Video Asylum

Posted by Brad G. on May 25, 2001 at 21:49:10

In Reply to: See if they will swap for a D series JVC posted by Estes on May 25, 2001 at 19:40:14:

Thanks for the suggestion, but guess what? I actually did the D series but couldn't get a working set.

Circuit City is the only store by me that sells the D series. Best Buy and Sears only sell the standard series.

I went through "5" televisions from Circuit City, 3 were the 36D201 and a couple 36" Panasonics. Obviously, all were in an abused shipment or in a crash from CC's US main warehouse to the local warehouse. All five had misaligned, tilted pictures with varying degrees of other "major" geometry problems PLUS many optional features simply wouldn't work correctly. I called a tech(I really already knew, but was in a bind), and he recommended I don't fix it and get an exchange. He stated it has to have been dropped to cause the yoke to shift to such a high degree, plus all the other problems.

It was obviously abused so I could see why he recommended me not to keep it. Unfortunately, I went through "5", so another exchange was senseless.

The JVC AV36230 and AV36260 looked to be clones of the D series but without side firing speakers and BBE audio. The older standard series(AV36120 and 150) didn't offer the D series resolution or the component input. The new standard series looked like they were equalling the D series minus the side firing speakers and BBE, but I was wrong. They also eliminated technically one rear video input, and gave us a not so industrial standard, component input. While the component input is desirable for DVD, unfortunately DVD is all that uses it. Most my video components use S-video and composite(standard Video), so to say the least, I'd rather have a standard composite/video input over the less used component input.

To bad for JVC, because their design will actually cause them loss of revenue for such a poor design. When I went back to Best Buy, they couldn't believe that JVC had such an oversight.

After doing about 3 hours of dedicated television auditions, I realized I short changed Toshiba. Best Buy redid the demo area and the Toshibas looked awesome, and not a fuzzy as before. In fact, now with a good signal and picture adjustments to equalize the pictures, the Sony S series, JVC standard series, and Toshiba's 36A50 and 60 looked the best.

There were now more Toshiba sets to compare, next to the one set on my last audition. Now my result have changed considerably.

Toshiba and JVC had very near pictures with color accuracy "seemingly" better on the Toshibas. Sony, as before, looked worse than JVC, and now worse than Toshiba. I just couldn't get the Sonys adjusted to have blacks that were black. The Sony's blacks looked faded. Even the BB people felt that Sony fell behind the Toshiba and JVC.

Now seeing that the Toshiba 36A60 at least offers an equally detailed picture, as well as better geometry, as the JVC AV36230, I'm definitely exchanging to the Toshiba. For only $50 more, it offers dual tuner PIP, 2 RF inputs(one for each tuner), nicer remote, rear Video 1 input-Rear Video 2 input-"PLUS" a separate Component A/V input, color temp. adjustment, video and channel labeling, the Toshiba is a huge bargain when compared next to the JVCs or Sonys.

Now all I can do is cross my fingers that I will finally get a TV that will work and will be compatible with my moderate HT.