Picture is AMAZING, and the sound is very good.

Warrantee. Toshiba will not honor the warrantee unless you buy from an "authorized distributer".

The TV is great, but I'm not at all happy with the company.

Everything, better than 40H80

Didn't find any. May be the cabinet for center channel

First off, this tv is far better than 40h80. May be I had a lemon on 40H80, but recently found out that many people are having similar problem like mine in 40h80. One of crt just died one day after use of 6 months. Thanks to Good Guys for replacing my 40h80 with this beautiful 42H81 tv.

Point 1. I don't care about the sound of this tv. I know it has weak speakers. But then when I am watching DVD, i rely on my home theater. So I won't do any analysis on the sound.

Point 2. The video on this tv is astounding. I can't say ho much I am pleased with the picture. Right out of the box, had very less convergence problem. After a few hours of burning, I did the touch point convergence and the 9 point. Made the picture look better. After few weeks, I did the 56 point convergence. Now the picture look really beautiful. Sometime, I feel as if there is a glass and behind that real people are acting. Now this tv has 3:2 pull down and also it upgrades all the singal to 540P. This is good and bad for the digital cable or satellite. Good is that it would upgrade it to 540p and bad is that it would result in more artifacts because the signal coming through dish and cable are sometimes crappy. However, I have seen HBO and Showtime, the picture is pretty good.

Now with DVD player, it's whole different story. I have Panny RP91 PS player. When this tv receives a progressive scan signal, it does not do anything except upgrades the 480p signal to 540P. Now with progressive scan player, I was able to get more color saturaion and more finer details. Just watch Gladiator, one can see every details in the picture. At the same time watch "Air force one" and you would hate it because it has got so many grains.

Anyway, I would say this tv is the biggest bang for the buck one can have.

Similar Products Used:

Toshiba 40H80, Hitachi 43 43FDX

Great Picture

None that i can think of at this time

Wow i must say i am pleased with my decision to buy this set ! The picture is great right out of the box very clear and in focus. After the first week i did the touchpoint and then the 9 point convergence i am not going to mess with the service menue 56pt convergence because i feel their is nothing wrong with the picture! DVD's are so life like and vivid i have never seen a 42in plasma screen in person but i am tempted to say that the picture of this projection set comes close to plasma screen quality. If you want clarity then this is the set for you if you want BIG picture and are not too concerned with clarity get a 50-65in set.

Great Picture. User Friendly. Standard Picture looks great on Thaetrewide..very little distortion/convergence

Sits a little to low..needs a optional 8-10" stand

I did a ton of reasearch before jumping into this set. I reasearched many other 43-45" HDTV sets but most seemed to have some quirky problems. This set has an absolutely awesome picture on DSS letterbox movies. I havent even viewed HDTV or DVD's yet so thats impressive. The size is perfect (was debating a 50" same model)unless you have a very large living room. The only suggestion I had was that the set does sit a little low on the ground. For great viewing it needs to be raised about 8-10"...I built a small riser in about an hour for cheap. It does appear smaller in the store but just wait until you get it home and turned on. I would suggest that if anyone is searching for a 42-45" widescreen HDTV I would stop researching a go pick this baby up..you wont be dissapointed.

Similar Products Used:

None

Great Picture, DVDs show very well, Remote, Side by side PIP, Several widescreen formats

None

This TV worked beautifully out of the box. I have it hooked up to the Toshiba SD4700 DVD player using the component outputs and DVDs look incredible. I had to do very little convergence after receiving the tv. It is a nice size for the family room - not too large, and the side by side PIP is great for watching 2 sporting events at once. The ability to choose several widescreen formats is a nice feature, also.

appearance is great

picture is lousy

Got this as an exchange from the 50in. because that one was too big for me. Right out of the box, the picture was blurred on the satellite hook up, so I put in the DVD that looked great on the 50in. Guess what, the DVD picture looked even worse than my reg. cable connection (got both cable and satellite). Did the auto convergence. Didn't worked. Did the manual convergence and the picture was a little better. But one hour later, the convergence is off again. This is probably just bad luck on my part because the one at BestBuy looked awesome, and my 50in. looked pretty good with the DVD movie. Oh, and I already used the component output hookup and progressive scan DVD player. So, I guess this is just a lemon. I'm not even going to try to have it fix, I'll just return it and get something else since it has only been 3 days. It is a great deal for the amount paid, but I guess you need to get a good one, not a lemon like mine

Similar Products Used:

Toshiba 50AX61

Picture Clarity, Compact Size, Value for 16:9

Quality

I searched for a decent value TV (16:9 size) for about 6 months. All of my researched pointed me to 42H81. So I bought this TV last week. The picture is awesome with excellent colors and as long as you have a good signal the TV viewing is great. The #1 wide mode has a very good stretch, which you can get used to it very quickly and then you do not want to view anything else in normal mode. I have Dish and unfortunately the Local channels coming in FUZZY, which is very annoying. Other channels are OK. The DVD has an excellent picture. I do not have HD yet, so no comment there.

