DVD & HDTV Reviews

rickscott says:

I have seen the chart recommending a particluar size screen based on the number of feet away, but I’m wondering if you can or should go any larger than their recommendations? My wife and I sit about 11 feet away and I was thinking we would go 52-55 but would we likely be real happy with a 47? I don’t really want to spend unnecessarilly but also don’t want to end up wishing we had bought one a bit larger. Thanks

Debra K. Roberts says:

With the technology that goes into the to these LCD TV’S today the picture clarity is so crisp and clear the distance chart isn’t a lot of help. I can only tell you my experience. I purchased the 46 inch Samsung last year and I sit around 11 feet from the screen. I wish I had bought the 52 or maybe the 55. If you can afford the 55 inch…buy it. At 11 to 14 feet you wont regret. Not buying the bigger screen is one of the most common regrets when buying big screen TV’s.

Opinunated says:

I sit 10.5′ from my Panasonic 58". I would have hated it if I had purchased a 50" and that is my opinion after a year of viewing.
You will find many people who have regretted purchasing too small a screen and only a "handful" who though they bought too large a one.
Actually Sheila’s husband represents a first for me, ie, a documented case of someone who thought the screen was too large. He must really hate going to a movie theater!
Opinunated
PS: A good rule of thumb - sit between 1.7 and 2.3 times the diagonal measurement of the screen

@Joel Batiz:

I looking to buy a new TV and I come to this two, I seen them both but can’t decide, I was also looking at the 7000 series but still can’t decide can anyone tell me witch one would be better for me, I will use it for my PS3, 360 and blue ray.

@Daniel Kim:

Generally, when the spec’s are similar, I would go with the Samsung unless there’s a significant price difference. Spec’s on the B750 are slightly better than the Z5100: 150,000 to 1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio to 100,000 to 1. That said, most human eyes cannot possibly discern the difference between those differences. The build quality of these two TV’s are pretty similar as well. All in all, I would think the two TV’s are similar enough that I would recommend that you go with the Samsung unless there’s over a 10% difference in price (i.e. Z5100 is cheaper). In other words, if the Sony is over $200 cheaper, I would go with that.
Right now, the Samsung is ~$1,700 on amazon while the Z5100 is $1,938. So I would get the Samsung if I had to buy it now. Meanwhile, I doubt Z5100 will go a whole lot cheaper anytime soon (although I’ve said stuff like that and eaten my words before). Good luck.

@EdM says:

Both Sony and Sammy make good HDTVs. You should use your eyes to try to see which you like better. This is hard to do, though, unless you go to a store with A/V rooms well set up.
Also, you should check around for prices. Sometimes one place has them for a fair amount cheaper than another place. Also, especially for a larger set, look into the delivery and setup option.
If not too costly, or especially if free, that way you get to check out the set in case of breakage inside the carton. Pretty rare, but if it happens to you, that can save some pain with returning as they’re still at your house or apartment.

I ordered this Panasonic home theater system on a Thursday and received it the following Monday. Let me tell you, when the UPS guy delivered this, it was hooked up in under 30 min. Nice, clear, booming sound, an i-pod dock and a 5-disc DVD changer that converts standard movies to 1080p- Incredible!! The picture quality(viewed on a 42-in flat screen) along with crisp sound and great price(thanks Amazon!)is all you could ever ask for in a home theater system. The only knock that I have with this system is that there are a bunch of wires that crisscross everywhere but it’s not that big a deal.

I highly recommend this product.

I do consider myself to be picky when it comes to electronics. And I am absolutely floored that speakers this good can be had for a price this low. If you are reading this review, you are probably asking yourself the same question I was this time last week. That being: Are these speakers too good to be true?

During my buying process, I read about these Polks and consequently made a trip to a dumpy Circuit City with a poorly set-up sound room. Before the speakers were played, I picked up one of the sats. and was extremely impressed with its build quality… nice materials, very attractive… and the speakers have a solidness/weight to them that let you know these are not those cheap pressed-wood speakers you’ll find in most HTIB systems. Secondly, I was impressed with the sound even though the rears weren’t hooked-up and the sub-woofer was poorly placed.

After my trip to CC, I called J&R Music World and had a set of RM6750s shipped to me (J&R is a great store, by the way).

Yesterday I finished installing the speakers… largely using the rich amount of educational information available on the polk audio website that helped me with speaker placement and hook-up. Note: I did NOT use the sub jack on the sub woofer.

