV is sitting on a small TV stand. It can swivel about 15 degrees each way so I can adjust it depending on where we are sitting in the room. Longer term it may go up on the bedroom wall.

This is a pricey 32" LCD TV. On the other hand, the built-in DVD is a real bonus, especially if you are short of space. The unit has connectors for just about everything you'd want to plug in, old and new, analog and digital. Picture quality is excellent and we haven't noticed any problems with motion blurring.

The picture is so crisp and beautiful that I spent time surfing around lookig for HD channels. My wife suddenly realized what was going on when she said "you're not watching the show, you're just looking at the picture". Well, those vacation ads sure did look good in HD.

I deducted a star because of the price, the hassles getting the cable card to work, and the fact it isn't 1080p (although going up to 1080p is probably only going to make a marginal difference to a 32" TV). If I could, I'd make that a half-star deduction.

We purchased this TV because of the built in cableCARD. I called our local cable company out and they said the cableCARD on Toshiba is not compatable and that they are still working out the bugs. I called Toshiba and they verified that the cableCARD was put out a year early. The HD will work if you want to get the cable box. The TV is beautiful and the picture is great so if you don't care about the built-in cable feature then I would recommend this TV. The Toshiba help person was extremly nice and honest.