Customer Reviews

Toshiba 34HF85 34" TheaterWide HD-Ready Flat-Screen Direct View TV

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

 

 

Overall, I am very pleased with the quality of the picture on this TV set. I have it hooked up with an HDMI cable connected to Comcast's (Motorola) DVR box. Comcast has several "HD" broadcast stations, although true HD programming is still very limited. I would suggest you program your own preferences (called MEMORY) rather than use one of the preset Toshiba setups which are either too bright (Sports & Movie) or too dark (Normal) I have my preferences set to levels between the Movie and Normal settings and find that I do not have to change them too often. I also have set resolution to 1080i, but will sometimes switch it to 540p on some analog stations or older programs as the interlace scan lines are sometimes very obvious and progressive scan works better. Amazon claims in the product description that this set includes 2-tuner PIP, but I do not believe it does as there is nothing in the documentation that references this, nor do I see any PIP button on the remote or in the menu setup.

**** UPDATE***** I checked with Toshiba customer service and was informed that 2 Tuner PIP IS NOT A FEATURE on this TV set!!! There are not 2 Tuners, nor is there any PIP!!! They also informed me the set is manufactured by TOSHIBA in the USA and not Orion as some reviewers have suggested!*******

While overall, I have a positive view of this set, there are some drawbacks:

The 4 different theater-modes for the picture on analog/normal stations really distort the picture and/or cut off the top and bottom. Full screen mode keeps all of the data at the top and bottom but people tend to have fat squishy faces.
The TV does NOT have a Menu button on the set...so if you lose or break the remote control, you are stuck...there is no other way to choose source, picture size/quality, or other settings! This is a major drawback!
The Remote Control that comes with the set is supposed to be a universal remote, but it has no code for the Motorola box comcast uses, nor does it have any buttons for DVR controls, so it is necessary to keep 2 remotes around.

I would also STRONGLY recommend you try to get this at a local store with their own delivery company. The company Amazon used for my delivery was horrible. I was NEVER directly contacted by the company when my set arrived in their warehouse. I had to make a toll call 4 different times to finally get delivery over a week after the warehouse received it from Amazon, and 13 days After I ordered it from Amazon.com. Amazon claims that the "premium delivery service" they use, for which you add $100 to the price, "use protective equipment such as floor mats and doorjamb padding to prevent damage" There was no evidence of this when they made my delivery, and one of the two people sent was an older gentleman who had a great deal of trouble lifting the merchandise, almost dropping it a couple of times on the way up the stairs. They also DO NOT set up the TV for you. They will plug it in and hand you the remote, and that's it. If you do not know anything about hooking up, make sure you get it from a dealer who provides a set up service. Amazon also does not do any follow-up on how the delivery service was which is very surprising to me.
So to sum up, I'd give the TV about 3 and a half-stars
The price 4 stars
and Amazon delivery service 0 stars.

I purchased this TV a month ago and am thrilled with it. I got it at Best Buy for $899 and its picture is comparable to the Sony 32" but is bigger at 34" and about $200 cheaper and 60lbs lighter. The colors are spectacular in HDTV especially sports and movies with progressive scan DVD. The reception you get really depends on the channel, some analog channel reception is better than others. I have digital cable from Comcast. The HDTV channels are awesome, I just wish there were more of them but I know in time there will be. I don't know why some of the other reviewers were knocking this TV, they must have bought a defective set. My previous Toshiba 30" lasted 17 years and I did a ton of research on this TV. I compared it to Sony, Phillips, Panasonic, Magnavox, Samsung and the picture on this TV was among the best out of all of them. The thing I liked about this set was the 34" size,picture quality and all of the state of the art features which are too many to list. I am very satisfied with my purchase and look forward to many happy years viewing this TV.