The sound is phenominal… especially considering I paid $245. There is no doubt, that if told that these speakers only were sold for their MSRP of $599… that I would still buy them. These speakers meet so many of my requirements:
(1) Great Sound
(2) Attractive
(3) Blend into the environment (i.e., they are small)
(4) Great price
(5) Quality Name

The sound image created by the front 3 is amazing and the rears are perfect.

I am not one to crank my system (I have young kids)… but the sub puts out a great bassy sound that is not too over-powering (note, when I heard these speakers at Circuit City their sub was poorly placed and hooked-up with a sub jack… and it sounded very boomy and over powering).

I am driving the system with Pioneer’s top of the line VSX-1016TXV… which is another item, like these Polks, that I probably wouldn’t have purchased (I was ready to go the Onkyo/Dennon route with my amp purchase) if someone walked-up to me on the street and recommended it. But after careful research… it, like these Polks, offers an astounding value for the money.

So… long story short… I thought I was going to have to spend $1,800 on my home theater system. I was convinced that a bottom line price for speakers would be roughly $1,100… and the receiver would hit me for another $700.

But, this long story has a really great ending… thanks Polk for a really great product… and for all of the knowledge information you have on your site.

PERFECT!

Upconverting a DVD consists of taking a standard-definition DVD and "upsampling" it to appear to be at a higher resolution. Despite the labels that they are "1080i" or "1080p" DVD upconverters, they are not the same as watching your DVDs in true high definition, since the source content is still limited by the content on the DVD disc itself. What you will see is some increased detail and clearer colors, however. Upconverting works best on displays with fixed pixels–namely plasma or LCD TVs. If you use them with standard CRT televisions or with some projectors, the upscaling feature may not result in a better image. It’s also important to note that all Blu-ray players are excellent DVD upconverters.

Ah, the numbers and letters. We’re trained to think that larger numbers are always better, and they are–sometimes. We’ll come back to that in a second. First, let’s start with the basics. When you watch television, the picture you see is made up of many scanned lines that compose the image on the screen. Lines of resolution vary for different digital televisions–480, 720, and 1080. The more lines you have, the clearer the image. Interlaced and progressive are the two scanning techniques that are used–that’s where the "i" and "p" come in after each number. As a rule, progressive images tend to look better than interlaced, since interlacing is a holdover from the old picture-tube TVs, so a 1080p image will look better than a 1080i image. Most high-def programming today is 1080i, which still looks great, but it’s not the highest possible resolution. DVDs are 480p and Blu-ray discs are 1080p.

Now here’s where it gets confusing. The image you see is determined by a combination of the resolution of the content and the resolution that your HDTV will support. So if you play a standard DVD at 480p on a 1080p HDTV, you’ll see the image at 480p–it’s limited by the resolution of the DVD. By the same token, if you play a 1080p Blu-ray disc on a 1080i HDTV, you’ll see that movie in 1080i–since it’s limited by the resolution of the TV. So when you’re looking for a new TV, you should consider the resolution of the content you plan to feed into it. 1080p HDTVs are still the most expensive, but as prices come down and as more content is produced in this high resolution, you’ll want to combine 1080p Blu-ray content with a 1080p HDTV.

