Toshiba 36ZP38 Review

Overall Rating

Great sound and excellent RGB picture

Picture geometry errors.
Poor screen convergence on some UK built TV's (even static convergence errors on some sets).

Some Toshiba 36ZP38 sets have some poor picture geometry issues not helped by Toshiba not setting up the geometry correctly at the UK factory on some sets. On my set Toshiba seemed to have forgotten to set up "TRAP" in the service menu for the "WIDE" picture setting, which results in poor vertical line geometry in 14:9, 4:3 and 16:9. Setting it correctly fixed awful vertical bend on the images. Maybe someone took a tea break and forgot where they were in the setup at the factory!!

Convergence was also disappointing for a £1300 TV. There were even static convergence errors on both TV's I have used. I have alwasy thought that 36in tube TV's were too large for current tube technology and this set seems to back that up. The 32in version of the same set (which my neighbour has) has a much better picture. On my 36in 36ZP38 the convergence got worse as the set warmed up, so maybe the TV is set up at the factory before the tube has fully warmed up (takes over an hour). I have also noticed that using very high contrast settings on this TV results the tube being overdriven and red fringing appearing above bright objects on the screen. TURN DOWN the contrast to remove this unpleasant side effect.

RGB pictures from a Sky Digibox or DVD player were excellent with very good depth of contrast and definition, but aerial (analogue) images were far less inspiring with lots of dot type interference round edges. The aerial picture is in fact worse than my ten year old Sony Trintron TV.

Teletext images have a very low contrast and can be hard to read on my set. Maybe Toshiba are worried about text images buring the screen?

The set comes with the user menu contrast set to 100%. This results in loss of detail on the picture as the tube is grossly overdriven at this setting. Take a look the bright Sky on-screen menus and you'll see what I mean! Try contrast settings of 70 - 75% and notice the difference immediately.

4:3 (letterbox either side) pictures aren't actually 4:3 on this set as Toshiba have set quite a lot of overscan on the vertical aspect of the picture and fail to allow for this in the horizontal width which is too low. When a test card is viewed in 4:3 it's more like an egg shape stretched vertically. Fortunately, the service menu allows you to increase the screen width and good old Toshiba allow you to turn down the width in 16:9 mode from the user menu. The result is that you can get perfect 16:9 aspect ratio and 4:3 pictures after a few minor tweaks.

Now the really annoying thing:
SCREEN PURITY. My second 36ZP38 has very poor white tone consistency across the screen. In other words, when a totally white screen is shown, the white tone has a pinky white on the right side of the screen and a greeny white on the left. This is very irritating and shows poor factory setup yet again. Both 36ZP38 TV's that I have used have had this issue to some degree but my second set is awful.

In summary, this set can give great pictures if you get one that's actually setup right from the factory. If you are looking for perfect images, buy a PLASMA!

Members' Comments onslarkins's Review

• m marvel on 30th Sep 2003

  Hi
  You have given a very detailed review. Setting the contrast to 100% is a bad idea on many sets. It often causes "doming", different coloured patches down both sides.

• andythebrave on 20th Dec 2003

  I must have a good one!
  
  Great review except that I would tend to disagree that Plasma will give better picture quality - there's still nothing to beat a CRT pic provided it's set up correctly.

• Sakura on 7th Jan 2004

  How is the service menu accessed? Or is that a trade secret...? ;o)

• andythebrave on 7th Jan 2004

  Press mute on remote.
  
  Television will display mute.
  
  Then hold down mute on the remote control whilst pressing the menu button on the television's front control panel.
  
  Current service data will be displayed giving data for both display and geometry.
  
  An 'S' is displayed in the corner of the screen to show that you are in service mode.
  
  Screen voltage - press -- on remote control
  
  With the 'S' on the screen (see above):
  
  Hold down 'call' on the remote control and press the menu button on the television's front control panel to enter design mode in order to adjust data values.
  
  Mind you, I've done this and it looks pretty scary - I wouldn't recommend adjusting anything at all unless you're absolutely certain that you know what you're doing.
  
  Good luck!

• Sakura on 7th Jan 2004

  Ok thanks, I'll have a tinker and see if I can do anything about the dodgy geometry. Hopefully I can't make it any worse...:o)

• Sakura on 8th Jan 2004

  Hmm, well I obviously didn't know what I was doing and made a bit of a mess of the geometry, luckily I didn't mess with the colour settings too! I'm assuming there's no way to reset the 'defaults' so would anyone who has a reasonably straight picture please be kind enough to let me know the values of their geometry settings, namely the 'CSAW', 'VPS1', 'HSC', 'CPAR', 'TRAP', 'CNR', 'PARA', 'WID', 'VPS2', 'VLIN' and 'HIT'. Many thanks in advance for any help.

• stevethetechy on 8th Jan 2004

  I have the information about my 36ZP38 original factory settings and what I changed to get perfect geometry even with black bars going down the side of the screen in 14:9 and 4:3 modes. E-mail me to m0sbf@hotmail.com and I will send you the Word document. Unfortunately, you should have noted your settings before changing them as each set will need individually setting up with different geometry settings due to different tube and scan assembly tolerances and you must also use a test card to see the effect of each geometry change.
  
  I have a high quality JPEG test card I can e-mail you if you have a Camcorder. Just upload the test card onto the memory stick and play through your TV.
  
  I hope and pray you didn't touch the colour cut off and drive settings as they need special colour temperature equipment to reset and it's a factory job. DO NOT TOUCH UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES TOUCH B,G,R,DRV or B,G,R,CUT settings if you haven't already.
  
  I also changed the convergence on my 36ZP38 set as it was really badly set up at the factory. This is done by altering the magnet positions on the tube neck - see the service manual from Tosh for information as this is very risky to the set's picture and potentially your life. Optimising the convergence is very fiddly and needs very slight adjustments at a time. You might kill yourself if you touch anything you shouldn't so it's best left for a trained technician. Optimising the convergence gave the biggest improvement in picture on my 36ZP38. The red-blue convergence was quite well out on my set even in the screen centre. Now the picture is just about perfect. You can't even see any convergence errors a few feet away from the tube!
  
  I also discovered how to cure the screen blotches that can occur on peak white. These are caused by a too high contrast setting. Set the contrast to no more than 70 on this set and preferably somewhere near 67 - 68.
  
  My set now has near perfect geometry apart from very very slight upward bow on horizontal lines as they approach the screen sides. By the way, you CANNOT correct bowing of horizontal lines with these service menu adjustments. It's just luck of the draw how straight horizontal lines are as that depends on tube and scan assembly tolerances. You can, of course alter the tilt of the picture to compensate for the Earth's magnetic field and its orientation using the geomagnetic adjustment in the main TV menu (don't need the service menu for that)! You can also correct any vertical bowing or any vertical angular distortion on the picture using the service menu.
  
  E-mail me for more. I am delighted with my 36ZP38 now. The picture is breathtaking, but it's been hard work getting it right. Buying a Plasma would have been a lot easier, even though the picture wouldn't be as good in definition terms and contrast.
  
  Steve

• jimbo8175 on 22nd Jun 2009

  Hi, my TV is currently with the local repairers and he has now had it for over a week now. The main problem is that the screen start to create vertical lines and then switched itself off after a few minutes when the vertical lines appeared. What could be the cause of this??? Anyone have any ideas out there - Please...??