I purchased my 34HF85 about 2.5 months ago. When I first received the TV the picture was warped. I called Toshiba to have it looked at (Toshiba support was freindly and helpful). The local repair guy said it was a bad picture tube and that he needed to take it back with him to the shop for repairs. 6 weeks later I finally got the TV back and it still wasn't quite right, so I called the repair folks to come back out to my house. Apparently they needed to recalibrate the TV 'for my environment.'

That was the bad part of the story. The good part of the story is that I am now happy with the TV and have been enjoying it for several weeks. I am using component video for all input signals. The picture looks fantastic when playing DVD's. I wish I could say that the picture also looks fantastic for HD TV (coming from Comcast) but it doesn't. It does look really, really good - but not fantastic. Non-HD TV is acceptible. For a comparison, I looked at a Sharp Aquos belonging to a friend of mine. The Aquos has a much nicer picture quality than my TV. However, my friend paid twice as much as I did and only has a 32" screen.

All in all, I have to say that I am happy with my purchase. It was my first foray into HD and price was a major consideration. I would consider this TV to be a very good TV 'for the money'. Anyone who is limited to a sub-$1000 budget should definitely consider it. However, if you aren't bound by a small budget or don't mind a smaller screen size I would look into something else.

First thing I want to mention is that the reviewer Steve Brown is spreading fear/uncertainty/doubt. I read his review of this machine and contacted Toshiba with a letter asking about the change of supplier to Orion. They emphatically denied the claim and guaranteed in writing that the only substantive change between the 34hf84 and the 34hf85 is the black bezel.

That said, this is a good TV. A lot of features and an above average picture. For those of us trying to maximize space this TV is ideal.

As long as it works proper! I've had my Toshiba/Orion 34HF85 for over a month now and I love it. The picture is gorgeous, and it fits perfectly in my entertainment center. For the price this TV cannot be beat and it comes highly recommended.

First of all I don't understand why negative reviews are left on this set based on what other people say. I've had plenty of hours viewing on this set, allowing it to burn in, to leave a fair review. This TV is capable of displaying a clear HD picture. It's not perfect, but I've had casual viewers say they have never seen HD so real. It seems this set does a poor job of displaying 720p and 1080i signals. I have my dvd player and Dish 921 HD receiver set at 480p with the TV upconverting to 1080i. This seems to be the best picture I can get and it looks fantastic, especially on HD channels. Whether or not it is made by Orion, Toshiba is responsible for their product and there is no conspiracy of Toshiba ripping of customers. You get what you pay for with this TV and if you want a slightly better set, you can get a Sony for a few hundred dollars more.

If you currently have a conventional TV set with the traditional 4:3 aspect ratio but watch a lot of DVDs, you're probably tired of black spaces above and below the picture wasting much of your TV's screen size whenever you watch the widescreen movies which have become the norm on DVD. The cure for this problem is to get a widescreen TV with a 16:9 aspect ratio. This Toshiba is an excellent 16:9 TV with a very sharp picture. Also important, this is an HDTV set which is ready to display the dramatically improved picture quality characteristic of the new High Definition Television broadcasts to which all networks are rapidly converting and which are now available from most cable and satellite providers. Although this Toshiba's 34" screen may not be as huge as projection TVs and some of the new thinscreen plasma TVs, it is still quite large. Furthermore, it's picture quality is equal to plasma TVs and better than projection TVs -- and its price is much lower. All things considered if you want a widescreen TV that's ready for HDTV and you don't want to break your budget to get one, this excellent Toshiba set may well be the answer.

I note that several reviewers have advised against buying this TV, asserting that it is made by Orion for Toshiba, rather than by Toshiba itself. This is important because of the excellent reputaion of TVs built by Toshiba. I called Toshiba today and they asserted unequivically that this unit is built by Toshiba and not by any other company.