I’m writing this review after a month of use and the majority of the reviews are spot on. I evaluated recorders from several different manufacturers and decided to go with the Toshiba. I have a Toshiba VHS/DVD player combo as well as a no-frills Toshiba 14" CRT style TV which have been reliable for a few years now so I was confident this unit would at least meet those standards (I was not disappointed). The metal cabinet feels solid and the DVD tray isn’t flimsy. A flip down door reveals the basic controls (play, stop , forward/reverse, record) as well as front inputs for S-Video, composite video/audio, and a 4-pin IEEE1394 Firewire DV port which you can connect a digital camcorder to.
I first did a test setup by connecting the CATV coax cable to the antenna in and then connecting the DR570 directly to a Sony Bravia LCD via HDMI. Initial setup was straightforward and I let the unit do an autoscan for channels. Scanning for "in the clear" digital channels took awhile (common issue with most QAM tuners) and unsurprisingly, it picked up some channels but not others (the Sony Bravia TV is no different in this regard). My actual setup just uses S-video and audio connections from my digital cable box (I don’t use the built-in tuner).
I used a DVD+RW disc to try some test records with the different quality settings. These settings determine the bit rate (variable bit rate) of the MPEG-2 video stream and what I found is the LP mode (4 hours of recording) offering pretty good overall quality. The only exception is anything with fast action where you will notice a substantial degradation in the clarity during those particular recorded scenes. Both the XP (1 hour) and SP (2 hour) mode will take care of this issue at the expense of being able to record less content on a disc. Both EP (6 hour) and SLP (8 hour) mode offer pretty poor picture quality and are at least for me, unusable.
As others have mentioned, loading a disc can take around a half a minute when either inserting a new disc or powering on the recorder. Rewritable DVD discs need to be formatted first (takes less than half a minute). Recording is quite simple and no different than a VCR. One caveat with many of these DVD recorders is that when you stop recording, you may lose the last few seconds (so I usually just let the recording go for 2-3 extra seconds before pausing or hitting stop). Another note is that unlike video tape where when you hit stop, you can quickly record again, this DVD recorder writes to the disc for around half a minute before you can do any other action. Playback is like any standard VHS or DVD player. If you hit the TOP MENU button on the remote, this will show moving thumbnails of each recording (which Toshiba refers to as "titles"). With rewritable media, there are some rudimentary editing tools which allows you to "remove" scenes (i.e. like say if you want to "delete" commercials). Note that you don’t gain any extra recording time doing this (the only way to do that is deleting that entire title or completely reformatting the disc). The advanced portion of the manual covers this.
Like all DVD recorders, there is a finalization step which allows the DVD disc to be playable on most any other player (like if you are planning to share it with someone else). The DR570 provides an auto finalization setting so that you don’t need to remember to do this once your disc is full.
Programmed recordings is also relatively straightforward and simple. Just like their VCR’s, you need to power-off the unit to place it into standby/programmed recording mode. So far, I haven’t encountered any missed recordings.
As for media, I’ve been using Verbatim DVD-R, DVD+R, and DVD+RW without any problems. I haven’t yet come across any lockup issues with this recorder.
Like many others, the main complaint is the remote and its dark lettering. I’ve since memorized the location of the key buttons which I use but compared to the remotes for my Toshiba television (which has a simple but very nice glow in the dark buttons which are big) and VCR’s, this thing is pretty bad from a usability perspective (this minus one star).
Overall, I’ve been very pleased with this recorder and most of Toshiba’s recent consumer electronics devices. Whereas some other brands look and feel like disposable pieces of junk at this price range, the DR570 doesn’t give that impression and I would definitely recommend this unit to others looking to make the jump from VHS to DVD.

I’m writing this review after a month of use and the majority of the reviews are spot on. I evaluated recorders from several different manufacturers and decided to go with the Toshiba. I have a Toshiba VHS/DVD player combo as well as a no-frills Toshiba 14" CRT style TV which have been reliable for a few years now so I was confident this unit would at least meet those standards (I was not disappointed). The metal cabinet feels solid and the DVD tray isn’t flimsy. A flip down door reveals the basic controls (play, stop , forward/reverse, record) as well as front inputs for S-Video, composite video/audio, and a 4-pin IEEE1394 Firewire DV port which you can connect a digital camcorder to.
I first did a test setup by connecting the CATV coax cable to the antenna in and then connecting the DR570 directly to a Sony Bravia LCD via HDMI. Initial setup was straightforward and I let the unit do an autoscan for channels. Scanning for "in the clear" digital channels took awhile (common issue with most QAM tuners) and unsurprisingly, it picked up some channels but not others (the Sony Bravia TV is no different in this regard). My actual setup just uses S-video and audio connections from my digital cable box (I don’t use the built-in tuner).
I used a DVD+RW disc to try some test records with the different quality settings. These settings determine the bit rate (variable bit rate) of the MPEG-2 video stream and what I found is the LP mode (4 hours of recording) offering pretty good overall quality. The only exception is anything with fast action where you will notice a substantial degradation in the clarity during those particular recorded scenes. Both the XP (1 hour) and SP (2 hour) mode will take care of this issue at the expense of being able to record less content on a disc. Both EP (6 hour) and SLP (8 hour) mode offer pretty poor picture quality and are at least for me, unusable.
As others have mentioned, loading a disc can take around a half a minute when either inserting a new disc or powering on the recorder. Rewritable DVD discs need to be formatted first (takes less than half a minute). Recording is quite simple and no different than a VCR. One caveat with many of these DVD recorders is that when you stop recording, you may lose the last few seconds (so I usually just let the recording go for 2-3 extra seconds before pausing or hitting stop). Another note is that unlike video tape where when you hit stop, you can quickly record again, this DVD recorder writes to the disc for around half a minute before you can do any other action. Playback is like any standard VHS or DVD player. If you hit the TOP MENU button on the remote, this will show moving thumbnails of each recording (which Toshiba refers to as "titles"). With rewritable media, there are some rudimentary editing tools which allows you to "remove" scenes (i.e. like say if you want to "delete" commercials). Note that you don’t gain any extra recording time doing this (the only way to do that is deleting that entire title or completely reformatting the disc). The advanced portion of the manual covers this.
Like all DVD recorders, there is a finalization step which allows the DVD disc to be playable on most any other player (like if you are planning to share it with someone else). The DR570 provides an auto finalization setting so that you don’t need to remember to do this once your disc is full.
Programmed recordings is also relatively straightforward and simple. Just like their VCR’s, you need to power-off the unit to place it into standby/programmed recording mode. So far, I haven’t encountered any missed recordings.
As for media, I’ve been using Verbatim DVD-R, DVD+R, and DVD+RW without any problems. I haven’t yet come across any lockup issues with this recorder.
Like many others, the main complaint is the remote and its dark lettering. I’ve since memorized the location of the key buttons which I use but compared to the remotes for my Toshiba television (which has a simple but very nice glow in the dark buttons which are big) and VCR’s, this thing is pretty bad from a usability perspective (this minus one star).
Overall, I’ve been very pleased with this recorder and most of Toshiba’s recent consumer electronics devices. Whereas some other brands look and feel like disposable pieces of junk at this price range, the DR570 doesn’t give that impression and I would definitely recommend this unit to others looking to make the jump from VHS to DVD.

