My dad got Sony's new 60" LCD RPTV a few weeks a go, and I got to spend the weekend with it. Some of you may remember he at one time intended to get the Tosh LCOS unit, but with the "failure" of the first unit, poor availability of the new line in his area and his reticence to order online, he bought this as a "temporary solution" until the Next Big Thing is available.
Impressions: My guess is this is essentially an HS10 or HS20 in-a-box. The lamp life is quoted as 7-8000 hours, so I am guessing they were able to go to a lower watt longer lived lamp since they can get away with far less wattage due to it being 60" and RP compared to the FP. Resolution and other specs are consistent with this assumption.
As you'd expect, black level was not impressive. On all other fronts though, this was a pretty nice unit. My dad has not yet purchased a decent DVD player, but even through the POS he's got now PQ was good. Onboard scaling of the TV is decent, although not stellar.
He has a newer Pioneer HD settop box with DVI, though, and that was beeyootiful. Makes me almost willing to shell out for one for my setup. Almost. Don't like Discovery channel quite enough for that. Difference was very visible compared with component. Not night and day, but a clear improvement in noise reduction and clarity/color. Curious if any of you HTPC types think he would see something similar if he fed the component out of the HDTV box to an Immersive Holograph3D card and went DVI t the TV from that? (The HDTV boxes firmware is extremely balky using the DVI out and he was irritated enough to abandon it in spite of the PQ improvement.)
Screendoor was invisible from more than 2-3 feet away, which I would hope to be the case with any RPTV at WXGA, LCD or not. Tosh LCOS at 1920x1080 is clearly superior in that regard, but for 64 year old at 10' away, moot point.
Color rendition was very nice.
All in all, a pretty nice TV, and if you want something with no burn-in issues, this is a good choice, especially if DLP artifacts irritate you (they do me). Haven't spent loads of time with RPTVs, but you can get a nicer picture for less money, but it will be CRT and subject to that damn burn-in thing. Oh, and this thing is light and shallow. 2 healthy males can lift it without much difficulty, and it is well under 24" deep. LOTS of inputs and one on the side for easy temp stuff.
BB
Impressions: My guess is this is essentially an HS10 or HS20 in-a-box. The lamp life is quoted as 7-8000 hours, so I am guessing they were able to go to a lower watt longer lived lamp since they can get away with far less wattage due to it being 60" and RP compared to the FP. Resolution and other specs are consistent with this assumption.
As you'd expect, black level was not impressive. On all other fronts though, this was a pretty nice unit. My dad has not yet purchased a decent DVD player, but even through the POS he's got now PQ was good. Onboard scaling of the TV is decent, although not stellar.
He has a newer Pioneer HD settop box with DVI, though, and that was beeyootiful. Makes me almost willing to shell out for one for my setup. Almost. Don't like Discovery channel quite enough for that. Difference was very visible compared with component. Not night and day, but a clear improvement in noise reduction and clarity/color. Curious if any of you HTPC types think he would see something similar if he fed the component out of the HDTV box to an Immersive Holograph3D card and went DVI t the TV from that? (The HDTV boxes firmware is extremely balky using the DVI out and he was irritated enough to abandon it in spite of the PQ improvement.)
Screendoor was invisible from more than 2-3 feet away, which I would hope to be the case with any RPTV at WXGA, LCD or not. Tosh LCOS at 1920x1080 is clearly superior in that regard, but for 64 year old at 10' away, moot point.
Color rendition was very nice.
All in all, a pretty nice TV, and if you want something with no burn-in issues, this is a good choice, especially if DLP artifacts irritate you (they do me). Haven't spent loads of time with RPTVs, but you can get a nicer picture for less money, but it will be CRT and subject to that damn burn-in thing. Oh, and this thing is light and shallow. 2 healthy males can lift it without much difficulty, and it is well under 24" deep. LOTS of inputs and one on the side for easy temp stuff.
BB
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