I purchased a Toshiba 34HF85 from Sears to replace a 15 year old Mitsubishi that I had installed in a custom cabinet. I selected it because of the low price and because it fit the existing cabinet. After installing the tv and a new Dish Network 411 receiver, I was extremely dissappointed in the quality of the picture.
This was my second HDTV. My other tv is a Samsung 50" DLP, about two years old.
The Samsung is in a totally different league. It's picture is dramatically better, sharp, clear and bright. I guess I was spoiled by the Samsung picture. The Toshiba seemed to get a worse picture than my old Mitsubishi.
I called Sears and discussed the problem. They suggested that I schedule a Sears technician to try to tune the tv. The technician arrived and looked over the set. He told me there were no improvements that could be made by tuning or setup (as I suspected). After comparing to the picture on my Samsung, he said if he were me he would immediately return the set to Sears and trade for something else. He said that under these conditions they would probably give me full credit (it was only two weeks old). He helped me pack up the Toshiba, in the original box.
Upon returning the set to Sears, I was informed that they have a new policy that any tv returned for any reason will have a 15% restocking fee, even if traded for another item. Sears has initiated this policy since combining with KMart. I was disgusted with Sears, but bit the bullet and paid the 15%. I plan to keep the tv quite a while and don't want to live with a lemon. I won't be buying a major item from Sears again.
I purchased a 42" Samsung DLP from TV Authority. I was able to shoehorn it into the cabinet with some modificaton. It gets a great picture like my other one.

When we found out that the Sony HDTV that we wanted was no longer in production because all the models were changing out, we were talked into getting the Toshiba 34HF85. The price was good, it seemed to have good reviews, (although the sound system was nothing special), so we bought it from Sears. We immediately noticed problems with the HD channels: intermittent vertical green and red lines, very dark areas on close-ups, and waves of light rolling up the screen. Since this was our first HDTV, we assumed it was a cable problem. Comcast came twice to the house, replaced the cable box, installed an expensive HDMI cable, and finally told us the problem was the TV. We called Toshiba and got the name of the authorized repair service in our area; they picked it up and spent 2 weeks trying to fix it, but Toshiba tech support couldn't figure it out. We got the TV back, brought it back to Sears, and their repairman worked on it. He failed also. They had one of the Toshibas left and let us take the new one home. Out of the box, it had sound, but no picture! Sears repair came to the house, decided to replace the entire circuit board. We waited a week, the piece arrived, still no picture! Back to Sears, we found that they had just gotten one new Sony HDTV 34XBR970. It was going to be their floor model. They felt so bad for us, they sold it to us at 20% off. It is fabulous! Very uncomplicated, gorgeous picture, great sound. During the time we had the 2 Toshibas, I found that I really hated the set-up menus. The Sony is much simpler and clearer to understand. The only drawback is that the Sony is about 3 inches wider because the speakers are on the side, so it hangs over the TV stand we bought. But buying a new TV stand is a small price to pay after 2 months of misery. BTW, the people at Comcast and at Sears were wonderful. Thank you, Sony!

The 34HF85 and 34HFX85 are both pieces of junk, no longer made by Toshiba. I would avoid both TVs.

The previous year's models (34HF84 and 34HFX84) were both highly rated and were the last of the tube TVs made by Toshiba. Unfortunately, these are no longer available, unless you want refurbished. A refurbished 34HF84/34HFX84 will cost more than a new 34HF85/34HFX85. That right there should tell you something.

These are now outsourced to Orion in Thailand. The picture on my 34HF85 is worse than my 10 year old low-end Sony (paid $600 in 1995).

I am going to pay $250 for an ISF calibration of my 34HF85 in the hopes of gaining some improvement picture quality.

I would throughouly research this model so you know what you are getting into before purchasing. There is something to be said for purchasing at a retail store where you can take the TV back and return/exchange it.

D. Lawrence, it's dissapointing to hear that Toshiba is denying this TV is made by Orion. The 34HF85 uses the Orion service menu, the 34HF84 uses the Toshiba service menu. If you take the back cover off the 34HF85 and compare to the 34HF84, you will see that they are totally different TVs (using different tubes). Call your local TV repairman, this is no Toshiba TV and is a piece of junk, "not worth repairing, made to last only 2-3 years".