The price is right on this little unit. The picture is a little better than my previous two portable units. The sound is a little worse (if I could increase the volume just a little bit more it would be perfect). It’s very lightweight. Like most cheap units, I expect to get 1-2 years of play out of this unit before I’ll need to look for another.

Unusually, this unit comes with a little remote control. This remote gives you a lot more control over functions than most portable DVD players; you can for example skip directly to a specified point on the disk. And you can do things like set a chapter to endlessly looped play, or pick two points on the disk and have it endlessly loop between those two points. The "zoom" feature the remote gives you is great and is the reason why I gave this unit a fourth star rather than the three stars a cheap unit normally deserves.

Now the bad thing about that remote is that (1) it’s small, and (2) there is no way of attaching the remote to or within the player so that I can already see that it is easy to misplace the remote. (I’m already considering using velcro to solve this problem).

The manual is not so great. It gets points for actually using the English language well, but loses lots of points on what it doesn’t bother to tell you. You have to experiment a bit to discover undocumented features and functions. For example, the forward and reverse buttons work differently when you are currently zoomed in; they become instead pan right and pan left buttons.

And the manual won’t tell you what you have to do to shut the unit down so that so that it restarts at the point on the disk where you left off. (If you just try stopping or pausing it reloads the disk and starts from the beginning). I’ve had success two ways: (1) pausing the picture and letting the unit go into (the undocumented) power saver mode. If you then turned the unit off and immediately back on, it seemed to remember where it left off. An even easier way: (2) use the remote to turn the unit off. If you then use the remote to turn it back on, it picks back up where it left off.

Here’s another little undocumented feature. Like most units manufactured for multiple markets, there is a programming sequence you can use to change what region this player can play. Here’s how to set up this player to play other region-codes using the remote:
1. Open DVD tray
2. Press the "Menu" button (ignore message "Not allowed at this moment")
3. Press 8888
4. Press the "Display" button
5. Region Code Number shows up. Use the numeric keypad to select your
region code number (0 - 6).
6. Press the Enter button.

I’ve verified my unit plays both region 1 and region 2 disks.

I researched the purchase of this TV for over six months- far more than I ever researched even a vehicle purchase. I’ve had it for approx 2 weeks now and am very impressed. I was originally planning to purchase the 44in model but eventually changed my mind and purchased the 52 in model.

The only feature I was worried about not having was the 120 hz. I went to an electronics store and viewed both 60 and 120 hz side by side and could not tell the difference- the 60 hz is plenty fast for me.

Many people complained about the sound quality of last year’s model. Unfortunately I have no pertinent information to add here as I am utilizing a surround sound system.

You will not regret purchasing this TV