The quality of this TV I found out not to be in Par with the leading manufacturers. Many people have a Power Reset problem and in one week I got it twice. While watching, the TV turns off by itself and then turns back on again. Also there is a bowing in lower left corner of the screen. I have asked Magnolia Hi Fi to replace this TV, but I have to wait since they are out of stock.

I almost exchanged it with a Panasonic 34WX50 but I still think 42H81 has a better value, 42 inch vs. 34 and it is lighter. So I paid $250 for 4 years extended warranty to cover for the quality problems that may occur in future.

Similar Products Used:

Sony XBR

Brightness, clarity, size, 16:9 aspect ratio

ALS feature a bit "overenthusiastic"

Past reviews have criticized that the 42H81 sits too low, has poor sound, and is too narrow on top for a center speaker. I don't see these faults, personally, as the height of my sofa, larger surround sound system, and relatively shallow center speaker all fit beautifully with the 42H81. I did go through the 9-point convergence adjustment to correct some visible out-of-the-box RGB separation and perfect the alignment. The image was decentbefore, and excellent after.

Only complaint: The ALS (Ambient Light Sensor) feature gets a bit carried away as the room grows darker. The room was still softly, comfortably lit, but the TV picture darkened to the point of unwatchable. Turned ALS off, and all's well. Also, still trying to find a way to mute it WITHOUT having the closed captioning come up.

Beyond that, just wishing both DirecTV and EchoStar would add bandwidth to improve image quality. Any image shortcomings at all are greatly accentuated on a TV of this size and clarity.

Similar Products Used:

none

Looks great across a variety of input media

Few - lack of available stand for components (minor)

I looked long and hard to upgrade my 9 year Mitsi 26" TV that has served me well. I wanted another quality video monitor that would last me another 7-10 years and I found it in the 42H81. I compared this against the Sony XBRs (tubes) and the Mitsubishi 46809 and Sony rear-projection sets. I only considered HDTV-capable sets and eventually narrowed my choices down to only those that support 16:9 aspect ratio. If you care, the Mitusbishi would be my second choice but the overall price/quality of the 42H81 beat out the others and the size (42" vs 46") offered a better fit to my needs.

Overall, the TV is awesome. It stands out in the show-room which typically offers an unflattering viewing situation and it looks even better in your home. I have the Sony HDT-100 SAT receiver hooked up to it and the HDTV picture is amazing. I am using an older Toshiba DVD player that does offer component video out but is not progressive scan capable. I borrowed a friend's Sony P700 (progressive) scan DVD player and noticed a significant improvement in DVD quality without any pixilization effects so I will upgrade soon. Overall, I found the TV's strongest feature is its ability to look good no matter what signal it is projecting, even low-grade cable which I still use in a pinch. It also doesn't have any color preferences which I noticed on other sets and which are not always defeatable through tuning and adjustment. To date, I have only had to do minor picture and convergence tuning to maximize viewing quality. I also like the temp settings which I can easily vary for signal (HDTV or Sat or cable or DVD)and programming (sports, news, movie)display enahahcement.

You shouold get this set if, like me, you want maximium picture quality and have a limited budget and smaller viewing area (mine is a 13x22 room). I actually don't like the grainier look of the larger projection sets so the 42" size of this unit really caight my attention. At the price, it beats out the competing CRT sets in size and overall picture quality. Overall, I couldn't find anything better and no one came close to the price/value curve this set offers. I was amazed that I could get this set for $1650 with little haggling. Makes you wonder why anyone would pay more to get less. I would highly recommend this product at this price point.

Similar Products Used:

None

Great price and excellent video. Just the right size for my family room

no area to hold up my center channel speaker

I love this TV. Can't beat the price I paid for it. It looked great on BestBuy showroom but looks even BETTER in my family room. Hooked up my Onkyo LSV925 home theater system to it and boy does it kick ass. Very happy with my purchase. Now all I have to do is save up enough money so I can get an HD receiver.

The funny thing about the 16x9 mode is that my wife kept wondering why and how these actors/actresses gained so much weight. After letting her ponder that question for a while I explained to her what was happening to the image...now that was classic!